CAS Christmas Tree

Happy Friday, peeps!  I have a quick card today using the new Winter Woods set; it will be available September 5, and it coordinates so very nicely with the Rooted in Nature set!  I made a CAS card for the CAS Christmas challenge of "tree":

I stamped and diecut the main tree from the Winter Woods set, using Tranquil Tide ink, then stamped it again in the background without re-inking it.  I did the same technique with the two trees from Rooted in Nature, creating my background.  I added a stitched hillside, then stamped a sentiment from Christmas Pines and added a couple of pine boughs from Winter Woods:

I used an older Verve Christmas stamp for the inside and added a couple more pine sprigs as well!  I resisted putting some glitter on it...the last time I tried to add glitter to Tranquil Tide, it turned green!!  I'll have to work on that!

Today is Cassidy's 8th birthday and she has a jam-packed weekend ahead!  Last night her karate class went to a Wilmington (DE) Blue Rocks baseball game, where the black belts did a performance.  She got her picture taken with their mascot, Rocky Bluewinkle:

Now, Rocky has a cohort named Mr Celery---can you believe it!  If you have a few minutes, you can read how both mascots got their name here, and I will have to ask Cassidy tomorrow at her party if she got to see him!  Apparently he comes out if the team scores a run, and although they lost the game, they did score four runs!

And finally, I have two more birthday cards to share:

This beautifully-detailed one is from Fran!

And Ellen created this garden beauty!  Thanks, ladies!  Enjoy your day and be blessed!  Thanks for popping in!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Winter Woods, Rooted in Nature, Christmas Pines, Joyous Noel (Verve, ret)
Card stock & Papers	Thick White
Ink	Tranquil Tide
Accessories
Tools	Big Shot, In The Woods Framelits, Stitched Hillside Dies (Lawn Fawn)

FMS301 Cassidy's Birthday Card

Happy Thursday everyone!  Today's a big day in our household...my little punkin turns seven!  She informed someone yesterday that at midnight, she would turn SEVEN!!!  So I took the FMS sketch (although I just realized I have the point on the wrong side of the sketch...oh well!):

and made her a little owl-y birthday card!  Dana loves owls, so that means Cassidy loves owls too...her new bedroom in Wayne's has an owl theme so she is quite excited about that as well!  I have had this owl paper for a long time...I guess I might have been hoarding it...so I broke it out and actually USED it! 

I used a couple of retired colors on it:  River Rock and Lost Lagoon, as well as Pool Party, Soft Sky and Early Espresso!!!  The owl is from Lawn Fawn; the birthday sentiment is from Verve, and the little "celebrate" on the border is from Our Daily Bread Designs!  You can't see it, but the owl is heat embossed and it's so cute!!

She got a couple of early birthday cards and couldn't even wait to get out of the car to read them:

This one brought a smile....a gift card to a local ice cream shop!  Yum!  Hopefully she'll share! (Thanks, Miss Debbie!)

And this one had an owl on it too, and a fancy fold....I'll have to share them all with you soon!

She requested steak, homemade mac and cheese and tomatoes for supper....plus hopefully we'll get to the pool, so it will be a busy day!  Thanks for popping in and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	You're A Hoot (Lawn Fawn); Polka Dot Basics (Papertrey Ink), Birthday Bash (Verve), Mini Tag Sentiments (Our Daily Bread Designs)
Card stock & Papers	River Rock and Lost Lagoon (both ret), Soft Sky, Owl DSP (My Mind's Eye Quite Contrary)
Ink	Versamark, Early Espresso, White Craft, Soft Sky
Accessories
Tools	Big Shot, Word Bubbles Framelits (ret), 1  1/4" Circle Punch, Heat Tool, Clear Embossing Powder, Dimensionals

SIP112 The Road Less Traveled

Hi everyone!  It's Tuesday and that means it's time for another Stamp Ink Paper challenge!  "Travel" is our theme today....and a great one it is!

