Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas To You All! May you all have your holidays filled with the spirit of love and peace!
I just wanted to post some more of my Christmas cards - hope you like them!


This little guy (Inkadinkado) is just stamped and embossed onto some snowflake design paper. One of the quickest and easiest cards I made.


The peeking snowmen are created with a stamp (Peddler's Pack) I found in a stamp store in Marietta, GA, when I recently had the chance to visit the U.S. and wonderful SCS Sharon (sharonw05) took me for a shopping trip! I love these cute little guys, they make great cards with just a little color and stickles!


This is a no-stamp card creeated with my cuttlebug folder, then sanding on some color-core black cardstock. And I used my tag curler to tie the little sign onto the ribbon.


I don't want to make political statements here, and I'm not a really "green" person, but when I look at those large amounts of foil and glittery paper we use to wrap our Christmas presents - just dedicated to be torn up in a few seconds, I'm not sure if this is the right thing to do. Not to think about all the things we do without thinking throughout the year... When I recently flew over Greenland on my way to the U.S., I saw only very few ice - compared with my travel to the U.S. some years ago, it was MUCH less! Maybe the pilot took a different flight route, but maybe it is REALLY less ice... So I'm dreaming of a green Christmas these days - we haven't had a white one for years, anyway. The stamp I used is by Inkdinkado, the pine branch I used for the background is by Stampendous.


This fun card is created just with a single stamp (Inky Antics), colored with Tombow Markers and finally drawn a border with a blue InkEssentials pen. This was my main Christmas card this year - quick, easy and making me smile!

Stampboard Angels...

It's months ago that I had the chance to take part in Sankari's and Brooke's Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge. I love this challenge, but during the last weeks, either I didn't know the movies or I didn't manage to get along with my cards in time. When I took a glance on this week's challenge, I was a little bit disappointed at first - again a movie I had not seen yet... But then I found out that it was broadcasted on TV at Holy Night, at midnight!!! Okay, a little late, but I recorded it, watched it this morning and was BLOWN AWAY!!!! Such a touching movie!!! I'm sure I'll watch it over and over again! But before watching it again, I had to stamp my creation for the challenge.
I chose the angel topic, too, as most challenge entries did. And I found a sentiment which I thought would be just perfect to catch the spirit of the movie.
I first sponged four stampboard tiles with different shades of blue Fluid Chalks (Colorbox), heatset the ink, then overstamped the angel images (Stampers Anonymous) with Palette Noir ink. Then I scratched white highlights into the images with a carving tool. I sealed the tiles with some spray varnish.
The sentiment and the scrolled lines are by Tim Holtz and stamped with Adirondack Snwocap White pigment ink. I dry-embossed the lines onto the card with my ScorePal.

What do you think about the result?

A Snowman's Right for a Rest!

This snowman seems to need a little rest and enjoys his life lying in the snow...
I stamped the image (Kaleidoskop) with Palette Noir and added some color to his nose with a Tombow marker, finally I added some stickles for the snow.
The design paper is by Frances Meyer.

Some different Christmas Card

After all those cute snowmen and Santas... I was in need of some different Christmas card. Don't get me wrong, I love snowmen and Santas, but well, they are only half the truth about Christmas...

I have an incredible love for old books, and I just had to buy this stamp when I saw it.

I send a Christmas card to our retired priest each year, and this year this will be the card. I stamped the image with Palette Noir onto cream cardstock, then colored it with Twinkling H2Os (several layers to get this extreme shimmery appearance the images in old books have). Then I just mounted the image onto gold cardstock, then onto blue cardstock. Ready. A totally different Christmas card, yet I love it.

What do you think?

Today's Splitcoast challenge was to create mainly blue holiday cards... with almost no embellishments... I had a lot of fun with this challenge!
Isn't this guy just lovely? I just stamped him (Inkadinkado) with Versamark ink and embossed him with dark purple powder, then sponged blue chalk over the image. He really makes me smile!
Perhaps I would have added some rhinestones or sparkles - but well, it's the Limited Supplies Challenge, isn't it?!?
The sentiment says "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!"

