Have a Holly Jolly Christmas

First off I want to apologize for not posting anything the last while. We were insane trying to get everything ready for our Christmas Vacation, and then we were on the road for 2 days, then spent 5 days and we were on the road again for 18 hours. We finally arrived in Logan Utah this morning and have had a great day with family here. We will be leaving again tomorrow around noon for another 14 hours of driving before we end up in Mesa.

Before we left I made a card (a huge card) for Sevastian's Kindergarten class to sign. It ended up being 6x9, and the focal point on the card was 4x5.5. I took it into class for the class party and had all the kids sign it before we tucked the gift card for the teacher and gave it to her at the end of the party.

I love this set, and think it is a great kids set. I also decided to go a little over the top with it, and put shimmer everywhere. There is Dazzlin' Diamonds Glitter pretty much everywhere on the card. I also used Vanilla Smooch Spray to spray the background Bashful Blue piece after I embossed it with the Petals a Plenty embossing folder, and then I used Frost White Shimmer Paint to emboss the top of the petals and topped it off with 3 small Basic Pearls. I also added Rhinestones to the top of several trees.





It's late here, and I am working on almost no sleep, so I'll come back and post the recipes later.

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, and an even better time with family.

You're a blast....

I love the Pun Fun set, it makes the cutest cards, especially when you combine them with the sweet treats cups!! I made this card for my adorable nephew for his 6th birthday last month. I split up the stamp by inking only part of it for the spaceship, and then I stamped onto the tag behind the candy the saying from the spaceship..."you're a blast!" so when he went to eat the candy there was a little hidden message inside.



Stamps: Pun Fun
Inks: Whisper White, Basic Black, Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie, Tempting Turquoise, Real Red, Wild Wasabi
Paper: Pacific Point, Tempting Turquoise, Basic Black, Pumpkin Pie, Wild Wasabi, Whisper White, Brushed Silver,
Misc: Real Red 1/4" Grosgrain Ribbon, Curly Label Punch, Corner Rounder, 1 3/4" Circle Punch, Sweet Treats Cup, Dimensionals, embossing folder - tiny bubbles

Lovely Christmas

One of my all time favorite sets has got to be Lovely As A Tree. It can be used for just about anything, in fact I have yet to find a type of card it can't be for. When I saw this DSP Jolly Holiday and this pattern I knew I had to use this tree with it. I think the different shades of green look great with this tree. I still have so many ideas for Christmas cards, but only so many classes that I might end up scheduling another Christmas Stamp A Stack in December just so I have an excuse to make more samples.


Stamps: Lovely as a Tree, Christmas Punch (retired)
Inks: Old Olive, Early Espresso, Cherry Cobbler
Paper: Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive, Very Vanilla, Jolly Holiday DSP
Misc: Curly Label Punch, 1/4" Very Vanilla Grosgrain Ribbon, Stampin' Dimensionals

I am hoping to get a fair amount posted in the coming days, but life has thrown us another curve ball. My Grams broke her back late last week and we are having to care for her basically round the clock as the hospital here won't keep her until after a Dr can confirm that her old x-rays and her new x-rays are in fact different and then maybe they will see if they can do anything for her. I am so glad that she only lives literally a block away, it makes caring for her that much easier. It's also nice to have mom around helping out too. I will try my best to keep up with the blogging, but it might get swept to the side a bit int he next few days while we get this sorted out. Please bear with me and keep checking back.

Poppin' Pastels

I love the aged antique look you can give to cards by using the poppin' pastels technique. Very Vanilla is a great color, but you can add a lot of depth to it, simply by dirtying it up a bit with ink or chalks. I chose to use chalks for this look, and I love that the image from the jumbo wheel very vintage is just barely visible on the background vanilla cardstock. Looking at this card now, I should have put a light dusting of the chalk onto the blue flower, it looks a little too bright. I made the blue flower from the 5 petal flower punch by layering 5 of them on top of each other after I had scrunched them up.



Stamps: Very Vintage Jumbo Wheel, Perfect Punches
Inks: Early Espresso, Marina Mist
Paper: Marina Mist, Very Vanilla, Early Espresso, DSP,
Misc: Jumbo Brads, Scallop Trim Punch, distressing tool (from the cutter kit), Curly Label Punch, 5 Petal Flower Punch, Stampin' Pastels, Sponges, Cotton Balls

I will *hopefully* have a great organizing tip video for you later tonight, if it edits nicely for me.

NICU days

I am slowly getting more and more of my sons first year album done. I am hoping to have it mostly done by the end of this year, and for sure done by his next birthday in February. This was a really important to me page, and a hard to do page. He was in the NICU for several days after he was born and a lot happened to him there, but sadly we were not allowed to take many pictures. Depending on the nurses working sometimes we were not allowed to take any pictures. I am totally against that policy. I can not imagine having a premature baby that was in the NICU for weeks and weeks and not being allowed to take pictures. To me it was like I imagine going to visit someone in jail. We couldn't just walk in whenever we wanted to. We were only allowed in at certain times, and even then we had to be double verified, even by the nurses that knew us. It was not a fun time, and definitely not the way I imagined my hospital stay.



It doesn't look like it too much, but I tried to make his wrist and ankle bracelets into handcuffs, going along with the cell block theme. I made the little links out of very vanilla cardstock and sponged platinum shimmer paint over top to make it look like metal.

Stamps: Teeny Tiny Wishes
Inks: Marina Mist
Paper: Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Marina Mist
Misc: Curly Label Punch, Movers and Shapers Die Curly Label, Platinum Shimmer Paint, Brads, 5/8" Bashful Blue Satin Ribbon

I am hoping to get another page at least started tonight after the kid is done with his bath and in bed.