Happy New Year!

I want to wish you all a Happy and Blessed New Year! Here is my last card for the year. I wanted to try my new chunky glitter so this was a quick experiment. I think I may have to try other ways to use the glitter as the flower is kind of lost in this. I used the sticky embossing powder which worked really well. The lay-out is a sketch challenge I can't remember where but anyway just so you know :) That's all- gotta run my friend just arrived and we are going to hit the sales at AC Moore, Michaels and JoAnns! I am happy they are all in the same shopping center/vicinity! Have a safe evening and enjoy :)

The Martians Have Arrived

And they are cute! Here is a batch of Martians we made yesterday, there were about 3 casualties which promptly got dissected (that's in the directions)! They even give you tweezers... We had them take turns flying the UFO and my three are now on my coaster visiting me. I love the imagination of a child! We have been enjoying this silly thing. We are experimenting with different ways to use the colors and are getting better at them not running into each other. There is even an official web-site for this kit - http://www.hasbro.com/martianmatter/. These are small and the pictures of the ones we made are very hard to tell but I wanted to share anyway. I know, I promised a paper craft and I will, really :) eventually!

The Halloween Gingerbread House

At least that is what my 6 year old calls it! You see this is the first Gingerbread house I have ever made (his 3rd!). I made the icing mix according to directions and it was so thick it wouldn't spread and just sat like a lump of dough. We put the house together with that mess. Then you have to let it set for 4 hours so we left it overnight and covered the icing with plastic. The next morning we added a little (like a teaspoon!) of water to the mix and stirred it up. Now it is too drippy! Made a drippy mess for the doors and window LOL! That is why it is Halloween looking, like those dripping horror movie things he says. I didn't know he ever saw a horror movie :) Anyway I mixed the red and the green and we proceeded to ice and put the candy on anyway. I was not in the mood to go hunting down the sugar stuff to make the icing thicker and just my luck I would end up back and forth making it too thick and too thin so this is it. I am not sure I want to make one again next year. I am not a baker - yes I know I didn't cook this but it had icing LOL! I can cook a mean roast, saute anything and make a to-die-for lasagna but don't ask me to make a cake or pie! If it requires accurate measuring I am not your gal. Anyway thought I would share our disaster, fun and cute but a disaster!

On another note I have not made one thing paper-craft wise for the last week. I plan to get back on it though! However, I have made martians. Lot's of them! Grandma gave him an Alien making kit for Christmas and we opened it today. Three hours later and about 15 martians or so we still have enough left to play another day. This is actually a very fun project! Finally one of these play-doh/mold making kits that works effortlessly and with real results. We had a lot of fun with it :) I will hopefully post a paper creation next time :)

Quick Clip for Mom

This is the K-Nex Roller Coaster kit our son got from Grandma for Christmas and I just had to video tape it to show her :) It makes several different ones but I get a kick out of this one because when the roller coaster goes over the edge to go down you can hear the people scream! LOL! The imaginary people of course - there is a little sound box and it has a detector to make the sounds of a real roller coaster. He loves it. He loves everything he got for Christmas, I am thrilled he is at the age where everything is fun and nothing is "uncool" yet. Anyway, Mom - hope you like seeing this! Oh and if you have the volume up enough you can hear the "people".

Christmas Gift Holders

Here are a couple of gift holders I made that I saw on a blog earlier this month. She used them for Hot cocoa mix and I used the other one for a large candy bar. Just fun things to give :) They untie and open to a thin box with a window showing the treat inside. The treat slides out towards the inside so it doesn't fall out. I just wanted to share one more Christmas thing before it is over! I hope you are enjoying or soon to enjoy family and friends :)

Calendar

I have had requests again about this calendar! It really isn't hard to make. You need two coasters, 4 pieces of card stock, one sheet of monthly calendars and some embellishments. I love making these, here is one I made for my BFF's birthday :) She had picked out this paper set for her scrapbook we made when she visited (no small task, we live on opposite coasts!) and I just used one of the papers that was in it. Her scrapbook was more blue so I used the blue flowers for accents. I should make one for myself LOL! Now on hers I put a saying on the back - just a little extra.

