Random thoughts of a Confessed Stamp-A-Holic

Winter Wishes

Normally I make one style card to send out for my Christmas cards.  This year however I ended up making two different cards since my cards were on the religious side and I send to quite a few families that don't celebrate Christmas.  Enter this pretty :)  This card is pretty much a CASE of the holiday card that I received from my friend Kate.  I changed up the colors and added the snowflake but other than that it's pretty close to hers-hope she doesn't mind *wink*  I coated the snowflake in snow glitter-it's SO pretty IRL. I added lots of stickles to the mittens too.....this baby shines!

materials used: a cute Christmas (SU); rich razzleberry, baja breeze, pink pirouette cs (SU); xpress blending paper; tuxedo black (memento); rich razzleberry ink (SU); nestabilities; pink ric rac (american crafts); snowflake die (spellbinders); stickles; rhinestones (SU); polka dot embossing folder (provocraft)

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Have a wonderful day :)

Lollipop lollipop, oh lolli lollipop

Happy Sunday :)  I've got a fun little Simple Sunday card to share with you this morning.  I used this cute little lollipop for this oh so fun little card.  I used my spica glitter pens to color in the multi-colored pop and then gave it a nice coating of crystal effects for shine.  I played with the crystal effects a bit to give it a bit of a texture. At first I wasn't super sure I was going to like the end result but once it dried I was really happy with it.  The texture plus all the glitter from the pens underneath just made for the perfect little lollipop.  The sentiment banner is glued flat on one end and then popped up with a dimensional in the middle and then again glued flat to give it that "wave".  A pretty rich razzleberry button finishes it off :)

materials used: mix up of cuteness (unity); old olive, rich razzleberry cs (SU); xpress blending paper; so saffron dp (SU); tuxedo black (memento); copics; spica glitter pens; crystal effects; twine; button (SU); rich razzleberry ribbon (SU); scallop punch (SU); rhinestones (SU)

Thanks so much for stopping by today!!  Have a wonderful weekend :)

Hostess Gifts

Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE my hostess club gals?????  Oh I have...silly me.....well let me tell you *yet* again how much I adore these women.  We have had just about the same group of ladies since I was preggo with Elizabeth.  They are a fun group of ladies that I am proud to call friends.  So this year for Christmas I made my friends some presents :)  I got these awesome unfinished wood perpetual calendars and thought they would make THE best little present!  I asked each lady for her favorite color combo and I LOVE that each calendar is different.   I used a little watered down reinker to paint the wood before adhering the dp onto the calendar.  The reinker acts almost like a stain and I love that I can use that and still have a nice match to my papers.  This was such a fun project to do!  I have a few more calendars that I am dying to jazz up....once I find the time of course.  

Here's a little close up of one of the calendars.  I used the scalloped square to add the dates to the blocks.  Then a little prima flower on each number to just add that bit of "Merry whimsy".  I still need to make one of these babies for me......now to just decide on what colors :)

Big DIsney Marathon weekend coming up!!!!  Half marathon is tomorrow morning and the full is on Sunday :)  Can't wait!!!!  I'll be walking the half with my sister and my DH will be running both events!  hoping the weather is better than last year (it sleeted-in FL- for the full marathon).....I guess anything is better than that right???  

Thanks so much for stopping by today!!  Have a wonderful weekend :)

Birthday Chick

Super simple fun sketch for today's card.  I know I found this sketch on a blog somewhere but at this point I can't tell you if it was a challenge or not...so sad I really should pay more attention (or take notes or something :) ) I used some wintery background paper from Basic Grey but since I didn't want this to be a winter/Christmas card I used pink pirouette for the card base rather than something darker.  I feel like if I had gone with a darker color it might have been too "holiday".  Plus I gave this to a 6 year old and what young lady doesn't enjoy a pretty light pink :) 

materials used: winter girl (cc designs); happy birthday (SU); pink pirouette cs (SU), xpress blending paper; dp (basic grey); tuxedo black (memento); copics; old olive ribbon (SU); pearls (SU); white gel pen; top note die (SU)

