Christmas Card 10

Well, this is the last of it folks and I'll probably disappear for another month. Time is just hard to come by these days which is hard to believe now that the wedding is over. This last card is actually a copy of the card found in the current winter mini catalogue from Stampin' Up! I didn't have the same stamp set so I modified the set and the size. Not too cluttered and I really like the pops of color. 

Christmas Card 9

Christmas is less than a week away! I can't even believe it. Christmas really crept up on us this year. I think the weather had something to do with it. Normally we're covered with snow and it's freezing cold, but it's been so gorgeous out that some days I don't even think it's December! Today's card is just simple and easy to reproduce. Love that Dasher! 

Christmas Card 8

Happy Sunday! Boy am I glad I have today off. After yesterday's shift, I need 3 days off! Unfortunately I only get 1 day off before I have to go back for another 5. I can't wait till the Christmas stretch off. Even though Jamie and I didn't take any holidays this Christmas, the 4 days off will be nice. Today's card was one of Arlie's favorite! Probably because it's blue. 

Christmas Card 7

Oh boy, it's been so unbelievably crazy at work lately. I took on a new position at work so it's been a lot of learning, catching up and full time work! Plus I had to work today and it was super busy. Lots of babies being born prior to Christmas. Are you all ready for Christmas? It just dawned on me tonight that Jamie and I haven't started our Christmas baking yet!!! Not good...

Christmas Card 6

I recently went to a scrapbook clearance sale and found a stack of Cards magazines on clearance. I flipped through it and only found one card that I liked so I decided to CASE it! Super simple to make and I'm thinking I'll need to make a few cards like this for birthdays! 

It's way cuter with smaller stars but I don't have a small star punch so 4 stars it is! 

Christmas Card 5

Some of you may have seen these little leaves being made for years now but I finally managed to try it myself! I used the wide oval punch to punch out the oval and the same punch to get the little cut outs to create the mistletoe. Some of the girls at my workshop found it easier to just use scissors and trim out the shape they wanted. Others said, "Use a punch for this? Heck ya!" 

Baker's twine is super in right now and Stampin' Up! sells it for uber cheap. I've seen it at Michael's and on etsy but often the rolls are way too big for me. And that red isn't really red at all! It's Poppy Parade! 

Christmas Card 4

I've had this stamp set for two whole years without inking it up! Can you believe it? I love the idea of hanging ornaments on cards and in previous years, I reached for my ornament punch instead of this set. I'm glad I finally inked it up with some Versamark and embossed it with some gold. Something about shimmery gold embossed images that just makes a card instantly fancy and Christmas. 

Christmas Card 3

You know what movie was playing over the entire weekend? Elf! This card totally reminds me of those bold Christmas colors seen all over that movie. You can't really see in the photo but the sentiment is embossed with gold powder. 

I actually stole this layout from my dear friend, Carolyn! She used this layout for my wedding card. You can use this layout again and again! The only problem I had was the big ol' circle punch. I only have a 1 3/4" and not the next size up so I just trimmed the outer circle by hand... Don't look too closely! 

Christmas Card 2

You aren't dreaming! It's a post two days in a row!! I'll be sharing the 10 Christmas cards I made this season over the next week and a bit. Please don't mind the quality of the pictures. I've learnt that if I take them with my regular camera, I just never get around to loading it onto the computer. So the interim will have to be iPhone photos... 

Simple. Easy to reproduce. Screams Christmas. I love it! 

Christmas Card 1

It's been a long time since I've posted anything. Don't worry, I am still alive and well. Trying to fit in crafting whenever I can but it's still busy despite the wedding being over. Are weddings ever really over? We finally ordered our thank you cards today. Why so late you might ask? Because we only got our pictures from the photographer last week! I managed to squeeze in 2 Christmas workshops and I had a coworker request 10 cards so I'll be sharing those over the next couple days. I could share them all in one post but... why not stretch it out right? If I wasn't so lazy, I would've made 2 more and started a 12 days till Christmas countdown. I am super lazy though so it'll be 10 cards. Here's card #1. It was made using the new Simply Scored tool that Stampin' Up! released. I always scored my cards with my old school Scor-Pal and was constantly frustrated whenever I needed to score anything other than 5.5" or 4.25". The lines are preset in the weirdest increments and to this day, I still don't know why. Martha Stewart has a very similar scoring board as Stampin' Up! but I love the little markers that you can put into the Simply Scored. Be careful though! People are always curious about those markers and will take them out to look at. It's happened to me twice already where someone didn't put it back in the same place! Without looking at the actually measurement on my Simply Scored, I just followed where my marker was set and ended up with improperly measured score lines. 