I am going to set up an automatic post for tomorrow and then I will be back in a couple days. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Three Very Different Pictures

If someone can figure out how to rotate this image, let me know! I have removed it and uploaded it, it is not rotated on my computer. Ugh! Anyway,
I love this set, I wasn't going to buy another Christmas set this year but I just love this one and as you have seen I have made a few different cards with it. I CASEd a card by peanutbee on SCS, she used a different stamp but a similar one. I added the glitter and even had the same snowflakes :) I am so loving these blue cards with the snowflake embossing folder with the white card stock. Last year I made a beautiful purple and gold card of the City of David set so this is quite different! I asked my mom what color card she wanted and she said red and green. Ooops, hope she likes this! I actually made about 10 different Christmas cards this year and seem to be making them still. I am just happy I finally got them in the mail!

When I said "pretty Chloe" in the post the other day with the dogs and cats with the Santa hat on I figured you might wonder how could she be pretty? So I took a picture of her in the back yard this morning. The grass is wet and she didn't want to stand in it, so she is sitting on the edge of my son's swing set. Yes, our grass is green and it has been in the 60's and 70's until today. It is supposedly going to be 70 on Christmas day, sorry that is just wrong! I want it to feel like Christmas!

Do you ever download your pictures from your camera and find strange pictures on them? That would be me, my 16 year old son likes to take pictures of food. I don't know why but this is not the first one I have found LOL! He said his Ramen noodles were "epic" and he had to take a picture. Hmmm.

Christmas Tree

With Flash from the Foyer

Without Flash in foyer to see the lights

Viewed from the library

Look how pretty this poinsettia is against the green and white of the Sunroom

One of the first things many people say when they come in the house is, "Oh wouldn't that be a perfect spot for a Christmas tree". I agree :) This tree is a 9 foot tree, I guess I need a 12 foot one but geez, don't want to climb a huge ladder to decorate that LOL! This is the first year in our new home so I used what I had. I think next year I will work on some ribbon and garland and such but I am not exactly sure what else to do. I know it can look a lot better!

Santa Doggies and Kitties

Sweet Sampson but blurry, phooey!

Pretty Chloe but I had a hard time removing red eye from the flash so her eyes look funny.

Aris looking rather well, actually.

Oliver before he escaped...


Ho Ho Ho woof woof woof meow meow meow. Tis the season to be festive and involve the furry family members :) OK I know, some people may think this is not nice but it was only for a minute and I gave them lot's of treats :) They didn't mind that!!! These are our two long coat Chihuahuas and our two kitties, the black one is 8 months old and the tabby is 6 months old. They are sweet, the funny thing is the black one is skittish but didn't mind the hat and the tabby is a sweet laid back kitty and did not like the hat at all! You just never know :) As far as the dogs go, Chloe tolerated it for her treats and Sampson who we call "double d" because well, he isn't the brightest dog we have had, could have cared less as long as food was involved! These were the best we could get, not great pictures but you see how cute they are. Merry Christmas!

Kitty Christmas Card

I made this for my good friend and since she has now seen it I can post it :) She gave me this stamp and I just love it! It is adorable and seeing now that I have two kittens it seems appropriate to the season :) They would do this if I had one around. I colored it with my SU markers, I think for this card they worked nicely. I have a hard time with them so I don't use them as much as my water color crayons and pencils. I used that fun flock on the white parts, it makes a nice effect. I also used some diamond glaze on kitty's nose and the holly berries. I embossed the saying with black e.p. and almost didn't have enough room for it! The shape is the curved rectangle from Nestabilities. That's about it :)

