Welcome! I hope you had a great time last night kicking 2020 to the curb!!! And here we are with a fresh start, a bright outlook, and a rainbow colored card to celebrate a 2021 birthday! The January challenge at 2 Crafty Critter Crazies is sponsored by QKR Stampede, a division of Stamp On It.

They kindly provided me with this image, aptly named Party Cow. I had fun playing with this and this cute cow was easy to color up with my Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol. The patterned papers are from a 4×6″ paper pad from Hobby Lobby called Eat Cake that I have had *forever*. Almost all the papers have touches of glitter which are hard to see in photos, but give the card a special touch. I used 2 of the coordinating papers with some scrap cardstock in my stash. I used Simon Says Stamp stitched rectangle and oval die sets, as well as an old Spellbinders scalloped oval die set. The paper is busy and I wanted the focus to be on the image, but I couldn’t resist adding this fun, punny sentiment from an older My Favorite Things set called The Whole Herd die cut with banner dies from Creek Bank Creations. I thought this card already had so much going on that I really didn’t need any other embellishments, but I did assemble the card with foam tape to enhance the different layers. Here is another angle so you can see the dimension of the card.

The rest of the girls on the DT have created some fabulous projects and you can see them all by heading over to the 2 Crafty Critter Crazies challenge site! Then, when you make your first critter project for January, come back and enter it for a chance to win the prize from QKR Stampede. In the meantime, you can hit the Stamp On It site to see all the brands they carry and to see if there is anything there you would like to add to *your* collection! Thanks for visiting with me today and Happy New Year!!!

My friends, I am so sad to say that this is the *final* hop in the little group I put together oh so many months ago. What started as an avenue for bloggers to collaborate, turned into a little community of talented crafters who did their best every month to wow and amaze you, and many pf them have become my closest friends. All the while, they stuck to the premise of using the stash of supplies that we have all collected over the years and not used nearly enough. I have to say, seeing Justine Hovey and others on IG saying they are no longer trying to keep up with all the releases when they have so much they haven’t even used yet… well, it makes me feel like *maybe* we started a trend. *Maybe* we made people think about what they have stashed in closets and drawers, bins and shelves, and even still in the bag we bought it and brought it home in. And *maybe* that sparked a conversation, then another conversation, and another. Now don’t get me wrong, stamp companies aren’t going to slow things down while they still have folks throwing money at them… but if enough people reduced their spending they would reduce their releases so we could enjoy shopping instead of battling between FOMO and a depleted savings account. I can hope, anyway! Here I am, getting all sentimental about the hop, and you are just here for the cards! Wait no further…

I made today’s first card using primarily the Cool Christmas set from MFT, but as it didn’t have a squirrel image I also pulled in the We Must Celebrate set from Stampin’ Up! I thought if I can’t make a squirrel card, I should at least make a 4 snowman card with a squirrel!!! (You didn’t think I’d let the last month go without a squirrel, did you?!?) In case you are wondering, Marie is the red snowman (Christmas is her favorite thing ever (only 2nd to donuts), so I went with red), V’s fav color is Cobalt, Anna’s fav is Turquoise, and I can never decide between yellow or lime green, so I used both. When I realized the color spread, I just knew I had to make our snowman car purple to complete the rainbow along with the orange carrot noses! The images are colored with Prismacolor pencils and blended with Gamsol. Now for the background, I ink blended a little Distress Oxide Broken China and Hickory Smoke using hill templates I created out of printer paper. I traced over the snow drifts with a thick layer of Crystal Ice Stickles and pulled it out a bit with an old paintbrush to spread the sparkle across the snow. I also added Stickles to the trees for extra snowy sparkle! The images are almost all popped up on foam tape for dimension. I couldn’t have glued them flat if I wanted as the Stickles is really dimensional too. Here’s another look that captures the layers and sparkle of the card better.

And here’s a better look at the coloring… I added glossy accents to the hubcaps and carrot noses. The trees got a double coat of Stickles; Frosted Lace for the opaque white and Crystal for some iridescence!!! The 2nd coat was still wet while I was taking pictures 😊

I know it doesn’t look like it, but this card came together super quick and thankfully Stickles dries fast! It went so fast I actually had time to make a 2nd card. Check it out:

The snowy ground is glitter paper but the snowfall in the sky is BoBunny glitter paste with extra loose glitter added to help it match the paper. This card almost didn’t make the hop because when it was 95% done, I blundered with the sentiment, which was supposed to be stamped directly on the background. I was out of time to remake the background and almost threw it out. Rather than waste the time and effort, I punted and stamped the sentiment on white, die cut it, and matted it on the matching glitter paper. Not what I was shooting for, but still cute, no? What doesn’t show in the pic above is the iridescence of the glitter paper and how much green it has in it, which is why the snowman’s accessories are purple and green. Here is a better shot of the glitter:

I know I’ve spoiled you to expect 3 cards from me, but with Christmas we’re lucky I managed 2! Thank you to all of my fellow crafters who hunkered down and had a project and post ready to go in a week that had so many other demands for our time. I appreciate you more than you know!!! And a really big thanks to anyone who followed along, and maybe subscribed along the way. That totally makes all the work of posting worth it!!!

