Merry Christmas to All...

I have one last Christmas card to post, and then I'm starting my holidays! Both of our boys are so excited to see their grandparents, and of course, to get presents!

This card is the one I made for DH - I was trying to use up some of my Dashing paper since it's retired (*sad face here*). This is a pretty simple card. I used Real Red as the card base, layered on the designer paper with some Real Red grosgrain across the bottom. Then I stamped the tree from Season of Joy (I'm really hoping this set makes it into next year's Fall/Winter Collection) in Old Olive on Very Vanilla cardstock. I layered this on some Old Olive cardstock before adhering it to the card. I finished off with some Crystal Effects on the star at the top of the tree, just to give it some bling (I should have put some glitter in it, but I wasn't thinking at the time!).

Anyway, I want to thank you all for visiting and wish you and your families a Very Merry Christmas and God's blessings in the New Year! I'll be back to blogging next week, and I can't wait to see what everyone has been up to over the holidays!

And the Winner is...

It was so nice reading what all of you are doing for the holidays. It looks like most people will be spending time with family and eating lots! Sounds great!

I used random.org to select a number between 0 and 32.

And the winner is...#21 - Diane Noble! Here's Diane's comment:
We will spend Christmas day at our house with my parents and two grown sons coming. Gone are the days with little ones clamoring around the tree. It's quieter now, but oh, so precious when family is together. Later in the week extended family will gather at my sisters, spreading Christmas celebrations out over a full week!

Congrats on all your hits! You're ahead of me but I'm just getting started at all this and so look forward to other great connections with artists all over the world!!

Diane will receive the Oh So Lovely stamp set, an assortment of 12 x 12 SU! designer series paper (including Apple Cider, Baroque Motifs, Dashing, Cerise, Wintergreen and Petals & Paisleys), a Real Red Stampin' Write marker, some gold and silver elastic cord, some Chocolate Chip silk ribbon, some pink ribbon, and an assortment of embellishments (including brads, chipboard accents, Real Red zig zag ribbon and some buttons). Diane has a wonderful blog, by the way! Make sure you check out Diane's Designs.

Congratulations, Diane! Please email me with your address so I can send this off to you.

Merry Christmas, everyone, and thanks for visiting!

Blog Candy for 15 000+ Hits!

Please scroll down for new posts - I'll leave this at the top until December 21.

Okay Everyone, it's Blog Candy Time! My counter hit 15 000 last week, so I'm offering some yummy Stampin' Up! blog candy! Thank you to everyone who visits my blog regularly. I do appreciate it! I've met so many good blog friends here, and I'm so grateful and amazed!

Since I haven't had time to pull together all the blog candy and take a photo, I'm going to copy Alex (California Stampin'), who by the way is also offering some blog candy, so check it out! I'm going to offer some "wrapped" candy - you'll find out what it is after I select a winner. It will include a Stampin' Up! stamp set, some 12 x 12 SU! designer paper and some assorted embellishments (some SU!, some other).

Here's how to win: simply leave me a comment and let me know what you're doing for Christmas this year, if anything! I'm interested to know how people around the world will be spending the holidays. Our family will be going to British Columbia for a few days to visit my mom and step-dad. (Yay! A long van ride with two little kids!!! Thank goodness for the DVD player! LOL!) Mom always cooks a ham dinner on Christmas Eve and a turkey dinner on Christmas Day, so there should be some good eating! Afterwards, we'll have a late Christmas with my in-laws here in town. Our boys will exchange gifts with their cousins and we'll have a yummy supper afterwards (do you see that food is a theme here?).

Anyway, I'll leave this open until Friday, December 21, then I'll use random.org to choose a winner. Thanks again for visiting!

Bayou Birthday

I don't know about anyone else, but I am so sick of making Christmas cards! It was fun while it lasted, but I started in September, so I've about had it! I still have to make a few more to give to my family, but I'm just not feeling it right now!

I decided to take a break from Christmas and make a birthday card for my step-father, whose birthday is in January. I always have such a hard time with masculine cards, so I bought the Blue Bayou Prints designer paper specifically for the boys and men in my life! I'm going to make my son a piggy bank for Christmas using it (altering a can). But I digress...

This is a sketch from the SU! demo website. I used Blue Bayou, of course, as my card base and layered on the designer paper. I attached some double-stitched ribbon across the front and embossed the sentiment from Sincere Salutations with white ep. For the image, I used Baroque Motifs (this stamp set can be used for ANYTHING!). I stamped the big flourish in Soft Sky, then stamped the big image in Blue Bayou over top.

Finally - A Date with DH!

DH and I went to see Michael W. Smith with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra in concert last night!!! Oh my goodness! What amazing sound. The concert was at the Winspear Centre, which was built to have the most amazing acoustics. Then to hear MWS's Christmas songs with the symphony backing him was heavenly. He also had the Katinas and Melinda Doolittle with him, and they sang with him as well as singing their own solos. What beautiful music. Melinda Doolittle sang "All is Well" and just about blew the roof off the place - what a powerful voice!

