Time for Another CenterStage Spotlight Challenge Blog Hop

Wow! Where has November gone?! I can't believe our last CenterStage Spotlight Challenge Hop was on November 4 and that was the last time I posted here! Thanksgiving is over?! Really? How can that be! Even worse -- Christmas is less than a month away and I'm totally unprepared. It has been such a busy month and I've had very little time to do anything for the holidays. I'm hoping to have a bit more time in the coming weeks to do some 'creative' things. If I don't, people may be getting New Year's cards from me instead of Christmas cards!

Here is one Christmas card I can add to my stack. I made this for tonight's challenge blog hop. It was fun to stamp and color on patterned paper, although I have to admit I didn't end up doing a lot of coloring! LOL! Take a look at the card both inside and out. All card info is below. Be sure to hop along and see all the gorgeous things the past and present Spotlight team members have made and are sharing tonight.


This is the outside of the card, which was difficult to photograph because the ornament is covered with Crystal Lacquer. I stamped the ornament onto the candy cane striped paper and then stamped the sentiment in the middle. I colored the lines with a red copic and covered them with red crystal lacquer. I sprinkled glitter onto the wet lacquer and then used clear lacquer on the rest of the ornament. Since the dp wasn't very heavy, I got some wrinkling from the lacquer. If I were going to make this again I'd adhere the dp to some heavier stock before cutting it out and putting the lacquer on it. I taped the silver cord to the back of the ornament and then popped it up on pop dots. Note the ivory frame here and the green striped frame on the inside of the card. These are the left over pieces from cutting out the Top Note die on the Big Shot. I went to a holiday card making event and we made some cards that used the center piece but I decided to keep the frames just in case I could make use of them and I did! I like it when I can "recycle" pieces like that!

Here is the inside of the card. The ornaments are blinged up with Spica red, green, clear, and silver pens. I never embellish the insides of may cards so this was quite a challenge for me!

Card Recipe:

Card base: SU Riding Hood Red
DP: All from SU
Large ornament and Merry and Bright sentiment: Holiday Hospitality from Gina K. Designs
Happy Holidays sentiment: Holiday Cheer Stamp TV Kit - Holiday Greetings set
Small ornaments on inside: Vintage Borders set from Gina K Designs
Embellishments: Silver Cord from Gina K Designs; brads from Basic Grey Wassail; ribbon from SU

It's time for another CenterStage Spotlight Challenge Blog hop!

Hostess: Jessica Fick {Design Team Coordinator} Theme: Stamp and color the image on Patterned Paper { any occasion card acceptable, it doesn't have to be Christmas themed} { image may be cut out and layered, but must be stamped and colored on patterned paper} Requirement: any GinaK Designs stamp set & Glitter Bonus Challenge: decorate the inside of your card to coordinate

Participating Designer's links:

Brenda Turner Carla Suto, Carolina Buchting,

Cheri Weston Deb Felts Geri Utterback , Giovana Smith, Gina Krupsky Janice Melton, JenMarie Taylor, Jennie Harper, Joy Hadden, Karen Knegten Kay Simmons, Linda Payne, Lori McAree, Melisa Waldorf, Melissa Cash, Melissa Shultz, Nina Brackett, Pam Imholz, Peggy Wainman, Selma Stevenson, Shannon Bracken, Sharri Seffens

Sue Morris Sue VanDeVusse Sue Walsh, Tina Gilliland

Center Stage Spotlight Design Team Past and Present Blog Hop

Welcome to our first Center Stage Spotlight Design Team Blog Hop!

Jessica Fick, the Design Team Coordinator for GinaK Designs has issued a challenge to all of the past and present team CSS team members to make a Christmas card with one of these sketches:

I'm so excited to be able to participate in this hop tonight as a past design team member! I chose to make a card that follows the more "embellished" sketch. Here it is:

I used Pure Luxury Rocket Red as my card base and Pure Luxury Ivory as the next layer. I embossed the ivory layer with the Cuttlebug Snowflakes folder and then randomly colored some of the snowflakes with a Stardust Pure Glitter pen. I used Tim Holtz's Distress Ink in Antique Linen around the edges of the snowflake layer as well as around the edges of the focal images circle. I used a strip of the Rocket Red with a piece of music paper from the Cosmo Cricket Jolly by Golly paper pack layered on top of it under the focal image. The scalloped circle is Pure Luxury All Spruced Up and the plain circle is Pure Luxury Ivory again.

