Dragonfly Dreams July Challenge: Christmas with Glitter or Sparkle

I'm back with my July card for the Dragonfly Dreams Challenge Blog. ! This month's theme is Christmas with Glitter or Sparkle, and I'm always happy to make Christmas cards in July.

For this card, I pulled out the Pine Trees Stencil from Simple Stories. I ran it through my Platinum 6 using the embossing pad to add some texture before blending green ink over the raised design to create a festive background. I finished it with splatters of white and gold Distress Mica spray paint for a snowy, shimmery effect.

To incorporate this month's sparkle theme, I layered the strand of lights from the Let Your Light Shine Stamp and die set from Gina K Designs and added gold glitter paste over the stenciled light bulbs for lots of festive sparkle. The Concord & 9th sentiment was die cut from gold glitter cardstock and layered onto a white backer to help it stand out against the background.

To finish the card, I added a few gold and silver glitter dots, keeping the sparkle going and adding the perfect finishing touch to this Christmas-in-July creation. Hope you are able to join in the festivities this month!  Thanks for stopping by my blog!

In kindness, Cathy

{BYSHC} Spring Into Christmas Linky Party - Day 4

Back with a card for Day 4 of the BYSHC Linky Party.  It's been fun to see the creativity on the gallery.  Using one of our older sketches inspired today's card for me.  I knew I wanted to use some supplies I had in my stash from sponsor, Gina K Designs on my card, and looked at the album of sketches in our FB Group and settled on Sketch #19 (from 2022!).

Once I settles on the sketch, I got to work.  I had the strand of lights from Gina K Designs Let Your Light Shine suite of stamps, dies, and stencils already die cut and colored from a different project, so I decided to use it as the diagonal line in the sketch.  As opposed to other cards I have been making for this Linky Party - I ended up cutting a fresh sheet of 12x12 paper for the bottom half of this card!! The top was a leftover scrap.  I put the card front together, die cut a scalloped circle, and used one of the bold sentiments from the same stamp set inside of it as a focal point. I decided to inset the circle by using foam strips on the card front panel. In the end, the dimension was a little hard to see, so I die-cut a gold foil broder and placed it on the green portion of the card front.  I added a few red sequins and a second foiled sentiment to give some visual interest to the green plaid layer.

Dragonfly Dreams November 2025 Challenge - "Feminine"

The November Dragonfly Dreams Challenge Blog theme is “Feminine,” so I decided to focus on a few classic, feminine-inspired touches—soft colors, ruffly edges, and of course, a little pink!

For my card, I used the Layered Mistletoe Bundle from Gina K Designs. I love finding ways to get more mileage out of seasonal sets, so I challenged myself to create something that could work year-round. By varying the colors of the berries, softening the greens of the leaves, and using an everyday background paper, this holiday set takes on a whole new look. I even flipped the ribbon over to show its softer side!

To start, I used one of Gina’s Poly-Glaze Sheets with silver foil—so pretty and delicate! Then I added stenciled details to build some texture and depth. The leaves are a gentle sage green, the berries a yummy blue, and the bow a sweet blush pink. The mistletoe cluster is popped up with foam for a bit of dimension, and I finished it off with a few sequins and a foiled sentiment for sparkle.

A soft, feminine design that still feels fresh and versatile—perfect for this month’s challenge!

I hope you have time to join us this month!  Thanks for stopping by my blog.

In kindness, Cathy

{BYSHC} Falling for the Holidays 2025 Linky Party - Day 4

 Back with another card to share for the {BYSHC} Falling for the Holidays Linky Party. This one uses some of the products I have been playing around with from sponsor, Gina K Designs Christmas in July card kit.  

The strand of lights and sentiment are from a set called, "Let Your Light Shine," which has a stamp, die, and stencil.  There are also poly glaze foiling sheets for the set!  I used green foil for the light strand and a silver star foil for the sentiments.  I love how the light bulbs look on this card!  A detail blending brush allowed me to concentrate color near the light base.  

I had the white die cut tree and star base in my stash from a Pinkfresh Studio class and the green tree was from the same class.  I added some baubles to it for color.  The green glitter paper was a "find" from the dollar store. I like how it looks behind the die cut base.

I hope you will join us for the Linky Party!  There are still 3 days left to add your holiday card to the gallery and be eligible for the prize drawing!  Thanks for stopping by my blog.

In kindness, Cathy

P.S.  Here is a card I posted earlier today on Instgram using the same light strand but I kept the lights all yellow and then used gold glitter glaze on top.  I love how the Penny Black Christmas Edger Die works on an angle!

 

{BYSHC} 2025 Spring Into Christmas Linky Party - Day 3

Back with a card for Day 3 of the

Build Your Stash Holiday Cardmakers Spring Into Christmas Linky Party. 

This card actually uses products from three of our Linky Party sponsors!  

I took advantage of Angie Blom's BIG 60% off sale which is running through today, Sunday, May 4th.  I loved the Christmas Mailer digital stamp set 

and promptly put it in my cart with a couple of other images! 

 

Angie provides a variety of formats for all of the images in the set. I used a background version of the images to create a card base and layered three of the images to create the "stamp" version of the tree. I printed them with toner ink and then used Therm O Web's

Silver Deco Foil to foil them in my Mini-Minc. The tree is colored with Copics. The foiling doesn't really show up in the photo. I had to chose between seeing Angie's fun artwork or the silver shimmer!

 Gina K Design's Master Layouts 2 was perfect for framing the background image with its red border on top of the "Ho, Ho, Ho" patterned paper.  I finished with one of the flag die cuts in the Master Layouts set, a red gingham bow, and some silver pearls. 

 

I hope you are enjoying playing along with the {BYSHC} Spring Into Christmas Linky Party. The gallery is full of inspiration and the sponsors are amazing!  Thanks for stopping by my blog.

In kindness, Cathy

  

{BYSHC} Christmas in July Linky Party 2024 - Snowflakes Abound

 Back with another card for this year's 

  Build Your Stash Holiday Cardmakers Christmas in July Linky Party.

My card features products from one of our sponsors, Gina K Designs.  I started by using white heat embossing and ink blending the a snowflake panel from her retired stamp set Peace Love Joy Mini and added one of the sentiments from Two-Step Holiday Mini stamp. The part I love best about this card is how easy the dies from Gina K's Master Layouts 2 make getting the perfect border around each layer. I foiled the snowflake background in silver DecoFoil (from sponsor Therm-O-Web)and cut it using the largest Master Layout stitched die.  I mounted it in blue using the largest straight edge rectangle.  I then cut out the image panel and white paper using the other two rectangle dies in the set.  I found a scrap of silver glitter paper and die cut the largest flag in the set.  The card is finished with sequins from my stash.

There are a few days left to add a card to the gallery for the {BYSHC} Christmas in July 2024.  I hope you can join us!  Thanks for stopping by my blog.

In kindness, Cathy