Happy New Years

I'd like to wish all of you a Happy New Year! Tonight I'll be ringing in the new year with my husband and kids, just a quiet night at home. We ordered pizza for dinner, we'll watch movies and make ice cream sundaes and at midnight if the kids are still awake they'll pop open some party poppers, its all fun!

How Sweet!

Enjoy Your Day!

I've been wanting to make a card with this PMSabella when I received the stamped image of her from the bellaholics group, but I could find a saying that would really go good with her. So I decided to make her into a - enjoy your day kind of card. This looks pretty good to me, this Bella could be me in my sweat pants eating popcorn drinking Pepsi and popping bonbons, all she needs is a TV with a good movie. I haven't had a day like that in a long time, but it sure sounds good, a girl can dream cant I? (This is what men think we do all day when their gone isn't it?) LOL.

Supplies: PMSabella, Riveting-Stampin' Up, Cuttlebug embossing folder, Circle Punches, Ribbon, Aqua brush. Colors: Pixie Pink, Certainly Celery, Brocade Blue, Summer Sun, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip and Going Grey.

Thanks for visiting!

Mr. Snowman

One of my Christmas gifts from my husband was a few My Favorite Things stamp sets, this was one of them (Baby Its Cold Out) so yesterday over at Splitcoast was the Ways to Use It Challenge in which you were to make a card or project using Stazon ink. The first thing that popped into my brain was this stamp set and to make an acetate card. I used black Stazon ink for my main image (did I mention that I'm a snowman freak, I love them, so I had to have this set) and white Stazon ink for the snowflakes on the acetate. I paper pieced the headless chicks coat and boots and used liquid applique on the fur tops of her boots. Its hard to see but I added dazzling diamonds to the snowman, stamped his top hat and cut it out and then popped it up with a pop dot.

Have a great weekend!

Ta Daaaaa!

I'm finally sharing pictures of my new craft space/studio, or better known in my family as the MOM CAVE! I've been in my new space for about a month now, but I've been waiting on posting pictures so that my brother Jeff could finish a few more things that needed to be done, so it would look all nice and pretty. The picture up top is my favorite part of the room and the first thing you see when you walk in, I love all of the open shelves and how everything is right at my fingertips. The room is painted a soft color yellow, I wanted a warm color because I'm in the basement, the cabinets are white (I'm still waiting on the toe kick) and offer lots of storage for all of my stuff. The carpet is a warm cocoa color with a pin dot pattern and makes the room feel very cozy.

Its great to have a long counter top to be able to have room to spread out when I'm working. When I am working on something this room looks like a tornado hit.

To the left are shots of a couple of my drawers.....I don't just show my drawers to just anyone ya
know so consider yourself lucky, LOL.

Below is a picture of the opposite side of the room, you would see this if you walked into the room and looked to your right. I only have one chair because the room is pretty small and all I have to do is wheel from one side or the other.

The picture on the right is of my closet, were I store all of my stamps (other than my background stamps which are stored on the shelves above my counter) and any other stuff I don't know what to do with. I need to organize the bottom half of the closet (to make room for more stamps right?).

I just love my new space, its a dream come true and its all thanks to my sweet husband and my brothers for all of their hard work!

NEW STUFF!

OK, I was able to get a card done and I got to use two of my new Stampin' Up stamp sets, yahoo! This card is for yesterdays sketch challenge on Splitcoast Stampers, I really miss doing some of the challenges that Splitcoast has, I think the challenges inspire and motivate me to make something different. Yesterday I looked at the sketch and thought it looked great but had no ideas as to what to do with it, but tonight I knew I wanted to use my new stamps, so I did!

Supplies: Cause for Celebration, Celebrate Everything, Coluzzle, Marvy scalloped circle punch, Slit punch, 1/16" circle punch, Black ribbon. Colors: Lovely Lilac, Black, Almost Amethyst and Whisper White.

