Wishing you joy...with 5 challenges!!!

Have you mailed out your holiday cards yet? I am hoping to do so this week, but still need to make a few for the special people in my life. My husband's parents are heading to Texas to spend the holiday with his brother next week, so their card was first on my list.

My in-laws are very much the traditional Christmas card kind of people, so Door w/ Wreath by Mo's Digital Pencil was perfect for their card. After coloring the image with copic markers, I added Twinklets to the door frame and snow for a realistic icy snow effect, and then painted the wreath and sled with Angel Wings Shimmerz for some added sparkle. The "berries" on the wreath are dew drops and mini pearls colored with a R29 copic marker. The holly leaves are a Martha Stewart punch, and were also painted with Shimmerz (in the retired Sagebrush color), and then finished off with a bit of Twinklets. For a final bit of sparkle, I colored the door handle with a silver Spica pen.

If anyone has some tips for photographing Shimmerz, please leave me a comment. This card sparkles like crazy in real life, but I just couldn't get it to show up very well in the photograph. Probably why I usually stick to my Stickles. LOL.

I did some holiday multi-tasking, and played along with 5 challenges with this card!!! The sketch is by Sketch Saturday, I have lots of "glitz" for Stamp Something, my colors (olive, red, brown/cream) are for Color Throwdown, I've got lots of sparkle for Digital Tuesday Challenges, and finally, I used traditional Christmas colors to make a card for someone special (my in-laws) for Mo's Digital Pencil. Woo! That's a lot of challenges!

Copics used:

InStyle Stamps Fantasy Blog Hop

It's the last Friday of the month, and you know what that means - it's time to go blog hopping with InStyle Stamps! This month, the design team was given an image from our new fantasy line, debuting today! As usual, we will have some great prizes to give away, so make sure to read all the way down to the bottom of the post to see how you can get entered into a drawing for some great goodies!

When Virginia showed me the new images, I knew I had to work with the adorable new Twirling Fairy image. She is just so cute!


For my blog hop project, I decided to make a birthday card with matching wrapped gift for a friend who's is celebrating the big 40 next week. Think she'll like it?


Matching wrapped gift, you say? How did you do that, you say? Well let me let you in on a little secret... not only is digital paper great for cards and scrapbooks, but it makes great custom gift wrap!

For my gift wrap, I printed the White Circles and Posies digi paper onto copy paper. Yup, you read that correctly, plain old copy paper.


I then added on ribbon, lace, and a pink button to match my card. See how quick and easy it is to add a personal touch to your wrappings?


For the card, I colored in Twirling Fairy with copic markers and added some highlights with my trusty white gel pen. I don't know about you, but when I think of fairies, I picture gauzy dresses made out of some gorgeous shimmering fabric, so I went over the image with Angel Wings Shimmerz to try to recreate that effect.


As you can see, the designer paper is more of the White Circles and Posies digi paper, this time printed onto cardstock. I used the ribbon and lace from the gift wrap, and added in two pink buttons in a smaller size so everything coordinates.

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On to the blog hop details...

We will be giving away a Grand Prize to one lucky Blog Hop participant and also have a prize for one lucky design team member. To enter, hop through the design team’s blogs (you can find them in my sidebar), and then go to the InStyle Stamps blog and vote for the designer who's project inspired you the most. (You're going to vote for me, right? LOL!) The leave us a comment answering the following question in order to be entered into the drawing for the grand prize:

What is your favorite fairytale? (Now or as a child.)

My favorite fairytale has always been Sleeping Beauty. I saw the Disney movie as a child and was enchanted. The amazing music and the funny antics of the 3 Fairy Godmothers sucked me right in. "Make it Blue." "I said Pink!" LOL. I've read many other versions of the tale (Robin McKinley's "Spindle's End" is an entertaining romp with a less helpless heroine.) over the years, but the Disney movie version remains a favorite.

Wedding Wishes

I have several friends getting married this spring, and decided to get a head start on wedding cards.


I went for "simple, but elegant" for this card. The main layer is cream shimmer paper. I cut out the scalloped circle with a nestability, and then ran it through my cuttlebug twice with the Swiss Dots folder, leaving the area in the middle where the ribbon is unaltered. I used my scor-pal to score lines to make a channel for the ribbon.

The cake is from SU Fun & Fast Notes, and the sentiment is by Studio G. I colored the cake in with copic markers, and added Angel Wings shimmerz for a little more sparkle. The combination of shimmer paper and shimmerz makes this card sparkle like crazy in real life!

MDCC24 - holiday ornament

I'm a few days late posting this, but better late than never, right? I actually made this last weekend, and then forgot to post it in the last minute holiday rush.


This is another holiday ornament that doubles as a gift card holder. I needed two to send to my niece and nephew in Texas, and figured they might fight over them if I didn't use the same layout on each one. This one obviously is for my niece since I can't see my nephew digging the girly colors! LOL!
I used the cute holiday Mouse from Stampavie for my image, and colored it in with copic markers. I added gray fun flock to the mouse for fur, and Shimmerz to the ornament for some sparkle. The dp is Sweet Satin Ribbon from the Fairest of them All collection by Imaginisce.