OLS22 A Multitude of Gratitude

Tonight's post helps kick off the last One-Layer Simplicity Challenge of 2015! We're so excited to be celebrating two years of this monthly challenge and hope you'll choose to play along with us.

After all, it's a very practical challenge.

For OLS22, we're focusing on thanks and gratitude...for anything. You may, of course, make standard thank-you cards (holiday images and thank-you sentiments might come in handy about two months from now), or you may put your thinking cap on and find outside-the-box expressions of thanks, such as my card currently on the OLS blog. Here's a little teaser for it!

You'll need to click over to the OLS22 post to see the full card in all its one-layered, blinged glory!

I hope you'll play along this month!

A Very Deer Christmas

Fair Isle Motifs from Papertrey is such a warm and wonderful set. Here's a deer card that is simple and festive in red, green, and gold.  Awww. Isn't the heart sweet?

If you're interested in some non-scary ghost stories, you might enjoy my current post on my other blog Questioning my Intelligence.

Have a happy Halloween!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Fair Isle Motifs, Keep It Simple Christmas
ink: Memento Luxe
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: metal ruler, gold metallic pen (PrismaColor), craft foam, glue

There Are No Mistakes

...only opportunities for embellishment.

While playing around with Fair Isle Motifs from Papertrey, I tried to use the two-step stamps in the set. There is a tiny, four-stitch stamp that fits (supposedly) into the center of the largest design. My idea was to add a spot of red to the center of the gray motif, but OF COURSE I lined it up crooked and it looked ugly.

Very ugly.

Two-step stamping and I have a history. A dysfunctional history. Too many mistakes like this one. Too many groans of frustration.

So then, I thought, "Hey, what about stamping a larger center for the design on a scrap, punching it out with a circle punch, and covering up embellishing the mistake?"

And a card was born.

YAY!

Supplies
stamps: Fair Isle Motifs (Papertrey), Everyday Wishes (StampinUp)
ink: Memento Luxe
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: circle punch, dimensionals

An Even More Unconventional Color Scheme and a Funny Story or Two

One of my aunts loves the color purple, and as I contemplated this fact for her Christmas card, my first thought was snowflakes. Then, I found the Fair Isle Motifs stamp set from Papertrey, and this card was born.

The ombre effect was achieved using two shades on a Kaleidacolor ink pad. The dark purple ink pad was on the bottom of the row of pads, the lighter shade the next pad up. I simply inked half the stamp by tamping it repeatedly on the pad, moving the stamp slightly up and down to get a good blend of the two shades. Then, I turned the stamp upside down and repeated the process. This gave the strip of dark purple across the middle of the design, fading to light purple top and bottom. It took three different impressions to make the border.

Isn't the effect pretty cool?!? I love this for my aunt and know she will completely appreciate it. I also love that the card is so interesting yet completely, absolutely flat. No problems mailing this whatsoever!

Now for the funny stories. Y'all know that my younger son, Jack, is on the autism spectrum, which means he has difficulty with metaphorical or figurative language...he tends to take people's words very literally. We were driving to Barnes & Noble (a common occurrence in our lives) after having stopped at McD's (not so common) to get Jack fries and a cookie. (Don't judge my parenting until you walk a mile in my shoes...people with autism often have food issues. Jack makes Mikey from the old Life cereal commercials look like a gourmand.)

Anyway, my husband George called Jack a cookie monster, and Jack was offended. We tried to explain that George wasn't insulting him. Anyone who really likes cookies can be called a cookie monster...we weren't trying to offend him, just making an observation. He shot back, "Do I look like I have blue fur to you?"

And that put us in our place.

Our older son is quite amusing as well. Nick did a lab report on an experiment with a soda-bottle biome, in which he had to grow various plants and keep a fish and cricket alive. In the Discussion section of the report, he wrote: "The carrot plant grew but then died. We suspect the cricket."

He's doing extremely well in biology. I think I'd really enjoy having coffee and conversation with his teacher!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Fair Isle Motifs, Keep It Simple Christmas
paper: Papertrey white
ink: Kaleidacolor
accessories: none

Let's Get Unconventional

A Blue Christmas need not be sad at all, especially when you tweak the shade of blue and dress it up with silver!

I love the contrast between the soft blue mistletoe and the dark teal berries. The teal--just a shade off from standard holiday/winter blue--really is a fresh surprise on this card. 

