The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers Challenge #149 -

The Sisterhood have a brand new challenge on offer for the next fortnight and it's connected with all things 'yummy' - including heart throbs!

My card uses a great quote which really speaks to me, plus a lovely image from Altenew which belongs to the Celebrations set. I decided to colour with pencil crayons for a simple, slightly naive look, but I'm not entirely loving it. I might add some chocolatey brown into the colour palette and see how I feel then.

Edited to add: Yep, better with the addition of brown!

The sisters have had a ball with this theme and our reigning queen has produced a tea/coffee/beer - spittingly funny creation which is also a little x-rated!

Hope you'll come and play along.

The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #24 - Show us Your Santas!

Well, we certainly had a bumper number of entries in the linky gallery for Challenge #23 - SNOW, so let's see if we can smash that total for Challenge #24!

Once again I'm delighted to be joined by the lovely Gail from Crafty Nomad. 

This challenge was Gail's suggestion and we've been waiting to share it for ages! 

Challenge #24 we'd like you to...

Show us Your Santas!

Well, it just wouldn't be a Christmas card making challenge blog without a visit from the man in red!

I really like this set from Mama Elephant called Santa's Sleigh. I knew I wanted Santa crossing the moon and was lucky enough to find quite a few beautiful inspiration cards on Pinterest to help me out. I wanted to give Santa four reindeer, but once I'd put in the first two I decided three was plenty as the card could have looked like a tangle of hooves and antlers.

The amount of masking I had to do on this card was HUGE, but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I'm still not exactly sure what the little animal is that's hitching a ride behind Santa - I'm thinking it's a dog, but I'm really not sure! Does Santa have a dog? I see him more as a cat person.

I'm sorry I've only one card to show for this challenge but I'm struggling with back pain and tonsillitis. It's a combination that just sucks the energy right outta you!

Rudolph's been shopping over at Clearly Besotted again and look what he's chosen as the prize for his Random Raffle - so cute!

Hope you'll come and play along and Show us Your Santas!

The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers Challenge #148 - Q is for Quip

Edna and the sistahs are playing with the letter Q and getting all Quippy! 

Just to make sure we're all on the same page for this challenge a quip (according to a well-known online dictionary website) is a short, witty comment which can be pleasant, wise, or sarcastic, but usually carries an element of humor. Wit, wisdom, sarcasm and humor? Sounds like a perfect recipe for snarky card making fun! 

Our reigning Queen of Snark is the wonderful Lauren, and I know you will LOVE her little piece of quiptastic wonderfulness when you see it!

My creation is just good, old fashioned silly. I can't resist dressing this little MFT kitty in as many different hats/outfits as possible. Today, le petite chat est Francais...

Seriously, what would I do without this little cutie - thanks so much MFT for bringing him/her into my life. BTW, I've chosen French Script MT for the printing as it seemed appropriate. This must be a Sisterhood thing because if you drop by at Sister Jane's blog you'll see that her mind works in a very similar way!

Q is for Quip is open until 11:55 PM EST on Friday, 29th November and I really hope you can come join in the fun!

The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #23 - SNOW!

We have a new challenge, and another fabulous elf on board over at The Christmas Kickstart - it's the lovely Rebecca from Mellymoo Papercrafting!

Rebecca is my go-to Stampin' Up! person as well as a long term blogging buddy and I'm delighted that she agreed to wear the elf hat for this challenge.

So, what challenge do we have on offer for the next two weeks? It's...

Challenge #23 - SNOW!

Whether it's snowflakes, snow balls, snowmen, a light sprinkling or a raging blizzard we'd love to see your cards featuring the stuff we either love or hate!

My first card features for this challenge a gorgeous image from Impression Obsession I stumbled across earlier in the year. She's called 'Oh Dearie Girl' and is the work of Lindsay Ostrom. I love her illustrations and have to admit that there is a Nordic Wreath stamp calling my name very, very loudly right now! I created the background with twinkly embossing powder and Distress Inks. The stencil is from Newton's Nook and is 'sans packaging'.

Card #2 took ages to come together. I tried a several different ways of using that gorgeous Stamplorations die, but none of them seemed right. Then I thought 'white on white' with a 'pop' of red and everything fell nicely into place!

Rudolph is here again and this time he's got a beary big stamp on offer as his Random Raffle Prize.

This gorgeous guy is from Woodware and is a whopping, card-front-filling 9cm tall. He's just lovely.

I really hope that you'll come and play along with Rebecca and I for this fun challenge... Christmas is coming and those cards won't make themselves...