IC059 Bee Sympathy

Hi stampers!  Happy Monday!  Wow, we're winding down the end of the year!  Earlier I shared a baby card, today, unfortunately, I am sharing a sympathy card.  Circle of life, right?  The Inspire.Create challenge had a lovely sketch:

I used the new Honey Bee bunde , available Jan.3, which is a dream to stamp and diecut!  I paired it with some Mosaic Mood DSP:

I stamped the hive in So Saffron, and the bees in Early Espresso, coloring their bodies and wings with a Daffodil Delight blend:

There are nice sentiments in the set as well; this one was also stamped in Early Espresso and diecut with a Stitched Rectangle die:

On the inside, a sentiment from Here's A Card as well as a couple more bees!

Thanks for popping in today!

Cassidy had last Monday off, so she came over and made a gingerbread truck (from a kit!):

The icing was pretty hard to pipe, so she used an offset spatula to spread it around.....

and of course, to taste it:

The tree to sit inside the truck was a little easier, LOL!

The finished product!  Not quite the same as the picture on the box, but she had fun with it!

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

JAI487 Wildy Happy Baby Cards

Happy Saturday, peeps!  Hope you had a wonderful holiday....it was a great one in the Pugliese household!  I managed to get my turkey dinner cooked, made soup from the remainders, and our leftovers are almost gone!  I still have a ton of cookies though....I am going to have to do some extra walking to get off those calories, LOL!  Over the holidays, two families in our church celebrated the birth of two little boys--one on the 24th and one on the 26th!!  Special little Christmas presents!  So I used the sketch from Just Add Ink to make two cards:

Wildly Happy is a perfect set for baby cards...little baby animals and their mamas, plus some lovely sentiments!  I chose the bunnies, stamped in Seaside Spray, and used some matching DSP for the center panels:

The elements on both cards are the same, although I did add dimensionals to the one on the right, and I did a little shading on the ground on the one on the left!  I used a Stitched Shapes die to cut each element out:

The bottom sentiment was diecut with a die from Stitched Labels--such a sweet design too!  

Everything went on a Whisper White thick cardstock base that was embossed with the Basketweave embossing folder!  Thanks for popping in today!

I was so busy on Christmas day that I didn't get too many pictures!  I did take a photo of the gorgeous wreath that Dana made for my kitchen:

 I have buffalo check curtains, so it matches perfectly!  Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  I hope you and your family have a blessed holiday!  I am going to take a couple of days off to recuperate from family activities!  See you soon!

Luke 2:4-14

4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

FF179 Sailing Home

Happy Sunday, peeps!  A quick post today using the sketch from Fab Friday for a masculine birthday card:

I used the Sailing Home stamp set with matching Smooth Sailing dies and a sentiment from Itty Bitty Greetings; lots of sponging with Soft Suede ink (maybe a bit too much) and I used the Come Sail Away DSP on which to stamp everything:

I created a frame from some retired Woodgrain DSP, and also made another little banner to go behind the sentiment with the same Woodgrain paper:

A few sailboats and a sentiment on the inside and this will be in the mail tomorrow!  Thanks for popping in today!

My SIL were bird-nerd talking yesterday and she told me she saw a yellow-bellied sapsucker on her tree recently! Imagine my surprise when I looked out the window this morning as I was getting my coffee and saw this:

As you can see, it was only about 20 degrees and everything was quite frosty...but he didn't mind!  Enjoy your day and be blessed!

FMS416 Glad You're My Friend

Happy Saturday, peeps!  Hey look!  It's NOT a Christmas card!  I got my first order from the upcoming Occasions catalog and these beautiful papers were in it!  They're from a collection called Best Dressed, and they're so pretty, I thought one of them would work well with the FMS sketch for this week:

Yikes, I almost didn't want to do those wonky layers, but I pushed through and did it anyway!  I paired my floral design with some more gingham, and used a sentiment from Fable Friends, embossed in white on Lovely Lipstick cardstock for my sentiment:

I can't tell you how EXCITED I am that SU finally came out with stitched scallop dies!  Yippee!  These are available in the upcoming catalog as well!  I diecut a panel from the center of my gingham paper on the front to put on the inside, along with a sentiment from a new set (which bundles with the dies as well!) called So Sentimental, stamped with Lovely Lipstick ink:

And for my front sentiment, I diecut a partial panel from a larger die, then ran it through my Big Shot again, just cutting the edge to make a smaller panel!  I accented it with some Polka Dot Organdy ribbon and a little leaf from Bloom & Grow:

Thanks for popping in today!  

