Come to Bethlehem

Has anyone else's November flown by?  I just have a quick post today as I'm in the midst of Christmas baking and prepping for a Christmas card stamp-a-stack tomorrow while my kids play with their friends whom they invited over since there's no school today.  I'm tired already!

This is one of my stamp-a-stack cards for this year.  I love this stamp set, Come to Bethlehem, and I love the simplicity of this card.  It's simply stamped in Soft Suede on Very Vanilla cardstock.  I sponged the same colour ink around the edges of the card and wrapped some linen thread around it before adhering it to the Soft Suede card base.  To finish it off, I added a bitty button over the thread.

Blessings to you,

Snow Festival Advent Calendar

My friend, Mandy, asked me to come up with a pocket advent calendar similar to one she found on Pinterest.  The idea is to put family activities in the pockets instead of treats. The one she found had 12 x 12 cardboard pieces with pockets attached.  I thought it would be easier to use a canvas as it's a bit sturdier.  I also wanted to use Stampin' Up!'s products, of course, so here's what I came up with:

I noticed that the Snow Festival designer series paper has a sheet with 3 x 3" squares on it, which would fit perfectly onto the canvas in four rows of six!  You get 16 squares from a sheet, so I just added four more squares of two different pieces of paper from the package to get 24 squares altogether. I used 3 x 3" envelopes to create the pockets for the advent cards.

Here's what you need:

• 16 x 20" canvas
• 24 small envelopes (Stampin' Up!'s 3-1/8" x 3-1/8" square envelopes)
• 24 squares of designer series paper (Snow Festival)
• Big Shot with Bigz Typeset Alphabet (or other 1 to 1 1/2" number die set)
• assorted ribbons & embellishments - I used the Ornament, Small Scallop and Large Scallop punches, rhinestone jewels, Gumball Green stitched satin ribbon, Cherry Cobbler baker's twine, felt ornament.
• Sticky Strip
• Whisper White cardstock (24 rectangles that are 3 x 3-1/2").
• Cherry Cobbler & Gumball Green cardstock.

Here are the directions:

1. Cut the flaps off of the envelopes. 
2. Adhere the designer paper squares to the back of the envelopes (not the side you would address) to cover the folds.  This now becomes the front of your pocket.
3. Glue the numbers and embellishments to the designer paper on the envelope pockets as shown in the photo (or however you'd like!).
4. Slide the Whisper White cards into the envelopes.  These cards are for you to write advent family activities or clues to where treats are hidden.
5. Once the envelope pockets are finished, arrange them on the canvas, making sure they are evenly spaced.  Attach the envelopes to the canvas using sticky strip.  It's easiest to start with the bottom row.
6. After the envelopes are all glued down, take out your Whisper White cards and write your activities or clues on them (you could also do that before you start).  There are some great ideas for family activities on the link here to Kimberly Peterson's advent calendar (the one Mandy found on Pinterest).  

Hope you enjoy this! 

Blessings to you,

November Stamp Club Cards

I was fortunate enough to participate in a swap with some very talented ladies in our large downline group, and I got some fabulous ideas for some Christmas cards, which I want to share with my club ladies.

This first card is based on the one I received from Jean Ockerman (I changed it a tiny bit to work with the stamps I have).  The bottom is a piece of Cherry Cobbler Core'dinations paper that is embossed and sanded.  The snowflake is cut out of silver glimmer paper with the new Snow Flurry Bigz die.  I stamped the snowflake from Snowflake Soiree in Cherry Cobbler and punched it out with the 1 3/4" Circle punch.  There is some Cherry Cobbler tulle ribbon gathered on the back of the snowflake image as well.

This second card is one I received from my upline, Winona Semler.  It has the lovely Natural Composition specialty paper as a background, along with the ornaments from the Ornament Keepsake bundle. 

The final card we'll be making is one I posted last week that I made based on a card by Donna Wizniuk.  You can read the details here.

I'm so excited to be making Christmas cards!  It's always difficult to narrow down the choices for my stamp club because there are so many amazing ideas out there!  I hope they will enjoy these cards.

Blessings to you,

November Scrapbook Club Layout

At our last large group meeting, I saw a gorgeous layout by Lisa Althouse, and I thought it would be fantastic for our Scrapbook Club this month.  Of course, I had planned this last month when it was still Fall-like outside, and now there's snow everywhere. Oh well, it will be a good reminder of the weather we were enjoying last week!

I love how Lisa used the 1 1/4" square punch for this layout.  You can do this with any designer series paper and matching cardstock to create any themed layout you want!  This one has Orchard Harvest designer series paper with Lucky Limeade, Cajun Craze and More Mustard accenst.  The page base is Early Espresso.  For embellishments, this page is finished off with some Early Espresso stitched grosgrain and More Mustard scallop dotted ribbon, along with a Brushed Bronze button.

Blessings to you,

Layered Snowflakes

I've seen lots of these layered cards, so I wanted to try my hand at it!  My Stamp Club ladies will be making this card this month.

I was inspired by a gorgeous card that my friend, Donna Wizniuk, made.  She used Crumb Cake with Whisper white, which was quite stunning.  I decided to change it up a bit, and I used Midnight Muse and Whisper White with the Snowflake Soiree stamp set.  I embossed the snowflakes in white and also stamped a few in our new Luminescent ink, which makes a shimmery watermark image.    To finish off the card, I used some Midnight Muse stitched satin ribbon and added a "Merry" tag with the Designer Label punch and a couple of pearl jewels.  The snowflakes on the tag are in Midnight Muse, stamped off a few times so they're lighter (ink the stamp, then stamp it on scrap paper a few times before stamping on the sentiment).

Here's a quick tutorial for those of you who haven't seen this type of card before:

1.  Cut three sizes of the same colour of cardstock that you will be stamping your collage image on (Midnight Muse here).  I used 4 x 5 1/4", 3 1/4 x 4 1/2" and 2 1/2 x 2 3/4".  (Often this card is done with white or a neutral colour as these pieces so you can stamp in a coloured ink - I did a reverse here).

2.  Layer the three pieces together on top of each other (you may want to adhere them with Dotto or another repositionable adhesive so they will come apart after).

3.  Stamp your images over the cardstock in a collage style.  Emboss now if you're embossing!

4.  Pull apart the three pieces and layer them onto mats (I used Whisper White).  Make sure you keep the layers in the same direction as when you stamped them so that your images will line up when you put the pieces back together. The card base is the largest mat, then 3 1/2 x 4 3/4" and 2 3/4 x 4" for this card.

5.  Embellish your card as desired.

I love how easy this card is, but it looks complicated!  Enjoy!

Blessings to you,

Flower Power!

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my Stamp Club ladies had a "CASEd from the Catalogue" theme this month.  One of the items we copied was the flower featured on p. 99 of the catalogue.  Well, as I was looking at the flower, I thought we needed to do something with it.  It would be cute as a decoration in a plant or for a party favour, but with only one of them, my ladies needed a card!  So I added it as an embellishment to a card and here's what we made:

I used Rich Razzleberry as the card base and accents (from the Brights designer series paper stack).  The white piece is embossed with our new Argyle embossing folder.  The sentiment is stamped from Itty Bitty Banners and cut out with the Bitty Banners framelits dies.  I adhered the flower to the card with mini glue dots (those little suckers are strong!). 

Here's the flower before it was made into a card, as posted previously here:

I'm gearing up for Christmas now, so you'll be seeing lots of holiday ideas in the coming weeks!

Blessings to you,

Peaceful Snowflakes

I've been spending a lot of time this week preparing cards for my upcoming Christmas stamp-a-stacks.  I try every year to have an assortment of cards ready, and my hostesses get to choose four of them for her and her guests to make at their event (they make five of each card). 

This one is one I came up with using  the new Snowflake Soiree stamp set. 

I try to keep the cards simple but pretty for stamp-a-stacks since they will be making so many card, and I don't want it to take hours and hours to finish!  So this one is simply the snowflakes stamped in Marina Mist, Midnight Muse and Wisteria Wonder on some Shimmery White cardstock.  The sentiment is from Greetings of the Season, stamped in Midnight Muse.  The card itself is Midnight Muse with a layer of Wisteria Wonder under the stamped portion.  To finish it off, I added a couple of rhinestone jewels. 

