CTS #249

Good morning!  It's an early morning in our house because my oldest had a field trip and had to get to school before the sun came up.  He was so excited and I sure hope he has a blast today.  We've been swamped with holiday prep but having my own little chauffeur has been really fun and I know he's enjoying driving here and there.  I'm still a little in shock at having a kid old enough to have a license but I'm slowly getting used to it.  I'm also proud to say that I've only flinched twice while teaching him to drive and both times were because he has a different feeling for when he needs to brake than I do.  I'm pretty proud of him and told him that I flinch more when his dad is driving so he must be doing a good job.  Ha ha ha! 

Well, it's another Retro CTS challenge this week at CAS(E) this Sketch and I have to say...I love my card.  Don't you love when you can say that?  Here's my take:

I started with some water color paper and an amazing set of stamps from Essentials by Ellen called Mistletoe & Holly.  I masked and stamped my images along the bottom of my card with a waterproof black ink.  Then I used Zig Clean Color Real Brushes to color my poinsettias in two of my favorite colors of poinsettia.  I just love how they turned out!  After everything dried, I embossed the "be merry" sentiment in gold and trimmed my water color paper to have a border on my black card base.  Super simple but it turned out SO elegant that I want to go play with this gorgeous stamp set some more.  Here's a close up:

Quite a different card than what I made for the original sketch.  What do you think?

I hope you'll join us for this fun challenge!  Check out what the rest of the team created, including our awesome guest designer.  See you over CAS(E) this Sketch!

Chrissy's Christmas Catch Up #6

Next week is Christmas!!!  Seriously?  Ok, moderate panic attack but we're all good now.  Ha ha!  Actually, things are going along quite well.  I mailed out my last Christmas card (I think) yesterday.  We even had time to play and build some gingerbread houses at a friends house.  Since my eldest doesn't allow pictures often, I figured I'd share his creation and his smile with you today!

Didn't he do a great job?  I love how he got creative with the KitKat bars.  Here's how I got creative this week.

 Guess what?  I used my Misti to line up my stamp design again.  I started by positioning Neat & Tangled's Christmas Journaling as my centerpiece for this card.  I needed a little color so I added some holly leaves from Essentials by Ellen's Mistletoe & Holly.  I added the berries with some red Stickles.  I layered this all on a red card base and I ended up with a simple and cute Christmas card!

Thanks so much for checking in again today!  I'll see you tomorrow!