I stamped the house image, which is from the Gina K Designs set, Let It Snow, with Memento Tuxedo Black and colored it with Copics. I sponged the sky with Memento London Fog and Paris Dusk. I added some falling snow to the sky with a white gel pen. The snow on the ground, rooftops and trees was created with crystal snow glitter by Stampendous. The oval was punched out using a Stampin' Up punch, was edged with Vivid Dye Ink Brick and "peace" from Let It Snow was stamped with the Vivid Brick ink also. The two buttons are from the Gina K. Holiday button assortment collection.

This was a really fun sketch to play with and I can't wait to try a couple of other variations with it. Now hop along and see what other Design Team members have created for tonight's hop! You're going to LOVE what everyone has designed!

First, here are the links for GinaK's Current CSS Team Members:

Deb Felts
Diana S. Queen
Karen Knegten
Melissa Cash
Sharri Seffens
Sue VanDeVusse

and the links for all of the past CSS Design Team members participating:

Brenda Turner,
Carla Suto,
Carolina Buchting,
Charlene Merrick,
Dawn Lusk,
DeeMarie Kelemen,
Geri Utterback ,
Giovanna Smith,
Janice Melton,
JenMarie Taylor,
Jennie Harper,
Joy Hadden,
Kay Simmons,
Linda Payne,
Lori McAree,
Melisa Waldorf,
Pam Imholz,
Selma Stevenson,
Shannon Bracken,
Shelly Wilson,
Sue Walsh,
Tina Gilliland

Some of GinaK's Senior Design Team Members and Illustrators wanted to get in on the fun tonight too:

Asela Hopkins
Carolyn King
Cindy Lawrence
Jessica Fick
Lee Murphy
Lynn Mercurio
Nina Brackett
Melanie Muenchinger

along with Nina Brackett's Guest Designer: Lisa Hjulberg

Last but not least, don't forget to visit Gina over at http://blog.ginakdesigns.com/

All of these gorgeous cards from the entire team will be added to the StampTV gallery throughout the next few days with the tag cssjf1 (which stands for center stage spotlight jessica fick 1)

These sketches are also our sketch challenge for this week, so be sure to check out all the information in the discussion in our Challenge group over on StampTV Thursday morning. We'd love to see your cards with the sketch too!

It Has Been a While . . .

It has been a few weeks since I last posted here. I haven't been making cards during that time for several reasons. I have been extremely busy at my job, working on a large proposal that was finally submitted TODAY! Yahoo! I'm so glad that is out the door! Now just keep your fingers crossed that we hear something positive about getting the grant! It will mean four years of jobs, work, and money for the company at which I work so we are very much hoping we will get it.

On top of the proposal work, I have been spending a lot of time running back and forth from where I live to my parents' home, which is two and a half hours away. My almost 82 year old father had three bypasses done on his heart last week so he and my mother have needed a lot of extra help.

So, I have had very little time to spend with my stamps recently. It makes me an unhappy camper when I don't have time to play in my stamping room so I was very excited to get back to it last night. I can't share yet what I made -- it is for a special blog hop that will be happening tomorrow night! Stay tuned and stop back to join in on the hop!

Thanks for stopping by! See you back here tomorrow! :)

Warm Winter Wishes Blog Hop

Tonight is my last blog hop as part of the Center Stage Spotlight Design Team. This is the official end to my 'duties' as part of the design team. I'm sad that it has come to end because I really had a blast being on the CSS. I hope to have the chance to do it again sometime or to participate on another design team. I learned a lot and had a great time. I'm really looking forward to finding out who the next lucky group is to be named to the Center Stage Spotlight! I'm sure we'll be hearing soon!

Now on to tonight's blog hop card. Tonight we are featuring the stamp set, Warm Winter Wishes, created by Carolyn King. This is, of course, one of my favorites because it has a snowman in it. I've already mentioned on a previous blog post that I collect snowmen so any stamp set that has one will find its way into my stamp room!

Do you ever find inspiration for your cards in odd places? My card was inspired by a bottle of bath gel that has been in my shower since last holiday season (I guess I don't use the stuff very much! LOL!). I was in the shower this morning thinking about the card I would make for this blog hop and I looked at the bottle and had one of those aha moments! The bath gel is from Bath & Body Works and is called Twisted Peppermint. The gel is a reddish-pink color and the bottle has three triangular trees in silver and red designs with peppermint stripes. For some reason I suddenly saw a card done in those colors with lots of bling. So, that is where the idea for my card was born!

