Vintage Santa

Howdy, peeps!  I've got a real simple Christmas card for you today...a little stamping, a little diecutting, a little DSP and it's done:

I'm entering this in three challenges:

Jingle Belles' Santa Baby, Retrorubber's Anything Goes; and Merry Monday's Christmas Carols!  

The paper is from Authentique's Christmastime line (LOVE that stuff!)!  I stamped the Santa and reindeer from SU's Cozy Christmas; the Santa with his list from an older Silhouette Stamps set called Santa; and the music background called Aged Sheet Music which is from Cornish Heritage Farms, all in Sahara Sand ink.  That's the "retro" part!  The DSP also fulfills the "Santa" part...isn't this a great image:

 

And even though the song I had in my mind is "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas", I hope the gals at Merry Monday will give me a little artistic license!  Finally, I added some champage glimmer paper stars, just for a little sparkle:

Everything was mounted on a Very Vanilla card base!  Thanks for popping by today!

Yesterday we took Cassidy to the North Museum on the campus of Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA!  What a little gem it is!  Small, but perfect for children of her age group!  There were lots of interactive exhibits, plus reptiles, spiders, a huge ornithological display (which was my favorite), a giant microscope and lots of other goodies!  It wasn't so large that it was overwhelming..it was like Goldilocks....juuuust right!  Here are a couple of shots:

Cassidy helped the teacher do an experiment on solutions and floating!

She and Grampy posed with a huge dinosaur....whose head I chopped off!  Sorry, Mr Dinosaur!

And of course, in the dinosaur section, she had to line up the little dinosaurs, even encouraging another little boy to help her!!!  

Thanks for popping by today!

MM441 Hello Sunshine

Happy Wednesday, everyone!  I managed to squeak in some stamping time yesterday and used the Mojo Monday sketch:

as well as a new Tim Holtz Flower Garden image that I've been seeing all around blogland:

I found a couple of DSP scraps that coordinated and added some texture by stamping the polka dot paper with the Linen stamp, and the rust paper with Timeless Textures.  I stamped the echinacea in Basic Black and watercolored it with Chocolate Chip, Hello Honey, Delightful Dijon and Crushed Curry, and the stems in Old Olive and Garden Green.  

The banner was stamped with one of the sentiments from the last Paper Pumpkin, and I stamped the inside with another one, along with the same floral image, both in Cajun Craze.

On Sunday, we had dinner with John's family and Cassidy was in her glory again; this time she got to hold our nephew's little boy, Zion!   She was in heaven!

Thanks for popping in today!

TSOT264 Happy Birthday

Hi everyone!  Tuesday is upon us...I am not sure where Monday went, but it sure passed by quickly...and it is time for a Try Stampin' On Tuesday sketch!  There is an optional theme of helping hands as well, but I opted for a birthday this week:

I've been digging into my stash of designer papers and found this cool turquoise, green and brown print, so I set to work finding some goodies to go with it! Here's my final outcome:

I started by finding a scrap of some old Basic Grey 6x6 paper in a cool lime green....don't even know the name of the pad....and it matched the scritchy-scratchy look of the patterned paper, so I used that for my top portion and even cut the letters "h" & "b" from them, layering them for a thicker look (dies from Papertrey):

I inked up the dotted circle from an older Waltzingmouse set called Country Labels (just found out WM is going out of business--WAAAAHHH!!  Love her stuff!) in Tempting Turquoise, and the dotted image from Timeless Textures in Lucky Limeade for the horizontal pieces; the vertical piece was a piece of Early Espresso stamped with the retired Sanded background stamp in white craft ink.  A little bit of deckle edging and three candy dots finished it off!  Another masculine b-day card for my stash!  

I hope you'll play along with our sketch this week!  You can find all the samples as well as a link to share your creation at the TSOT blog, or lots of people are finding us on Facebook!  Either way, we hope you'll play!

Although Sunday was a bit chilly in our area for an Easter egg hunt, Cassidy and Dominic did manage to find one at a nearby park on Saturday, and set off to find some goodies:

I love Dominic's Minion bucket....there's a boy with great expectations!  Enjoy your day!

Paper Players 288 Birthday Boy

Happy Easter, or Resurrection Day, as we like to call it!  I hope whatever you celebrate, you have a blessed time with family and friends today!  It's my turn to host the Paper Players today and I have a little sketch for you:

Because Sale-a-bration is almost over, I wanted to use a SAB set, and I also wanted to create an ombre effect with the three panels, although that was not my original intent when I designed the sketch!  But I need masculine cards and I was neglecting my blues lately, so I went with Island Indigo, Lost Lagoon (which will be retiring soon as well--boo hoo!), and Soft Sky:

I adhered the three panels to a piece of scrap paper first, diecut them with the stitched border die (Lil'Inkers), then embossed them with the Chevron EF.  I also created an ombre effect...or maybe it's really striped, but you get my drift, with the party hat from Silhouettes & Script:

To get this effect, I inked up the entire stamp with Soft Sky, then inked it a wee bit down from the top with Lost Lagoon, and then finally, inked the bottom portion with Island Indigo.  If you go from light to dark, you don't need to worry about inking over top of a previously-inked area!  I love how it turned out!  I added a silver star with an enamel dot, although it's hard to tell that I used Silver Foil, but I promise I did!

