Inspirational Friday Favorites

This past week I've been perusing the internet for a number of different ideas for lots of Christmas stuff my focus for today's inspiration is brown & blue Christmas decor. After doing the local shop hop the beginning of this month with my mother and seeing these colors in one of the shops its been stuck in my head to switch out my Christams decor. I have a deep orange for my walls in our living room and I have been using red and silver for a number of years, not really a color that really pops it kind of blends in. My mom commented that the chocolate browns and blues would look really nice with the orange and I would agree. So I've been searching around for some inspiration and found a few inspirational photos, it's not a popular combination in Christmas decor so there wasn't a lot out there.

My goal for doing this though is to do it for a minimal fee and try to use what I have by changing its color, we'll see how well that goes. I'll try to keep a tally of my expenses. We don't have a traditional Christmas tree so that'll help keep the cost down and a lot of my decorating is with my Christmas Village plus we have a small house.

Enough babbling :) Here are some pictures of inspiration

These first set of pics I found at The Christmas Faerie

BHG has a slide show of some brown and blue decor it's mostly blue but it's still inspirational. HERE'S the link.

When I was at Walmart the other day they had decorations grouped into colors and there was a nice assortment of brow and blue so I'll be scoring some items from there too.

Challenge #41 Sketch

This week's challenge at The Pink Elephant is a sketch challenge. Here is the sketch we used.


I made a couple gift tags using the sketch this week. My first one is a snowflake I cut from my sizzix snowflake die and the pink one is from my cuttlebug snowflake die which I embossed with a pink shimmery embossing powder. Then I stamped a snowflake which was embossed with the same powder & then used my circle punch to punch it out.


My next set of tags are also a sizzix die. I cut out some red and green ornaments out of a shimmery paper then did some embossing with my new cuttlebug border embossing folders. I punched out a circle and attached it to the bag and put To & From on it to use as a gift tag. These could also be used as ornaments.


I also have a card to share today for the Wisconsin Scrappers challenge this week. We also had a sketch this week from Mojo Mondays to use. I used the Nora image from C.C. Designs for my card which I colored with my Copic markers then added little snowflakes with my white gel pen. Isn't this Nora image just adorable?! You'll be seeing some more of her and her friends in the coming weeks.

Be sure to head on over to The Pink Elephant and Wisconsin Scrappers to see what the rest of the design teams have done this week.

Friday Favorites

Im going to start something new on my blog at least for the holidays partly for me to have these ideas on my blog and easy to find and maybe it'll inspire some of you. Ok I know today is not friday but I just decided to do this and I don't want to wait til friday to start :) So for this week I'd like to share a cute way to package up and give a hot cocoa gift. Im sure you could change this up for a tea or coffee lover too. I found this on Lacie's blog This little project is going to go onto my list of things to try and it just might be featured at my Christmas Make and Take Open House.

TPE Challenge #40 Thankful

This week's theme challenge at The Pink Elephant is "thankful". I decided to make garland/a banner to hang from our fireplace mantle. I used a paper pack I got from SU last year to cover my chipboard letters. I also used the Wildflower Kids Tom the Turkey which I colored with my Copics. I love my Copics but I so need more practice with them. I just attached the letters to twine with small clothesline clips which will make storage minimal.

I had a hard time photographing this because the lighting in our house isn't good so I tried a shot outside too.
Be sure you check out what the rest of the Design Team made this week.



I also have a card to share today that I made for the Wisconsin Scrappers challenge this week. Our challenge was to use primary colors. I also used a Wildflower Kids digital stamp for my card too, I used some delphinium blue flower soft for his hat and scarf.

TPE Challenge #39

This week's challenge at The Pink Elephant is a color challenge; brown, yellow, neutral and a color of your choice (I chose orange). I stamped my image with the Hero Arts Three Winter Trees and colored them with my Copics then embellished them with the autumn flower soft.

Be sure to head on over to The Pink Elephant to see what the other designers did this week.

CCAYL: One Layer Card Challenge

Last month I had the opportunity to be on a guest designer on the Christmas Cards All Year Long blog. Well Deanne was in need for a designer for the rest of the year and asked me if I would like to join the team!

Our challenge for Novemeber is to make a one layer card. At first I really had a hard time with this and really didn't know what I was going to create. Well after browsing around the internet my creative juices started flowing and I had a great time with these. They're simple but elegant, sometimes I get so carried away with adding more and more to the card I forget about simplicity. I have 5 cards to share with you today. This first one I used the Hero Arts Bare Winter Trees stamp and heat embossed them. Unfortunately the picture doesn't show off the shimmer of the embossing or the paper.

For this card I took a piece of chipboard and ran it through my cuttlebug to get the embossed framed image. I stamped the little Hero Arts Holly Bird image and colored him with my Copics.

I think this one is my favorite probably because it has snowflakes on it. I used the Cuttlebug and Sizzix snowflake embossing folders for this one and added a little jewel to the center of each snowflake.


I used the Hero Arts Holly Bird on this card too and just scored a frame around him with my scor-pal.

And lastly, this card was made with a sizzix embossing folder with some polar white flower soft and embellished with some Hero Arts and punched snowflakes.

Be sure to head on over to the Christmas Cards All Year Round blog to see what the rest of the design team made.

This week's challenge at The Pink Elephant is a recipe challenge. Our recipe to use this week is black, hardware and distressing. I found an image online of an old gas station and printed it off. My dad is into the old gas stations and corvettes so I thought this card would be great to give him. I embossed some mirror card paper with the diamond plate cuttlebug embossing folder for the background which I distressed the edges on. My hardware that I used is the Making Memories screws and Hero Arts nail heads.

Be sure to head on over to see what the rest of the team did this week.

TPE Sketch Challenge #37

This week's challenge at The Pink Elephant is a sketch challenge. I had some fun with this sketch and made 3 cards. I just bought some new Christmas stamps and a halloween stamp that I had to play with. Here's my cards.




I also have a card from the Wisconsin Scrappers Blog challenge to share today. We also had a card sketch this week.

Be sure to head on over to The Pink Elephant and Wisconsin Scrappers to see what the rest of the design teams created.

TPE Challenge

This week's challenge at The Pink Elephant is a fall theme challenge. Our challenge this week is sponsored by Wild Flower Kids and we had a chance to work with some of the digital stamps this week! I used the turkey for my card.

Be sure to head on over to The Pink Elephant to see what the rest of the Design Team made this week.

TPE Challenge

We have a color challenge this week at The Pink Elephant. The colors we used are orange, black, white and purple. I chose to make some trick or treat containers this week for any trick or treaters that come to visit this year. I used some core'dinations cardstock on these with some sizzix halloween embossing folders.

Be sure to stop over at The Pink Elephant to see what the rest of the team made.