Just to get out of the house and have a date with my hubby is nice, but to hear this kind of music was just thrilling. If you can see him in concert, especially if he's performing with a symphony, I highly recommend going. It really gets you into the Christmas spirit!

Stampin' for the Kids

I have to just say how inspired I am by all the generous things people are doing for others this holiday season. For example, Teri (Big Ideas from a Little Girl) asked for people to send her socks, which she donated to the seniors' centres in Hawaii.

About a month ago, Candace (Crazy for Papercrafts) offered some blog candy for people who told her what they would be doing to help others this Christmas. Her idea for herself was to make cards for children to colour and to donate to the Children's Hospital in her area. Well, I was so inspired by her that I decided to copy her idea! Thanks, Candace!

Last week, my MIL, Margo, came over and we stamped cards like crazy all afternoon. We put together these packages of four cards with a box of crayons that we will be delivering to the Stollery Chlidren's Hospital here in Edmonton so the kids can colour them. The first card is actually a little flip book that Margo made using the retired set Mixed Up.

I challenge all of you to think of something you can do to bring some joy to others this Christmas, and please post a comment here to let us know what you decide to do or what you have already done!

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me... the King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'" (Matthew 25:35, 36, 40)

BLOG CANDY(s) and an Announcement

First, Alex (California Stampin') is offering some yummy "wrapped" blog candy for 7500 hits ("wrapped" as in we'll find out what it is later - but she promises it will be good, and I know it will be!) Check it out here. Congratulations, Alex!

Second, I noticed that my counter turned over 15 000 hits today! Thank you all so much for visiting! I will be putting up some blog candy this weekend, so please come back to enter for your chance to win!

Third, I've been feeling like I'm burning the candle at both ends, so to speak, and I've had to do a lot of thinking and praying about how to spend my time so I don't burn out and drive my family insane! So with that in mind, I have decided that I need to cut back a bit on my blogging (*sob*). I've been trying to post every day and check out others' blogs every day, but it's just taking up too much time (I am a SAHM, so I should probably spend some time with my kids! LOL!). Anyway, I'll only be posting a couple of times a week and blog surfing on weekends. So I do hope you'll continue to check in with me. I appreciate all the encouragement I receive from all of you in Blogland! And if you don't hear from me on your blogs during the week, I haven't forgotten about you, and I will be visiting on weekends! Thanks again for your support and understanding!

Flaky RAK!

I wanted to show this card that I received in the mail from Diane (aka dd2njoy). Isn't it adorable?! I love the cute snowmen! Inside, she stamped "Some of my best friends are flakes" from Flaky Friends. That's one of my favourite sentiments - it makes me smile every time I see it! Thank you so much, Diane! I just love this card! I'm still waiting for you to start your own blog!

More Notebooks!

Here are the other two journals I made. They are for two girls in junior high who look after our children during our ladies' Bible study at church, and I also teach them piano lessons. Since they are students, I wanted to keep the notebooks fairly simple and flat so they wouldn't be crushed with their other books!

For these ones, I used Science notebooks instead of coil ones. I think I like these better than the coil scribblers! I started with some designer series paper for the bases - Apple Cider and Porcelain Prints, respectively. I attached the paper with spray adhesive.

I personalized them for the girls by sponging their initials on the cover using the Lower Simon chipboard letters as a stencil (I punched out the letter, then sponged inside the stencil that was left). For the Apple Cider notebook, I chose Groovy Guava and River Rock as my accent colours. I added Apricot Appeal ribbon because I don't have any Guava ribbon, but I think it blends! The stamped images are from All Through the Year. For the Porcelain Prints notebook, I used Blue Bayou and Wild Wasabi as the accent colours. The stamped images are from Wild Rose.

I made matching pens for both girls. I used the RSVP pens and just rolled up some designer paper to fit inside them.

Wild Rose Notebook

I really love the Porcelain Prints designer paper - mainly because it goes with Blue Bayou and Wild Wasabi, my favourite SU! colours.

I made this notebook for a friend of mine. I started with the leafy paper. I clipped the pages together on the right, then removed the coil. I always use a spray adhesive for my notebooks, so I sprayed the paper and the notebook cover with adhesive. After letting the adhesive set for an hour, I put the paper on the cover.

Then I decorated. Since the paper goes with the Wild Rose stamp set, I had to use that! I stamped the big rose in Blue Bayou and the leaves in Wild Wasabi and cut them out. I adhered the leaves behind the rose and stuck the whole thing on the notebook with a dimensional. For the bottom strip, I layered Blue Bayou, Wild Wasabi and Very Vanilla cardstock. I stamped the leaves over it, wrapped the double-stitched Blue Bayou ribbon and stamped "cherish" from Baroque Motifs on it.

After the whole thing was finished, I punched holes along the left side so the coil would go through. Then I wound the coil back through the notebook.

I have a few more notebooks that I'll post tomorrow.

I also noticed that I'm getting close to 15 000 hits, so that means it's almost BLOG CANDY TIME!!! Stay tuned this weekend for that!!