Silly girl!

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

ICC058 Christmas Greetings

Every time I say I don't need any more Christmas cards, I find out I DO!  The Inspire Create challenge had a lovely color palette, so I thought I would give it a go:

The colors are Blushing Bride, Cherry Cobbler and Old Olive, and I chose the swag from Shine Bright, stamped in Stazon ink for the focus of my card:

I had a piece of Old Olive gingham DSP already diecut with a Stitched Rectangle die, so I used that to kick off my design.  I watercolored the greenery in Old Olive, added Cherry Cobbler berries and believe it or not, when you use full-strength Blushing Bride, you get this color, which I used on my bow!  After coloring and fussy-cutting the bottom portion, I popped it up with dimensionals on top of the gingham panel:

I also used Cherry Cobbler for shadowing as well as the sentiment from Greatest Part of Christmas; I accented the words with a couple of pine boughs from Winter Woods:

 I added some thick Baker's Twine as a final accent.  Thanks for popping in today!

I always try to make Cassidy a little felt ornament for Christmas; Pinterest is full of ideas, I could spend hours looking at them!  I ended up buying a pattern from Etsy to make this rather fierce-looking owl:

The colors were not as nice as the sample, but I just used what I had on hand; he also has cardstock eyes, as I didn't have any black beads...I didn't want to make a trip to Walmart just for two beads!  I did add the twine, holly and berries (SU's Quilt Builder die for the holly and French knots for the berries) on my own:

 I know Mommy likes owls so hopefully Cassidy will too!  Enjoy your day and be blessed!

IB103 Painted Pinecones

Hi stampers!  Another Thursday, and another lovely Inspired By challenge from Laurel!  How about blue pinecones and lots of foil and glitter?

And here is her pretty photo prompt:

These are gorgeous!  My first attempt at creating glittery blue and white pine cones with my dies was an epic fail!  So I remembered that I had a pretty pine cone in last year's SAB set, Painted Seasons!  I went to work with my Stamparatus and some Blueberry Bushel ink and stamped it a few times on some Whisper White cardstock:

I stamped the same Papertrey Psalm sentiment from yesterday's card on the front, but it looked a little plain, so I added some Silver Glimmer paper and Blueberry Bushel Foil mats!  That kicked it up a notch!  I also added a silver ribbon and some silver Itty Bitty Background stamping!

A little trick for saving those precious pieces of specialty cardstock is to cut the center out of your mat, so you only have a "frame", and that way you still have a smaller piece to use on another project!  The foil layer was diecut with a Lacy Scallop Frame Die by Reverse Confetti, just to give it a little added dimension.  And the inside, which was Smoky Slate:

I hope you'll find some "blue" inspiration from our challenge this week, and be sure to share it with us over at Inspired By!  Can't wait to see what you create! And thank you so much for stopping by today!

Last week, Cassidy's karate teacher, Master Fisher, used her as a model to show how to get out of a neck hold!!  Yikes!

They do "sparring" on Fridays...which I do not like watching....but it wears them out for sure!  The ride home:

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

CKC26 Joyful Bits and Pieces

Happy Wednesday, peeps!  Christmas is only a week away and  I am still making Christmas cards; I went to lunch yesterday with my Community Bible Study teacher and she appreciates my cards, so I wanted to make a special one for her!  I literally had these pieces laying around my desk, unused from another project, and I liked how they looked together, so voila!  The Christmas Kickstart Challenge is featuring Last Minute Madness, so here is my last-minute card:

The print papers are from Kaiser Craft's Wonderland line, mounted on a Naturals White card; the kraft paper is from Close to My Heart.  I cannot remember what set the "joy" came from (I'll work on finding that!), but it was heat-embossing with white embossing powder and diecut with a Stitched Shapes die.  The snowflake is from Taylored Expressions, an oldie, and after diecutting it, I coated it with Wink of Stella and added a SU gold metallic pearl....it was really, really pretty IRL!

On the inside, I added another strip of leftover blue DSP, added a strip of star washi tape and stamped my sentiment verse in Lost Lagoon ink; the sentiment is from Papertrey's Psalm of the Year October.  Very pretty font, I just love this!  And my leader loved it too!

Cassidy was thrilled to have her little cousins visit on Sunday; she immediately went into hairdresser mode; Jameson actually sat still on the floor, let her put a towel around him and proceeded to work on his hair:

But the true charmer of the evening was Sawyer:

When his mama brought out the camera, he said "Cheeeeeeeeeeese!"  Adorable!

Enjoy your day and be blessed!