Snow Globe Card

Oh I like this! It came out great! I used white Stazon for the snowflakes on the acetate and I am really impressed with how quick it dried and how "white" it is. I made this from SCS, several weeks ago it was a challenge to make. I finally got around to it. I made it a lot harder than it should have been but I did use my Nestabilities to make the circles and then the rest I free-handed. I should have gone back to SCS and looked at the tutorial but no, I like to go at it on my own and take hours longer LOL! I used a variety of stamps from different sets and the die cut snow flakes are a Cuttlebug die I picked up when looking for the MS snowflake punch. I really like them and they nest, which I did on another card. I also discovered today Starving Artist Stamps is having an acetate card challenge so I am entering this for it :) Hope you like!

Christmas card

This is a case of a card by sf9erfan, I copied the lay-out design but used a different stamp and papers. I just wanted to use the wassail paper again :) The tree is just a simple clear acrylic stamp and the gold bling fit it perfectly! I picked up a sheet of gold and silver each of these little self stick beads in an array of sizes. This tree has those exact different sizes on it! I like the look and then used the three on the side and on the bottom right just as Michelle did her bling on her card :) Thanks gal! Your cards are terrific!

Color and Sketch Challenge Combo

Oh I love this! Riding hood red, taken with teal (one of my favs!) and baja breeze. Then SCS sketch of this week and this was an easy one, oh yeah. I just got this MS punch on clearance (snowflake) and just knew I had to use it in these circles. I have to laugh, the reason I have time to post is I am sitting at Monkey Joe's with my lap-top while my son terrorizes the giant blow up climbing, sliding, play equipment. Since he is tracked out this is a great thing to do but during the week days this place is full of babies (some of which shouldn't be here until they can walk and run without falling...) and a 65 pound 6 year old who is capable of doing these things without parental assistance, is quite dangerous to them. However he has every right to be here, it is all ages! He seems to be listening to me and not plowing them down :)

Hopefully I will be able to make something soon, I am getting itchy not being able to create LOL! Bye for now :)

The 3 day Card and it's Inspiration

This is the card that took three days. Can you believe it?! I love the first one I made (the horizontal one), love the blues (not quite navy, blue bayou and white), love this stamp and love the snowflakes embossed on white. The "3 day" one is off color wise due to lighting (it is white not vanilla) BUT it shows the sparkle better this way and that was more important. I might make more and try some other layouts and send them as my Christmas cards along with the 25 I have already made :) Oh, they were done at a stamp-a-stack I went to at my SU demo's house. We have so much fun at that every year. I might share those later this week if I can.

Love Basic Grey Again This Christmas!

This is the Wassail collection, there are some really cool Snowmen, flowers and such in this paper pack but for these two cards I was using some closely matching papers from the set. This is the sketch challenge from last week on SCS and I did one horizontal and one vertical. I added a second little block to the one because it just needed something more afterwards.

I have been super busy lately and over the last three days I made one card, LOL! It was sitting on my slightly less messy desk and I would do a part and go back to it and I finished it this morning. I did another one like it last week and liked it so much I used the leftover papers to make a second. I hope to get to more this week, last week I made a bunch of cards but now my 6 year old is home on track out until Jan. 5th so I won't have as much free time.

I have been reading a lot of Santa and Jesus comparison emails today, the subject of the day in my inbox! I never thought of it this way but the story goes that Santa is watching you checking to see who's naughty and nice and if you are bad you won't get a present. Then as you get older somehow in your mind you transfer that to God is watching you, waiting for you to be bad etc. I am grateful I have learned that God's grace does not count on our being good or bad! It counts on our believing in Jesus. I hope kids don't get that from the Santa story. God is not Santa. Thank God!

