{Here comes Santa}

Hi,

Here is one of the last christmas card's I made this year. For this one I used the globe Confetti Cut from Reverse Confetti and paired it with another retired stamp from The Cat's Pajamas.

I used two different Ranger Ink stamp pads and dry brushed them onto water color paper. I then sprayed some water on it to help blend some of the colors a bit better. As a final touch I splattered some white paint I had left over from us painting our apartment onto my card. :) Can't let good paint go to waste. :)

The Santa was colored in with Copic Markers and I used some Stickles Glitter for his beard, hat and candy canes.

Detail look:

Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Merry Christmas!!

Sony

{Manly Wishes} and TCP Tuesday 341

Hi,

I needed to make some gift card holder cards for my cousin's two teenage boys. I really enjoy making more masculine cards because it pushes me to try some color combinations I normally wouldn't. In this case I combined an olive green with a desaturated blue. I probably should resist using glitter stickles but um that...they'll just have to live with. :)

Here are my cards - the stamps are from The Cat's Pajamas. Unfortunately both of these sets are now retired as far as I know but Alma does have some really cute new stamps on her website so be sure to check them out if you're not familiar with TCP.

This one here I actually made for the TCP Tuesday Tag challenge (TCP Tuesday 341) but unfortunately I was too late to submit it. Oohhh well ...I still had fun making it and that's the most important part. :)

I used a couple of different dies for the cards. I used the Die-namics Stitched Rectangle Stax for the first card. For the second card I used The Big Stripes Cover Panel Confetti Cut by Reverse Confetti. I cut it out of dark grey and white cardstock and offset them a bit from each other to give a bit of a shadowing effect.

Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Merry Christmas!!

Sony

{A Toucan Christmas} SFYTT 55

Hi there,

it's been a little while but I'm back. We finally managed to unpack all our boxes after moving halfway across the world to Sweden, just in time for christmas. I'm very excited to share my first card - I managed to squeeze in about four over the last few days.

 I discovered a hobby store not too far from us and thankfully they had some cardstock since I did not bring any with me from the States, just in time to play along with this month's SFYTT.  I've posted the sketch a bit further below.

Here's a closer up look:

I used the flowers from a Toucan of Friendship by Reverse Confetti and made them into Poinsettias by coloring them with beige and grey Copic markers and adding lots of Stickles glitter. The Santa Hat is a stamp from the now retired TCP set a Beary Year.

And here is this month's SFYTT sketch:

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Merry Christmas!!

Sony

{Have a Beary Special Day} Document Wallet Card

Hi everyone,

I have a slightly different paper project for you today. Yes, it's still a card but one for a larger gift pass. I had some complimentary Disneyland tickets when I worked for Disney that I wanted to give to my friend Anna and her family. The tickets were just printed on a regular size letter paper so I thought of creating a wallet type of card and this here is my result:

outside of the card

inside of the card, the tickets slide right in front of the yellow panel.

Since I trimmed down my stamp collection for our move to Sweden I had to get a little creative with the sentiment. So, the bear and the "sweet" in Sweet Friends is from the TCP set Honey Bear (currently out of stock I'm afraid). The "Friends" is from the TCP set Good Friends - it looks like this is retired and then the sentiment "Have a Beary Special Day" is from one of my all time favorite sets, one of the very first PJ (that's the bear) sets. I don't remember the name unfortunately and I know it's definitely retired. It was an amazing set!!

For the honeycomb pattern I used one of my brand new sets from Honey Bee Stamps called Sweet As Honey with the coordinating dies. I used the dies to make a stencil and then I used my Ranger Ink blending tool to dab in the color for the honeycombs.

Now to the fun part...so after I decorated the inside of my card I realized that it was too bulky for the card to actually stay closed. I needed a closure of some kind and this is the one I came up with. I cut out a couple of circle shapes, glued them together, attached a string to one side and voila. My document/gift pass wallet was complete.

exterior closure

interior string 

That's all I have for today...have a great start to your week!

Sony
 

{I Could Rule The World} Mojo Monday 500

Hi everyone,

have you heard? This week marks an anniversary and sadly a farewell as well. Julee announced that this will be the final Mojo Monday challenge sketch. It is the 500th sketch challenge - such an amazing accomplishment!! But...as she talks about on her blog...our lifes' change and with that, this will be our very last Mojo Monday challenge.