The rosette was actually super easy to make. You can see the tutorial here. Not sure if this was the tutorial I watched but it still goes though all the steps! The flag corner was easily cut out using a square paper punch! Sticky Strip comes in handy for this card! 

I'm Married!!!

It's been a loooong time coming. One year of planning and wedding crafting led up to one amazing day. I am officially married! 

Mini Thank You Cards

I've been meaning to make a bunch of thank you cards and finally got around to making them. It's not much stamping but I still like how they turned out. Sometimes just using patterned paper is enough. ;) 

A Farewell Card

Sorry I have been MIA lately. As you can imagine, the wedding has taken over my life! I just popped by to let everyone know I'm still alive and am doing wedding crafting most days now. I did manage to find time to make a card for my dear friend, Gaydene, who left to work for another health center. I CASED Kristina Werner. You can see her card here. 

Now I know the card sentiment seems a touch rude and mean but it's an inside joke and only good intentions! Till next time! 

Farewell PPC-CC Design Team

The last month has been so incredible busy with wedding stuff that I haven't found anytime to craft. What time I do have is spent working on wedding invitations! Unfortunately I had to say goodbye to the girls on the Picture Perfect Creations design team. I'm sad but I know I can't give them 100% right now and it's not fair to the other girls and Megan. I can't believe it was a whole year I was able to spend with the girls. They have all inspired me and I'll miss them all.

They just announced a new design team so hop on over to the PPC-CC blog to see the new team!

PPC-CC Specialty Challenge #5

I apologize in advance for missing last week's PPC-CC. It's been so crazy with wedding planning, work and friends getting engaged! This week's a bit better but I'm getting ready to go on my stagette! It's a touch early but I don't mind. Vacations are welcome anytime! This week Megan has another specialty challenge for us over at the PPC-CC blog. Show us your creative space! The little nook that you spend hours upon hours creating your masterpieces!

Remember when I was doing my craft area overhaul? This is the semi-final result. I'm loving my new little area. I can still see the TV from where I'm sitting. The only thing is I have nowhere to put all my stamps so they are still sitting way over on the far bookshelf. It's been inconvenient that way but I just can't find any more room! I also thought about cleaning up my area before taking the picture but... aside from being lazy, I wanted to show you guys what my crafting area looks like on a regular day to day basis. All that scrap hanging around on my desk top? It's alway there. That pile of stamps on the left side of the desk? I clear it and then it builds up again. Doesn't help that it's just so far to walk to put them back. Hope you all get a chance to share your creative space with us and pop by the PPC blog to see all the other creative spaces! 

PPC-CC #51

Good morning everyone and happy Monday! Can you believe it's already March!?! It's so scary how fast time flies when you have a big event coming up like a wedding!!! My BFF (holy when was the last time I used that phrase?) today exclaimed "Ahhh! 5 months and 3 days left!" I can totally sense panic starting to set in for myself as well. I have a lot to do still. Onto today's card! We're up to Picture Perfect Creations Color Combo #51 already! How insane! I've combined it with an old Fall To Layout Sketch #113. I wanted to keep the card really simple with 4 colors and I like how it turned out. You can literally stamp any sentiment on this card and it'll work. Well, maybe not for a manly card but anything else! If you get a chance, pop by the PPC blog to see what the other DT members have made! Have a great week everyone! 

PPC-CC #50 & Card Patterns #104

I am truly so short on time lately it's insane! I apologize folks for the late post. Usually I can manage to get the new PPC post up at 8 AM but alas, I couldn't even get it posted on Monday. It's officially Tuesday already and I'm just ready to climb into bed. In case you missed out last week, we're celebrating some major milestones over at PPC-CC! We're up to our 50th Color Combo and also we just had our 1 year blog anniversary! To make the celebration even more fun, Megan decided to have another design team call! Visit the blog for more details! Trust me! Entering is SUPER easy. I've combined this week's colors with Card Patterns Sketch 104. This super cute card was made for my friend, Marilyn's birthday. She's such a young-un. I love it! Happy birthday Marilyn! 

