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.