Teykol Forest

Finally... some time to stamp today.
I URGENTLY need to get ahead with my Christmas cards (...why does it get Christmas always so unexpectedly?!?).
I created a very simple and calm card with just stamping the snowy forest (Just for Fun) onto white Chromolux cardstock with black StazOn, then painting the "snow" with Teykol resist medium and finally wiping blue Adirondack shades over the whole image.
I can never get enough from this simple yet effective Teykol resist technique!
The sentiment says "Merry Christmas" and is stamped with Adirondack Snowcap White pigment ink which is great to use on dark cardstock.
Hope to get ready some more Christmas cards during the weekend! Guess otherwise I won't need them any longer, LOL!

Award Time!

You bloggin' ladies are the greatest!
Even when you don't hear a single word and see a single card from me FOR WEEKS, you still keep an eye on my blog, and the dearest blogging friends of all, Sankari from Sankari's Sunshine Corner, even sent me this award!



I feel totally embarrassed - YOU are MY inspiration, Sankari - how could I be an inspiration to you, looking at your gorgeous cards????!!!! And you all are my inspiration - I LOVE browsing through all your wonderful blogs, even if I don't have the time to create something myself or even to write comments on all of your great work!

So I want to pass this award on to these wonderful stamping friends, just in place of all you other talented ladies out there:

Dani
Sanne
Louise

Make sure to check out their wonderful blogs!

Back and Alive...

Where did the time go???
This is my first FREE WEEKEND after two months without a single free day... Time flew by with the work in my office, holding a lot of lectures and my travel to Atlanta, GA, for the Joint Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the European Society of Ophthalmology. It was such an inspiring meeting! I learned a lot, met the most interesting people and got lots of ideas to work on in the future! Nevertheless, getting along with the jet lag and after that with all the routine work which had been delayed during my time in the U.S., I had a really hard time and had to go through a real STAMPING WITHDRAWAL!!!! UUURRRRRGGGGHHHH! There were so many creative challenges on the web which I would have liked to try my hands on, but no way...
But now things get back to normal, and OF COURSE I had to get ink on my fingers IMMEDIATELY!!!

I have neighbours with very close connections to Israel, and as it is very hard to find Hannukkah cards for sale, they asked me to create some Hannukkah cards. As I only have two Menorah stamps, and one of them obviously buried under tons of other stamps - no chance to find it quickly, LOL - I made my personal challenge: to come up with five different cards, all only with stamping, no Cricut, no computer-printing, and all using exactly the same stamp (by Stampin Up). This is what I came up with:



For this card, I stamped the image with black StazOn onto acetate, then adhered it onto double-sided adhesive tape. After peeling off the backing foil, I brushed thin silver foil onto it. It makes a really lustrous and shiny background which doesn't show well on the photo. I matted the image onto blue and silver cardstock, then on a blue card on which I randomly had stamped a Rhonna Farrer star swirl.



This one was stamped with silver ink onto blue cardstock, then embossed with silver sparkling powder, and finally matted onto silver cardstock. I added a blue sheer ribbon with some rhinestones. The background is a sheet of vellum run through my Cuttlebug.



For this card, I used a K&Company design paper for the background and stamped the image onto green cardstock, embossed it with gold powder and colored with stickles. An easy one, but I love the bright colors, though it's not the traditional Hannukkah color scheme.



Again a piece of K&Company design paper, and this time I stamped the image twice: first with white Adirondack pigment ink, then (just a tiny little bit beside the first print) with Brilliance Galaxy Gold. This gives the image a bit more depth. I added some color with a golden glitter jelly pen and a blue marker. The sentiment is stamped on a blue tag, mounted on a golden tag.



And this is - tatatatahhhh - the last card in this little series: I took some double-sided adhesive tape, stuck it onto white cardstock and embossed the whole piece several times with gold embossing powder to create a thick layer. Then, while the layer was still hot and fluid, I stamped into it with black StazOn. If you try to do this, don't panick when the stamp sticks onto the embossing powder and it seems as if it never ever could be removed from it again... just wait until the embossing powder cooled down, then the stamp can be removed easily. The background paper is created with some blue cardstock which I ran through my Cuttlebug after having inked the embossing folder with Brilliance Galaxy Gold.

Which one is your favorite?