One more card, because I have several grandkids....

This is another pop-up card, so technically it can count for Cardtober challenge 16.

The castle inside and the castle outside are Silhouette Design Store cutting files.  The knight and dragon are Karen Burniston dies. For the words/name inside the card, I used the Bernard MT condensed font. I'm sorry the castle details don't show well. It does look better in person.

CARDtober Cards, in one post.......

It took two separate photos, but here they all are:

They are not in any particular order. They've gotten a bit mixed up during the month. Oh, and one is missing because I mailed it to a friend already. It was the quilt/friends one.

CARDtober 30 and 31

I actually managed all of the October challenges. I did a card for all 31 days.  Here are the final two:

Challenge 30 was to Mix It Up. I used mixed media, which I am still not super comfortable with. I first spritzed the blue card stock with Perfect Pearls Mist, to try to create an illusion of snow falling. It was not perfect, by any means, no pun intended. I used Dreamweaver Stencils Pearlescent Embossing Paste to create the snow on the tree (Ellentine die cut, I think) and beneath the tree. Then I used Nuvo drops to add dimensional snow falling. The peace die cut was from Silhouette Design Store (Christmas Peace Words). I created a minimal background mat for it so that it would actually show up. Both the Peace word and background mat were cut from metallic papers (silver and evergreen).

 Challenge 31 was an easy one: make a fall card. I used Graphic 45 papers from their "Time to Flourish" and "Children's Hour" collections.

CARDtober 28 and 29

Challenge 28 was to use something new, that you had never used before. It could be a year old, as long as you had not actually used it previously for a project.

I decided to use an embossing folder/die set from Tonic, that I had recently purchased from CraftStash but had not yet opened. I embossed three different colored squares of cardstock with the folder, then used one of the dies to cut the red and green sections for the card. This is just one embossing folder.  It is really beautiful and versatile. It is somewhat like "THAT folder" which I used for Challenge 25, but I love that the dies are included in the set, which makes it easy to create a variety of cards with just the one set.

The cardinal stamp is from the Heartfelt Creations Festive Holly collection, which I had also recently bought but never opened. I used Stickles for the snow clumps. The stamp does have the little clumps of snow, but I wanted the snow to look a bit more realistic.

I could have made a huge number of projects using items that I have bought and never used before. I really need to challenge myself to use as least one each week. It is ridiculous to buy stamps, dies, embossing folders, and other papercraft items, and not put them to use.


Challenge 29 was to have a POP of color.

I have been intending to use this Penny Black stamp, and this was the perfect challenge for it. I love the shabby farm truck. The stamp shows paint missing from the truck, but because I used a dark blue ink, which is actually darker than it looks here, the missing paint sections did not show up well. I used the Copic blending pen to remove spots of color, so the truck would look older and more worn. The "Happy Harvest stamp is an old one by Stampin' Up, probably from the mid-90's.

CARDtober 26 and 27

Challenge 26 was to stamp and color on kraft card stock. I used colored pencils to color a Penny Black stamp. I added a Heartfelt Creations die-cut. I separated the die-cut into 3 separate pieces. The background paper was from the 6x6 paper pad of the Graphic 45 St. Nicholas collection. I used prills from Heartfelt Creations for the center of the flower, and added a few highlights with Wink of Stella.

Challenge 27 was based on a sketch, and was supposed to be monochromatic. For my first try, I totally forgot about keeping it monochrome. I used a die set for the leaves that I found at Tuesday Morning recently. I inked the cuts a little to add color. I cut the word FALL using the ZP Champagne Kisses Bold font. The paper is from the Acorn Hollow collection by Little Yellow Bicycle, an older line.

I wasn't totally happy with the fall card, so I tried again, this time keeping closer to the sketch, although I chose to do a 6x6 card because I wanted to use this embossing folder by Apple Blossom, a recent purchase from CraftStash, which is located in the UK. The "Thinking of You" stamp came with a set that was free with the Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine, issue 183 June. It had some cute stamps in the set, but I only used the phrase for this card.  I covered the stamped "you" with the first square. I used the same font for the "Y" and "U" that I used for the fall card above.

CARDtober25, Using Heartfelt Creations and THAT Folder

Referred to among card makers as "THAT folder," this is an embossing folder that originally came with the "Papercraft Essentials" magazine, issue 122. A wonderful person at RefuPeas sent the embossing folder and the magazine to me as a RAK when she found out that I was trying to find it. It is available only in the UK. The Apple Blossom company also makes additional folders based on the same concept. CraftStash in the UK sells them, and even we Yankees can order from across the pond.

There are a lot of beautiful ideas on Pinterest using this folder, which is where I saw cards made with it, and why I wanted to get one for myself. Since it is such a beautiful embossing folder, it was the obvious choice for the CARDtober challenge 25 (embossing):

I used purple Stickles on the dots, and I added a Lush Lilac bouquet (Heartfelt Creations). I don't often do 6x6 cards, but I couldn't bring myself to crop it to a rectangular size.

I apologize for the poor cropping job I did. It actually is straight, but it really doesn't look like it.

CARDtober24

This challenge was to use a tag on your card. I used papers from the BoBunny Enchanted Harvest collection, from their 6x6 inch paper pad. The pumpkin was die cut. I inked the embossing slightly.