Our Christmas in a Nut Shell

Well another Christmas is over, with all of the hustle and bustle of getting ready I sort of feel a little sad and relieved that its over. Sad because it seems to go so fast and I cant believe another Christmas has come and gone and relieved because life can slow down a tad bit now. Our family had a great Christmas! Christmas Eve was my side of the family at our house, it was real casual with drinks and munchies and Christmas day over at Dan's sisters house.
Christmas Eve was a sleepless night, we went to 10:00pm mass, got home at about 11:30pm, got the kids to bed and then Dan and I didn't get to bed until 1:30am only to have Connor wake up crying and then at around 2:30am one of Connor's toy's that was under the tree was going off and singing some song from Oscar the grouch, so Dan had to go through a pile of packages to try and find the one that wouldn't stop singing. Then Zach woke up at 3:30am to put my gift under the tree and decided to stay up and around 4:00am Gabby woke up and by 6:00am we were doing presents - crazy.

As of last night my two older children Zach and Gabby both have the flu, so I've been running around trying to clean and disinfect the whole house with the hopes that no one else in the family gets it especially the baby. So the only crafting that I have been able to do has been cutting rubba from my Stampin' Up order that came on Christmas Eve. I'm hoping to be able to have a card to post before tonight is over.

Merry Christmas

I hope that all of you have a wonderful Christmas and enjoy your holiday with family and loved ones!

May Santa bring you everything you wished for.

Make a Wish!

Yes another birthday card, I received this image when a few of my friends did a Bella image swap a while back and now that I've used this Bella, you got it, I want it. I think this Bella is so pretty once she is all colored and glittered, by the way have you ever had a whole bottle of stickles explode all over the place, lets just say my fingers are nice and glittery now.
This layout is from Lauren Meaders blog The Beauty Within and you have to go take a look at the Bella cards she's created because they will knock your socks off, Lauren's work is beautiful, if you don't already subscribe to her blog, your missing out!

Supplies: TinkerBella, Make a Wish-Bella, Doodlebug glitter paper, Slot punch, Ribbon, Aqua brush, Stickles/cotton candy and yellow, Chunky iridescent white glitter/for wings, pop dots. Colors: Regal Rose, Pretty in Pink, Certainly Celery, Blush Blossom and Whisper White.

A December Birthday Card

Well I haven't stamped with my Bella's in a while and I needed a birthday card, two of my sister-in-laws have birthdays this month and so I put together a simple but cheery Bella card. I don't know about you but I'm about Christmased out, don't get me wrong I love Christmas, but it feels good to work on something else.

I used my aqua brush to color this Bella and then added some yellow stickles to the cake for a bit of sparkle. I found some striped scrapbook paper I had and used that for a section of the background, I also stamped a row of circles along the edge of the card from the stamp set All in a Row. The rest is pretty easy to figure out.

Thanks for stopping by!

For my Brother

Sorry I haven't been able to post much lately, but with preparing for Christmas there is always a ton to do and Ive been very busy. So far I have almost all of the gifts wrapped and have all of the food for Christmas Eve, which is at our house this year. I've been waiting for my sneak peak order from Stampin' Up to be delivered, I wanted to order earlier but didn't have the cash. Can you believe that when I tracked my order it said that UPS would be delivering it on Christmas Eve, some how I wonder if that's right, all I know is that I cant wait to play with my new stuff.

This card I made for my brother Jeff as a thank you for all of the help he has given to our family, the inside pulls out so you can read the sentiment. I'm going to enclose two gift certificates, one for Home Depot so he can buy himself something new and the other to his favorite restaurant so that he can take his wife out for a nice dinner. My brother Jeff is the best, he would do anything for anyone, he is always helping other people. Jeff helped us out this year with building my new craft room, which was a dumpy little whole in our basement and he turned it into a beautiful craft studio, I really appreciated all of his hard work.

Supplies: Lovely as a Tree, Wonderful Words, In My Thoughts, Weathered BG, Canvas BG, Tab punch, Corner rounder punch, Ticket corner punch, Brads, Ribbon, Sponging. Colors: Bravo Burgundy, Always Artichoke, Whisper White.

The pattern for this card is from a Splitcoast card sketch #101, this is a great card for giving a gift card in.

TFL

I've Been Tagged!

I've been tagged by Elaine, now I'm suppose to list 7 things about myself and then tag some more people.

