Thankful...for you!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I have so many blessings in my life and so many loved ones to celebrate.  I am grateful and humbled.

A little something to share today using My Cute Stamps Owl-o-ween set and the Tea Party set.  Have you ever noticed that the bare tops of jar candles are just begging to be papercrafted?  Well, they are and they do it so well!  The pumpkin from Owl-o-ween easily works as a thanksgiving pumpkin and the sweet bird from Tea Party is the perfect size for a tiny tag.  This dressed up jar candle is going to Thanksgiving dinner with us today for my sweet hostess with the mostest. 

Here's wishing us all a day of blessings....

Supplies:

Stamps: My Cute Stamps and IT kit studio

Ink: Papertrey and SU!

Paper: Papertrey and SU!

Dies: Sizzix and Nestabilities

Punch: CM

Craft supply: paper flower, craft gems, felt, zig markers, liquid applique, ambroidery floss, ribbon,

EBtKS sketch #1 ....Santa baby, slip a sable under the tree, for me

I've been an awful good girl... ;)  OK, so I don't really want a sable...but I'd take the convertible that the ever amazing Ertha Kitt croons about in one of my fave Christmas songs.  Oh yes!  It's time for Christmas toon-age on my radio...for those of you resisting, just embrace it. LOL!  Did you all see the latest from the Kitchen Sink girls?  Check out their Sketch challenge #1 here.  This simple card has been rolling around in my head for a week but thanks to the SWINE flu (eek!), I'm getting it done at the last minute!

The sketch is based on the lovely Courtney Baker's fireplace mantle so I wanted to capture the feel of architecture and masonry with my textured and inked paper.  The stamp is one of my faves from last year and always reminds me of Santa, baby!

Some red embroidery floss hangs this "ornament" from it's ribbon bough.  Also, I cracked open the chamomile ink from Papertrey and it is JUST like toasted marshmallow against this cream cardstock.

So glad you stopped by today.  Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving and wonderful weekend...

SPCC#24 .....You're Sweet!

Hello sweet friends!  Coming to you live from sick central!  Ack!  The littlest and I have been laying low this week with nasty colds which is a total bummer anytime but especially coming off of the BEST birthday weekend ever!  I am behind on all kinds of things but one of the most important things on the to do list is to get some thank yous out to some very special friends and family who know how to make a girl feel like a princess!  To get in the thank you groove, a little card using the Sweet Kawaii set from My Cute Stamps and a smashing color combo from SPCC #24!

Now these colors could quite easily serve in the Christmas card capacity...but I saw cherries...go figure?!  Must be all the cold meds and the attitude of thanks I have going right now ;)

Doesn't the MCS cherry stamp go great with the October Afternoon cherry paper?  I also *needed* some vintage looking red and cream DP for the top of the card.  What?!  There isn't any in the October Afternoon DP book of paper.  Hmmmm...well, I'm an industrious girl, I'll just stamp some!  That delish red and cream stamped paper was made using the gorgeous Motif stamp set from Cora at Clearly Vintage. Yum!  The perfect paper for my card.    I also inked, buttoned, pen stitched and embossed to my hearts content.

And finally, a great big "you're sweet" shoutout to all of my friends who left me sweet birthday wishes.  You all are the best!  What a wonderful birthday weekend!!  Thanks so much for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps: My Cute Stamps and Clearly Vintage

Paper: October Afternoon, Papertrey and Georgia Pacific'

Punch: SU, CM, EK and lable nestie

Embosser: Cuttlebug

Ink: SU

Other: ribbon

Just Us Girls #7 technique challenge, blog candy and the family turkey

I spy with my little crazy big google eye....a turkey!  I know you are here for the Just Us Girls challenge #7 and are probably wondering what this crazy turkey is doing here?  LOL!

Dry embossing is the game this week, with a bonus challenge of having your project involve being thankful.  Enter, the family turkey aka the Kindergarten project for the whole family to get in on.

Let's talk challenge here.  My favorite method of dry embossing is the cuttlebug envelope embossers.  They give such a wonderful impression.  Here I cut my background circle of red cs and then ran it through my sizzix using the damask folder.  Easy and beautiful.  I used the turkey from Cathe Holden again and then stamped my sentiment bending it to right the circle since it's and acrylic stamp.  Some pinking sheers and ribbon do the trick after that and I mounted the whole thing on top of some fabric piecing.

Here's the turkey we made...we all contributed supplies, ideas, and glue (lots) and had lots of laughs together...which is what, I am sure, the project is most about....thankful for family time and our many blessings. 

So how about some eye candy from the rest of the JUGs girls?

Kristin Bueter

Pam Imholz

Maria Levine

Tracey Cuccia

Lisa Kind

Mona Pendleton

Be sure and drop by their blogs for more embossing fun.  You are gonna love what they've come up with. 

A wee bit o blog candy business...remember the felt snowflake ribbon from last week?  Well here's our winner:

Lucky number 11, the fabulous Kelley Eubanks is my winner!  Kelley, please send me your snail mail address at paperdaydream at aol dot com and I'll send some felt on it's way.  Knowing Kelley, she will make it look smashing on a signature Kelley card!

Thanks so much for dropping by today.  I'm off to celebrate my 34th with family time and Italian food!  My favorite! :)

Supplies:

Paper: Papertrey Ink and Georgia Pacific

Digi turkey: shared by Cathe Holden of www.justsomethingimade.blogspot.com

Stamp: IT kit studio

Other: vintage fabric, ribbon, pinking sheers

Color Throwdown, Turkey Style..... and a Cards challenge too!