SSSC #106

Omg omg omg! It's 1:09 AM and I have to work in in about 7 hours. It is my dear friend Arlie's birthday well... yesterday! I wanted to make a special blue card for her because it's her favorite color. I combined it with Sweet Sunday's Sketch Challenge #105. Originally I wasn't going to have the yellow butterfly but when I was stamping the flower underneath it, I accidentally stamped a bit of the edge of the rubber and the little line of extra blue was driving me crazy. I like the little pop of yellow. Brings a bit of cheer to the card! Hopefully she likes it and I know she's going to tsk tsk me for staying up so late. But it was totally worth it! Happy birthday Arlie!!! 

 PS. Stay tuned for a new post from PPC! I'll need to write it up when I come home after work tomorrow! 

PPC-CC #49 & SSSC #105

Happy Monday everyone! 
Boy do we have some awesome stuff going on this week for you!! PPC-CC is celebrating our First Anniversary tomorrow and we're super-duper excited to share it with you! We have a double-whammy of a challenge for you this week and of course some super awesome giveaways! First off, here's our challenge for you...please combine our color combo below AND make it an 'ANNIVERSAY THEMED' creation! Easy-peasy, eh?! We can't wait to see what you've come up with!!!

AND...did we mention that we're looking for TWO new DT Members?!?! All you have to do is create something for our challenge this week, submit your entry and add "DT" to the back of your name (ie..'Sally-DT'). We will then take a peek at your blog! You have until next Monday, February 28th at 10am EST to enter! The PPC Creators and I are excited to get some fresh new faces, creation and ideas!! Do you have what it takes to be a PPC Creator?!

Excited for the giveaways!? Just hop on over to the other DT members blog and they'll show/tell you what they've got to giveaway! You can find their links on the main PPC-CC blog. To win, just leave them a message on their post telling them why you love the PPC-CC Blog! You have until Monday February 28th 12pm EST to enter. All winners will be picked at random and posted here on the blog on Wednesday, March 2nd.

I combined this week's double whammy challenge with Sweet Sunday's Sketch Challenge #105. I've been trying to use up the scrap pieces of the Walk In a Park DSP that's sat on my desk for months and months. Every time there's gray in a color challenge, I try to use up a bit more. This challenge was no different! I love the look of scrunchy ribbon and it's so easy to do! Just put down a strip of adhesive, pinch and adhere! I wasn't thinking when I put the card against a white background to take the picture but I'm too lazy to retake it so... Just squint to see the white card base. 

Hopefully you all get a chance to join in on our PPC celebrations! 

More Chocolate Holders!

Just wanted to share some other chocolate holders I made. If you remember, I made a bunch for Valentine's day. The tutorial can be found here. 

PPC Celebrates One Year!

Happy Sunday! 
 
As part of the PPC-CC Design Team, have some VERY exciting events coming up in the next few weeks over at PPC!!! Tuesday, Feb. 22nd marks our 1 Year Anniversary--woohooo!!! Where has the time flown?! We have a double-whammy of a challenge for you to check out, as well as some super awesome giveways! PLUS, we'll be conducting a PPC Creators Design Team Call! Our DT has had a few that have come and gone in the past year, but we're ecstatic to get some fresh new faces, creations and ideas...do you have what it takes to be a PPC Creator?! 
 
We'll continue celebrating the week of Feb. 28, too! PPC will have reached our 50th Color Combo Challenge! With that said, we'll reveal our newest DT member(s) and of course, have more yummy giveaways!
 
Make sure you come back bright and early Monday morning to take part in all of the fun! We promise you won't want to miss out!
---------------------------------
 
And from there, please be on the look out for the actual monday Morning post for all of this hoop-la we have going on! Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, etc.
 
Also, we are very sorry to say that Melissa will be stepping down from her DT position. We'd like to give her a big 'THANK YOU' and 'hug' for all of the hardwork and dedication she has brought to the DT during her time here. Thank you soooo much for everything, Melissa! We'll miss you, but please keep in touch! xoxoxo
 
As for the rest of you, we'd LOVE for you all to keep joining us for another fabulous year at PPC! :) 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hopefully everyone had a great Monday. I'm not big on celebrating Valentine's Day but it's still nice to give cards out! All my girlfriends got together to hand out Valentine's Day cards on Friday night. We all made little mailboxes for ourselves. It was elementary all over again! Perhaps it's because the mastermind behind it all is a kindergarten teacher... 

I made some chocolate candy holders to give to my girlfriends instead of just plain cards. Perhaps it's because the nursing students at work bought us an entire tub of peppermint patties. I just googled for a video and found one from Dawn. You can see her video here. These are so ridiculously easy to make. I ended up making 15 of them. 