1. I have to have at least one cup of coffee in the morning in order to function and everyone in my family knows that you don't speak to me until I've had it. (I'm NOT a morning person)

2. My favorite type of food is Italian, pizza and pasta, if its pizza it has to be raked through the garden but no anchovies.

3. Chocolate is a must and the darker the better, I love those dark chocolate oranges, the ones that are shaped like an orange and you have to whack to separate the orange wedges inside (nothing better than being able to take out some aggression and then be rewarded with something sweet).

4. I'm the youngest of three, I have two older brothers that used to torture me when we were kids and now were very close and I don't know what I'd do with out them.

5. I love the smell of cleaning products, especially toilet bowl cleaner (I know that's totally weird) and you would think that this would motivate me to do more cleaning, ya no. (hmm cleaning or stamping and blog surfing).

6. I enjoy spending time with my friends and laughing as often as I can, they help to keep me sane.

7. As some of you know I have three children, all now in their T's - a Teenager, a Tween and a Toddler. I didn't plan it that way that's just the way it worked out.

Now for the tagging of some bloggers:

Dawn: Dawn's Special Creations
Bonnie: Bonnie's Blog
Deborah: sharing my obsession
Tina: Wooded Views

Winter Wonderland

Wow, this is our first big snowfall of the season here in Michigan, this is a shot of a corner of our backyard this morning. We got anywhere from 8-12" of snow and the wind is still blowing, my daughter Gabby could resist the fresh fallen snow, she loves the cold weather. With all of this snow my husband has been out all night snow plowing and making some money for us.

Today I'm planning on finishing up my Christmas cards and cleaning up the house a little and if I'm lucky maybe I can snuggle up on the couch and watching a movie with a cup of hot cocoa.

Enjoy your day!

A Tisket A Tasket, A Peppermint Basket

These little peppermint baskets are just too fun! The first time I saw this peppermint basket was on Cambia Turnbow's amazing blog Stamp a Little Love Baby! and she had made them for Halloween, then they started popin up all over the place. I've made a few of these PB to give to the ladies that work in the office at my daughters school and my stampin ladies made these the other night at stamp camp because I thought that they would make a nice little goodie to give to someone for Christmas.


On my basket I raised the sides by adding a taller piece of Brocade Blue inside that had a scalloped edge and piercing. I used the large snowflake wheel with Brocade Blue ink and rolled it on the Bashful Blue, then added dazzling diamonds. Then I added two snowflake squares stamped in Real Red from the Perfect Presentation stamp set, popped some red rhinestone brads in the center, added ribbon and my sandwiched peppermints and that was it.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend, tonight were supposed to get lots of snow.

SSSS Rubbah gift!

Lookie what I got! One of my favorite Stamping Bella's is Cruisabella, which I don't own until now. My friend Dawnabella (Dawn) gave me this Cruisabella and a saying to go with it as a Christmas gift and look how pretty that handmade bow is!

Thanks Dawn, Mwah!

You have to go and check out Dawn's latest Bella card, it's too cute.

Blogger Trouble

For some reason today my blog header is blocking my main title and I can't seem to fix it, haaa!
Earlier today I noticed that my title had just disappeared and I thought, oh how lovely, I can get my title to show up if I take my flower background header away but as soon as I put it back up there, my title goes behind it. How do I know its behind it? because if I make my title super big it starts popping out from behind my flower picture, not good!
If anyone has ever had this problem or can give some advice I would appreciate it, thanks.

Cold Play Case

Well I hope Kathy H. my up line doesn't mind that I totally cased her marshmallow snowman card for my Stamp Camp and that I'm sharing it on my blog. I just couldn't resist, he is just too stinkin cute! How do people come up with this stuff? Even casing this card, mine still isn't as cute as Kathy's, I had to make a few substitutions but I tried to make it work. Kathy you are just too talented for words, thanks for the great idea!

Supplies: Cold Play, Warm Words, Snowfall, Snowflake punch, So Many Sayings, Rhinestone brad, Corner rounder punch, Word window punch, Dashing designer paper, glue dot, Real Red marker, Old Olive marker. Colors: Real Red, Old Olive, Very Vanilla, Creamy Carmel, Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie (for noise).

