Merry Christmas

Striped sky

Have a wonderful Christmas and may you know the peace and joy that Jesus offers.

To see this year’s gingerbread creations check out my other blog.


National Scrapbooking Day

Hi everyone!
Did you know there are giveaways over on the Penny Black blog to celebrate National Scrapbooking Day?
Have a great weekend.


I got a Nikon camera…

I’d love to take a photograph.
(Name that song!)
It happens to be my birthday and my sweet husband bought me this very camera.  I was equally thrilled and astounded.  Now that I have a new and way fancier camera, I also have a manual to read.

Stay tuned…


Dissolving blossoms

Yes, it is another watery coloured image!  (It definitely looks better if you click on it to see it full size)You can see I had fun with this technique.  There is only one more after this one, then I will try and move onto other techniques, I think.

Once again I wet the watercolor paper then inked the stamp with markers before stamping it on the wet paper.  There is quite a lot of blurring in this image but I still like the contrast of the sharper leaf tips with the dissolving  flowers.

Supplies:

Stamps: Garden Silhouettes, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Inks: Real Red and Always Artichoke Markers
Cardstock: Flourishes Classic White, Always Artichoke


CAS Three Square

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When I saw this card on Susan’s blog I knew it would be perfect for the Christmas Card workshop I did for the ladies at my church on Saturday night.  There is plenty of room for creativity with three pretty squares and “merry & bright”.  Some women are happy to create the cards exactly as I designed them.  Others like to change it up a little.

Susan was inspired by this card by Donelda and when I went over and looked at her blog Wiggy’s World I found inspiration all over the place.

There isn’t really much to say about making my card other than go and try it, you’ll like it.

Supplies:

Stamps: All Year Cheer
Inks: Real Red
Cardstock: Very Vanilla, Garden Green
Also:  Merry Moments D.P.


13 year-old boy

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I gave my almost thirteen year-old girl the task of making a card for a thirteen year-old friend with whom we celebrated on Sunday. It was hard coming up with an appropriate gift let alone a card. My stamp collection does not have much in the way of “boy stamps”. Miss A rose to the occasion and did a hand drawn card. It is not obvious in the photo but the “13” is cut out and popped up. She used Whisper White cardstock and Bold Bright markers.

She created another clever card for a 13 year-old girl which I will post next time.

Thanks for dropping in.


A little help from my friend

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While stamping one night last week my inspiration left me and I fiddled around with designer paper for a while without getting anywhere.  The answer to my problem was of course, to scan through Sharon’s archives at No Time to Stamp.  There are loads of simple but impressive cards over there.  This is the one I chose to CASE

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Isn’t this such a cool card and so straight forward to make.  I used my 1¼” punch and my 1 3/8″ punch to make the button and the cropodile for the holes. I tied the ribbon through, popped the buttons up on a few Stampin’ dimensionals and that’s it. Thank you Sharon for your never ending supply of inspiration.

Supplies:

Stamps: Thoughts and Prayers
Inks:Riding Hood Red, Certainly Celery
Cardstock: Whisper white, Certainly Celery, So Saffron, Delicate dots d.p., Riding Hood Red, Pink Pirouette, Bella Rose d.p.
Also:  circle punches, cropodile, olive grosgrain ribbon, celery twill ribbon


Beautiful Blue

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I finally managed to make another of the CPS Sketches, something I intend to do every week but some how don’t often manage.  When I decided to do sketch #104 I realized straight away that it would take me out of my comfort zone.  It is very asymmetrical, with images coming in from the side not placed in the centre where I usually put them.

Anyway,  I decided that a piece of lovely paper I picked up on sale at Michaels would be just the inspiration I needed to get started.  The paper has very large floral images on it but the bit I wanted to feature on the card was the white flourishes at the top of the card.  The flourishes prompted me to do my stamping in white only and the blue in the paper blended in well with Baja Breeze cardstock.  My stamped images were very simple so I deviated from the sketch ever so slightly with the divided panels and yes, the orientation of the card itself. The darker blue behind my patterned panels is the reverse side  of the designer paper.

Supplies:

Inks:  Versamark
Cardstock: Whisper White, Baja Breeze, Bohemia Paper (My Mind’s Eye)
Stamps:  Ever After, Eastern Influences
Also:  White e.p.


Stamp Simply Celebrates Day 12

It is Day 12 of Stamp Simply Celebrates! The party’s almost over, but it has been so much fun.  If you are new here, check out Party Central for a full rundown of our 12 day schedule.  Feel free to jump in anytime at all!!!

Anyone can play ANY of the challenges by ANY of the hostesses during our 12 days of Stamp Simply Celebrates!!! You DO NOT need to have a Blog to playuploading your project to SCS (Splitcoaststampers.com) is not only permissible, but HIGHLY ENCOURAGED.  When doing so, use the KEYWORD SSC08.  Thanks!

Barb Schram Explore. Dream. Discover. Today for Barb’s Featured Project she has created a useful Holiday Home Decor item for YOU if you please, or it makes a fabulous gift item that will knock the socks off your friends!  It comes completely packaged with a card to match!  I KNOW you won’t want to miss out, so be sure to visit today over at Barb’s place and lap up the inspiration!!!

Sharon Johnson No Time To Stamp? – Me again.  It’s my regular Stamp Simply Challenge today, and it promises to result in some great layout options for you to use for quick projects.  Hope you can play!  All you have to do is scroll up as it is the post uploaded just above this one.

Some great samples for the Stamp Simply Challenge today can be seen on these blogsJulie, Janine, Jennifer, Tammy, Dee, Becky, LeAnneAJ, Jerri and Darlene.

Leslie Miller Running with Scissors – Leslie has some BLOG CANDY for you today!

Sharon Johnson No Time To Stamp? – Me again with more BLOG CANDY, and it’s right here, so just scroll down.


Stamp Simply Celebrates day 9

It’s  Day 9 of Stamp Simply Celebrates!  If you hadn’t heard there is a party going on, check out Party Central at No Time to Stamp for a full rundown of our 12 day schedule.  Feel free to jump in anytime at all!

Anyone can play ANY of the challenges by ANY of the hostesses during our 12 days of Stamp Simply Celebrates!!! You DO NOT need to have a Blog to playuploading your project to SCS (Splitcoaststampers.com) is not only permissible, but HIGHLY ENCOURAGED.  When doing so, use the KEYWORD SSC08.  Thanks!

Jennifer BuckThe Buck Stamps Here – Time is moving on and I think we all need some Quick Cards about now, agreed?  You’ll enjoy Jennifer’s Featured Project today where she also Challenges you to create some quick cards, qualifying you to enter her BLOG CANDY drawing.

You can see more great Quick Card samples by checking out Jennifer’s designers:  Janine, Julie, Tammy, AJ and Sharon

AJ Otto The Willow Garden – How about a game?  I LOVE games!!!  Check out the DT Trivia Game AJ is hosting over at The Willow Garden!!!  And AJ has some BLOG CANDY to offer to the winner!!!

Jennifer BuckThe Buck Stamps Here –  Jennifer is offering BLOG CANDY in conjuntion with her challenge listed above.

Sharon Johnson No Time To Stamp?– has some  SU BLOG CANDY today.

I hope you enjoy all there is to see on the blogs of these amazing stampers.  I’ll be back tomorrow with a project to share.