I also decided to make Jamie a little card because this will be the only Valentine's Day that he'll be my fiancé! I loved the card that Kristina Werner made so I CASEd that card. You can see her card here. I sorta misjudged how big the word "fiance" would be but I had already stamped the "wonderful." Oh well! It's the thought that counts right? Kristina used Stickles and I don't own any because I can't justify paying more than a buck for glittery glue. Instead, I used the Smooch Pearlized Top Coat to draw in little hearts. Worked like a charm. It was super easy to use with a felt tip applicator. Definitely handy to have around. 

Have a great night! 

Valentine's Day PPC-CC!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I'm not a big supporter of the big V-Day but it's still fun to make some lovey dovey cards. This week at PPC-CC we're celebrating by having a different type of challenge. Create anything that's related to Valentine's Day! It doesn't have to say "Happy Valentine's Day" as you can see my card doesn't and my hand didn't get slapped. The card uses the Delightful Decorations stamp set ornament punch. The fins are the leaves off the Two-Step Bird punch. The ribbon is unfortunately the retired Blue Bayou. 

Do you have any big V-Day plans? Do you celebrate it or is it just another day? Either way, pop by the PPC-CC blog if you get a chance to see all the love that our DT created! 

PPC-CC #48 & Saturday Sketch Challenge # 189

Happy Monday everyone! Hopefully you had a restful weekend and if it wasn't restful, then hopefully it was at least productive. It's time for another Picture Perfect Creations Color Combo! Can you believe we're up to #48?! It definitely doesn't feel like it's been that long. But I guess Megan did have a baby during that time! That's a good nine months right there! I'm loving this week's combo because I love Crumb Cake. It looks so awesome as a card base. I combined this week's PPC-CC with Stamping 411's Saturday Sketch Challenge #189. 

The stamp set is called Just Believe from Stampin' Up and I love it. I went to a workshop a while back that used this stamp set. The demonstrator had us color the image with markers and then we spritzed it with some water. The effect was gorgeous. Almost a faux watercoloring effect. Just be careful you don't get mist happy because then the ink runs too much and you'll end up with a glob of gross colors. I finished it off with some pretty pearls from Stampin' Up as well. Hope you get a chance to pop over to the PPC blog to check out what the other gals have created! Have a great Monday! 

Vintage Blue

Is it 2:00 AM? Why yes it is! I'm absolutely exhausted but really felt the need to craft tonight. I was poking around on the ColorQ challenge blog and fell in love with Christina's card. Thinking it looked super simple to CASE, I decided to make a whopping two cards. I always forget that I'm a ridiculously slow crafter and 3 hours later, I finally get the cards done and photos taken. I absolutely love the paper. I dug it out of my big ol' box of paper from K&Company. Wonder why it took me 3 hours instead of say, 20 minutes? I like to hum and ha about everything. Deciding what colors and papers took about 5 minutes. The 1.75 hour part was figuring out what sentiment/stamps, layers of punches and buttons to use. I just can't throw it on paper and make it look good on the first try. I wasted about 5 different punched out shapes and I laid out about 10 different configurations on where to put the sentiment, how to layer the punched shapes (vertical or horizontal) and where to put the darn thing .

I love the faux stitching effect because the thought of actually sewing just tires me out. I'd be posting this card at 6 AM! I deliberately drew in the faux stitching messily so it'd look more like scraggly stitching. Love it! 

I'm loving the color combination and I might just have to make a few more cards with it! Gotta use up that piece that's leftover which I used as a photo background. 

PPC-CC #47

Holy cow! Is it just me or is time literally flying by?! Perhaps it's all this wedding stuff but boy I blink and it's another week! I haven't had a lot of crafting time because as some of you read last week, I'm moving my crafting area. I'm also trying to finalize our wedding invitations so that Jamie and I can start on those! But we can't work on invites without a proper crafting area! I'll need to post some pictures of the new area once I get it a bit more organized. We went to Ikea yesterday and bought a cheap shelf to hang along with some rods for my punches. Even though Jamie isn't happy with how it all looks, I remind him that it's a step up from what I had before so I'm happy. It's functional and it was cheap and fast to do. What would we do without cheap Ikea furniture? While you're thinking of how much Ikea furniture you have in your home, (I know you were!) I'll get to today's card. I think I'm losing my mojo a bit. This week's Picture Perfect Creations Color Combo is just gorgeous but I'm having a rough time bringing all colors together. I'm in wedding invitation mode! I tried CASEing Kristina but failed a bit when I tried to add a fat grosgrain ribbon. Anyways, hope you get a chance to pop over to the PPC-CC blog to see what the rest of the team has created. I've seen them and they're GORGEOUS! Have a great day! 