TFL!

Kathy when are we setting up your blog?

Oh My Stars!

This is another project that we made Wednesday night at my Stamp Camp, its hard to see but this box is in the shape of a star. We used my new Scor-Pal which is supposed to be in my Christmas stocking, lucky for me I saved the package it came in and I can wrap it up so no one knows. I've seen these star boxes on splitcoast stampers before and then I saw this set which blew me away on Sharon Johnson's blog No Time to Stamp and I knew I wanted to try and make one. I kept mine fairly simple because we had so many projects to do in one night, once you make one star box its easy to make another. The step by step directions for this star box and more great Scor-Pal samples are here.

Supplies: Scor-Pal, Dashing designer paper, Perfect Presentation, Warm Words, Large and small tag punch, Word window punch, Ribbon, brad, Tacky Tape, Shredded paper and Christmas candy. Colors: Old Olive, Very Vanilla, Real Red.

Thanks for stoppin by!

Christmas Gift Card Holder

This was one of the projects we did at last nights Stamp Camp, its a gift card holder and card all in one. I liked the idea of this because so often when you give a gift card you need a card to go with it anyway. I saw the design for this card on splitcoast stampers from a member named faithyc and really liked it, so I thought that I could figure out the measurements to make it for camp.

The card base is 5 1/2"x 4 1/4" normal card size and the smaller card on the front is 8"x3" then folded in half. I used the word window punch to create the slot for the gift card and had to punch it three times to get a slot that would be long enough for a gift card to fit, I also used the slit punch along the front of the base card to hold the gift card closed. Then I added some liquid applique with dazzling diamonds on the snowmen hat and earmuffs.

Supplies: It's Snow Time (sad that its retiring), Canvas BG, Happy Holidays from the Snowfall set, Ribbon, Word window punch, slit punch, piercer w/mat, Dashing designer paper, Liquid Applique and Dazzling Diamonds, Aqua brush. Colors: Real Red, Old Olive, Whisper White, Bashful Blue for snowmen.

Thanks Faith :)

Sleddin' by with a Christmas Hi!

Things have been crazy around our house as usual, this last weekend my DH and I worked like crazy to get our son Connor's room finished up so we could finally move him from our bedroom to his new room (which was our other son's room). The room is painted a pale blue to match his bedding, the closet organizer was put in, new light fixture and the carpeting was cleaned, all this and we cleaned the house and put up most of our Christmas decorations too. Needless to say Connor is now sleeping longer and knock on wood has not woken up in the middle of the night since Saturday, hooray!

I received this Stampendous stamped image from my friend Dawn and decided to whip this cute little guy into a card. I used non-traditional colors for this card and I think it looks soft and glittery. I used the colors Regal Rose and Pretty in Pink and a little Blush Blossom for his face, I added some white flocking mixed with dazzling diamonds to the rim of his hat and on the tips of his shoes, with some stardust gelly roll pen on the bell dangling from his hat. The Whisper White band of background paper was embossed with my Cuttlebug snowflake embossing folder and on the Pretty in Pink background paper I used the Polka Dot background stamp. I tied on some ribbon and pop dotted the main image and voila I was done.

PS some of my friends may receive this as their Christmas card so if you see it here first act surprised when you get it in the mail :D

Only 14 more days till Christmas!

A Present with a Bow

I'm sure a lot of you have seen these paper bows on splitcoast stampers and on other blogs, I know I did and I thought they looked really neat and would like to try making one some day, but I never did, until I went to the last Stampin' Up meeting I attended. Jenny (another Stampin' Up demonstrator) did a demo on how to make one of these bows with a 12X6 sheet of double sided designer paper and they go together in a snap. The nice thing about it is that not only could you use scraps of double sided paper to make one but this one matches the gift I won when we did our Christmas gift exchange.

I was lucky enough to win this pretty decorated can that Kim (a fellow demonstrator) made and the inside is filled with chocolate dipped pretzels, yummy! Kim is so stinkin talented with the paper crafts that she has done, if you could only see more of her work, its beautiful.

Thank you Kim!

I'm going to give this to my mom as a little goodie to go along with her Christmas present and then use the bow on the top of her gift.