Happy Holidays everyone!!!

The December challenge at Jan’s Digi Stamps is going through January 3rd, so you still have plenty of time to entry your current crafty projects. Remember that the challenge is a truly Anything Goes challenge, so cards, layouts, home decor items, planner pages, pottery, sewing, and even Christmas cookies are all included!

For my card, I used an accessory image in the Holiday Sleigh set, shown below.

I’m still having health issues limiting my hands, so I used the precolored image from the set to make life easier. A little bit of printing, die cutting, and embossing, and the card was done with a little help from a retired paper pad by Recollections and some scrap cardstock. The sentiment was from a set in my stash. A few half pearls finished this card off nicely. Here’s another look at the card.

This card came together so easily, I whipped up a bonus card, this time using an accessory image from the Jan’s Digi Stamps set called Holly & Boo, shown below.

Again, I went with the preprinted version of the holly and pines in the set. I used 2 and simply rotated and positioned them to create opposing corners. A little printing, die cutting, and heat embossing the sentiment and this card was also done in a jiffy. Best part is, the patterned paper is part of the same 6×6 sheet I used in the first card, but this is the back side! Gotta love double sided paper! More scrap cardstock, mirror paper, and a handful of sequins to finish it up.

Please don’t forget to see what the rest of the team made today to inspire you, and check out the sale going on through Christmas at Jan’s Digi Stamps. I know its a busy time of year, but after you finish whipping up your last minute cards, handmade presents, tags, desserts, or just made yourself a new bookmark… pop over to the challenge and enter a photo of your project for a chance to win free digis. All the details are over at the Jan’s Digi Stamps challenge! It’s been my pleasure to design for Jan this year and I’m eager to see what new sets she comes out with in 2021.

That’s it for me today. I’ll be back before the end of the year, but I want to thank those of you who follow my tiny, little blog or Instagram account, and those who leave me comments and encouragement. This holiday season fills me with gratitude. And I hope that regardless of what you celebrate, or if you even celebrate at all, that you too can find gratitude for something in a year that tested us all.

Hey there, my critter loving, crafty peeps! It’s the start of a new month, which means the start of a new challenge at 2 Crafty Critter Crazies where its always Anything Goes with a critter! This month the challenge is sponsored by The Paper Shelter and the DT was provided with the same set to work with called My Little Dragon Army. It comes in b/w and precolored, and includes a coordinating background paper. Take a look at the image set:

I’m not gonna lie…. I was stumped with how to use the viking image and still make a card I could use for my family or friends in my life. I realized that while the viking and dragon overlapped, it wasn’t by much. A quick read of the Terms of Use from The Paper Shelter and I felt comfortable altering the image for my personal use. I opened the b/w version in Silhouette Studios and erased the viking girl and shield from around the dragon. Then I enlarged the dragon for a slimline card. This set does not include a sentiment, which left me to my own imagination. I surprised myself coming up with 2 ideas. I picked a font that matched the line weight of the image and looked medieval, and created 2 card fronts. The first one I colored is my favorite. Take a closer look:

I colored both images with Prismacolor pencils. This color combination above was inspired by the challenge at Catch The Bug. These are blended just with pencils, not with Gamsol.

The second card will be a birthday card for a friend who loves dragons and purple! Take a closer look:

I’m really pleased with how these turned out and that they are quite different from both the original image set and from what my teamies came up with. I’d love if you go to the 2 Crafty Critter Crazies challenge site to see the variety of projects with this set. And while you are there, be sure to enter your latest critter project in the challenge!!! And, you’ll want to visit the sponsor, The Paper Shelter, to see what else they have to offer! Thanks for visiting me today! I appreciate it so much!

I am submitting one of these cards to the following challenges:

• Catch the Bug – November Color Challenge – ends 10/31

At the risk of losing you on the *very* first sentence of this post, I am going to share a revelation I had… there are just 67 days to Christmas! Yikes!!! I have a bigger Christmas card list this year than ever before, so I need to get started and ASAP! And this is a great time to remind you that you have until November 1st to enter the Jan’s Digi Stamps Challenge. So with that, I present today’s card using this fun set from Jan’s Digi Stamps called Over the River.