There's a lot of movement going on in the border, and the bold "Joy" balances the berries perfectly, making the sentiment the focal point of the card and unifying the two elements that don't touch each other at all. 

Joy to the world, indeed!

Thanks to all who shared their favorite holiday/winter images. I just love the variety in the answers and am so grateful we have such a selection to choose from in our hobby. 

Today's question: 

Do you enjoy playing with unconventional colors or do you stick to traditional green and red (or blue and silver) for your holiday cards? 

Supplies

stamps: Papertrey, Altnew

ink: Impress Fresh Ink, Memento Luxe

paper: Papertrey

accessories: silver metallic pen, ruler

Jolly Holly and Mistletoe and a Random Question

Today's card has an in-and-out thing going on. The outside of the card is extremely clean and simple, with not an image in sight...just sentiment.

This sentiment is from the Holly and Mistletoe set from Papertrey, which is dominated by two very large stamps...one of holly and the other mistletoe. Duh. Anyway, the big stamps are hard for me to work with, but I love the fonts of the sentiments.

For the inside of the card, I decorated the two lower corners with holly from Papertrey's Holly Jolly set, leaving plenty of space for a handwritten sentiment.

Here's today's random question: What are your favorite winter/holiday-themed images? Holly, mistletoe, nativity scenes, poinsettias, candy canes, snowflakes, snowmen, deer, palm trees, something else entirely? Inquiring minds, and all that jazz....

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey
ink: Memento Luxe, Impress Fresh Ink
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: gridded acrylic block because lining up the three stamps in that sentiment so precisely can't be done without it

Christmas Cards and Pears

My friend Francie M. posted on Facebook that she didn't feel inspired to make Christmas cards this year, despite having purchased new product to work with, so she'd be sending out store-bought cards.

I love this. 

We need to listen to ourselves and take care of ourselves at all times, but especially during the holidays. The insidious push to have a perfectly Pinterest Christmas is unkind to us. Do we hold others to such unrealistic expectations? No. Yet we expect we can "do it all"...and exhaust ourselves.

Last Christmas, I shifted some things around and had a mostly minimalist Christmas, although I gave in to my enthusiasm for decorating our house. It was delightful and balanced! This year, I'm actually excited about shopping for presents for the first time in years, and I've already started. Not sure where this enthusiasm is coming from, but it's there, so I'm taking advantage. The thought of decorating, however, seems less interesting, so the halls won't be nearly as decked this year as last.

It's all good. 

I knew months ago that I'd never have enough Christmas cards made for this year. Our list is very long (a consequence of my husband's military career), so today I bought my first box of cards at Barnes & Noble. No guilt. No stress.

The fact that people still send cards is wonderful. Who cares if they are handmade, store-bought, or unsigned photo cards? Someone thinks enough of me to spend time and postage. I'm so very grateful!!! I hope they are, too.

On an unrelated topic, my friend Joan posted recently about making cards for non-crafters, offering a refreshingly honest look at what we do and how some people just don't get it. Her words got me thinking and made me look at the Crane and Papyrus notecards...the "quality" brands people spend gobs of money on...for inspiration.

What I saw dovetailed nicely with a strategy I've used to produce more Christmas cards faster by coming up with an extremely simple design and making 6 or 8 of them. 

Today's card is one of a set of eight I made using a Papertrey set called Wet Paint Holidays. 

Card Size: 4 7/8" x 3 3/8"

The envelope has the earth map stamp from Masculine Motifs, also from Papertrey. 

Keeping it simple makes me so very, very happy. And hopefully, the thick card stock and crisp stamping give the impression of a nice Papyrus card. 

Now, onto the pears. Some of you may not know about my pear "issue." If you're curious, check out this post from 2009. Since that post, people have sent me LOTS of cards with pears on them, some pear stamps, links to particularly disturbing pears, and pear jokes. 

I can't eat a pear without laughing...or cutting it up into slices first. 

Anyway, my friend Leslie H. has her own popular blog and was stamping with friends when she made this card. Her friends, who also read Simplicity, told her to send it to me. She did. And it's now hanging next to this card on my inspiration board. 

Because life is short, and pears make me laugh!

Thanks, Leslie! 

Supplies

stamps: Papertrey Wet Paint Holiday, Masculine Motifs

ink: Hero Arts cornflower, Memento Danube blue

paper: Papertrey White

accessories: none