I'm slowly trying to play catch up around the house.  We host Christmas here at our home every year and this year in order to prepare for having a house FULL of family, my DH brought all of my stamping supplies down into the new stamp room.........in boxes.  So now I need to start the job of unpacking and finally settling into my room. A job that is WELL overdue :)  I am super excited to get moved in there but it's tough because I'm trying to stamp as the same time (well not the *same* time but I'm trying to do it without taking a stamp vacation).  And since I really only get to stamp during nap time it's going to be a looooooooong process.  But it will be SO worth it in the end.....right??

Thanks so much for stopping by today!!!  Have a wonderful day :)

Baby it's cold outside

I have a feeling that when I originally made this card back in December it was for a challenge of some form.....but since I didn't write it down and the challenge (whatever it might have been) is long over we'll just skip that part *wink*  I'm not 100% sure I like the direction this card went in.  It was one of those totally cute in my head but once on paper just "eh" cards but since I have no shame I'm sharing it with you anyway :)  I'm happy to say I've been using my hoarded stash of felt flurries (the snowflakes) that I stockpiled up on last year (or was it the year before....).  I think it adds the perfect little touch to this card, don't you?

Materials used: penguin (unity); baja breeze, real red cs (SU); xpress blending paper; polka dot dp (SU); tuxedo black (memento); copics; real red ribbon (SU); pearls (SU); nestabilities; felt flurry (SU); rhinestone (SU)

So I've decided to jump on the Project Life/Project 365 bandwagon this year.  I've actually created another blog for my daily photo/journalling.  I'd love to have you stop on over and "visit" the little slice of my daily life: JUST A LITTLE SLICE...it's not a crafty blog but you never know what might show up on there :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today.....gotta run the little boy is screaming for no apparent reason :/  Have a wonderful day :)

Simple Makeover

Happy New Year!!!!  I hope that you had a wonderful Holiday season and that the new year brings a renewed sense of peace, love and joy to you all!!!!  

As I'm sure occurs at your home, the holidays bring along with it so much craziness!  i have been so swamped with "life" that the blog has had to sit on the back burner for a while.  Sadly there just aren't always enough hours in the day to do everything you'd like.....But I'm back today with a super simple Simple Sunday project.  I think this took me longer to gather my supplies than to actually make.  And I am SO happy with the end result :)

I got this fabulous Mom Agenda desk planner for Christmas and while it is such a pretty color I felt it needed a little touch of personalization.  So I dug out some chocolate chip decor elements and some self adhesive rhinestones and got to work.  The decor elements were a little tricky to get to stick but once I managed to get them on there (with quite a bit of rubbing) they are stuck done really nicely.  I love the look of the chocolate on the tangerine!!!  Then I added just a few rhinestones to bling it up.  I also took a little bit of stickles and put it on with a q-tip and then quickly wiped it off.  What this did was leave just the barest hit of glitter along the edges of the flower with out over powering the flower.  Then a simple run of ribbon along the binding of the cover with a few more rhinestones where the ribbon overlaps.  Then to tie it all in I added some polka dot ribbon to the already existing white ribbon bookmark.  LOVE!

We've got one more day of "vacation" before Elizabeth heads back to school on Monday.  But happily it's only a few days then until we are off to FL for the annual Disney Marathon Weekend!  I'm walking the half with my sister and my husband is running both the half and the full marathons!  I can't wait!!!  It's looking to be a little chilly but no where near as cold as it was last year.  Chilly I can deal with *wink* and honestly anything is better than the snow covered ground were have here in NJ.  As pretty as the snow is, and I really do love it, it just makes all the drivers on the roads go crazy or something.  Just getting around town is enough to make you want to pull your hair out!!  it's crazy!!!!

