Christmas CRAZY in July!

Susan's OLW challenge this week is to make a one layer Christmas Card.  It's that time...Christmas in July.  I'm happy to make Christmas cards all year, so that's fine with me!  Susan's post is hysterical...about Christmas stamping on a hot day...sweat dripping where you don't want sweat...etc!  Well, I knew I was going to participate, but I didn't know I was going to dive off of the deep end! 

Since I also like to participate in the Christmas Cards All Year 'Round monthy blog challenge, (and I got carried away with the OLCs!) I decided to combine the two challenges.  This month, CCAYR is re-vamping the DT, etc., and are having an anything-goes-holly-and-pine-and-turtledoves free for all. 

So there are 6 one layer Christmas cards...in honor of Susan's sweat and to play for the prize at CCAYR (you need to have 5 entering for the prize, but one is good for just playing along!)  To be honest, one was also for the bling it up challenge at Christmas Stampin All Year Long...but (of course) I missed the deadline!  Here we go:

This angel was in a "junk" bin at the Repeat Impressions booth a stamp show a few years ago.  The guy even joked with me about buying the "junk"!  I love her!  She's sparkly and I love that.  The hearts were added from Memory Box Valentines stamp.  Her dress is painted with gold paint. 

This is a CTMH set.  I know it's not traditional christmas, but it looks a little old fashioned with the brown ink, gold embossing and vanilla paper (looks more beige irl).

This little guy was my first attempt at Susan's challenge.  I had gotten this TAC stamps set a while ago and hadn't even used it yet.  More traditional colors here!  Ooops...blur on the photo.

For this one, I went for simple, but wish I had some small olive branch or holly that wouldn't dwarf that dove!  The sentiment is amuse, the dove is smARTworks, and he's colored with twinkling h2os.

Sheep from MFT, sentiment AMUSE.  Just love that liquid applique for sheep!

This is the image left of a chipboard snowflake that I placed on the cardstock and sprayed with glimmer mist.  It's very sparkly and festive irl. 

Thanks for looking...hope these give you a feeling of winter as we're about to hit 100 tomorrow here in the Baltimore area! 

An SU-only challenge

Being an equal-opportunity spender when it comes to stamping, playing along with an SUO challenge was different for me.  It really made me think of what I had that I could use.  I do buy SU products, and my friend Michele Reynolds called for a challenge to make birthday cards. (She doesn't have all of the submissions posted on her site because she's heading out to the SU convention this week.)  

Luckily, it came just in time, because I needed a few cards this week.  I made a few cupcake cards (you don't usually see a lot of designer paper in my designs - but I had this from SU and the cards needed to be girly!) and the Wish card was for my husband who had a birthday last week, too.  I love when you can use a floral stamp and still have it turn out "masculine enough".   The Wish card is a case of a wonderful card I found here.  Love the CAS of it and that dotty ribbon!  So I made it work with some SU products I already owned!

Ocean-y OLW

Well, it's just WRONG that I haven't been posting...even worse is not having time to stamp and create, let alone blog about it!  Kids are home for the summer...silly me thought there'd be time to do EVERYTHING.  :)  How are YOU getting it all done???

Luckily, there was time for a few this week.  Susan's OLW challenge was to use watercoloring on your one layer card.  Funny how she posted just today about ocean-y colors. (Hope you get to the beach soon, Susan.  LOVE that wave-y card!)  I love the beach, and need to send a thank you to someone who helped us out planning for our own beach time this month.  The shells are heat embossed and then wet brushed with SU baja breeze over top.  Sentiment is PTI in SU soft suede.  Simple and summery!

My brother in law is in need of a peach upside down cake (one of his faves from childhood) to help him get well after surgery yesterday.  The boys and I went to get the peaches at a local orchard today and we're baking tomorrow.  I had to have a get well card to go with it, of course!  The peach is a $1 stamp from Michaels...I added the sentiment on the computer.

I WILL (I have to keep reassuring myself!) be back soon...and be creating in between.  Hope you find time this summer to get inky, too!