Peace & Love

Nothing makes us feel more peaceful than gazing at a beautiful gallery of handmade holiday cards. And you guys really pulled out all the stops for "PEACE on Earth"! It's hard to feature only a few, but we think you'll agree that these are pretty impressive choices:

Marianne of Marianne's Cards 'n Stuff

...created an amazing watercolor galaxy background as the night sky, then found the perfect set of adorable stamped creatures to be appropriately awed by it!

Lorraine of Paper Vernissage

...made us realize that from now on we definitely need to add, "or a DOVE!" to our list of elements which perfectly sum up "PEACE" in greeting card form.

Sonja aka Oldpunca of Na obisku pri Oldpunci

Combined diecuts, a CAS asethetic and a limited color palette for a card that offers the peace of perfect simplicity!

Many thanks to every cardmaker who joined us. We LOVE seeing all of your amazing  creations! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt. We hope you won't be too snowed under to join us... ;)

Give PEACE a Chance

We're still creating PEACE-ful cards, and you still have plenty of time to scroll down to the original post and link up your own masterpiece! Meanwhile, here's what we made this week

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Once again I've incorporated the prompt by using a peaceful scene (from a vintage Ideals magazine) and the word peace, via an old Spellbinders die. I've used lots of lovely, elderly bits of leftover Basic Grey holiday papers... which, for the record, is the no-longer-with-us papercrafting brand I miss the most. Sigh." 

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I started with the PEACE Bingo card and then incorporated lots of bits and bobs from my stash that made me happy and peaceful ... including S&H Green Stamps that always remind me of filling all of those stamp books with my Grandma ... and her taking me shopping with those stamps and buying me my first iron to take to college with me ... thinking about how much she loved me always brings me peace."

Scroll down to the original PEACE post for all the details and the linky tool! ♥

Peace on Earth

Peace is a commodity to be cherished at all times, but never so much as around the holidays! For "Peace on Earth" we'd like to see cards that include the word peace, OR the peace symbol, OR a scene that evokes peace for you. Here's what we made this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started with the peace flash card and built my card around that adding stickers and rub-ons and layers on Authentique Holiday papers."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I scanned and slightly reduced a vintage postcard with a peaceful scene, then trimmed the word "Peace" from a Simple Stories journaling circle in which the overall design didn't fit my vintage vibe at all, but the script worked just fine! I'm still obsessed with Heartfelt Creations' dimensional flower system, so the sweet Poinsettia Clusters are making another appearance; this time in white and gold. I used this week's awesome Sketch Saturday layout though I rotated it ninety degrees counterclockwise."

Link your peace-centric masterpieces here by 6pm (EST) by Wednesday, September 19th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:18:19.

An InLinkz Link-up

The Shape of Things to Come

There were beautiful cards in literally all shapes and sizes in the Shape Up gallery. You guys really make it hard for us to choose only a few to feature!

Plony's Blog Vol Met Knutsels en Frutsels

...created an elegant, vintage-style, mitten shaped card that will surely be framed, or hung on the tree of the lucky recipient!

Sherri Thacker of Sherri's Blog

...not only made the cutest and cleverest round card imaginable, she used a set of non-holiday, watercolor-style landscape stamps to do it!

Rocky of Rocky's Crafting Blog

...used an extra large die, pearlescent cardstock and a whole lot of creativity to paper piece this sweet reindeer card, which not only opens, but actually stands up. Then she called her post, "Getting Ahead for Xmas" which you know went right to our pun-loving hearts!

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing all of your clever shapes and fancy folds. We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt we hope you'll want a piece of! 

In Great SHAPE

We're still creating with SHAPES this week ... making cards that are any shape other than a square or rectangle.

Here's how we got SHAPELY this week.

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Yes, I've been a bit more ambitious this week! I made a star fold card, using this tutorial from Crafting with Joanie. I also tried out a new set of flower stamps, dies and shaping molds from Heartfelt Creations. They even make realistic stamens, that really take these to the next level, imo. Being a bit of a dimensional flower junkie, I LOVE that I can now easily custom make blossoms exactly the right size, shape and color for each of my projects!" 

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I hand-drew my coffee cup on some two-sided Authentique Nostalgia papers (love those reindeer in scarves and that yummy texty background) and then drew my lid on the reverse side of the same paper and traced around it with a black sharpie.  The sleeve was traced  from the cup on kraft cardstock and topped with a Spellbinders Be Merry Die Cut.  I attached my top-fold card to the back of my cup ... perfect Christmas card to deliver with a gift card to the local coffee shop."

Make sure you link-up your shaped cards HERE by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, September 5th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:18:18. 

SHAPE-Up for the Holidays

This week we're getting in SHAPE for the holidays ... more specifically, we're making cards that are NOT square or rectangular.

Break out your die cuts, templates or just free-hand-it … think round, triangular, heart-shaped, tree shaped, candy cane shaped, snow globe shaped … you get the picture.

Here is how we got in shape today.

Stephanie's Card(s)

Stephanie says, "As I was going on a scavenger hunt through my studio looking for possible shapes, I discovered an unopened container of printed cardstock ephemera from Pebbles Holly Jolly Collection.  The Gingerbread House and Snow Globe were perfect for turning into tiny cards to attach to a gift.  I folded cardstock, traced the shapes leaving the fold slightly below the top, and cut the card to adhere to the back. Next I decorated the images with pearls & bling for the snow globe and enamel candy dots for the gingerbread house."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "With all of those awesome shape choices listed above, and Stephanie's awesome examples to inspire me, you'd think I'd come up with something especially creative, right? Sorry, nope. I've done a round card, like usual, lol! Ok, so, I'm not one of life's natural engineers, thus the fancy folds and super-cool shaped cards I drool over on Pinterest rarely become things I actually make. I do have a pretty fancy idea for next week, though, I promise! In the meantime, please accept this standard 6" round card, built around Authentique's gorgeous, retro-inspired, "Jingle" collection with which I am entirely smitten!" 

Link up here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, September 5th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JN:18:18.

An InLinkz Link-up

Nothing Sketchy Here!

Because every single take on Stephanie's beautiful sketch was totally inspirational! Here are a few that made our eyes especially happy this fortnight:

Karen Finkle of Karen's Card Korner

...used limited tools and ingredients from a Christmas card kit, but was inspired by the sketch to use all of the "bits" in completely different ways, and we are quite smitten with the result!

Fabiola of Mon P'tit Monde

...chose to repeat the same simple image in all three circles, then took this card to the next level with beautifully vivid, non-traditional colors!

Brenda of Brenda's Scrappy Blog

...swapped the circles for diecut snowflakes, each one framing an adorable snowman; what a great way to feature smaller stamps!

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we love seeing every single one of your creations. We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt we'll hope will shape up into major inspiration!