Christmas Stars

We are still in Pittsburgh but packing up and will be leaving soon.  It has been a great trip and I will share pictures when I return.  It has started raining here this morning so we will probably have a rainy ride back this afternoon.  We are dropping Ashley off at the airport around noon and then hitting the highway.

In the meantime, here is a Christmas card that I made a few weeks ago using the Bright and Beautiful stamp set and doing a lot of embossing.  I put a piece of vellum over the News Print DSP.

Fall Collage

Marianne and I went to Ikea last night in search of more frames.  We are both working on making more collages to frame for gifts.  I will be offering kits for sale of several designs when I return from my trip.  Here is one of them .... to wet your appetite!!  The kits will have everything stamped and cut out.  You will just have to put it all together - the fun part!!

After Ikea, we headed over to Concord Mills to the new Vera Bradley Outlet store!  We are both so excited that we finally have a Vera store near us.  Whenever I visit Ashley, I always go up to San Marcos to the outlets there and make a very expensive stop at Vera Bradley!  I am on their mailing list and had received a birthday discount coupon in the mail.  So I really got a deal.  I bought a purse and a wallet which were both marked 50% off already.  With my 20% birthday coupon, I ended up basically getting 70% off each item!  Darn - I should have bought more!  But, if truth be told, I really didn't need what I bought.  But who NEEDS a new purse???

We are headed out in the morning for D.C.  We will spend the night at Ashley's and then the three of us will head up to Pittsburgh Thursday when she gets out of class.  We have tickets to the first game of the season for the Pittsburgh Penguins Thursday night.  No major plans the rest of the week-end except visiting some of our favorite eating places in the area - Danny's Hoagies, The "O" for hot dogs, any one of several Italian restaurants in the area, and maybe we'll even discover some new hot spots!  Hopefully, the menagerie here at my house will behave themselves.  Marianne and Angela are going to be coming over to check on them while I'm away.

I have not had much luck with blogging with my Kindle but I will try.  No promises!  If not, you will hear from me next week.

Christmas Fun Fold

Brrr was what we were saying this morning!  A cold front moved into our area Friday night.  Yesterday was a beautiful fall day - crisp and cool!  Loved it!  We opened all our windows and about 5:00 pm, we were shutting all of them because we were both really cold!!  This morning I think it was in the 40s when we got up and the temps were in the 50s all day.  But I think it is going to be short lived.  The rest of the week I think it will be in the 70s which is ok with me.  We are going to Pittsburgh later this week and I'm sure it will be pretty cool there too.

Saturday was National Cardmaking Day.  I tried to get Sonny to come up and make a card with me but I wasn't successful!!  But I made several cards.  I found this fun fold card on Sandy Hancock's blog.  It was made by Cheryl LeFore.  She used All Is Calm DSP and I changed it up and used the Trim the Tree DSP stack.

Here are the instructions if you want to make one:
Cut base cardstock (Real Red for mine) 8"x 8".  Use the Simply Scored Diagonal Plate and score all four sides at 3".  Cut out the small triangles where the score lines criss-cross.  Flip the cardstock over.  Use the regular Score Board and score at 1" on all four sides to the triangle.  Fold the large flaps in toward the center and fold the small flaps in the opposite direction.  Decorate with DSP.  Trim one end of DSP diagonally and adhere to the small flap.  Close the card clockwise and place the fourth flap under the first flap.  (Note:  I may have done mine backwards because I had to close the card counter clockwise to get it to work.  Just try it and see what works for you.)

Belly Band:  3/4" x 9 3/8" cardstock.  Score at 1/2", 5/8" and 5-1/8".  Decorate.  (since the DSP stack is not long enough to go around the belly band, I cut two pieces and put one on top and one on bottom.)


I found out today that the vintage scrapbook page I made this week for MDS Monday was selected as a challenge winner.  I loved that page with the picture of my mom.  Check out the nice comments and the other challenge winner HERE.

Our house guest is still entertaining us!  Sammie loves my Stampin' Up boxes and I always keep one in the family room for her to curl up in.  Well, of course now Bogart wants the box and I know if I put another one out, they wouldn't have anything to do with it.  So they just have to take turns!

Whose turn is it?

Where are you Sammie?  Lookie - I'm in your box!

I'll show that white cat whose box this is!

 Today I caught them exchanging cat kisses!!

Just hanging out!  Bogie thinks he's king of the mountain on the scratching post!

I really goofed up this week though!  When I cleaned out the litter box on Thursday, I mistakenly put the lid on backwards .... the lid with the hole that they go in to do their business.  Sonny noticed it Friday I think and fixed it.  He told me about it and we checked around but didn't find any surprises UNTIL I was folding the laundry on Saturday.  The laundry basket had been in the laundry room and I carried it up to our room to fold the clothes.  Normally, I just dump it out on our bed.  Well, glad I didn't this time!  Guess where they did their business?   As I was reaching in to pull some clothes out, my fingers touched something squishy .... ugh!  I couldn't blame them but I did wonder why they were both sniffing around the laundry basket when I brought it upstairs!  So, yesterday I got to do the laundry all over again!  Never a dull moment with these cats!