15 Minute Card

I hope it doesn't look like it! Actually the flower image under the words is white-washed out from the flash so that looks better in person. I had to make a card very quick because I wanted to get it to the post office today. I had another card made and I accidentally got glue all over it and well I had to act quick! I grabbed the colored paper on top of my scrap stack, embossed it with the Cuttlebug, decided the matching ribbon should be on it and adhered it to the card base. Then I looked at it and thought it needed designer paper so I grabbed the first piece in the Haiku set that matches this interestingly bright tangerine color and cut a quick piece, adhered it. Then I had to come up with a stamp and grabbed a new set I just got, well actually two new sets and stamped them, cut a piece to mount it on and adhered it. DONE! In the mail and gone :) It is for my Survivor pool. I still have 2 left but I don't think either of them will win. There are some conniving people this go 'round! Hope you are having a nice weekend! We are putting up our tree, yeah!

The Rest of October Sheetload

I was in the mood to just make some cards and not make them complicated! I haven't made any in a week due to company and I have some birthday cards for SCS I need to send out so I took what was left of the sheetload pre-cut papers and made these this morning. Nothing fancy, I did try to vary them as much as possible though. They look kind of plain, I have gotten into using many layers and matting everything so when I see these I think they aren't very good but I am trying to like them!

I have to giggle, this is the 5th and for most of my life I thought it was my oldest sister's birthday. I didn't find out until about 10 years ago it is the 8th. You see she is almost 17 years older than I am and when I was a little kid we moved to a different state, she stayed as she was married and had her own kids by then so we never were together for birthdays. At least my card was always on time! Now I got to get hers in the mail or it will be late this year.

TSSC46

I finally got a chance to make a card for the Techno Stamper challenges. I have missed them on and off for several weeks now but got to this one this week. I like the sketch, I had a little fun pulling out this old stamp set, I used the poodle the other day and then the presents today. It is Paris in Spring. Here is the link to the challenge on her website: TSSC46. It was a fluke that I happened to match up two totally different designer paper packs from SU, from different years even. The new riding hood red is so close to ruby red you can't tell. Just had them both in a pile on my desk. I did finally clean it up this evening though, I am sure my husband was wondering if I ever would!

More Christmas Things

Just a cute container for holding Hershey's nuggets. It is made from a 4 x 11 piece of designer paper cardstock and I just sort of guessed where to fold it, I just made sure I had a 1 inch base so there is room for the candy. The rest I just laid it on top, wrapped it around and folded it to fit. Pretty easy!



This is one of those crayon boxes again, a little different (but not much) than my last one and it the next picture is open so you can see I was able to fit 4 sets of stamps inside (the small $1.99 ones from Archivers - not big sets!) These are gifts for a secret santa swap I am participating in, hope she doesn't see my blog! It is supposed to be hush hush until later this month :)

Christmas Treat Container

This is a drink mix container I altered to make it a Christmas present. Inside I put Hazelnut Chocolate Pirouettes. If you haven't had them they are a delicate straw shaped cookie with a light filling inside the tube. Yum! Anyway I just covered it up with some SU designer paper and I had just purchased some poinsettia flower pieces made of felt and got to use then for this too :) I stamped the Santa and used the SU markers to color him in. Oh! I used some white fun flock on the rim of his hat, coat and sleeves. It makes it look neat.

SOTM for November

OK 1. It's December and 2. I am frustrated with it. Here is my November stamp of the month card for House Mouse. I made it weeks ago and colored all the images and lost them. Now tell me, how did I lose them? I have never lost images, especially when I have to do 6 identical ones. My guess is my kitties who are on my craft table all the time, knocked them into the trash. I have a kitchen trash can in my craft room with no lid - I make some trash LOL! Anyway I went ahead and cut all the card stock and made the sentiment in hopes of finding them and I haven't. I guess I am going to have to do them all over again! Which brings me to the next thought, since this card is rather boring (except the designer paper!) does anyone have any ideas how I can make this card better? Since the card stock is cut the layout is kind of set but it needs help. I am no longer enthused about this card LOL! I have to work on some things for my Secret Santa person too so I will have more to share this week :) I hope your Thanksgiving was a good one. On to Christmas now!