Finally, I inked up "birthday boy" from the "Hello" SAB set and cut it out in a banner and backed it with a Silver Foil banner as well, and adhered it all together!

I stamped the birthday sentiment from Suite Sayings on the inside, and added another star with a candy dot just for fun!

I hope you'll play with my sketch this week too!  I think you could use up lots of little scraps and create something cute!  Check out what the AWESOME design team did with it too:

• Claire
• Jaydee
• Joanne
• Laurie
• Nance 
• Sandy
• Linda
• Hannelie
• Colleen

And of course, we did some egg-dying this weekend:

And Grammy had to do some experimenting with SU inks and Itty Bitty Bits on a plain white hardboiled egg!  It was tricky, a little smudge-prone, but fun!

Enjoy your day!

Happy Resurrection Day!

Wishing everyone a blessed holiday as we continue to marvel the indescribable gift we've been given by our Lord Jesus Christ!

Easter Blessings

Happy Saturday, peeps!  I haven't been too organized lately...here's what my craft area looks like, at least the part I am willing to show you:

What a mess!  How can anything creative come from such disarray?!  So I thought I would show you some beautiful Easter cards I got in the mail from my friends!  This cutie is from Linda; I just love those bows and pretty colors:

And this lovely iris-fold Easter egg is from Martha:

Even John was intrigued by the beautiful folded edge Robyn added to her springy creation:

And finally, a gorgeous creation from Debbie!  Love that ribbon and these colors are wonderful!

Finally, amidst all the mess, I did manage to create a simple Easter card that I sent to a few of my friends:

I used the cross from All God's Grace atop some retired SAB DSP from last year and a retired SU Easter set!  Thanks for popping in, and be sure to come back tomorrow for a new Paper Players challenge!

Ahhh...the challenges of teaching a wee one how to tie shoelaces!  We'll need more practice for sure!

TSOT263 Happy Easter

Hi peeps!  I am down to the wire making my Easter cards...I think I work better under pressure, LOL!  I love things in threes so when I saw this week's Try Stampin On Tuesday sketch, I knew I had to play along!  Here's the sketch:

And here's my card....I took the liberty of switching the banner so that it didn't end up right in the bunny's face!  

This is an older set called Hello Spring that my sweet friend Teri recently gifted me with...I remember it from a long time ago and always regretted never buying it!  So I am very grateful to her!  I stamped the images in Basic Black and watercolored them with Pistachio Pudding, Crisp Cantaloupe, Cucumber Crush and Hello Honey, and the eggs with other pastel colors.  I mounted them on stitched squares of Pistachio Pudding:

The sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes and was cut out with an Itty Bitty Banners die.  Thanks for popping in today!  

And Miss Cassidy was totally worn out by her day at the playground:

Of course, then she wasn't tired at bedtime!  Vacation days can really mess up one's routine!

Vintage Easter Card

Happy Wednesday, peeps!  Bleahh...my spring allergies are kicking in and spring break starts today, so this will be short & sweet!  I found this darling image in my digital vintage image file...I think it is from Graphics Fairy....printed it out on some cream-colored stationery and mounted it on a mat of Lost Lagoon:

I scrounged around in my scraps of DSP and found some pretty complementary papers and snazzed it all together with some blue shabby seam binding I had made a while back.  He's a handsome fellow, don't you think?

Quick and easy and it's out in the mail!

Finally mastering those pesky scissors!

Enjoy your day and thanks for visiting!

MTS116 Birthday Wishes

Happy Tuesday, friends!  In my effort to stash-bust, I've reached waaaay back into my DSP as well as my stamps to create today's card, which uses the Match the Sketch sketch challenge:

As well, most shades of purple are sadly ignored in my crafting, so I forced myself to use some Perfect Plum and Elegant Eggplant hues:

The stamps are from an older SU set called Punch Potpourri, and the sentiment is from Papertrey's Mixed Messages.  I punched a butterfly and embossed it, and added some pearls.  Finally, it was all adhered to a panel that was embossed with a Tim Holtz Brick embossing folder:

Thanks for popping in today!

Cassidy asked Grampy to build a doll bed, so he got to work sawing some wood:

He assembled it, then painted it blue (because it was for her boy doll, AJ!):

And she helped a little too!  She's also wearing her mommy's apron from 4H!  

 Enjoy your day!