Here it is:

To make this card I used Pure Luxury Rocket Red for the base and Pure Luxury Pure White for the next layer. I stamped the snowflakes onto the white paper with Versamark and then embossed them with a white EP that has silver mixed into it. I used my brayer to ink up the sky using Memento London Fog. All of the designer paper I used on the card is from the Cosmo Cricket Jolly by Golly pack. I stamped the coffee mug and two trees onto dp and cut them out. I also stamped the tree on Pure Luxury Silver Lining and cut that out. (The tree stamps are from the fabulous set by Nina Brackett, "Lord of the Season") The ground cover is also a piece of dp from Jolly by Golly that has these great curves in the design so it is perfect for cutting out and using on a card like this. I stamped the snowman with Memento Tuxedo Black onto Pure Luxury Pure White base weight paper, colored him, and cut him out. I purposely used base weight for the snowman because I knew I was going to cut him out and pop him up so I wanted him to be a bit more substantial.

As you can see, I got kind of carried away with all the bling on this card! LOL! It just seemed like it should be 'blingy'! I colored the snowman's scarf, hat, and holly with Spica pens to make them glittery. Even his nose is colored with an orange Spica! The trees have silver and red brads for some of their ornaments and Christmas Red and Frosted Lace Stickles for other ornaments. I used the Frosted Lace Stickles to put snow under the trees and in various places on the ground. I hope you can see all the sparkle in the photo -- it was a bit hard to photograph because of all that sparkle!

For even more inspiration visit Carolyn King - the Illustrator of Warm Winter Wishes and the Idea Center gallery HERE.

Then, check in with Carolyn's special guest designers:

Charlene Merrick

Tina Gilliland

Deb Anton

And, finally stop by these GinaK Designer's blogs participating in the hop tonight:

Cathy Tidwell
Cindy Lawrence
Emily Giovanni
Erika Martin
Jessica Fick
Kurtis Amundson
Lee Murphy
Nina Brackett
Melanie Muenchinger
Tami Mayberry
Theresa Momber

and our CenterStage Spotlight Team:

Joy Hadden
Kay Simmons
Linda Payne
Lori McAree

GinaK will be giving away a copy of Warm Winter Wishes on her blog tonight - so pop over there to leave your comment on her blog for your chance to win the set for free! (If you've already purchased the stamp set, we can swap it out for another GinaK stamp set valued at $19.95 or less.)

Special Delivery Blog Hop Tonight

Tonight we are featuring the fun stamp sets of Tami Mayberry whose first two sets for Gina K Designs were part of the September release. They are Special Delivery and the Add-on set that coordinates with Special Delivery. As part of the September Center Stage Spotlight Design Team for Gina K Designs, these were the sets I helped to preview before they were released. If you go back to late September you'll see that I had a holiday card made with these sets but tonight I made a baby card with the same set! This is quite an unconventional baby card -- kind of bold and wild but it was fun to make and I look forward to giving it to just the right someone when they have a new little one. Don't know who that will be yet but I know it will be perfect for someone!


This card was made using Stampin' Up Green Gable as the base card and for the scalloped circle. The yellow layer, circle, and strip are all made from Stampin' Up Yo-Yo Yellow. That crazy dp is from the wonderful Basic Grey Lime Rickey paper pack (I just love that collection; some great colors and designs!). I stamped the Sweet One image with Gable Green ink from SU on Pure Luxury Pure White layering weight paper and punched it out with the SU scalloped punch. The postage stamps, designs on the postage stamps, and Special Delivery were stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black. The buttons are also from the Basic Grey Lime Rickey collection. I colored the stars on the carriage wheels with a yellow Spica pen and colored the moon and stars with a clear Spica pen to give them some shimmer.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my wild card tonight! It's a bit out of the ordinary for me but I was feeling in the mood for something colorful and fun tonight. Now take a hop along the blog trail to see what the Gina K Designs team and friends have created tonight.

Tami Mayberry, the Illustrator of these two stamp sets has invited a couple of her friends to join in on the blog hop tonight, so click on their blog links to see the projects they've created for us tonight:

Keri Sereika

Jeanne Streiff

Then, check in on these GinaK Designer's participating in the Blog Hop tonight:

Tami Mayberry (Illustrator)
Carolyn King
Donna Baker
Erika Martin
Jessica Fick
Lee Murphy
Melanie Muenchinger
Theresa Momber

Kurtis Amundson

Cathy Tidwell

After you're done hopping to all the Designer's blogs stop by GinaK's Idea Center here: Special Delivery & Special Delivery Addition for lots more ideas on how to use Tami's stamp sets. And, don't forget to check in on GinaK's blog so you can leave your comment to be entered as a chance to win these two stamp sets too!