Hello blog friends!  Won't you join me for turkey dinner?  OK, so it's a little early yet for thanksgiving dinner, BUT the girls at the Color Throwdown dished up the PERFECT plate of colors to give a boost to my Cards blog challenge place card design.

This incredibly proud turkey is from a turn of the century (1903!) reference guide and was shared by the talented  Cathe Holden last November.

Here we all are nestled among the harvest wreath.

Thanks so much for coming by today.  I am thankful for so many blessings in my life and you all are one of them.

Supplies:

Paper: Papertrey Ink, DCWV, Georgia Pacific

Ink: colorbox

digi image: provided by Cathe Holden, http://www.justsomethingimade.blogspot.com/

other: pinking shears, button, tea dyed lace

For Henry...a special JUGs charity challenge

Many of you may have heard the story of fellow papercrafter, Sarah Anderson, and the sad loss of her son, Henry.  Katie Cotton, owner of Paper Makeup stamps has created a stamp in his honer to raise funds for a memorial to be made in his memory.  The Just US Girls challenge blog is hosting a special challenge this week to help.  Please read all about it on the JUGs blog post and participate if you can. 

I chose a simple black and white line print of Henry to match up with the calm snowflake background.  Something special about the background...it was done in Microsoft Word using a font called WW Flakes...each letter of the alphabet is a different snowflake.  I spelled "HENRY" over and over again to make his very own snowflake DP.  It's like a hidden message inside.  The "snow angel" sentiment is a font called White Christmas. Virtually all of the card is done in Word and then printed, cut out and adhered to a card front with a simple bow.  And now on to what Henry can be when he's all dressed up in color...

This image is by Katie Cotton and truly brings it to life.  For more amazing coloring, check out the JUGs post and the links to the design team.  We hope you can play along in honor of little Henry.  THank you for coming by.

Holiday Tussy Mussy and a *favor*

Hi friends!  Back with more holiday goodies.  Have you seen the amazing eye candy over at Kelleigh Ratzlaff's blog?  She has issued herself a challenge to do 30 ornaments in 30 days using her vast array of terrific templates.  (Don't miss out on the brand new Grab Bag released for November) The best thing to me is she's using just about all of her templates to do this, bags, gift boxes, party hats and more to show the wide open versitility of using a 3-D template for ornament making.  She's asked the creative team to jump in with some template ornament fun and I jumped at the chance to make a holiday version of a tussy mussy (check out my wedding version HERE) out of the Party Hat template.    There is a fantastic sale going on all individual template's of Kelleigh's at the digichick so check that out too!  35% off sale  making each template just $2.59! 

Here it is, in all of it's glittery goodness!  Before I jump into the making of the tussy mussy, I was wondering if you might consider doing me a favor?  Have you seen the holiday craft contest going on at Michael's crafts?  Check it here Welllll, I entered this project in the hopes of maybe winning a gift card (goodness knows I will put it to use ;)).  Here's the deal, it's based on votes so I was wondering, if you have a minute, if you wouldn't mind hopping over and voting on my project.  It's a simple click rating system without any tedious registering, etc.  I would LOVE to have your support!  You can get to my entry here.  Thanks so much!!!

EDITED to add:  to vote, scroll to the bottom of the photograph of my project.  You'll see five little snowmen standing in a row.  You choose to vote from the level of 1 snowman (least) on up to 5 snowman (best), by clicking on the number snowman/men in the lineup you think it's worthy of.  That's it.  You all are the best!

So on to the juicy details...I grabbed Kelleigh party hat template and dropped it into Microsoft word.  I arranged and stretched it to enable a taller template.  When you assemble the cone, you'll want to roll it tighter than the template shows for a party hat so you end up with a tall skinny cone...but don't glue it shut yet...you'll want to assemble your ribbon hanger, bouquet of picks and bottom hanging decorations first.  These will get taped to the inside of the cone and then the cone is glued shut. I printed the template on one side of cream cardstock and THIS vintage sheet music from the Graphics Fairy blog on the other and cut out the template. 

It's all about the embellishments and holiday picks after that!  Some of the vintage sheet music scraps were perfect for making my own glittery holly leaf pick.  I also grabbed a fistful of other items....a thrifted glass ball ornament, a gold painted pinecone, a ultra glittery poinsettia pick and the gold/red/green pick from Michaels this year.  If it was something that did not already have a stem attached, pipe cleaners and craft wire can be used to fashion "stems" onto items.

I fell in love with this Tim Holtz santa last year.  It was time to pull it out!  I stamped and then die cut with a lable nestie die and then fabric paint glitter for the edge.  He's mounted on a vintage book print accordian folded pinwheel and also glittered (there is a theme developing here LOL!)

The "believe" tag is a piece of the above santa stamp.  I stamped it twice and trimmed out the word believe gluing them back to back.  More gold glitter to edge the tag.  The two pieces were glued together while sandwiching the gold thread and then a few beads and buttons were tied on for the end piece.  Once all the parts and pieces and ready to go, they can be arranged in and around the cone template and the cone glued shut. 

So there it is.  I made mine fairly big because I want to hang it on a doorknob and not a tree branch...but wouldn't it be adorable in miniature?  hmmmm....maybe I need to try that next! :)  Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Template: Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs

digital image: the Graphics Fairy

Stamps: Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous

Ink: SU!

Glitter: Martha Stewert and fabric dimensional glitter paint

Craft supplies: vintage book print, buttons, beads, snowflake sequin, tinsel trim, ribbon, gold thread, holiday picks, craft wire, pipe cleaners, glass ornament