2010 Calendars

Happy New Year! :)

It's been a grand year. Let's recap shall we?

• Went crazy planning a wedding and vowed to pay people next time I do a wedding (which won't be mine)
  
• Moved to the city where fries belong on sandwiches/salads (yum) and the people around me wave something called a terrible towel ;-)
  
• Convinced the hubs that homemade tomato sauce and mashed potatoes are far superior than things from a box or a can...
  
• Got the hubs to eat kale, chard, squash. Despite some faces, he even admitted they were pretty good (and they weren't even covered in cheese or excessive amounts of fat). I live a sad pathetic life... the hubs doesn't know yet but 2010 means more healthy food like tofu, beans and even more veggies!
  
• Hosted Thanksgiving dinner where I made my first turkey (and it even tasted ok!)

And what better way than to ring in the new year with a 2010 calendar?

Every year, the hubster's family exchanges gifts among the ladies in the family. This was my first year participating - I think next year I'm gonna just buy something for everyone.

This year, stupidly, I figured if I was going to take part, I might as well make it crafty. Bad idea number 1. I then kept putting it off until the weekend before Christmas. Bad idea number 2.
After finishing the calendar, I decided that I want to punch the corners to make it look more professional. Corner punching EVERY page... 480 corners punched... bad bad bad idea number 3.

Because I didn't have much room to play with if I wanted everything to fit into the CD case, I stamped everything. I used stamps from PTI, Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps, Hero Arts and of course, Waltzingmouse Stamps.

The month of Feburary is a sneak peek of the new release (coming to you Jan 4) too! :)

Be Jolly

(Sigh, the problem with scheduling posts during the holiday is that sometimes I forget to put the photo up!!!)

This is just another card I didn't want to share until now. Ah, Christmas surprises. :)

Can you spot my favorite little swirl? ;-) I love it -- it's from Seasons of Love - Tags. The star and sentiment are from Seasons of Love as well. It's one of my go-to sets (if not just for the swirl...hah).

I stamped and embossed the star in white. I used my craft knife to pop out the star points and reveal just a touch of red underneath. Lots of fun :)

Stamps: (Seasons of Love - Tags) Waltzingmouse Stamps
Paper: (Kraft, Dark Chocolate, Pure Poppy) PTI
Ink: (Pure Poppy, Dark Chocolate) PTI, Versamark
Other: Corner Rounder, (Ribbon) PTI, (Embossing Powder) Ranger

Money Card

Hope everyone's enjoying the holiday season! :) Isn't it just nice to be with family and friends?

This is just a fun little card that I created to hold a check (could also hold some dollars as well). While this card is very season specific, it could easily be modified for any other season. For instance, house warming, graduation, weddings...

I just love cards that have a fun little surprise in them! I'm a big fan of pocket cards and other fun surprise cards. Too bad I don't always have the time or the energy to make them that way. Haha.

I got some glassine bags - they hold money just as well as they hold food. ;-) I embossed it with some lovely dots... although glassine is super thing so there were a few rips when I tried to open it. Just have to be super careful! I also covered the small rip with the paper. I don't think I'd try embossing if I was actually going to put food in it. The blue piece of paper fits right in and I placed a little patterned paper on the bottom to hold the check in place. Also stamped the sentiment on the bottom so they see it when they remove the check.

I actually originally only had the eyelet punched without the patterned paper. And then I ripped the edges when I tried to thread ribbon through... so I covered my boo-boo with some patterned paper and then just threaded silver thread though. I wasn't going to try ribbon again. ;-)

The little eskimo girl and the paper are all from the Colorful Christmas line from My Mind's Eye. Isn't it adorable? :) My husband says it looks like me... maybe that's why I LOVE this line so much. Haha.

Anyways, hope you all are having a great holiday season!



Stamps: (Everyday Classics) Papertrey Ink
Paper: (Raspberry Fizz, Spring Moss) Papertrey Ink, (Colorful Christmas) My Mind's Eye
Other: (Snowflake punch) Martha Stewart, (Gems) Hero Arts, (Scallop punch) Fiskars, (Decorative scissors)

Keep Christmas in Your Heart

So, anyone else like me? A total procrastinator? ;-) Trying to make some last minute Christmas cards as we speak! :)

These snowflakes and senitiment are from Seasons of Love - Tags. LOVE the font that Claire used for this set. Totally up my alley.

I wanted to try a more non-traditional color combination so I went with pinks! Yeah, I can't get the pinks out of my mind recently. Haha... it just happens that they're all over my desk recently!




Stamps: ( Seasons of Love - Tags ) Waltzingmouse Stamps
Paper: (Hibiscus Burst, Raspberry Fizz, White) PTI
Ink: (Hibiscus Burst, Raspberry Fizz) PTI
Other: (Gems) Hero Arts

Christmas Gift Holders

Hope everyone's having a wonderful holiday! :) We just got back from getting some gift cards for the family. The hubs family does gifts for Christmas time... they even trade lists and stuff, totally foreign concept to me.

We got no lists from a lot of them this year. If my list wasn't out already because I was trying to be a good compliant family person (at least for my first year...won't say anything for the rest of the years), then I wouldn't feel so compelled to make the gift somewhat decent. Darn my promptness!

So this year the family is getting gift cards. Secretly this is great for me as well since each $50 gift card purchase at our local grocery store gets us $0.20 cents gas. I like cheap gas!

But what better way to give monies than in a gift card holder made by yours truly? Because if you know me, nothing I do is ever ordinary. So Christmas gifting can't be either.

I had these lovely chipboard pieces from Cosmo Cricket's Jolly by Golly line. I'll admit, I was a little hesitant to use them on people who I knew would throw them out... but I'm trying not to hoard supplies... Aren't they adorable? I made my hubs talk to the birdy chipboard and the snowman. Hah, I know, we're special like that. And yes, I did name them -- the bird is Walt and the snowman is Oliver. Ok, enough about my "special" quirks. ;-)

The gift cards are actually relatively simple. I designed them so that I could make multiple ones from an 8 1/2 by 11 cardstock. I cut the cardstock into pieces of 4 by 8 1/2. The leftover scraps were used for the medallion. Scored at 2 1/8 and then 6 1/8. The top piece I cut 3 7/8 by 2 1/4 patterened paper for a 1/8 inch border and the bottom piece is a 3 7/8 by 2 piece of patterened paper. Folded, decorated and adhered one edge to make a pocket. Easy peasy! Probably the easiest and quickest crafty thing I've mass-produced all year.

And because I'm totally OCD about trash during gift opening time, I have to show a pic here on how to open it properly WITHOUT untying my ribbon. The hubs knows already that I spend lots of time making my ribbons pretty and he should never ever touch them. The rest of the family isn't going to be trained in time -- alas.

I designed these so people can just slip the ribbbon or paper band off. Easy peasy! I hope...

There's a lot of pink this year... mainly cos pink is awesome! And maybe next year the family will give me Christmas lists rather than receive pink gift card holders... we'll see.

I have 9 total right now and after shopping I know I'm already 2 short... I haven't decided if I'm going to change the design or not for the last 2 I need to do... If you don't know, I hate mass producing (aka never ever ever ever doing 80 wedding invitations again) and I like uniqueness so I'll prolly do a different twist for the next two.

Happy holidays!


Paper: (Kraft, Raspberry Fizz) PTI, (Jolly By Golly) Cosmo Cricket
Accessories: (Jolly By Golly Chipboard) Cosmo Cricket, Ribbon from American Crafts and PTI
Tools: Large Circle Scallop Nestabilities, (Corner Punch) EK Success

Dream

Hope everyone's having a good Friday so far! I have one more day of work and then I'm off for the rest of the year. :)

Its no secret that I love silhouette images. I don't know what it is about them... so simple and yet so elegant! So of course I had to ink up this lovely set Dream Silhouettes from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps!

I decided that I'd only use part of the image and let the rest of it taper off (rather than putting the whole thing on). I think its a fun way to diversify your sets as well. :) Just a little different image depending on how you offset it!

Off to get some last minute Christmas gifts (which are slowly becoming new year's gifts) ready!



Stamps: (Dream Silhouettes) Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps
Paper: (Dark Chocolate, Ripe Avocado, Tea Leaves) Papertrey Ink
Ink: (Dark Chocolate) Papertrey Ink
Other: (Twill) Papertrey Ink, (Border Punch) Fiskars, (Corner Rounder) EK Success, (Pearls) Hero Arts

Bitty Blessings

Ack, I'm a horrible blogger sometimes. I knew I wasn't going to have much time this week but I totally forgot to schedule my posts last weekend!

Hope everyone's having a grand weekend. The hubs has been out of town and I, being the total hypocrite that I am, have been eating Pittsburgh fare all week (fried sandwiches, fries, yum yum). Cooking for one sucks. Just don't tattle on me or he won't want to eat his veggies (or my cooking) when he comes back!

Ok, anyways, Here's a quicky that I created awhile back for a friend that just had a baby. Want to guess the sex of the baby? ;-)

The hubs asked for a card and since we had to mail it, I kept things down to a minimum. I used thinner ribbon to slip it by Mr. Postman without any issues. I didn't hear any complaints that it required extra postage -- ignorance is bliss.

Hope R &B enjoyed the little card and are enjoying their second bundle of joy.



Stamps: Bitty Baby Blessings (Papertrey Ink)
Paper: White, Sweet Blush (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: Berry Sorbet (Papertrey Ink)
Ribbon: Martha Stewart
Coloring Utensils: Copics

You Are Special To Me

In case I haven't said it enough, I've had a lot of fun playing with Punny Fruits and Veggies from SNSS. If you saw the samples posted on the SNSS blog you might have already seen this already but I realized I hadn't posted it on my own blog yet! Ahhck, it's been one of those months...

This is probably my personal favorite of the ones I've made with this set so far. Maybe because its so simple in nature or maybe because all the colors just make me smile. Heh.

Ok, hope everyone's having a good week!


Stamps: ( Punny Fruits and Veggies ) SNSS
Paper: PTI, (Farm Fresh) October Afternoon
Ink: Palette Noir
Accessories: (Twill) PTI, (Twine) May Arts, (1 inch and 1 1/4 inch circle punch) EK Success, (Corner Rounder) EK Success, (Border Punch) Fiskars

Quick and Easy Waltzingmouse Cards (part 2)

Hope everyone had a great weekend! :) I can't believe its already Sunday... I'm not ready for the weekend to be over!

Another quick and simple card. This time I used Earth Angel. I colored the dress with my copics and then I masked the dress so that I could stamp the swirl from Seasons of Love - Tags onto the corner of the dress. To even add a little more jazz, I added some pearls onto the dress.

Can you tell I LOVE the swirl from Seasons of Love - Tags? Haha. Claire, you're going to have to design another swirl for me. ;-)


Stamps: (Earth Angel, Seasons of Love - Tags) Waltzingmouse Stamps
Paper: (Dark Chocolate, Vintage Cream, Melon Berry, Patterned Paper) PTI
Ink: (Dark Chocolate) PTI
Accessories: (Twill) PTI, (Pearls) Hero Arts

Bella Birthday Bash Blog Hop

(This is my second post today -- scroll down so you don't miss my swap post as well!)

Welcome to the Bella Birthday Bash Blop Hop sponsored by Stamping Bella! If you've just happened upon my blog, you should CLICK HERE to start from the beginning at Bloggabella!

This is my first time participating and I figured I love my little LuLu so much that she deserved some more inky love.

I colored her in with some copics. Also dug into some new patterned paper I got at a local scrapping store I went to while on vacation. Placed a pearl on the flower in her hair because that's where pearls belong. :)

Three gift certificates for $100 in Bella Bucks will be hidden along the hop, but we’re not telling you where so be sure to leave some love as you hop!!! Make sure you leave comments on every post so you have a chance to win!! The winners will be announced on Monday, December 7 at the Stamping Bella Blog. MWAH!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Now it's time to hop on over to Alex at Fairy Blossoms & Life.


Stamps: (Emma - Lulu Collection) Stamping Bella
Paper: (Dark Chocolate, Melon Berry, Vintage Cream) Papertrey Ink, KaiserKraft
Ink: (Dark Chocolate) Papertrey Ink
Accessories: (Twill) Papertrey Ink, (Pearls) Hero Art, (Border Punch) Fiskars, (Large Oval Nestabilities)