Life changes. As I ponder that thought I find myself getting a bit sentimental as I'm packing up my last 20 years of memories in the US and prepare myself for a new life overseas. Change is often bittersweet. It encompasses the excitement of something new but also the sadness of leaving something old behind. But we don't want to linger on those sad thoughts for too long because if we spend the majority of our time looking back, we miss out on all the wonderful things that lie before us. 

With those thoughts...I'd like to say farewell Mojo Monday!! Thank you for all the wonderful memories of picking color combinations, figuring out what stamps to use and how to adapt the sketch. It's been a blast!!!

And a very special thank you to Julee!! Thank you for inspiring us and encouraging us for so many years! You always had a kind word for everyone and please know, that is not overlooked and not forgotten. I feel honored to have had the chance to be on your Design Team and I wish you all the best!!! Enjoy your little ones!! Time goes by so fast!!!
PS: I do hope you will keep the blog as it is because I know there are some sketches I have not played with yet. 

The final sketch:

So...for my final Mojo Monday card I've chose the set Better With You. I've used the Distress Inks Rusty Hinge and Abandoned Coral to create the background panel. The little heart on my coffee cup received the sparkle treatment with the help of some Diamond Stickles. The stitched frames are dies by MFT and the coffee cups have been colored in with Copic Markers.

Here's a closer look:

Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Have a great week!!

Sonja

{Adventure is out there}

Hi everyone,

I'm back with another moving/travel card. You can imagine I have a few of those to send out at the moment. This week is actually my last week at work. It's a bit strange I have to admit...I've been at this company for almost four years so I can't quite imagine not coming here anymore. Strangely mixed feelings! lol

Anyway, back to my card. This one is a little extra fun because I got to play with new stamps. I've just recently stumbled upon Honey Bee Stamps. Their designs are super cute and so versatile!! Each set can be combined in numerous ways. Really cool!! 

I have used their retiring set No Place Like Home for my card here. If you think you might like this set...be sure to hurry up and get it before it's out of stock. The Frame and Banner Dies are from MFT.

Here's a closer look:

Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Have a great rest of the week!!

Sonja

{Make a Splash} TCP Tuesday 336

Hi everyone,

I'm back with another card today. So I know I've been out of the game for a while and watercolor seems to be the big new thing. Or I'm so late to the party it's on it's way out again? Who knows....anyway, it's new to me and it's been years that I've played with water colors. Quite frankly I was never all that great at it but what the heck. Time to give it one more try. I used some of my mini Distress Inks, a mister and a blender...and just started doing some stuff. 

Really...it took me about 3 full sheets of paper to get something I sort of liked. Now I know I need to get Alma's watercolor stamps over at The Cat's Pajamas. This is just way too unpredictable for me. lol 

Speaking of the Cat's Pajama's...I admit I have my eye on a few swanky sets over there but since I'm about to have to pay for COBRA health insurance for a few months while I'm in between jobs...a little gift certificate would certainly be appreciated. 

What better way than to play along in this month's TCP Tuesday challenge?! The theme is Sea, Sand and Sky....or Sand, sky and sea?? It's one of those but you get the idea. :) 

It's summer!!!!

So for my card I used a retired set. I just love me some Sprinkle and can't seem to part with her. This one I believe was called Fun in the Sun? 

I colored it with Copic markers and added some Glitter which is a bit hard to see in my photographs so you just have to take my word for it. :) It's sparkles :)

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Have a great week!!

Sonja

{Sending you Smiles...} Mojo Monday 499

Hi everyone,

I was in need of another card this week. This time I needed a Get Well card for my friend who's in the hospital with a very dangerous staph infection. It nearly cost him his life but thankfully God had other plans for him and he is recovering. He is looking at a lengthy hospital stay though so I wanted to send him a card to hopefully brighten his day a little.

For this task I chose to go with a modified version of this week's Mojo Monday sketch. I say modified because, well...my card is not square and I offset a few of the elements. My excuse for the changes? I literally threw out the only square envelopes I had today in an effort to downsize for our upcoming international move. Go figure!! Amazing how quickly I regretted that. lol 

 I do however still have some standard size envelopes so there you go. Standard size it is. :)

For the card elements I used Reverse Confetti dies and stamps. I used the Greeting Frame Confetti Cut for the...you guessed it...frame. I used the Globe Confetti Cut for the globe and the sentiment is from the set My World.

I decided to continue the sentiment on the inside of the card, which needed a panel anyways so I could write a message since I don't have any white ink pens at the moment.

