Make My Monday--1st Week as Guest Design Team Member!

WARNING~PICTURE HEAVY POST~PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! ;D

Hello, stamping friends! I am so excited to share the creations I have created for this week's Make My Monday challenge! As I have mentioned in previous posts, I am so incredibly grateful to be a Guest Design Team Member this month--such a great honor! I have to say, I am incredibly nervous! I still feel very self-conscious about my cards (despite the typed words I share) and so please bear with me!!! :)

Okay, this month's challenge theme is Christmas. LOVE IT! It has given me such a fabulous chance to make a bunch of cards to send to people! So, I was excited to see the weekly challenges!

This week: vintage or traditional Christmas card. Oh. I don't own any truly vintage/traditional stamp sets. Soooo...what do I do? The obvious, of course! Head on over to the Graphic's Fairy and print off some fabulous vintage images to use for card making! This concept is new for me--I'm usually exclusively patterned paper and stamping. But I'm please with my results!

Now, anyone who knows me will tell you that I tend to be a bit of an overachiever...and, well, I really enjoyed looking up the fabulous images on Graphic's Fairy...so I made 5 cards. Let's take a look!

Card 1~Compliments of the Season~

This card uses 2 images from online. Isn't that sentiment fabulous?! I also used vintage glitter that I purchased at a garage sale a while back to add sparkle. The bow was an after thought--but I love it! Let's take a closer look...

Sentiment~

Children (from a vintage copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe perchance?)~

Bow~

My DH says this is one of the best Christmas cards I have ever made. Thank you, honey! :) Okay, onwards and upwards!

Card 2~Christmas Roses~

Look at that sweet image! I received a bunch of these little roses in pink and red from a friend of mine (along with the ribbon from the first card), and so I felt that they lent a special detail to the little girl and her puppy...

Here's a closer look~

Card 3~Rosette Christmas Sentiment~

What about this one? Don't you love that image! Such a sweet little angel. It needed a bit of glitz and glimmer (as does everything I make!), so I added the glitter. I wanted to pop the sentiment up, so I placed it on a rosette--very Victorian feel to this one. Those pins? From the same friend mentioned above! So very sweet of her!

Sentiment detail~

Let's proceed~ Card 4~Holly Jolly~

Aren't those little kiddies the cutest?! They made me smile! I have a dry embossing folder that is a holly bough, and it just worked perfectly with these images! I added some clear glitter gel pen to the images (can't see it in the above photo...)

Glitter (it really is on all the images & the sentiment)~

Okay, last one--promise! :)

Card 5~ STAMPED Vintage Christmas~

Okay, so after digging around in my stamp drawers, I found some vintage images! I was excited to get to stamp on a card for this challenge! Oh, and what do you think of the dry embossed back panel? I thought it was vintage-esque! I, of course, added some glitter. Because, really people, we NEED glimmer and glitz for Christmas! :)

Close up of the glittah~

Sorry this is so picture heavy--I just had so much fun with this challenge! Thank you, ladies, for the opportunity to work with you! You have made my YEAR!!! I can't wait to see what other people create--happy stamping! :)

MMM Final Steampunk Challenge

:( Sad. :( Sad. :( Sad. :(

:( This week is the last week for Make My Monday's steampunk month. :(

I have to admit--I really was thinking about passing up the whole steampunk thing. I'd never done it and was wary of buying stamps I thought I'd never buy. BUT--I'm so glad I didn't! I've learned so much this month and I've had such fun! Plus, everyone I've shown my creations has loved them and so I know that people will continue to love steampunk cards from me!

Anywho, I REALLY enjoyed this week's challenge (found here). It was to make a creation using steampunk and the creation could be anything...except a card!

I had an empty nut jar, and I knew that it was fate!

Here's the project~

I used an interesting color scheme--gold, silver, brown/yellow, and blue. I wanted to make the jar into something I could give away as a gift to someone. I used the sentiments "hello" and "time flies" so that I could give the jar to a friend I haven't seen for a while. :)

I used ribbon around the lid and as a bow...I think ribbon is very Victorian, don't you think? I also used lots of metal on the project--especially to accent the dry embossed gears. Since I used the sentiment "time flies" on top of the jar, I put clocks around the whole jar.

Close up of the front panel~

Close up of the clocks around the side~

And more details~

I wanted a cool top, so I used paper to create a rosette with a sentiment on top of it. Rosette are

trés Victorian, non?

Close up of the top~

What do you think? I was so pleased with how it turned out!

Thanks for looking--I appreciate you!!! Thanks, gals MMM, for another fabulously awesome challenge--cannot wait until next week! Happy crafting!