This little elf is drawn by Sandra Caldwell.  With Sweet Pea Stamps closing, she has opened her own Etsy shop.  All her characters are funny and unique.  I thought the elf was shaking that box, so I made a spring to mount a second package.  So the box jiggles.

From the Heart Stamps has a Deck the Halls Birdbrain for their November progressive challenge. I added lights to the card because they pick up the shine in the ornaments!

I have been fascinated with the northern lights stamping technique.  I have a few backgrounds made to use on Christmas cards, but I found the technique much more time-consuming than I expected.  So, I was especially delighted to see the set provided for Deedee's Digis November progressive challenge.  The sky is already colored! As usual, the set includes the line drawing to color yourself.  There are also darling images of a single bear and a complete seal.  Very sweet.

This little bear is the November image for the Gerda Steiner Designs progressive challenge.  She has just moved to a new site, and all her cute little friends have moved with her!

This is my card for the Imagine That DOTM challenge for November.  I think this image is lovely.  The card really didn't need much, but I added a couple of flowers to give it a little dimension.

This is Amy's birthday card.  She has been working with Damon to replace her front porch.  It was interesting to see her go from "I can help with the lifting, but I've never used power tools..." to "I like this drill better than your other one."  I thought this KennyK image was perfect for our queen of the drill.

 Here is my card for the Outlawz November Progressive Challenge.  This is really outside my comfort zone, but I did have fun playing with photoshop to get the reverse image.

These are the Halloween cards for Maybelle and Emmylou.  Both are 3D.  I had a hard time keeping Emmylou's open.  I finally put some Halloween clothes pins on both sides to help it stand.

Gerda has another darling hedgehog for the October challenge image at Gerda Steiner Designs.  I love his sweet expression.

This month's progressive challenge image at From the Heart Stamps is a lovely cornucopia, perfect for Thanksgiving.

I used the pre-colored scene from Deedee's Pumpkin Patch set for my card in the October Digi of the Month Challenge at Deedee's Digis. I love how quickly a card comes together using the pre-colored images.

This Mistletoe Kitty is the October Digi of the Month at Imagine That Digis.  I'm not sure why the photo seems so cloudy.  It's a darling image & the set comes with two different pre-colored versions.

 I'm going in for gallbladder removal surgery tomorrow, so I'm posting my end of month cards early.  These are for the DT examples for the November challenge at Your Scrapbook Place. I thought the first one reminded me of Faith and her cat, so I used it as her birthday card.

This is the September challenge image from DeeDee's Digis. She included a second image of the elephant with his trunk up blowing leaves.  I'm still playing with both images, trying to make the elephant's limbs move like a "leaf angel".  I'm also playing with the idea of a "leaf blower" card--just not sure who I could send it to!

The sponsor for the October challenge at Your Scrapbook Place is Faery Ink. I wasn't familiar with this company, but I'm sure I'll be visiting them again.  The site is loaded with sweet and sassy images.  As you can see from this image, they aren't all faeries!

Here's my card for the Outlawz Progressive Challenge for September.  I colored the flower child but thought she could use more dimension; so I added some silk flower petals to the skirt and a silk flower to the hat.

This is my card for Gerda Steiner Designs Progressive Challenge for September.  Since our experience with mice at the El Paso house, they aren't my favorite critter for card creations, but this little one is too cute to ignore.  Paired with some Tim Holtz trick-or-treaters, she make a darling Halloween card.

Here's my card for the September Progressive Challenge at From the Heart Digital Stamps. I love this time of year and this little cutie is perfect for fall cards.

I really didn't plan to start my Christmas cards this early, but I'm sure that in December I'll be happy that I did.  This is my card for Gerda Steiner Designs challenge.  The challenge image is the little sleeping dog and mouse.  Gerda mentioned on Facebook that she had moved many additional image into her freebie section.  I had to check them out.  When I saw the little cat and bunny, I knew they would make a great combined image of sleeping "creatures."  

