From Our Home to Yours...

...belated Merry Christmas!  

I made this holiday card before Christmas, but the hustle and bustle of holiday preparations pushed posting this to the back burner for a bit.

First, I created dots for the background using Hero Arts Chevrons stencil.  This is a pack of 2 stencils, and I love those dots! I can definitely see myself using these in many cards in the future!  I used Catherine Pooler inks and pounced them through the stencil.  Then I cut the die from gold foil cardstock, and heat embossed the sentiment using gold embossing powder.

The die is actually a set of three dies from Hero Arts, but I used just one of the dies instead.

I'm entering this card into the Hero Arts Stay Crafty Challenge #30.  The challenge this month is to use circles in the card.  I hope the stenciled big dots in the background meet the criteria.

The supply list is below:

Hero Arts Tri-fold Village Fancy Die - this is on sale right now for $5 off!

Hero Arts Chevron Stencils 2-Pack

The above are affiliate links and I get a small commission when you purchase through my links, at no cost to you.

I hope that you spent your holidays surrounded by love and happiness, with loved ones, friends, and anyone/anything that makes you happy. :)

Thanks for looking, and have a great day!

Cards from DIY Stencils

As promised, here are some cards I made using the DIY stencils I shared in my previous post.

First up is this stenciled green Christmas card:

I used a brush to apply Catherine Pooler's Grass Skirt on white cardstock die cut with Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles die using the leaf and berry stencil that I made.  I applied Red Stickles on the berries and gave it time to dry.  This was the hardest part -- you can tell patience is not my strongest point.  However, I've ruined many cards by smearing wet Stickles, so I definitely gave it my best.

While waiting, I stamped the "Joy and Peace" sentiment on white cardstock using Catherine Pooler's Rockin' Red, which I mounted on red cardstock.  The sentiment came from an old Hero Arts set called December.

Once the Stickles was dry, I popped up the sentiment on foam tape.

This is not the traditional Christmas colors (or leaves and berries, for that matter), but once the sentiment and red Stickles were on the card, it looked really cheery and festive. :)

My second card is another Christmas card:

I used the DIY stencil I made to emboss a snowy background for my snowman.  I pressed the Versamark ink pad through the stencil and embossed it with white embossing powder.

I stamped and colored by snowman using the Lawn Fawn Frosty Friends stamp set and cut it out using the coordinating die.  I cut out some snowy hillside using Lawn Fawn Sitched Hillside Borders out of white cardstock for my snowman to stand on.

I colored the images with Copic markers.

So what do you think?  Not too shabby for DIY stencils, right?

I hope you give making your own stencils a try and share with me what you've created in the comments below.

Thanks for looking, and have a great day!

Bright Pink and Gray Card

It's been a while since I joined challenges, but I just couldn't pass up this challenge from Less Is More and Simon Says Stamp.

The Less Is More blog is celebrating its 4th anniversary, and the challenge this week is to make a card with pink and gray.

Meanwhile, the challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge blog is "All things bright and beautiful," highlighting Hero Arts products.

I am excited for this challenge, because I have a lot of Hero Arts stamps.  They were one of the first stamps I bought when I first started stamping five years ago.

Here is my card:

I used this Hero Arts stamp set for the different splashes of pink.

The image and the sentiment came from two different stamp sets.  The bicycle was from this set.

The sentiment was from this set.  I love how the two stamps complemented each other perfectly.  I embossed both the bicycle and the sentiment using silver/gray embossing powder.

I love how this card turned out.  I am working on having a stash of handmade cards that I can readily pull out for different occasions, and this card definitely fits the bill.

Here is a complete list of products (and links to where you can find them):
White cardstock (Georgia Pacific)
Dark and light gray cardstock (my stash)
Brush Strokes (Hero Arts)
Joy Ride stamp set (Hero Arts)
Friendship Messages stamp set (Hero Arts)
Rose Bud ink (Memento)
Angel Pink ink (Memento)
Pixie Dust ink (Versamagic)
Pink Petunia ink (Versamagic)
Versamark ink pad (Tsukineko)
Heat gun (Nicole)
Embossing powder (Stampin' Up!)
Embossing powder tool (Inkadinkado)
ATG gun (Scotch)

Thanks for looking, and have a bright and cheery day!