Thursday, December 22, 2016

White Christmas

Hi stampers!  I don't think we will have a white Christmas this year, it's supposed to be at least 50 degrees!  It was so warm last year we played outside so maybe we can again this year!  I have mixed feelings about it.  I don't really like snow except for Christmas but I don't really like it being warm either, ha!

So, if you aren't going to have a white Christmas maybe you'll enjoy this card!


I finally broke out the outdoor adventure framelits and they are super cute!  I posted a little tip over on Instagram the other day when I made this card.  I cut out the trees and snow twice, once in white and once in green.  Then, I cut off the trees from the green one and glued them onto the white piece so that I had green trees on white snow!

Only a few more days until Christmas, I can't wait!

Happy stamping!

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

More Wrapping!

Hi stampers!  How about a card that looks like a present since I'm still in wrapping-you-know-where :-)

This one was quick and simple and fun!  I just love that plaid paper!


I used the cherry cobbler ribbon and just wrapped it around and added a bow with glue dots.  Markers on the stamp make a multi colored image easy!

Back to wrapping!

Happy stamping!

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Wrapped in Love

Hi stampers!  I'm not sure if my presents will be wrapped in love...I'm hoping they will be wrapped period, ha!  I love wrapping but I always wait too long and have too much to do!  And I'm not very good at it hard as I may try, which adds to the frustration!  I really need to wrap as I shop next year!

But this card was easy and quick at least ;-)


This is my go-to sketch, you probably already know that!

Off to do more wrapping ;-)

Happy stamping!

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Mad for Plaid

Hi stampers!  I'm furiously cranking out more Christmas cards.  Who knows if I'll send them but I'm TRYING to use some things that of course have sat unused since August...insert huge eye roll here...LOL!

I had to have the stitched Christmas dies and then didn't use them much so I whipped this up.  And I LOVE the plaid paper! I really love plaid around the holidays.  I have a number of plaid shirts and even a plaid puffer vest!  Looks pretty great on a card too!  :-)


This is a sketch from Freshly Made Sketches that popped up on my Facebook this weekend and it totally inspired me!

And I'm attempting to stage some of my photos.  I found these bells at Target and thought they'd look great.  I didn't think about being able to see my reflection in them, lol!  Ian sure did love carrying them around Target though, ha!

Hope everyone is staying warm!  Feels like NEGATIVE 15 here this morning!  Brrrrrrr!

Happy stamping!

Saturday, December 17, 2016

Valentine's For Christmas

Hi stampers!  As I've said many times before, I don't feel super inspired or creative most of the time these days.  But every now and then I have a stroke of genius that makes me feel like I actually deserve to be on the Artisan team :-)

I have to say that I'm not a huge fan of the Valentine's suite and that's what makes me like this card even more!  I love when people use sets for non-obvious things and I feel like I'm not very good at that but then I made a Christmas card with some Valentine's stuff, heck yeah!  :-)

I seriously love it when a plan comes together and I totally thought that the little envelope would look amazing in our plaid paper!  And it did!



I'll come back later today (in a rush) and add the supplies I used.  But how cute is this card?  Gah!  

I hope everyone is staying safe and warm with all the crazy winter weather we are having over much of the country!  We need to venture out to finish Christmas shopping which is crazy enough the Saturday before Christmas weekend, right?

Happy stamping!

Friday, December 16, 2016

Hello December Album

Hi stampers!  I couldn't figure out what to share today as I was out of pre-edited projects.  As I was browsing my phone for photos, I came across the album I embellished the other day so I can put my project life pages from this month in as I get them done.  I'm trying to work little by little all month :-)

I love Project Life!  It's so easy to keep your memories without having to spend a ton of time on complicated scrapbook pages and it's CUTE!  Even if you don't memory keep or scrap much (or at all) Christmas is the prefect time to make an exception and the Hello December kits make it so simple!

I've never decorated one of my albums before but I'm glad I did because it turned out SO flipping cute!


Sorry about the shadow in the picture.  I have to work on my photography skills a little!

Here's how I decorated my album:

  • I stamped the little stars from the accessory kit stamp set in white craft ink and added a few of the adhesive stars.
  • The main panel is one of the PL cards and I overlayed it with one of the acetate cards from the accessory pack (the 2016).
  • To help the overlay stay down I added some of the washi tape in the accessory pack
  • I cut a few pine branches from emerald envy and then the mistletoe sprig is vellum (pretty pines thinlits).  I layered those behind a stitched shape.
  • And finally, I added one of the wood trees from the accessory pack. 

I'll share a few of my pages soon!

Happy stamping!

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Technique Thursday

Hi stampers!  Ok so technique Thursday doesn't have quite the right ring to it but it's Thursday and I tried a new technique.  If you know me, you know I don't do a lot of different techniques.  Why you may ask?  Well that's easy, I'm a lazy stamper...lol!  It's true.  If something takes a little bit of effort you can probably count me out!  :-)

But, since I've got this artisan gig going, I thought maybe I ought to step out of my comfort zone and try some new things.   It's probably just the push I've been needing for a while.

Especially around the holidays, with all the lights, I always love the bokeh technique in photography. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's basically out of focus points of light and looks similar to this:


Pretty, right?  You may have noticed one of my new photo backdrops is bokeh!  See, did you notice that before?



I will try to film a tutorial on this but with the holidays I'm not sure how quickly I'll get it done!  It's really pretty easy and you can always google it.  But basically, you use some watercolor paper and chose a few colors to place on the page at random.  You want to make sure all of the paper has color.  After it's dry you take a stencil with various sized circles (easy to make with some framelits and window sheets) and apply some white craft ink in various levels of saturation.  For my smallest circle size, I actually just used the sponge dauber itself without the stencil and made sure it was the heaviest saturation.  