Holiday Home MDS style!

The sketch for Paper Craft Crew this week is very similar to one we did a couple of weeks ago.  In fact, I emailed the gal in charge to ask if it was a repeat!  I don't think she had realized that she had put the two sketches so close together.  I decided to make this week's card a Halloween card.  It's funny - when I first looked at the Holiday Catalog, the stamp set with the houses, Holiday Home, was not on my list at all.  But after seeing all the cute cards that everyone is making with this set, I had to get it.  Not only did I order it as a Clear Stamp, but I also ordered the digital stamp too!  Here is the digital card I made for the challenge:

I have been working on my calendars for 2015 and I also used this set for October.  This is my favorite so far!  I followed a tutorial on-line and learned a lot of new tricks for this page.  (An old dog can learn new tricks!)

I will be offering my calendars for sale.  They are $20 which includes the wooden holder for $10 for refills.  The calendars are 6x6.

Tips for Your Card Making

I love it when I learn something new!  One of my blog readers left me a comment yesterday in response to my problem of losing my photopolymer stamps.  (Thanks, Kim!)  Kim had a very good hint which I incorporated today.  Here was her tip:

I use an acrylic free standing photo frame to keep track of the loose stamps. I too clean at the end of creating. Cleaning kills the creative buzz. lol I keep the photo frame on my desk where I stamp. It's one left over from making those post it holders. I can stick those single stamps on to it, and they don't get lost. I can't see them when I drop them either. 

As it happens, I had a clear acrylic frame in my stash of Dollar Store items.  I slid a piece of card stock inside to make it a little easier to see and used it today while I was stamping.  (If you don't recognize these stamps, they are from the latest Paper Pumpkin.)  It's pretty cool - the stamps stick to the frame great!  Hopefully, no more crawling around on the floor looking for my stamps!

I also learned another tip today.  When you stamp an image and want to cut it out with a Framelit, do you find yourself going through all your framelits until you find the right size?  Well, that was what I was doing.  So, I spent a little time today solving that dilemma.  I cut some retired card stock (who doesn't have that laying around???) to 4 1/2" x 5 1/2" (whatever size works for you) and die cut a lot of my framelits.  I punched a hole in the top and have it hanging near my stamp table.  I may end up putting them in page protectors but haven't decided yet.  It already came in handy for me tonight as I was making a Christmas card and trying to decide on the sentiment.  Read the article HERE

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MDS Vintage

The challenge this week on MDS Monday is to use a vintage photo or just create a vintage page.  This is one of my favorite pictures of my Mom.  She looks so cute!  I'm guessing she was about two years old??  Well, she celebrated her 86th birthday this past July so I guess this qualifies for vintage!  I hope this page will make her smile today.  Today marks 41 years since Daddy died and I know she will be remembering that day.

I used so many overlays on this page that it was really slowing down the program.  I kept saving it - I was afraid I would lock it up and have to start all over.  I've had to do that before so I try to remember to save often.

Make sure you visit the MDS Monday blog - there are some great vintage pictures there!

Here are the elements I used to create this page.

Background
     Designer Series Paper designer series paper\Downtown Grunge - 2

Embellishments
    Paper Doilies\Paper Doilies - pool party (re-colored) Color = SOFT SUEDE
    Soft Blooms - embellishments\Soft Blooms - 4 crumb cake
    Soft Blooms - embellishments\Soft Blooms - 4 crumb cake
    Soft Blooms - embellishments\Soft Blooms - 4 crumb cake
    _Designer Kits\Fan Fair - embellishments\Fan Fair - stitching black circle 2 (re-colored) Color = CHOCOLATE CHIP

Stamps
    _Designer Kits\Downtown Grunge\Downtown Grunge - script, Color = 0,0,0
    _OVERLAY STAMPS\Vintage Overlays\Vintage Overlays - texture 4
    _OVERLAY STAMPS\Vintage Overlays\Vintage Overlays - texture 3
    _OVERLAY STAMPS\Vintage Overlays\Vintage Overlays - texture 12
    Torn Edges\Torn Edges - flower edge
    _OVERLAY STAMPS\Vintage Overlays\Vintage Overlays - texture 12
    _OVERLAY STAMPS\Vintage Overlays\Vintage Overlays - texture 13
    _OVERLAY STAMPS\Vintage Overlays\Vintage Overlays - texture 4
    Everyday Adventure Project Life\Everyday Adventure Project Life - oval frame
    _Designer Kits\Seriously Teen Kit\Seriously Teen Kit - grunge 4, Color = 73,56,38
    _OVERLAY STAMPS\Thoughtful Overlays\Thoughtful Overlays - memories,
    Always\Always - sentiment 2
    _HOLIDAYS\Holiday Blitz\Holiday Blitz - mom
    Always\Always - sentiment 2
    Always\Always - sentiment 2

Punches
    Basics\1.25 Square Punch

White Christmas - Two Ways

The weekend sure comes and goes fast!  We went to the movies on Saturday and saw The Drop.  Don't waste your money - it wasn't that good.  I didn't think it would be but Sonny wanted to see it since James Gandofino was in it.  I figured they are digging up all his movies that didn't make it to the box office when he was alive and showing them now.  Oh well, it was a nice outing anyway.  We went to a restaurant in Cornelius for breakfast before the movie that we had been wanting to try and it was really good.  We'll be going back for sure.