Blessings to you,

Hilton Head Island

Thanks to my wonderful customers and my amazing downline, I was one of thirty Canadian demonstrators who earned a weekend getaway to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina from Stampin' Up!  My husband and I enjoyed four relaxing days last weekend at the Westin Resort and Spa on the island.  I had never heard of Hilton Head Island before I earned this trip, and I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived.  What a beautiful place!

This first photo was taken from the airplane as we landed in Savannah, Georgia.  I just loved how the sunlight came through the clouds, and you can see the lush trees below.  In Savannah, a shuttle picked us up to take us on the short trip to the hotel on Hilton Head Island.

This photo of the beach from our hotel was taken when we arrived Thursday evening.

On Friday, we took a shuttle from the hotel to Shelter Cove Marina, where we walked along the boardwalk, shopped at touristy boutiques and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

We also enjoyed walking along the beach.  There are miles of soft, white sandy beaches here!

 These are five of the six ladies in our downline group who earned the trip! 

On Saturday morning, my friend, Donna, and her husband, Dan, who had rented a vehicle, drove us to Harbour Head so we could see the lighthouse there.  It was another beautiful morning!

Saturday afternoon, we spent bike riding around the island.  Stampin' Up! had rented bikes for us to sign out and use, complete with a Stampin' Up! flag on the back, which we got to take home after!  The island has bike paths everywhere, so it is very bike-friendly.

 

 On Saturday night, Ian and I dressed up a bit and enjoyed a nice dinner at one of the hotel's restaurants.  You can see how curly my hair got because of the humidity!

Every evening, Stampin' Up! left a "pillow gift" for us in our rooms.  The first night, we got a beach tote, the second, there was a fruit & cheese platter with fancy water bottles waiting for us, and the third night we received a storage container filled with a stamp set, designer series paper, ribbon, ink pads and embellishments (that was the best one)!

On Sunday morning, we went for a nice breakfast, walked along the beach one last time, and took a few photos outside the hotel (this one is at the fountain in the courtyard).  Then it was off to the airport for our flight home.

It was a wonderful trip, and my husband and I enjoyed having some time together without the kids (my mom was kind enough to come out from B.C. and stay with our boys while we went on the trip).  So thank you to my loyal customers, my hard-working downline and Stampin' Up! for a trip we will never forget.

Blessings to you,

October Stamp Club Cards

I'm entitling this month's club theme "CASEd From the Catalogue"!  I had some requests for catalogue samples, and I found a few that I liked as well, so I figured why not show how easy it is to replicate the catalogue projects.

This first card is a CASE of the card on page 31 of the Holiday Catalogue.  I used the You Are Loved set instead of Tweet Leaves.  The colours are Cajun Craze, Pool Party, Lucky Limeade, More Mustard and Early Espresso.

Of course, we have to do a little Halloween treat, so I used the Ghoulish Googlies designer kit and copied the sample on p. 27 of the Holiday Catalogue.  I added one of the round tags as a bag topper, just folding it over the top of the glassine bag and stapling it.  The oval tag covers the staple.  (It's filled with gummy pumpkins - my favourite!)

This adorable mummy card isn't CASEd from the catalogue, but it is CASEd from this card by "Doodlebop" (her Splitcoast Stampers name).  I couldn't resist - how cute is this card?

Finally, these cute flowers are featured on page 99 of the Annual Catalogue in an assortment of colours.  I used Rich Razzleberry with Daffodil Delight for this one. 

Hope you enjoy these CASEd creations.  I think my Stamp Club ladies will like them.

Blessings to you,

October Scrapbook Club Layout

I thought it would be fitting to do a Halloween layout for our October club meeting, and I absolutely love the Googly Ghouls stamp set!  I'm not a big Halloween person, and I don't usually buy those sets; I opt instead for Fall/Thanksgiving-themed sets.  But, I couldn't resist this adorable set, especially once you add those googly eyes to it!  I also happened to stumble across this gorgeous layout by Kay Kalthoff, and I figured why re-invent the wheel when she's done such a wonderful job.  So we're making a CASE of her layout for our club meeting.  Here it is:

This layout uses the Howlstooth designer series paper, along with the googlies, some glimmer brads and our new silver frames.  So cute!

Blessings to you,