Time Out #43 - Christmas

It's time for another challenge at Time Out - and this week we are getting into the holiday spirit with a Christmas theme. Our sponsor this week is Uniko Studios and they have generously agreed to give a prize to a random entry that uses pink and/or purple in their Christmas card. Their design team has also inspired us by sharing some of their cards on our blog so make sure you check them out!

Our guest designer this week is Suchi and she has a wonderful blog called Suchi's Cardstock - she has wonderful creativity so please check out her work.

For my card this week, I decided to fully the pink theme and what better way to do that than pink flamingos! I picked up this wonderful stamp set from Newton's Nook on the weekend at the Create event and decided to ink it up for this challenge. Please forgive the lighting - the days are getting shorter which makes daylight photography almost impossible for me during the week:

Lots of Distress Inks were used for the background and the watercolouring - Tumbled Glass, Spun Sugar, and Evergreen Bough primarily - with a touch of Mustard Seed for the beaks. In my world, it wouldn't be a Christmas card without a little shimmer or glitter so I did both - Wink of Stella on the birds and silver glitter on the frame and sentiment strip. I usually like the velvety Glitter Ritz but I didn't have any silver so I went with the much more sparkly Martha Stewart glitter - it was fun but it my be a little bit too OTT (even for me!).

I will link up to a couple of places:

• Newton's Nook colour challenge: 
• Sweet Sunday Sketch: 
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where Anything Goes

Thanks so much for visiting and make sure you take the Time Out to play along with us and get a head start on your holiday cards!

Jill

AAA Cards - Halloween For Everyone!!

It's time for another challenge at AAA Cards - and we're still in the Halloween spirit so this week we're asking everyone to join in the fun and opening up our challenge to all card styles: It is Halloween For Everyone!

My card this week is by far my favourite Halloween card that I did this year - I just love those crazy birds! 

I started off by adding some texture paste through the Tim Holtz Halloween layering stencil to create the tone-on-tone background. I then coloured my Crazy Bird (I stamped him twice to give me the layers) and a few Halloween-themed Crazy Things with Copics. I cut the bird out a couple of times with the matching dies - they give such a great close cut - any I fussy cut the accessories (I didn't get the dies for those!). I pieced everything together with some foam tape  - I love the added dimension on the eyes, wings and beak - onto the card front. 

I will link this card up at a couple of places:

• Inkspirational where they are looking for "cute" Halloween cards - he is definitely more cute than scary!
• Fusion Card Challenge where the sketch is "trick or treat"-y

So join the fun - create a spooktacular card and link up at AAA Cards!

Thanks so much for visiting me!

Jill

TIME OUT #42 - Reminder

Have you had time to play along with our current challenge at Time Out? You still have time to create something inspired by this very cool picture:

This week, we also a new card by our wonderful guest designer, TaeEun is super creative and her blog Rainbow in November is full of inspirational creations - be sure to check it out!

Here is my card inspired by the photo:

I went a little bit more traditional this week with my colour choice...

I started out by die cutting the pumpkin (Lil Inkers) and I then embossed the tree background using a Lifestyle Crafts embossing folder. I coloured the embossed trees with a black Wink of Stella pen - in real life they glitter! I made the shaker with some fun foam - backing it with some graphic orange patterned paper - and using some orange sequins for a sparkly touch. The greeting was white heat embossed on a strip of black cardstock that was wrapped around the whole card front. 

So now it's your turn to take some Time Out and make a card inspired by this fabulous photo!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
Jill

TIME OUT #42

It's time for another fun challenge at Time Out - and this week, it's one of my favourites- A Home Sweet Home Photo Inspiration Challenge. This week's photo is awesome and really gets into the spirit of the season:

This week, we also have a fabulous guest designer too: TaeEun is super creative and her blog Rainbow in November is full of gorgeous cards - be sure to check it out!

Here is my card:

I started out by partially stamping the Hero Arts background stamp in Versamark  in the centre of the card and heat embossing with clear powder. I then smooshed my three favourite Halloween colours into the heat embossed area - Twisted Citron, Dusty Concord, and Chipped Sapphire. The panel was die cut using an MFT die and mounted on a card base with a layer of black and white graphic patterned paper. I added a Lil Inker pumpkin die cut from metallic  paper, some black thread, clear sequins and a Clearly Besotted greeting to complete the card.

So now it's your turn to take some Time Out and make a card inspired by this fabulous photo!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
Jill

AAA Cards - CAS Halloween

It's time for another AAA Cards challenge and this time we're looking for CAS Halloween cards.

I have to confess that I have never made Halloween cards in the past - I love the holiday but have never integrated it into cards

Here is what I came up with:

The letters are from Simon Says and were stamped on watercolour paper. I used Distress markers to colour the letters (Twisted Citron) and the background (Blueprint Sketch, Chipped Sapphire, Seedless Preserves). I added a few more stamps - the cat is from Clearly Besotted, the spider is from Fiskars and the greeting and faces are from Lil Inkers.

To pumpkin or not to pumpkin?
I was quite happy with my first ever Halloween card but my husband really insisted that it needed a pumpkin so I added one - here is the updated version:

 What do you think - pumpkin or not?

So now it's your turn to create a CAS Hallowwen card - that could incorporate a pumpkin (or not!) but before you do, please check out the amazing work of the Design Team.

Thanks for stopping by!
Jill

TIME OUT #41 - Reminder

I can't believe that the week has already flown by - have you had chance to play along with our current Time Out challenge yet? You still have lots of time (well a week!) to create a card inspired by quote:

Autumn...the year's last, loveliest smile' (William Cullum Bryant)

Make sure to check the amazing work of our Guest Designer this week. Glenda at  My Paper Cat has such an amazing technique that incorporates lots of intricate thread designs - amazing cards!

So here's my take on the quote:

Two different cards featuring the Stampendous Pen Pattern Leaves stamps

So head over to Time Out and play along with us - and make sure to check the wonderful inspiration from the rest of the Design Team!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
Jill

TIME OUT #41

It's time for another challenge at Time Out and this time we are asking you to be inspired by words:

Autumn...the year's last, loveliest smile' (William Cullum Bryant)

We are only just starting to see a few patches of orange and red in the trees now - the news reported that we are two weeks behind on the colours this year. I can't wait though - Autumn is definitely my favourite season.

So now onto the challenge - you have to check the amazing work of our Guest Designer this week. Glenda at  My Paper Cat has such an amazing technique that incorporates lots of intricate thread designs - amazing cards!

So here's my take on the quote:

I used some My Little Shoebox stamps to stamp the trees which I coloured with Copics. I added the Simon Says smile die cut (I wanted to cover both Autumn and smile from the quote!) covered in glitter and a piece of  Be Creative tape also covered in glitter.

So head over to Time Out and play along with us - and make sure to check the wonderful inspiration from the rest of the Design Team!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
Jill