My Boys

This post is non stamping related but I've wanted to post a few quick pictures of my boys from their birthday a few weeks ago and here they are. Naa, there's no age difference between them, not at all. Zachary just turned 13 and Connor turned 1, there birthdays are a week apart so we had them together.

Last week Zach must have been thinking about the difference in age between himself and Connor and he said that he was kind of bumbed that he wouldn't be able to grow up with Connor he said "when I'm going away to college he'll just be going to kindergarten" and I said "your right, but you'll always be brothers and when your both adults age wont be a big deal, this is how God planned it for our family and Mom and Dad are blessed to have all three of you"

I just love these pictures of both of them and the one of Connor with his red Elmo cupcake cracks me up!

I love my family and my life!

Inchies - New to Me!

What will creative people think of next, my friend Dawn sent me an email the other day with a link to Sharon Harnis blog Paper Fections, on her blog was this amazing Christmas tree loaded with these little inchies, take a look: Ten Inchies = A Christmas Tree Album. After doing a search on splitcoast I was surprised at how cool these little pieces of art work were and how much of an impact a little inch can make, so of course I wanted to give it a try, what do you think? It's hard to see from this picture but my inchie snowman has Liquid Applique and Stardust glitter on him. For more samples of these inchies here is a link to what I found on splitcoast: Inchies

Supplies: It's Snow Time, Warm Words, Flannel BG, Ticket corner punch, Brads, Piercer w/mat, Gingham red ribbon, Textured cardstock, Liquid Applique, Aqua brush, Stardust clear gelly roll pen, dimensionals. Colors: Real Red, Handsome Hunter, Whisper White, Bordering Blue and Bashful Blue.

Christmas Wish List

If your looking for a fantastic list of supplies that you may want or need for Christmas, you have to check out Lauren Meaders blog The Beauty Within for what she recommends to all of the card makers and scrapbookers out there. Three of the items on her What you need for Christmas list I either have or have just ordered for myself and I'm giving them to my DH to give to me on Christmas morning (its just easier that way).
Happy Shopping!

Glitter Window

The above card was a card that I made at the Stampin' Up meeting I went to yesterday. It was to show the technique of creating a glitter window using the stamp set A Tree for All Seasons and the snowflake wheel. This is such a cool and easy technique and I thought that I would share a few other cards as samples using the glitter window.

The card to the left uses a square glitter window with designer paper for the back of the window instead of a stamped image. I created this card and used it for my very first Stamp Camp, the original design of the card I cased from my up line Kathy who is so immensely talented and is a big source of inspiration. This card is a letter sized envelope folded in on the ends with the inside center flap cut open to create a pocket.

This card to the left was a Christmas card that we received last year from my cousins family, again using a square glitter window, very fun!

If you have punches, paper, some glitter and some packing tape you can make one too!

For all the how to's follow this link: Here


If you make a card using a glitter window, I would love to see it, add a link to your card or blog in the comment section of this post.

Thanks

Chitter Chatter

Today has been a pretty busy day, for most of the day I was at a Stampin' Up downline meeting. These meetings always get my head spinning with ideas, getting together with a room full of talented Stampin' Up demonstrators and seeing some of their work, doing make and takes and demos done, its all such a rush. I'm on auto pilot driving home because in my head I'm stamping and thinking of ideas!

December 1st marks the release of the Stampin' Up retired stamp set list, you can view it here, get em before its too late! January 2 is the release of the new Spring-Summer Collection Catalog, so you have from now until the end of the month to place an order for any stamp set that is retiring. if your interested in placing an order you can email me here.

In my mind I still cant believe that today is December first and how strange is it that here were I live in Michigan we're getting our first substantial snow fall, its in the low 20s with around 3" of white stuff and sleeting rain. As pretty as the snow looks from the inside of my house looking out, seeing it means that my husband has to leave to go to work out in it, he plows snow in the winter months and if we get a really bad storm with a foot or more he may be gone for 48 hours or more at a time (with no sleep) :(.

Well its almost midnight, time for bed, tomorrow I'll be posting a few of the things we did at the meeting today.

Thanks for visiting!