I don't have a whole lot of "travel" stamps and what I do have, I've used a lot....so I wanted something a little different!  John has a slew of old ADC map books he got from his dad's house, so I snagged one and took out a page to create my card:

I chose a sentiment from the retired Adventure Awaits....this is such a great set, fun sentiments and big bold fonts....and stamped it in Tempting Turquoise, then again in Real Red for the center portion:

I stamped a bike image from Clearly Besotted's Good Times:

and had a cute little paper-pieced balloon from Verve coming out of its basket:

I also added a little image from Better Together that looks like a road...at least that's what it looks like to me!!!

I think this would make a great graduation or "new job" card....it was fun to make!  I hope you'll check out all the other samples on the SIP blog and share your travel card with us as well!

Speaking of traveling, Cassidy spent another day with her daddy as they got home late due to lots of vacation traffic!!!  Hopefully we'll get some snuggle time today!  Thanks for popping in today and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Better Together, Adventure Awaits (ret), Birthday Bash (Verve), Good Times (Clearly Besotted)
Card stock & Papers	Mint Macaron, Whisper White, Basic Black, Polka Dot DSP (from my stash), ADC Map
Ink	Memento Black, Basic Gray, Real Red, Tempting Turquoise, Mint Macaron
Accessories
Tools	Dimensionals

Viva la Verve

Hi everyone!  Hope your week is going well so far!  I found a pretty sketch at the Viva la Verve blog:

I never realized how much I depend on sketches to get me "going"!!  I needed a special birthday card, so I put this sketch to good use, using some papers from Petal Garden DSP and a pretty verse and image from Inky Antics:

I used a doily from my stash for the horizontal panel, and added some glimmer and white ribbons to hide the cut edge.  I stamped the verse and bird directly on to the DSP with Tangerine Tango ink, and added a birthday sentiment from Beautiful Bouquet in Pool Party:

I added another strip of that pretty DSP on the inside and another sentiment from Colorful Seasons:

Thanks for visiting today!

MM240 Vintage Bells

Hi peeps, just a quick Christmas card today using a vintage postcard image for the Merry Monday's challenge of bells:

After printing the postcard on some cardstock, I matted it with a piece of Soft Sky and added some Pool Party stitched ribbon.  My background paper was also printed from a past Crafty Secrets Vintage Christmas download; sentiment is from Verve's Unto Us, which was stamped with Chocolate Chip ink and diecut with a Stitched Shape, and accented with a little champagne glimmer paper diecut bell:

Of course, the pups are pulling on some vintage bells in the postcard:

Aren't they sweet?

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

I forgot to share this photo of Cassidy's "Thing 1" from her Dr Seuss day!!  It cracked me up....a white plastic spoon, pipe cleaners and some blue shreddie!  TOO funny!  Those library ladies are so creative!

Project Details--All Products SU Unless Otherwise Noted
Stamps	Unto Us (Verve), Images Digitally Reproduced
Card stock & Papers	Champagne Glimmer (ret), Naturals White (ret), Soft Sky, Computer Paper
Ink	Chocolate Chip, Delightful Dijon, Sahara Sand (for shading)
Accessories	Gold Brad, Pool Party Stitched Ribbon
Tools	Big Shot, Stitched Shapes Dies, Die220Q (Impression Obsession Christmas Shapes), Dimensionals

Scandinavian Christmas

Hi peeps!  Brrrr....it's really, really cold here today!  Staying inside as much as I can!  I made this card for our pastor and his wife; she is of Scandinavian descent and loves Christmas things in red and white, so I made this for their Christmas card:

I embossed the white panel with a Tim Holtz EF called Deer Knit, and used the same EF to emboss just a section of it in Real Red, then layered and adhered them together.  The wreath (retired SU Northern Hearts) was stamped in Real Red, mounted on a Stitched Rectangle die (Lil'Inkers) and since the top panel was a little short, I added a scallop of Dazzling Diamonds at the bottom, although the shimmer doesn't really show here!  My final touch was some Cherry Cobbler ribbon and some pearls:

The sentiment is from Verve (Joyous Noel).  I think this is very clean and crisp!!  Thanks for popping in today!

