IB153 Poinsettia Sympathy

Hello, stampers and happy Thursday!  Time for a new Inspired By challenge...isn't this a cute one?  So clever!   

And here's the optional sketch to use..or not!

All the makin's for some fun snowman goodies!  I went in a bit of a different direction, however; I found out earlier in the week that my cousin Michael lost his battle with a rare form of cancer.  We found out only weeks ago that it was terminal, but it was still a shock when we got the news.  Our grandfather started a florist business back in the 1920s; his son, my uncle Kenny, took over it and then Michael after my uncle went into semi-retirement. Now Michael's brother Brian is running the business.  Why am I telling you all of this?  Going to the "greenhouse" and its particularly wonderful smell, is a part of my childhood that is very special to me, especially at Christmas.  There would be hundreds of poinsettias and other amazing holiday creations (along with that wonderful smell), and so I thought it would be fitting to use poinsettias on a sympathy card for Michael's family.  I chose to pull the Seaside Spray and Basic Gray from the challenge photo for my colors:

The Spot has a "CASE the Designer" challenge this week, so I chose this card and sketch of Andrea's, turning mine in the landscape orientation:

Poinsettias come in so many colors nowadays; I used the smallest one from Poinsettia Petals, stamping it in my Stamparatus twice with Seaside Spray ink to get a darker color, then filling in with the "fill" stamp:

I diecut them with the matching die; added a piece of white organdy ribbon on top of the Basic Gray DSP from last year, then finished them with silver metallic pearls.  After stamping the sentiment in Memento Black, I ran the top layer through the Pinewood Planks EF.  One of my favorite verses from an old Daily Bread Designs set was stamped on the inside:

I hope it brings some comfort to Michael's family.  And I hope you'll find some inspiration in our Inspired By photo too...the DT made some really fun cards; their creativity continues to amaze me!  

Thanks so much for popping in today!  And here's a picture from around 1962 of Michael, my sister Joyce and me at my grandmother's house on Christmas day! I particularly remember that Christmas because I wanted drum majorette boots, which I got; however as I trudged around in them all day long, the tassels began to fall out one by one, much to my dismay--and my mom and grandmother's! We were still finding them weeks later! 

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

 

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Itty Bitty Greetings, Poinsettia Petals, Scripture Collection 2 (Our Daily Bread Designs)
Card stock & Papers	Whisper White, Seaside Spray, Basic Gray DSP (ret)
Ink	Seaside Spray, Memento Black
Accessories	Silver Metallic Pearls, Flowers for Every Season Ribbon, Dimensionals
Tools	Big Shot, Pinewood Planks EF, Poinsettia Dies

Happy Santa for the Krafty Chicks

Happy Thursday, peeps!  I am thrilled that the gals at Krafty Chicks asked me to be the guest designer for December!  Woohoo!  Their theme for the first week of the month is Stamp Act...anything using a stamp, with Leanne (not me) as the hostess!  

Of course, this close to Christmas, I chose some Christmas stamps...good ole Santa! 

I actually had this card partially started from a stamp camp I attended last year, but never finished it!  I thought it would be a good idea to finish it up, so I stamped a CTMH Santa, colored him in with some Blends and fussy-cut him out.  The sentiment is also from CTMH and it fit perfectly on a Stitched Nested Label die:

I added some Playful Pets black and white twine and some Wink of Stella, and he's ready to go!  Here's the inside with some other CTMH sets:

I hope you'll play along with the Krafty Chicks this week and share your stamped creation!  See you there! 

My nephews LOVE their sweets.....as you can tell how they are anxiously awaiting my sister cutting her pies on Thanksgiving day.  However, they decided cherry pie was not sweet enough and cheesecake...well their little taste buds just weren't quite ready for that elegant dessert!  (But John ate the pie and I had some cheesecake!!!)