I tried some other color combos but this is the one I liked best. I used mint macaron, emerald envy and old olive.

You should try it if you haven't.  If I can do it you surely can :-)

Happy stamping!



Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Joy To The World

Hi stampers!  This may be a quick post.  As I'm writing, my normal three hour napper has been in his crib close to three hours happily playing and not at all sleeping lol!!!!!   I'm not sure what's going to happen this evening!

And I don't even know if I have shared this card.  He's thrown me all off!  I made it quite a while ago so sorry if you've seen it before!  I wanted to make a Christmas card with the globe set since I saw it!


I'll try to edit and add supplies and tags later since I need to go get the non-sleeper :-)

Happy stamping!

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Mailable Monday...On Tuesday

Hi stampers!  I didn't get around to posting for Monday, funny how that happens :-)  I had a big shopping weekend in Oak Brook with my very best friend who I've known since high school.  We had fun and shopped till we dropped, even in the snow storm!  And we SHOULD be well rested from two nights without babies but turns out we had a floor full of high school hockey players staying with us and they were SO LOUD around 11 each night.  UGH!  So much for a full nights sleep.  Her little guy doesn't love sleep the way mine does so I felt really bad for her.  The best laid plans, right?  Kind of like how I say I'm going to blog and stamp all the time, ha!

Anyway, somehow I STILL have more shopping to do!  Hopefully I'll get at least a little bit of it done today and tomorrow.

So how about a card that will go through the mail easily?  I actually cased this from the catalog just using some other stuff.  It used the stocking bundle which I don't have so this worked instead!


I hope you're done with your shopping and always have quiet hotel rooms ;-)

Happy stamping!

Friday, December 9, 2016

Fab Friday 102

Hi stampers!  Happy Friday!!!!!  I'm meeting up with my very best friend since high school for some Christmas shopping this weekend so I'm very excited.  Of course, it's supposed to be frigid and snowing and we'll be in Chicago land at OUTDOOR malls...who thought THAT was a good idea???

Anyway, while I'm out spending money and freezing, you should stay warm and cozy in your stamp room and play with us over at Fab Friday!  We have a color challenge for you this week and it's pretty festive!

It's that time of year, after all.  I have some new occasions goodies but I'm still in major Christmas mode over here so you KNOW what I made!


I've had this ornament stitched and on my desk for a while so I thought it would be perfect for this challenge!  I think I went too far with the rhinestones but what's done is done :-)

Make sure to play along with us!

Happy stamping!

Thursday, December 8, 2016

A Christmas Two-fer

Hi stampers!  Sometime I have ideas and they don't turn out.  Occasionally, I have an idea and it turns out as well as I intended!  Today is one of those days.  You all know I love simple cards the best but sometimes those are the hardest to come up with!  I got festive season (the set that goes with the stitching Christmas dies) and haven't used them of course.  And let's be honest...I'm a lazy stamper, the stitching seemed like a lot of work ;-)  So, I came up with a way to use a couple of the solid images without stitching.  Don't forget, you don't always have to use bundles together!

I used wonderful year after stamping the tree and star.  Make sure to ink up your PP stamps really well for this and use a mat under your paper.  Solid images can be hard with PP stamps but the mat really helps.  Also, I usually ink up my stamps and stamp on scratch paper a few times then clean them on my stampin' scrub when they are new.  That will help the ink to stick.

My colors here are cherry cobbler, emerald envy and mint macaron.  I really, really love this one!

Here I used soft sky and dapper denim.

These would make really great mailable Christmas cards and would be easy to mass produce as well!  

I hope you like them as much as I do!

Happy stamping!

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Tidings of Procrastination

Hi stampers!  So I've been sitting on this card for a couple of months.  Whoops!  I'm sure none of you are surprised, are you? :-)

This is another card I cased from the catalog but the project in the catalog wasn't a card.  But it totally works, right? I just love the colors of this DSP!  I would have never thought mint as a Christmas color but it totally works!


Happy stamping!

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Warmth and Cheer

Hi stampers!  This card is pretty appropriate since we got our first snow of the season over the weekend and it was pretty significant.  Ian really loved it so it was fun to come out of church and see him all amazed and excited.  We played outside for a few when we got home and he really liked to catch snowflakes, hehe!


I can't wait to print out some pictures and get to work on my December Project Life album!

Anyway here's my cozy card using wrapped in warmth.  I used the decorative masks to make a sweater print background and I think it goes well with the plaid!  I actually cased a small card in the holiday catalog and turned it into this larger card.  Remember that caseing doesn't have to mean copying exactly!

Hope you're staying cozy and warm wherever you are!

Happy stamping!

Monday, December 5, 2016

Thankful for a Break

Hi stampers!  It's been quiet around here because I took some time off from blogging to enjoy some family time!  I didn't really mean to but I just never got around to blogging :-)  Jon left for China after Thanksgiving and I spent a few nights with my dad and step mom which we don't get to do too often, so we stayed really busy and had lots of fun!  Then we took off for my mom's farm since I don't like staying home alone :-)  But between my mom having to work her volunteer job a lot and my step dad hunting, I was pretty much alone with Ian anyway :-)

But, now we're home so it's back to blogging and stamping I hope!  Even though I'm pretty much in full on Christmas mode now, I had one more fall card I had yet to share.  Clearly, I'm still working on that watercoloring thing ;-)

I paper-pieced the basket and really like how it turned out!  This is also colored on shimmery white instead of watercolor paper.  Both are great for watercoloring!


I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  I'm so thankful for all the blessings in my life, including YOU!

Happy stamping!

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