Faith at From the Heart Stamps is doing a personal project to design 100 snowmen before Christmas.  She calls it Project 100 and says, "The purpose is to get into good habits of drawing daily and pushing through creative blocks." Anyone who is creative has experienced those times when it just doesn't seem to flow.  I wish her well in her project.  The great thing for crafters is that the 100 project snowmen are just $1 until she finishes them all!  Last time I checked, she was up to snowman 12.  They are all different and all darling.

Although the challenge stamp for August is a snowman, it isn't part of the Project 100.  However, you can get it for free if you spend $10 bucks.  My challenge card has inspired me to check out more snowmen.  Maybe I'll have a snowman theme for my Christmas cards this year.

 Here's my card for Deedee's Digis.  I tried the pyramid technique that's I've seen in many British card magazines.  I wasn't sure it was what I wanted so I also tried a 3D version.  It was a LOT of fussy cutting & the pieces were so very small!  I asked Damon's opinion & he liked the pyramid better, so that's the one I posted on the link at Deedee's.

This is my card for the Your Scrapbook Place challenge for September.  The image is from SLS Lines. They have quite a variety of images and digital scrapbook kits.  I thought this quirky house would be great to announce a move, welcome a new neighbor or send congrats on a new house.

Before I start posting the challenge pictures for this month, I need to catch up with a few family and personal cards.  Somehow I missed posting the card we sent when Micah was born.  I chose this design and saying because the shower was a "Twinkle twinkle little star" theme.  It seemed "A Star is Born" was continuing the theme.

This is Elaine's birthday card.  It was the first time I tried a "screen" card.  Of course most of them are made with three panels so you can use a single 12 x 12 page.  I needed four panels for the four seasons, so I had to accordion-fold two sheets.  That made the finished product pretty bulky.  However, it does stand up really well!  Here's the sentiment side.

I told Damon I would make cards for the veterans in the Labor Day Parade this year.  I made a couple of prototypes that he could take to the 912 Group as samples:

I thought they would select one design, but they wanted them both.  They also wanted a printed message inside that was fairly long, and they wanted all the group members to be able to sign the cards individually.  That just wouldn't be possible in the 4.25 by 5.5 size, so I modified the design to a 5 x 7.

We have potentially 40 returning Honor Flight veterans this year.  The 912 Group will include the cards in the goodie bags they have for each vet.  The bags also include a miniature flag display suitable for a desktop or tabletop display with an American flag and a flag for the vet's service branch.  I finished up all 40 cards in time for last week's meeting so they could be signed there.

I missed the deadline for submitting this little guy to the Outlaws challenge, but I'm pretty pleased with how he turned out, so I'm sharing him here.

 Here are some challenge cards from last month that I never managed to get posted to the blog--it was a crazy month.  The top one was for Outlawz, the next two for Your Scrapbook Place, and the last for East Wind.

I also had several family card during the month.  I was late for Morgan's June birthday, but managed to finish Ryan's and Otto's cards on time for July.  I'm so blessed to have three nephews who are such special guys.

These are my cards for the Your Scrapbook Place DT for August.  Sherri Baldy is this month's sponsor.  She draws adorable big-eyed dolls.  However, in the past year she has also introduced a line of "Dimples" which I absolutely love.  So I used the Dimples dolls for my cards.

This month the Birdbrain Chick at From the Heart Stamps is floating thru  a summer day.  Too bad the sunscreen is floating away!

This is the month for sweets, I guess! Here's another great image and sentiment set from Imagine That Digis by Kris. The set includes two digi papers that I used plus several images pre-colored and black line drawings.  I used the cherry pie because I though the sentiment was so cute.

Here's my card for the July challenge at Deedee's Digis.  I just wish I could have some of this sweet ice cream.  BUT, I can console myself with the fact that I am now down 85 pounds!

This card is for the challenge at Imagine That digis by Kris.  I used the line drawing this month & colored it.  I also used one of the sentiments for the message inside.

This card is for the June challenge at Gerda Steiner Designs. Gerda does such darling images of kids. This one really reminds me of pictures of Gavin eating melon when he was about 5 or 6.

This cute little hedgehog is from Faith at From the Heart Stamps . I just love him. He's the image for the June Progressive Challenge.

Here's my card for Deedee's Digis June Progressive Challenge. I think it's a great set that I'll use a lot.