Fall Yesterday and Christmas Today!!!

   I want to start by sending out praying and thoughts to everyone who has been or is being affected by Hurricane (now Tropical Storm), Irene.   I feel very grateful that the storm seems to have really fizzled out and at least so far, it's pretty much a windy rainy day here in Northeastern, Massachusetts.   I'm also even more happy that we have power and HOPE it continues to stay on.   It has flickered several times, but thankfully has come back!   Phew!  :) 

   Being that it is such a lousy day, it's also a wonderful day to create and today I seem to be in a Christmas mode and have several new cards to share!   My very first two cards were inspired by a new challenge at The Pink Elephant and this week the challenge is to use this fun color swatch as our theme.   I think these colors are what started me on the Christmas idea, even though I often make most of my cards in non-traditional colors.

   And based on that color scheme, this was the very first card I created and it feature Baby Levi, an adorable digi that is from Lori's store.

   This cuties is being submitted to each of these challenge and everyone is welcome to play along:

• The Pink Elephant - Challenge #113 - Sketch Inspiration
• Creative Inspirations Paints - August 28th  - Lots of Layers
• Scrappy Frogs Challenge Blog - Time for some Bling 

    My second card today, was also created with the same cute  from Lori Boyd, but in this case, I created a card based on this week's Sketch at the Stars and Stamps Blog - (Operation Write Home).   This is a copy of Sketch # 84, which I have copied over to share -

  And this is my take on this sketch, which I made into a cute little Thank You card, all in the same color theme.   These images are so quick and easy to color and you can put them together with any colors to make some fun sweet cards.

    This little guy was Paper-Pieced into a great top and created to submit to each of these challenges:

• Operation White Home  - Sunday Sketch Challenge - No Glitter
• Clean & Simple Sunday Challenge - # 20 - Focal Point Sketch
• The Pink Elephant - Challenge #113 - Sketch Inspiration

     Next up today is another CAS style card inspired by today's new CAS Challenge over at The Outlawz group.  Our challenge this week to was use one of your tiniest stamps and to make it the focal point on your card.   I have to admit, I found I have a lot mine teeny stamps than I had imaged, so I stamped and colored several to use for other cards.  I actually made two cards for this one, after making this first card with was a bust.  My embossing buddy is MIA and with it being so humid here today, it made my embossing not work so well, I over embossed it and my card is now also all warped!  YUK!!    Even though I like to share my best cards, I also like to share to the bad ones, so I can learn not to make the same mistake!

   This card is the 'bust' card, what will now be taken apart and recycled!

Note:  I'm keeping the little stamped image and the bling

for a future card, the rest with be recycled!

  After that mess, I moved on and created this card which came out much better! 

   This card will be going into my Christmas Card stash and will also be submitted to each of these challenges:

• The Outlawz - CAS Challenge - Use a teeny stamp as your focal point
• Christmas Inspirations - Challenge # 31 - Clean & Simple (Christmas)
• Sparkles Forum - Challenge # 19 - Punch it 

       Update:  I won Top 3 at Christmas Inspiration with this card!   Thank YOU!!

 
    And I think that will be it for now!   I have a new challenge I want to work on and it's a Sketch Challenge over at Pink Gem Designs.  I bought a few new digis from the store yesterday and know exactly which one I want to use for my card.  

    If I do finish up any more cards today - I will try and come back to share - if not please stop by tomorrow.  I'm so happy to FINALLY be feeling pretty well again and now I'm finding I am having a wonderful time creating and always looking for new and fun challenges to join.