Holiday collage...

i've been on a creative spree the last couple of weeks, and i'm loving it. i haven't had tons of time to craft, but when i have i just felt like i was in the zone. Here are a few cards i've made recently...

These first two are CASEd from a card in the Nov/Dec 2005 issue of RubberStampMadness; the artist is Hannamaija Teisko. There's no online link to her card (that i know of) and i'm not going to scan in another artist's work without permission. i only tweaked it slightly, adding some script behind the images rather than the gold mesh she used. i also used different stamps. The above card uses gold accents, like hers, and the card below differs only in that i used silver. Oh, and obviously, her card did not include the PTI sentiment.

Ingredients: watercolor paper; CS - stash; stamps (hold on,there's a lot of them!) - Limited Edition's Women Trio, Stampendous' Leafy Silhouettes, Inkadinkado (script), foam architectural stamps from Michael's (i don't have the original packaging and can't remember who makes these!), Typewriter Alphabet by Rebecca Sower from Nostalgiques, sentiment from PTI's Take a Bough, little stars from TT's Loves Me, Loves Me Not; ink - Ranger Archival, Versamark; watercolor paint; embossing pen; EP - Ranger; gold ribbon by Offray, silver fiber - unknown; Stickles; envie from PTI.

This card follows the same idea but with a few adjustments. The only supplies that differ here are a few of the stamps, but all come from some of the above sets with the exception of the "rays" above the woman's head; that one is from the now defunct A La Carte Art Stamps - it's the top half of a vintage stamp. Also, the letters that make up "dream" come from Making Memories' magnetic Rummage alphabet set. Oh, and i added some chalk to the card base.

These cards are super-easy and fun to make. i started with a piece of watercolor paper and randomly added watercolor paints in two colors. After the paint dried, i stamped to my heart's content, keeping the images close together so that i could get a lot into the square when i punched the paper with my 1 3/8" square punch. Some of the images i embossed, others i just stamped. Then i just adhered the squares as i liked to the card base (which i either chalked or stamped and embossed) and added any words or ribbon. You end up with a nice collaged effect that looks like it took a ton of time but really was fairly quick and easy. Ofcourse, leave it to me to find a way to make "quick and easy" take forever - i spent over two days on these three cards! Haha..

Thanks for stopping by! Hope everyone's doing well and having a fabulous day!