Bluebird of Winter

Well, anyway, the bird is blue, even if it's not a bluebird. And the birdhouse is pretty wintery!

For this birdhouse, I decorated with stamping rather than with scraps. Metallic blue snowflakes in various stages of stamping off decorate the white roof; I stamped the cute little bird on the front, and a snowman on the back:

I'm entering this snowy birdhouse in the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp and Show: House Rules
• Inky Impressions 88: Snow or Winter
• Divas by Design 64: Let It Snow
• Simon Says Stamp: Snowflakes
• Totally Gorjuss 161: Oh No, Snow!
• Stampin' for the Weekend 23: Let it Snow
• The Cupboard Trilogy #6: Frosty Winter
• Loves Rubberstamps 29: Anything Goes (not with stamps carried by Loves, alas)
• Wags 'n Whiskers 94: Anything Goes
• Stamp Your Life #1: Anything Goes

Turquoise Treetop

I am really terrible at writing and sending thank-you notes or cards. Witness: My birthday is in September. I have only just sent a thank-you card to my grandmother for her present! But I made the card, so maybe she will be charmed anyway?

I had the hardest time getting the image to really show up; the thin gold embossing just disappears at some angles. First I tried lightly rubbing some ink over the image -- you can see it if you look hard -- which helped a bit, but not enough. I brainstormed ideas with my boyfriend for a while, and finally decided to try coloring bits in. It's still not perfect but at least you can tell there's an image there!

I made a (slightly wonky) envelope too, but I was apparently not paying attention to focusing when I took pictures of it. Oh well, I'm sure you've all seen envelopes before!

I'm entering this belated card in the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp and Show: Thank You
• Sweet Stamps Challenge #92: Thank You
• Creative Inspirations Paints: Inspired by Thankful for You
• Wags 'n Whiskers Challenge 92: Be Thankful
• Simon Says Stamp: Thanksgiving/Thank You (definitely "Thank You" rather than Thanksgiving...)
• One Stop Craft Challenge 205: Monochrome Tones (turquoise)
• Totally Gorjuss Challenge 158: Plain and Simple
• Charisma Cardz Challenge #45: Keep Your Cool (turquoise is definitely a cool color)

Supplies: (the "merci" stamp is from Lawn Fawn)

Bookmarks XLVIII: Foil in the Fall

I picked up one of Repeat Impression's vertical stamps at the Southfield, MI Stamp & Scrap Art Tour show this weekend, and almost immediately inked it up and stamped it to show it in Sunday's (late) State of the Stash.

(As I link to it, I realize that maybe I should have bought it online... it's one of the vertical stamps on sale this month! Oh well, I'm sure shipping would have eaten up the savings.)

In fact, it didn't take much more than that to work up this bookmark. I took the stamped-and-emobossed leaves, a neutral strip of cardstock with a bunch of gold and bronze and copper smudged on, and some of the acorn-y paper I used on the squirrel bookmark, and bam! Simple but effective, and undeniably seasonal.

I'm entering this leafy bookmark in the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp: Autumn Leaves
• Great Impressions: Fall
• Wags 'n' Whiskers Challenge 91: Fall Colours
• The Artistic Stamper Creative Team: The Natural World
• Totally Stampalicious: Anything Goes

Supplies: (foiled acorn paper is from DCWV's Autumn Melody matstack)

Bookmarks XXXI: Scare Up Some Fun

I have to admit Lawnscaping challenges are a bit frustrating for me. Because gosh darn it, I want to enter more than three challenges with one project! So many Anything Goes challenges are deprived of the fruit of my genius efforts! (I'm sure they're heartbroken.)

But I love Lawn Fawn and I love the aesthetic sense of the whole Lawnscaping design team, and I can't let it go by without an entry. And it does make writing up the challenge listing a lot easier, so there's that.

This week's challenge was to add text -- use a sentiment or patterned paper. So I used both.

For my patterned paper I used one with a bunch of stereotypical cat names on it. This paper has a bit of a distressed look -- so the solid cardstock colors I used looked a little too, well, solid. Since the colorful kitty names are mostly streaked with red on the patterned paper, I smushed my finger into a red ink pad and rubbed it on. They ended up with a similar streaky look, just as I was hoping! (I didn't rub it on the whole of the greenish base, but used my mostly-dried finger to add just a little to the area around the sentiment.)

I only own one set of Lawn Fawn stamps (although another should be in the mail soon!), and no Wags 'n Whiskers stamps, and no Creative Inspirations paint, so I hope the design teams are not too saddened when they see absolutely none of those things on my bookmark.

I'm entering this bookmark in the following challenges:

• Lawnscaping Challenge #42: Getting Texty
• Wags 'n Whiskers Challenge 88: Circles (I even rounded the corners of my rectangles!)
• Creative Inspirations Paint: Inspired by Fall Colors

I'm also linking it up to DL.ART's 1000-post Linky Party and Unique Crafters' Big Chance Giveaway.

Supplies: