Just us Girls - WILD CARD Challenge #5 (and Blog Candy!)

It is already Just Us Girls Challenge #5! WOW - seems like only yesterday we were planning and discussing and launching our new site. You ladies have made this challenge ROCK! I love the players we have seen coming back - it's so GREAT to have a group of "regulars" already.  We have quite a group of followers, too! Be sure to pop over to our DT blogs --> see sidebar --> and follow them (and me) as well!

OK let's get to today's challenge - since this is the 5th Saturday in the month it's a WILD CARD challenge. (Anything the hostess wants) and we are delighted to have the very talented Kristin Bueter as our hostess with the mostest this week.

OK - so your challenge for this week is stated above - you are to create a holiday card that incorporates a photo. Oh - so you also noticed that there is some Blog Candy, too eh? (grin) Well, I TOLD you that Kristin is highly talented and she has created a set of DIGITAL IMAGES and EVERY participant who follows the rules this week will receive this special digital image set as our thank you for kicking off a fantastic first month of challenges!!!!! Is that COOL or what:!:! We will also, of course, have our top pick, "Chic of the Week" award for someone as well!

Here's my rather long explanation of how my card came about  - I really had fun (and frustrations) trying to create what I had in my head but I was struggling to get onto paper. I fell IN LOVE with Kristin's lamp post image and immediately thought of a street scene with several of them. SO that's what I was trying to capture - it's the beauty of digital images - being able to size them as you want but it's also the frustration of trying to be artistic and clever when I don't have that kind of training. I knew WHAT I wanted to make but the actual making of it was hard.

The idea here was to create a "foggy" scene of several lamp posts along a sidewalk. I created the "scene" with the images on my computer then printed it out on good quality white cardstock. I chose to use my gold Jelly Roll pen for goldish/bronze lamp posts instead of black or gray for a touch of elegance. I colored the images with my Copics then used a versamark pen and clear embossing powder and embossed all the lamp posts. Next up was to sponge a "fog" scene - I used Bashful Blue, Almost Amethyst and London Fog inks to create mine. A touch of barely banana sponging on the lights themselves to make the lamps "glow". The sentiment mentions "quiet" and "peaceful" which fit my scene (or the scene in my head at least). I added a few pearls to the wreaths for that elegant look as well.

Next up is layer ONE of the inside (yes there is more than one) - I wanted to showcase the lamppost again - it's SO beautiful and I also wanted to include another sentiment here as well.  I wanted you to see the gold post but that caused a bit of a glare on the wreath when I photographed it - so the wreath looks washed out but it's not IRL. It's really beautiful if you see it in person.

 

Here you can see that there is more - there is another layer under the lamp post layer - and THAT is where I put my photo.  We traditionally take a family photo every Thanksgiving so this is actually last year's photo since we have not yet done one for this year.

Just HOW MANY of us can we fit in the Mini Cooper!?!? Looks like we got SIX of us in. What a lot of fun this was.  SO - I will admit - this challenge was really hard for me because I don't do handcrafted holiday cards - I send WAY too many to do that so I still use the photo card and computer generated labels and letter but I do try to write a personal note in each card. The only handcrafted holiday cards I usually make are thank you cards. Maybe someday I'll get ambitious enough to make all my holiday cards by hand, especially with the kids moving out on their own.

Remember, if you play along with us this week and post your creation to Mr. Linky you, too, can receive this digital image set! 

Our special GUEST DESIGNER for this week is Tammy Hershberger - Why do we have a guest designer? Well the sentiment "Happy Holidays" in our digital stamp set give away was written BY Tammy in her handwriting (Oooh a teacher's delight that writing!) and then made into a digital stamp by Kristin - now isn't that just the best???

Ok - hop on over to the rest of the Just Us Girls Design Team and see what they have cooked up for you for our WILD CARD week.

Dana

Kristin

Lisa

Mona

Maria

Tracey

BE SURE to go to Mr. Linky on the JUGS site and provide a DIRECT LINK to the project on your blog or online gallery (use keyword JUGS5).   We can't wait to see what you come up with!! Have a wonderful and safe weekend and week ahead.