Here's a look at the inside:

Here is this week's sketch - it is a brand new week so I'll actually get to link it to the Blog this time around and not miss it like last week. :P 

and lastly...a closer look from a slightly different angle to show off the layering:

Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Have a great rest of your week!

Sonja

{Happy Graduation} Mojo Monday 498

Hi everyone,

I'm back with a much needed graduation card. One of my friends from church graduated from college today. She's now officially an accountant!! Yay!!! I really loved last week's Mojo Monday challenge and decided to go with that sketch for this card. I was just a little late linking it to the blog. Oops.

For this card I decided to break out my good ole Verve stamps and I ended up using one of my all time favorite sets: Happy Days. I'm so sad to say it's now retired.  :(

I paired it with numbers from the set Calendar Countdown. This one is still available and on sale so make sure you get this one while you can. Everybody should have a good numbers set because you can always use those.

I wanted to give her a little money so I included a little pouch on the inside of the card.

I love the sentiments in the set Words of Wisdom. They can work for so many different occasions. 

For this card I went with the "go confidently in the direction of your dreams" sentiment. :)

This is the Mojo Monday sketch:

And here's a little closer look of the front of my card:

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Sonja

{We're moving} TCP Blog Hop

Hi everyone,

I don't know if you've heard already but my boyfriend and I are moving!!! It's a big one this time..we're moving to Sweden! Yes...it's quite the endeavor. It's amazing how much work goes into an international move. We're starting by downsizing as much as we can. How much stuff can a person have?! It's insane!! I've even downsized my stamp collection by a considerable amount. Unfortunately, and I kick myself for it, I threw out some stamp sets that I now regret having thrown out and I'm seriously considering buying again. Ugh!!! Anyway...

I needed a little moment of Zen in between boxes and stuff everywhere so here is my card for this months TCP blog hop:

I paired some of Alma's stamps with some dies from Reverse Confetti to create this cute announcement card. :) I believe these stamps are retired I'm sorry to say. I'm a huge fan of Alma's designs and couldn't part with most of her stamp sets so you'll most likely see a few more retired-stamp-set cards from me in the future.

Here a closer look:

I started to use hot glue for putting my cards together. I didn't like how some of my cards would relatively easily come apart so...hot glue to the rescue. Well, not for my fingers unfortunately. I have the one or other burn to show for it. :P But hey! My cards are no longer coming apart. :) Win!!

Thanks so much for stopping by today.

Have a great rest of your week!

Sonja

{Happy Birthday} SFYTT

Hi everyone,

alright...this will be my last post for tonight. I took a little break from packing tonight and decided to participate in this month's SFYTT sketch using my brandnew Reverse Confetti stamps and dies. Very exciting!

For this card I used the Toucan of Friendship set and paired it with the Happy Pretty Panels Confetti Cuts . The papers are from On the Bright Side by My Mind's Eye.

Here is a closer look: 

and last but not least...here's the sketch for this month's SFYTT challenge:

thanks so much for stopping by!

Have a great start to your week tomorrow,

Sonja

{Know what you're getting?}

Hi everyone,

I'm back with another card today. This time I revisited some of my old TCP or The Cat's Pajama's stamps. I paired Sassy Birthday with Hola Tequila for a more masculine happy 30th birthday card.

I figured...nothing says happy 30th to a guy more than a shot of Tequila, don't you think?

Here's a closer look:

thanks so much for stopping by.

Have a great day!

Sonja

{Birthday Tweetings} Reverse Confetti

Hi Everyone,

It's been a little while but I'm back with a few cards I was able to make last week. My little stamp hiatus lasted about 1-2 years it looks like and a few things seem to have changed. I'm super excited to see my old fellow Verve Diva Jen del Muro's company, Reverse Confetti, doing so well. Have you seen her designs? They are a wonderful representation of her unique style. I love it! I just got my first order and here you can see the result:

I used the set Toucan of Friendship with the matching Die set and I used the  Hello & Thanks Confetti Label Die to cut out the white framing panel.

Here is a closer up look:

Well, it's good to be back!! Thank you so much for stopping by after all these years.

I am hoping I'll have more time in the future to stamp again although things might get a little busy in the near future. I'm in the middle of organizing our move to Sweden!! Yes...I got a job offer and the adventure just sounded too good to pass up so we're going. :)

I'll have to figure out if Reverse Confetti will ship to Sweden...mmmh. We'll see ;)

Have a great rest of your weekend!!

Sonja