Last Friday, Cassidy's Advent Calendar gift was a little stuffed reindeer:

Since it was Uncle Raymond's birthday (my brother), Mommy thought the reindeer should be named after him, Raymond the Reindeer, but Cassidy nixed that for "Frosty"!!

I imagine my brother would be relieved!  Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Stamp Ink Paper 76 Embossed Poinsettia

Hi everyone!  It's the last Tuesday of the month, and that means it's my final challenge as a GD with the fabulous Stamp Ink Paper team!  I want to thank them for allowing me to have such a great time creating with them!  This week their challenge just happened to fit into my schedule quite nicely:  embossing!  It can be dry embossing or heat embossing, or both!

One of my newer customers had a question about heat embossing and I realized that while SU has white craft ink and white embossing powder, we no longer have black embossing powder or black craft ink!  So it gave me a chance to do some experimenting to answer my own question:  can I emboss with SU's Black Archival ink and clear embossing powder?  The answer, happily, is "YES"!  I had embossed this pretty Verve poinsettia because this set happened to be on my desk, and I went ahead and colored it in with some ink and an aquapainter and made it into today's card!

The "joy" sentiment (My Favorite Things' Hand Lettered Holiday) was heat embossed with Gold encore ink (again, sadly retired from SU) and gold embossing powder atop a gold foil stitched square:

And here's a closer shot of my embossed poinsettia!  Poor Rose Red is sadly neglected, in my opinion, but pairs nicely with Cherry Cobbler!  I used Rose Red for the outer petals and Cherry Cobbler for the inner petals, finishing it off with a gold glimmer brad;

 

I even got daring and actually used some metallic thread from my Stitched with Love kit...surprisingly, it's not as difficult to use as I first imagined!  The floral and the gold panel were adhere to another embossed piece...this time, the paper was pre-embossed, a pretty Cherry Cobbler pattern from Kaiser Craft's Home for Christmas 6x6 pad.  

I hope you'll play along with us....the DT has come up with some fabulous embossed creations...be sure to check them all out at the SIP blog!

Last week while on vacation, we decided to try our hand at making soft pretzels!  I mixed up the dough, and Cassidy helped knead it:

 

Then we rolled it into long thin logs:

and formed them into the pretzel shapes!  Even Grampy got in the action!  (He really likes any kind of pretzels!):

Cassidy sprinkled on some salt, and we baked them in the oven!

YUM!  For our first try, they weren't too bad.  Next time I would not do the baking soda bath...to me, it gave them a strange taste.  And I might bake them a wee bit longer.  But all in all, they were pretty good!

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Paper Players 323 Sketch

Happy Sunday, peeps!  It's time for a Paper Players challenge, and my sweet friend Sandy is our hostess with a really great sketch!  It gave me a chance to use some new goodies....I just can't help shopping early for my own Christmas gifts, LOL!

I pulled out some retired SU Christmas paper...maybe from a couple of years ago?.....and used it on a Crumb Cake card base, then added a Pear Pizzazz panel embossed with a Tim Holtz EF (Knit Set-Deer).  I used a Verve set and die (Unto Us) to stamp and cut out the deer in Early Espresso, then added some Pretty Pines cut in Old Olive and a sentiment from Bells & Boughs, diecut with a Stitched Shapes oval framelit:

As an afterthought, I liberally covered the pine branches in glue and added some Martha Stewart glitter:

and added some wide organdy Cherry Cobbler ribbon behind my sentiment.  Love the country feel to this!

I am sure you'll find a great use for this sketch...Christmas or some other occasion!  Be sure to share it with us at the Paper Players and check out what the others created as well!

A happy Thanksgiving photo!  She actually agreed to wear a dress AND put her hair in ponytails!

Enjoy your day!