Luckily Aunt Le had some cookie dough ice cream...more to their liking!  Thanks for popping in today--enjoy it and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Love With All the Trimmings, Whimsical Holiday, Christmas Script (all Close to My Heart)
Card stock & Papers	CTMH papers (unknown names)
Ink	Memento Black, Real Red
Accessories	Playful Pets Twine
Tools	Big Shot, Stitched Nested Labels Dies, Wink of Stella, Blends

TCC145 Elegant Christmas

Happy Wednesday, peeps!  A new Card Concept Challenge is upon us...check out this beauty:

 

I have to admit that I struggled a wee bit with this challenge...these are just not colors that I normally gravitate to, but as I said, I have been having fun perusing my older stamps, and this Christmas Collage set came to mind, with its scrolls and elaborate designs, so I thought to emboss it in gold on black for a Classy and Elegant card:

I wanted to add some Very Vanilla to lighten it up a bit; I just got the For Unto Us set, so I stamped one of the smaller sentiments and diecut it with a Stitched Rectangle die, adding a layer of Gold Glimmer paper behind it along with some retired velveteen ribbon:

Although you can't tell here, the gold embossed poinsettia from Poinsettia Petals is actually two layers: Vellum and Very Vanilla.  I tucked it down into the corner, then layered everything on a Very Vanilla card:

Finally, I added another sentiment to the inside:

That's it for today!  I hope you'll play along with our challenge this week; you could use any of the elements, colors or theme for your creation!  Share it with us over at The Card Challenge blog!

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." 

Isaiah 9:6

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	For Unto Use, Poinsettia Petals, Christmas Collage (ret)
Card stock & Papers	Very Vanilla, Vellum, Basic Black, Gold Glimmer (ret)
Ink	Versamark, Memento Black
Accessories	Dimensionals, Gold Embossing Powder, Velveteen Ribbon (ret)
Tools	Big SHot, Stitched Rectangle Dies, Poinsettia Dies, Heat Tool, Stamparatus

RRCB149

Happy Tuesday, all! And happy December!  One more month of this blasted year, LOL!  Time for a new Retro Rubber Challenge, where we use stamps that are at least a year old!  Here's our pretty prompt for this week:

 

I have been having fun using some of my older stamps and I finally found the name of one of the sets I purchased a while back at a yard sale....Sassy Seasonals!  It is not even listed in the Splitcoaststampers gallery, but I did find it in one of my old catalogs; I believe it was from 1998 or 1999!  I used the star image and stamped it with Versamark on some plaid paper, then heat embossed it with clear embossing powder for my card today:

It's too bad you can't see the shine, but you can see the image a little bit on the red plaid one!  I added a sentiment from a past Paper Pumpkin set, some "greenery" and glimmer berries, and a glimmer snowflake:

I mounted everything on a white embossed panel on top of a Cherry Cobbler card, and added another Paper Pumpkin sentiment on the inside:

This might be one of my favorite Christmas cards ever!  I hope you'll dust off some of your older stamps and give them some love!  Share your creation with us at Retro Rubber...can't wait to see what you create!

Sawyer was enthralled by my little turkey candle holders...well, he was enthralled by the candles and the flames, truthfully!  He loved blowing them out and having Mommy relight them:

All went well until he got his wee little nose a bit too close to the flame...no burns, but it scared him a bit and we had a few tears!  Now I need to find some skinny little candles before next Thanksgiving! Thanks for popping in---enjoy your day and be blessed!

"Look around and be distressed.  Look within and be depressed.  Look at Jesus and be at rest."  

Corrie ten Boom

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Sassy Seasonals, Paper Pumpkins (ret)
Card stock & Papers	Crumb Cake, Whisper White, Cherry Cobbler Garden Green, Mad 4 Plaid DSP (Photoplay), Red and Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer (ret)
Ink	Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green, Versamark
Accessories	Linen Braided Trim, Enamel Dots (ret), Dimensionals, Clear Embossing Powder
Tools	Big Shot, Tasteful Label Dies, Holiday Greenery Dies (Tim Holtz), Snowflake Dies (Taylored Expressions), Reindeer Knit EF (Tim Holtz), Heat Tool, 1/4" Circle Punch

No Peeking!

Happy Monday, peeps!  So happy you stopped by today!  I have a card for a couple of challenges; Christmas Kickstart wants to see the Night Before Christmas, and Handstamped Sentiments has a sketch, although there is no linky available, and I can't seem to rouse anyone to remedy, but I am sure they will eventually!  So here are the challenge prompts:

One of my favorite older stamps is this one from Cornish Heritage Farms:

I used my Stamparatus to stamp the image on some Whisper White cardstock in Stazon ink, then diecut it with a Nested Stitched Label die, adding a Basic Black mat:

A sentiment from another CHF set seemed appropriate, and I added some holly and enamel dot berries to the sentiment panel:

as well as to the top part of the panel, where it was also embellished with some Red Linen Braid:

I just love these little cheeky guys, sneaking down to hang up their stockings and perhaps get a glimpse of Santa! Enjoy your day and be blessed!