Crafting Area Overhaul!

So much for crafting today... I decided to move my crafting area! Why you might ask? Because I used to feel the need to craft in front of the TV but then realized that I actually like crafting to just music. I also got used to using a normal desktop computer that was sitting oh so nicely on our dining room table that surfing the web on my little netbook laptop just wasn't cutting it anymore. My eyes get tired! 

This is my original crafting area. I know it's impossible to actually see where I craft but I sit in between all the stuff so I just swivel back and forth to get paper/stamps etc. Directly in front of me (and Jamie in the photo) would be the TV. 

That desk to the left is where I wanted to have my new crafting area. That desk is about 10 years old already and I've been meaning to sell it but then I figured I really like the pullout keyboard tray. 

It might not look idea because the desk hutch is sorta hanging out in the middle of nowhere but for now, it'll have to do. Jamie started talking about building a wall behind it... Yah, like we don't have enough projects on the go...

I only managed to set up the computer and the biggest accomplishment of the evening? Since the desk was 10 years old, it had accumulated a lot of crap in the drawers. I mean stuff from like junior high school/high school that I've stored in there. I found super old "Best Friend" jewelry where I have the "Best" portion. I even found my old Visa receipts stapled together from 2002, sorted by month!!! I know it doesn't look very different from pictures 3 and 4, but trust me. Jamie even called me out on not going through that desk when we moved almost 4 years ago. I just hauled the entire thing over from my parents straight into the UHaul, into the basement. At one point in the night, I had to get Jamie to stand there and remind me to throw things away because I am a mega pack-rat. More sorting needs to be done tomorrow because if I don't, I have nowhere to craft!!! 

PPC-CC #46 & FTL #124

Happy Monday morning everyone! I love having Mondays off! It gives me time to run errands and avoid the evening rush hour. I've been working on my wedding invitations, trying to choose what design I'd like to use. Today I'll run to the stationary store to pick up some sample papers to print on. Jamie's leaning towards linen paper and I'm leaning towards shimmer paper. Guess I'll need to make samples with both and see which one looks better. Onto today's card! It uses Picture Perfect Creations #46 and Fall To Layout #124. I'm very excited about all the goodies I got from Papertrey Ink. I love the stamps and even got some Nestabilities! Super fun!! Looking back as I load the picture, I would've put a scalloped circle underneath the circle just go give it more pop. Oh well! Head over to PPC to see what else the other team members came up with! 

PPC-CC Heat/Dry Emboss Challenge!

Good morning fellow crafters! Hope everyone had a great snowy cold weekend indoors crafting! I have to confess, I did very little crafting. Why you might ask? Because there are better things to do when it's -25 degrees Celsius outside and that's taking engagement photos! It wasn't the engagement photos that are included in our wedding package. We (I) decided to trek out to take some snowy shots because it just looked so beautiful outside with the snow falling all weekend. It was just oh so much fun that we did it both days. So in the little crafting that I did do, I was excited to create a card for this week's Picture Perfect Creations Challenge: heat/dry emboss! I love embossing of any sorts and I remember at my very first Stampin' Up workshop, it was the gold embossing powder that really wowed me. 

But gold has collected dust. I've found a new love and that love is as strong as ever. It's Iridescent Ice. The clear embossing powder with glitter from Stampin' Up. It's always my go to for embossing powder and that hasn't changed in say... oh ever! This card is a complete replica of the one Maile made. It's not as nice, but I just adore the card. Hopefully you get a chance to join us this week at PPC!! Have a great day and stay warm! 

Just Add Ink #50

Just a quick (Ha! Yah right...) card to post before I head off to bed. I wanted to CASE the card seen on Clean & Simple Stamping's blog. You can see the original here. The colors are almost identical to Just Add Ink's #50 color combo. I didn't realize how HUGE my squares were until I cut them all out! And since it's past midnight, I figured I better just get the darn card done and head to bed. The daisy is from a retired Stampin' Up set called Petal Prints (LOOOVE IT and so glad I bought it on ebay) and the sentiment is from Papertrey Ink Signature Greetings. Hope you all have a great sleep!