Lord of the Season Blog Hop

Tonight is another blog hop that features the beautiful stamp set, "Lord of the Season" by Nina Brackett for Gina K Designs. This set really does feature the four seasons, giving you options for many different cards. For my card tonight I chose the fall topiary but made it into a birthday card for a friend with a fall birthday.

This card was made with the Pure Luxury Pumpkin Spice cardstock. I used a Cuttlebug edge folder to create the design on the side of the card and used a glitter pen to fill in the indentations and the scallop line to make it pop. The dp is a piece that came in the Signs of Autumn Stamp TV kit from Gina K Designs. The scalloped green is Pure Luxury Green Apple. I stamped the focal image onto Pure Luxury Pure White that I cut out and embossed with a rectangle nestie. Before removing the nestie, I sponged with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Antique Linen.

I colored the image with Copics and stamped the sentiment in Memento Potter's Clay. The purple ribbon is from the Signs of Autumn Stamp TV Kit from Gina K. A couple of copper brads finish it off. A clean and simple card but I felt the image was so pretty and detailed that I didn't need to add a lot of extra bling. I like to make cards like this when I know I need to mail them because they don't need extra postage or special handling.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my card tonight. Thanks for stopping by my "Creative Lane!" Now hop along and see even more ideas with Nina Brackett's Lord of the Season stamp set. Visit her blog as well as the GinaK Idea Center here: Lord of the Season

GinaK Designer's joining in on the hop tonight:

Nina Brackett
Carolyn King
Cathy Tidwell
Donna Baker
Erika Martin
Jessica Fick
Kurtis Amundson
Lee Murphy
Melanie Muenchinger

Theresa Momber

September's Center Stage Spotlight Team:

Janice Melton
Joy Hadden
Kay Simmons
Lori McAree

Nina's Guest DT and friends:

Crystal Bernsdorf
JenMarie Taylor
Lisa Hjulberg

Very Merry Blog Hop

We are hopping again tonight! The featured stamp set is Theresa Momber's Very Merry Christmas set. I'm sure you will see many different cards on tonight's hop because this set has so many different options. During the release party I posted three different cards made with stamps from this set and tonight I have another one using a completely different stamp than I used on the others. You could easily make all of your holiday cards with just this set. Enjoy the hop tonight! I hope you get lots of great ideas from all the great designers who are participating tonight.

Here is the card I made for tonight's blog hop. I decided to use a gate fold card just for something different than my usual card. It was a fun way to get a card that looks different but wasn't difficult to make. I'm always on the lookout for cards that look good and have a unique element but that I could easily make to use for the holidays.

This card is made using the Pure Luxury All Spruced Up paper from Gina K Designs as its base and for the strip onto which the tree is stamped. The scalloped rectangle and circle are Pure Luxury Silver Lining (that is some gorgeous paper!). I stamped the tree and snowflakes with Colorbox Silver ink and the Magic of the Season circle is stamped with Tsukineko Brilliance Pearlescent Ivy ink.

The tree and snowflake stamps are from Theresa's wonderful Very Merry Christmas set. The Feel the Magic of the Season circle stamp comes from the Holiday Cheer Stamp TV Kit set called Holiday Greetings. I stamped the circle and punched it out with a 1¼" punch and then punched out the center snowflake. I stamped the circle again onto a scrap of the All Spruced Up paper using the silver ink and punched the center snowflake out with a 1/2" punch. I glued the greeting circle onto the silver scalloped circle and then adhered the snowflake dot in the center of the circle with a glue dot. I then popped the whole thing up with pop dots so the tree flap could fit under it. That way the circle acts as a closer to hold the card shut.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my card! Now for even more ideas with Theresa Momber's A Very Merry Christmas stamp set, visit her blog link below as well as the GinaK Idea Center here: A Very Merry Christmas. Theresa's tip sheet has been added to the Idea Center as a PDF so you can print out her tips and suggestions for a handy reference tool. We've also included her Copic coloring links too.

Here's all the Designer's Blog Links to check out tonight:

Theresa Momber
Carolyn King
Cathy Tidwell
Donna Baker
Emily Giovanni
Erika Martin
Jessica Fick
Lee Murphy
Nina Bracket
Melanie Muenchinger

September's Center Stage Spotlight Team:

Giovana Smith
Janice Melton
Kay Simmons
Linda Payne
Lori McAree

and finally, Theresa's Guest Designers for A Very Merry Christmas:

Selma Stevenson
Sharri Seffens

As a bonus, two other stamping friends are playing along on tonight's hop. Check out the blogs and creations of:

Geri Utterback

Brenda Turner