I am going to get so much use out of this set!!! I love that the stack of presents can be used not just for Christmas but also for a birthday card too when paired with another sentiment. But for today’s card I used the car image and one of the three sentiments included in the set. I printed the black and white version of the image not knowing what patterned paper I would use and if the colored version would coordinate. I found this great village scene paper in my stash with non-traditional Christmas colors which I thought was fun. It made it a little tricky to color but it was good practice for my coloring mixing skills with Prismacolor pencils. In addition to colored pencils, I also added silver gel pen for the trim and I added Crystal Stickles to the snow in the image. My focal point was just the right size and shape to work with the current My Favorite Things sketch, so I cut some paper strips to use as the other elements. Here is a picture of the sketch #511:

The patterned paper and focal image were die cut with Pink and Main Rounded Stitched Rectangle dies. The lighter green strip of paper is actually white paper covered in Evergreen Bough Distress Oxide ink as I didn’t have cardstock to match and the pink and green together was a little… much. The focal is popped up in fun foam for dimension. I’m actually really pleased with how this turned out and it reminds me of a custom, mint colored VW Bug an ex-boyfriend had back when I was in high school. I was thrilled to find that I had sequins in my stash that matched, and the shimmer of the Stickles has a pink and green flecks to the glitter that just makes this card come together in real life!!! I know the picture doesn’t do it justice, but you know I just gotta try to share the shimmer in a close up (or two)!

That’s it for me, but you, my friends, still have work to do!!! LOL! You should hop over to the Jan’s Digi Stamps Challenge to see what beautiful creations my teamies made for you! And while you are there, you should link up your most recent project or two in the challenge! We are truly an Anything Goes challenge so it need not include digi stamps or paper…. your latest quilt, beaded project, crocheted scarf, or baked cookies are perfect entries too. Whatever your craft, you can enter it here for a chance to win Jan’s digis from the Jan’s Digi Stamps Store! And you can enter up to 5 times per challenge, so remember to come back again throughout the month. I hope you have gotten a start on your holiday cards so you can relax and try to enjoy the Christmas season in this strange year. Cards have never been more important than now, when we can’t always see our friends and family but we can always let them know they are in our hearts when we send them a card made *just* for them!

I am entering this card in the following challenges:

• My Favorite Things Sketch Challenge – #511 – ends 10/20
• Crafty Creations – October – #414 – Anything Goes – ends 11/3
• Creative Moments – #200 – Anything Goes – ends 10/20
• Fezziwigs Festive Frolics – Christmas Textures – ends 10/20 NP
• The Paper Funday – October – #22 – Anything Goes – ends 11/1
• Word Art Wednesday – #460-461 – Anything Goes – ends 10/20
• Crafty Sentiment Designs – Anything Goes – ends 10/19
• Digi Choosday – Week 41 – Anything Goes – ends 10/22
• Ike’s World – #137 – V is for Vehicles – ends 11/3
• TTCRD – October 13 – Anything Goes – ends 10/20
• Colouring in Scrapland – October – Anything Goes – ends 11/1
• Corrosive Challenge – #10 – Anything Goes – ends 10/30
• A Gem of a Challenge – Week 21 – Anything Goes – ends 10/20
• Jingle Belles – I’m Dreaming of a Pink Christmas – ends 10/22 NP but for Breast Cancer Awareness
• Crafters Cafe – #253 – Use Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness – ends 10/30
• Creatalicious – #197 – Anything Goes – ends 10/30
• Creative Inspirations – October – Anything Goes – ends 11/3
• Christmas Kickstart – #40 – Pink Christmas – ends 10/26
• A Bit More Time to Craft – #126 – Anything Goes – ends 10/30
• A Perfect Time to Craft – October – #10 – ends 10/28
• Artsy Stamper – October – Travel – ends 10/31
• Crafts Galore Encore – October – #80 – Anything Goes – ends 10/30
• Crafty Hazelnut’s Patterned Paper – October – ends 10/31
• Crafty Hazelnut’s Christmas – #512 – Anything Christmas Goes – 10/23
• CCC Digis – #119 – Anything Goes – ends 10/31
• Colour Crazy – Week 41 – Anything Goes – ends 10/31
• 12 Months of Christmas – #70 – Colour Challenge – ends 10/31
• Color My Heart Color Dare – #415 – ends 10/22
• Cardz TV – #125 – Anything Goes – ends 10/22
• Little Patch of Crafty Friends – #144 – Anything Goes – ends 10/30
• Polkadoodles – Week #42 – Anything Goes – ends 10/27

I’m always so excited to bring this post to you each month! This is my favorite project to work on because it not only makes me use all the goodies I’ve squirreled away but I get to share with you some of the best crafters you will ever find but may never of heard of before! Our little hop group has SO much talent! And its always fun to see their takes on the monthly prompts. If you haven’t been here before, welcome to my little home on the internet! If you arrived here from Martha Lucia Gomez of Joy Clair fame, than you have already seen some of the goodness this hop produces! After me, your next stop is the spectacular and talented Danielle Brown, who designs for Joy Clair and Dare 2B Artzy! You don’t want to miss out on her post!!! I’ll link to her again at the end too for your convenience, as well as the full hop schedule. This month the prompt is Halloween/Fall cards and/or Sequins. So many possibilities! Let’s get to it!