"O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness, you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago."

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Stitched with Cheer (ret), Stocking Elves, Night Before Christmas (both Cornish Heritage Farms)
Card stock & Papers	Whisper White, Basic Black, Tis the Season DSP, Call Me Clover (ret)
Ink	Stazon Black, Garden Green
Accessories	Real Red Braided Linen Trim, Enamel Dots (W+9), Dimensionals
Tools	Big Shot, Nested Stitched Labels Dies, Stamparatus

PP519 Tic Tac Toe in Red

Hello peeps!  It's time for a new Paper Players challenge, with Anne Marie as our hostess, and she has a Tic-Tac-Toe board for us!  Check it out:

I recently purchased a big beautiful stamp from the Colorado Craft Company, and I had been playing around with it, just testing it out, and the image was so pretty and stamped so nicely, I couldn't bear to toss it.  It was being pushed around on my desk and when I saw the challenge had "red" as a square, I went to work to figure out how I could used that stamped image!  SO....I have the middle row going across of Red, Fun or Fancy Fold and Ribbon or Twine:

So obviously, the stamp is big...and round...and I stamped it on a regular quarter sheet of cardstock, so I didn't get the complete design on it.  But I hated to waste it!  I used a huge stitched circle die to cut out what I could, did a little crease at the top and mounted it on a piece of Real Red cardstock embossed with some snowflakes, and then that all went on a piece of Thick Whisper White cardstock to give it some weight.  You can see how it folds out from this side view:

I added a shorted diecut tag with a sentiment from Itty Bitty Christmas, and some Real Red ribbons:

When you flip it up, you have the sentiment in another circle and you can see all the embossed snowflakes:

I thought it was a good save, and I am looking forward to making a full-sized circle card with the whole design in the near future!

SO.....now what will tempt you from our Tic-Tac-Toe board?  If you need to make a few more holiday cards, perhaps you'll find a "recipe" that will give you inspiration!  Please check out what the DT did over at the Paper Players blog for some more inspiration and play with us as well!  Thanks for popping in today!  Enjoy it and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Itty Bitty Christmas, Nordic Ornament (Colorado Craft Company)
Card stock & Papers	Whisper White, Real Red, Thick Whisper White
Ink	Real Red
Accessories	Real Red Satin Ribbon, Playful Pets Trim, White Perle Cotton
Tools	Big Shot, Stitched Shapes Dies, Tag Dies (Pretty Pink Posh), Stitched Circle Dies (Lil'Inkers), Snowflake EF (Darice)

FMS463 Thank You

Happy Day-after-Thanksgiving Day!  I am beat, but we had a lovely dinner!  I have a very simple but pretty thank you card to send to my customers and I used the FMS sketch for them:

In the hustle and bustle of creating holiday cards, we sometimes forget the other pretty papers that we own!  I pulled out some cheerful prints from Flowers for Every Season, and made use of some scraps:

This first one uses the sentiment from Beautiful Autumn, stamped in Poppy Parade, and a little Just Jade leaf diecut from the Christmas Cardinals dies for an accent:

This next one is a little stepped up....I wanted a narrower sentiment so as not to cover up that beautiful floral image on the DSP, so I stamped a sentiment from Ornate Thanks, punched the edges with the Banner Pick-a-Punch, and for added interest, embossed the card front with the Dainty Diamonds embossing folder:

and since I had already stamped and diecut the larger thank you, I adhered that to the inside of this card, along with the little leaf:

Thanks for popping by today!

The "kiddie" table from yesterday....this table was in my grandmother's house and I imagine that many of my cousin's fannies sat on these chairs!!  Cassidy was a wee bit too big for a chair, so John put a cushion from one of our patio chairs on to a plastic milk crate and it worked like a charm:

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Beautiful Autumn, Ornate Thanks
Card stock & Papers	Whisper White, Just Jade, Flowers for Every Season DSP
Ink	Poppy Parade
Accessories	Dimensionals
Tools	Big Shot, Stitched Rectangles Dies, Christmas Cardinal Dies