I hope that you had a wonderful holiday and I thank you for hanging around with me!!!!  I've got lots more to share with you so hopefully you'll come back and visit soon!!!  Until then, thanks so much for stopping by!  Have a great one :)

Have a Blessed Christmas

May your heart be filled

with the JOY, the WONDER,

and the glorious MIRACLE

of this Holy Season

Love to all of you!!!!

Balloons balloons make me happy

Super simple little birthday card for you today :) really this needs absolutely zero explanations- it's that simple

materials used: crazy for cupcakes (SU); vintage cream cs (PTI); basic black cs (SU); tuxedo black (memento); copics; rich razzleberry ribbon (SU); candy dots (pebbles); spica glitter pen

The chill has finally settled on us here in NJ--perfect timing for us to start our Christmas decorating :)  Normal people would have put up the outdoor lights and decorations last week while we were having 60* weather....but for some crazy reason I enjoy doing it out in the cold (I actually prefer to put them up at night too).  You go outside and freeze your tush off and then come in and have a nice hot mug of cocoa.  Perfect :)  I'm going to try and get the lazy little lady to help me this year.....I can only imagine what the house will look like if she puts up the lights.  Gorgeous I'm sure :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today!!  Have a wonderful day :)

There's a monkey in your cake

I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoyed lots of steals and deals yesterday during all the fab Black Friday deals!  Our holiday was very enjoyable and the kids and I spent the day inside yesterday making some fun Christmas decorations.  I should be working on my Christmas cards but......well you know how that goes *wink*

I finally got some time to play along with some fun challenges this week (again putting off those Christmas cards).  I made this fun card using this week's Mojo Monday sketch.  I needed a make a few birthday cards to send out my BRAKs this month and this one fit the bill perfectly :)  I picked my colors based on the super cute cupcake paper stack.  And can I say how much I love that marina mist is a perfect match?!?!  LOVE!!

materials used: birthday changito (stampendous), fabulous phrases (SU); marina mist, pink pirouette cs (SU); blending cs (x-press); cupcake dp; tuxedo black (memento); copics; crystal effects (SU); marina mist taffeta ribbon (SU); choc chip brads (SU); oval punch (SU)

I've made a nice collection of birthday cards now on to those Christmas cards.   Of course I am missing one of the key ingredients for the card-the oh so hard to get Christmas card picture. We tried the other day but I gave up....the little man was just not in the mood and all I was getting from the little lady were those fake cheesy smiles UGH.....going to try again tomorrow.  Fingers crossed

In the meantime.....enjoy some of our out takes :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go figure

I start making winter cards and the weather warms up into the 60s!  Crazy!!  We had a few *really* cold days (well for early November) and now we are in this nice warming trend......going to be a crazy one this year I guess..hopefully though the FEET of snow we had last year won't make a reappearance.  But if they do, this little guy is ready!  I always think of my niece when I make anything with penguins on it.  She loves penguins and really who can blame her?  They are so cute!  This little guy is no exception either.  He's all bundled up for the cold in his little hat and fluffy jacket.  He looks all ready for a romp in the snow doesn't he?  I used this week's Color Throwdown #118 for my colors and the sketch is the super fun Mojo Monday sketch for this week.  I LOVE this sketch!!!  I will definitely be using this one again.  It makes for a super cute card that you can make as simple or as involved as you like.  LOVE it!

Materials used: short stacks (stampendous); crumb cake, soft suede, cherry cobbler cs (SU); blending paper (xpress); cherry cobbler dp (SU); tuxedo black (memento); copics; cherry cobbler seam binding (SU); nestabilities; snow flurries embossing folder (SU)

I am SO looking forward to this weekend!  My hubby is off of work and I am looking forward to having another adult here to balance out the kid to adult ratio *wink* The kids have been running me ragged this past week and a half (being sick didn't help that either)...The little guy is into everything and trouble just seems to find him at every moment and the little lady?  Well she's just constantly on the move and keeping up with her social schedule is enough to make anyone tired *wink*

WIshing you a very relaxing weekend!  Thanks for stopping by today :)