It wouldn’t be a Collected Crafty Collabs hop if I didn’t include a squirrel image (or two)! I started with this adorable squirrel from Gerda Steiner’s Happy Fall and colored him with Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol. For the background, I used an assortment of Distress Oxides and ink blended on bristol paper. I wanted to die cut leaves, and glue them on the card base in the same place they were cut from the ink blended panel so I made a template with copy paper to help me. It would take longer to type out the steps than it did to do it and I know y’all have probably done this yourselves so we’ll skip the details (if questions, pop them in the comments!). I then *painstakingly* glued color coordinating sequins to the die cuts and adhered the negative ink blended piece over top with with foam tape. I die cut a larger leaf out of vellum to ground my little squirrel, added a sentiment strip, popped it up on the front and this card was complete! Here is a closer look:

This process gave me another idea, so the overachiever in me whipped up another card! Same, but different!

This time I simplified the process by making it a shaker card. I randomly ink blended a bristol card panel, this time with another assortment of Oxides. Again I die cut a bunch of the leaf dies but this time we’re not using them for the background. Instead, I ink blended a lighter color on the card front to shine through the apertures. I added acetate and foam tape to the front panel, making small wells for each die cut leaf. I added a ton of sequins and microbeads to each well and then lined up my ink blended card base and pressed to secure all those shiny goodies within! I used sentiments from Neat & Tangled’s Into the Woods (which sadly does not have a squirrel image) and (bravely) stamped directly on the ink blended piece. Had I not forgotten to stamp the sentiment until it was assembled, I would have heat embossed the sentiment. Here is another view of the card:

And because I can’t help myself (and I have more squirrel sets than we have months in the hops) I have a 3rd card for you!

Sweet, right? This uses a scene stamp from Darcie’s called Autumn Scene and a sweet squirrel from the Hello Bluebird Woodland Littles set. I could have masked the squirrel into the scene but I didn’t think of it until it was too late so I fussy cut him out. Once again I used my Prismacolor pencils for the coloring on this card. I stamped a background stamp from Impression Obsession aptly called Woodgrain directly on the kraft card base. I used another IO set called Gourdous for the small sentiment, which was die cut with a Creek Band Creations tag die. I added a tiny twine bow and of course the monthly prompt of sequins! Here is a closeup:

I could have made another 3 cards for Halloween if I had started sooner, but I simply ran out of time. I did not come anywhere near close to running out of sequins… those things must multiply in the drawer! OK, as promised here is your hop list:

• Karen Page – YOU ARE HERE
• Danielle Brown
• Charlotte Ehrukainen
• Yvette Olea
• Anna Mahtani
• Teresa Russell
• Donna Perisic
• Boryana Yankova
• Marie Bingaman
• Lisa Cmay
• Lounon Riviere
• Tracy Shultz
• Virginia Fairchild
• Valerie Powell
• Mary Ellen Driggs
• Natasha Davies
• Sam McLean
• Martha Lucia Gomez

Thanks for visiting me today! Subscribe if you like what you see or check me out on IG @misplacedmojo to follow me there! I hop you take the 20 mins or so to hop along because I know you will be blown away!!!

I am submitting one of these cards to the following challenges:

• Colour Crazy – Week #37 – Anything Goes
• Crafty Catz – #520 – Anything Goes w/opt Colors of Autumn
• Cut it Up – #209 – Happy Fall Y’all + at least 3 layers
• Crafty Gals Corner – #211 – Fall Colors
• Mod Squad – Autumn Foliage
• Simon Says Stamp – Animal Antics
• The Card Concept – #140 – Fanciful Fall (classy & elegant… well, for a squirrel card!)

• The Paper Funday – #21 – Anything Goes w/opt Autumn/Fall
• Always Fun Challenge – #182 – Die Cutting
• Bastel Traum – #93 – Autumn – ends 10/15
• Creative Craft Cottage – #133 – Add an Animal
• Kleurin Met Potloden – September – Animals
• The Crafting Challenge – September – Anything Goes
• 613 Avenue Create – September Anything Goes – ends 10/2
• Stamping Sensations – September – The Great Outdoors