More Merry Monday... and a Scramble today!!

Yay - it's the weekend!  I couldn't resist playing again in this week's Merry Monday Challenge to incorporate a house on your Christmas card.  I chose to use an older Hero Arts/Basic Grey set called Happy Holidays for both of these cards:

I just love the cross stitched sentiments and sweet houses in this set, don't you?  I started by white embossing the sentiment, then overstamped with the Tiny Ink Spots background from Hero Arts using Picket Fence Distress Paint from Tim Holtz.  I didn't like the dots around the letters so I took a bit of alcohol on a cotton ball and wiped it off in a swirling motion, leaving a bit of white.  Then I masked off the sentiment and restamped a bit off the first stamping to get a blurry snowstorm effect.  I cut a stitched hillside with a die from Lawn Fawn, stamped and cut out my houses, added some string - done.

This next one started as a CAS on a white card base.  Ugh - random ink on my acrylic block blobbed on my white card!  So I cut the panel down to a small rectangle and matted it; adhered with foam tape to a red card base stamped with a cling background Notebook Paper from Hero Arts.  Put a piece of Scotch washi tape behind the house image and some tiny gems on the flowers - done.

That was my morning, other than a quick trip to Target for a "few" things (which always ends up being more things!!).  Then this afternoon, we had a Scramble on the Hero Arts Flickr Group.  Leni hosted and offered us the theme of using an animal on our card.  I was very excited with this theme as I've been trying to design a Valentine around this darling little dog from a Hero Arts clear set called Life is Not Perfect.  Besides the fun sentiment for the doggie, another fave in this set is "It takes a long time to become young" - so great on a birthday card.  Here's my Valentine and I hope my friend Heather's son Adam doesn't see this one - it's going to him next month!!

I used a speech bubble from a Hero Arts cling set called Psst! but it was a bit long so I cut it down and hand drew the left and right edges.  The postage stamp heart is from a cling set called Untitled Hearts - love this one, especially for Valentines!  The patterned papers came from My Mind's Eye 6x6 pad Happy Day, except for the red strip at the bottom - that's a bit of Basic Grey Evergreen - who says you can't use Christmas paper on a Valentine :)

Well, it's been a crafty day so far.  I'd better head back to clean up the mess - Scrambling tends to make a big one!  Thanks for stopping!