Sunday of course, we went to Big Al's to see the Steelers LOSE!  Grrrr .... that wasn't supposed to happen - to lose to a team like Tampa Bay who haven't won a game all year!  Seems we win the ones we aren't supposed to and lose the ones I think should be the easy ones.  I knew starting the season that we weren't going to have much to cheer about this year but it's still tough to see them struggle.

I did have time this weekend to make a couple of cards using White Christmas.  First I made a traditional winter card.  It's hard to see how glittery this card is.  I used Dazzling Diamonds in the trees and all over the snow on the ground.  I forgot to mask the circle for the moon so after sponging the sky, I decided to try to make a moon.  I sponged a circle with Craft Whisper White Ink and then embossed it with White embossing powder.  It worked!!  You just never know.

I have seen a few cards made with this set that were fall cards so I decided to give it a try this morning.  I stamped the trees and the deer with Early Espresso.  Then I used a brown marker to color in the trees.  For the leaves, I just used the tip of my markers - Crushed Curry, Dusty Durango, Cherry Cobbler, Mossy Meadow and Soft Suede to put dots all over the ground and the trees.  I used the Old Olive Blendabilities to color in the grass.  I masked the circle for the sun (Daffodil) and sponged Soft Sky for the sky.  What do you think?

One thing I really like about the Photopolymer stamps is that you can arrange them on the clear block the way you want to.  Notice in the winter card, the ground that the deer is standing on between the trees is not almost straight.  (I also used a Black Marker to extend the ground.)  On the fall card, I wanted the ground to be more hilly so I arranged the stamp that way before stamping.  The trees and the ground are all one stamp.

What I don't like about the photopolymer stamps is that they are hard for me to see on my desk!!  If I don't clean them right away and put them back in the case, I end up looking everywhere for them because they will stick to things.  I have a tendency to just lay my stamps on my cleaning pad (which I leave open on the side of my desk) until I am completely done and clean everything at once.  Last week I had about 6 stamps laying on the cleaning pad and Bogart decided to check out what I was doing.  He jumped up on my desk, knocking the cleaning pad onto the floor and scattering the stamps.  I had to call Sonny in to help me.  I was missing two of the photopolymer stamps and one clear stamp.  After crawling around on the floor (both of us!), I finally found the two photopolymer ones and had given up on finding the other stamp.  Sonny had the flashlight out and as he was getting up off the floor, he spotted the stamp on the leg of my chair!

Hope you have a good day!  I am headed to the "Y" for a little much needed exercise!

Watercolor Winter Kit

I have found the best deal ever in the SU Holiday Catalog!  It is the Watercolor Winter Simply Created Kit (page 37).  With this kit and a few stamps (that you might have on hand or you can purchase), you can make at least 20 cards.  I made a lot more than that and just used additional card stock that I had on hand for the card bases.  The kit includes 20 cards, envelopes, die-cut letters and shapes, linen thread, watercolor brush and cardboard accents - all for just $24.95.  

At Convention this summer I attended a specialty class where we were able to play with the new Card Kit.  I loved this class and getting to work with the watercolor projects.  (I used a few drops of reinkers mixed with water to do the watercoloring.)  When I came home, I just had to finish all the cute cards.  The kit has enough stuff to make 5 each of 4 different card designs.  However, I didn't want the same cards so I decided to see what else I could make with it. As you can see (below), there is so much you can do with this kit and I still have stuff left over!!  These are the different cards I made with the kit.  I think I have made a total of 30 cards with the kit.  I also used the stamp set, Watercolor Winter Too.  (pg 37 - $11.95).

Freeform Text on Path for MDS Monday

My creation for MDS Monday is a page from my visit with Jeff, Darcie and Jayce last December.  I got some great action shots of Jayce eventually.  The challenge this week was to use the Freeform Tool on the text around the pictures.

Jayce had fun hiding from me whenever I got my camera focused!

My MDS page uses:

Background
     Designer Series Paper Storytime  16

Embellishments
   Designer Kits\Finest Simplicity - embellishments\Finest Simplicity - frame 2

Stamps
    OVERLAY STAMPS\Epic Overlays\Epic Overlays - lines, (along edges of project)
    Designer Kits\Days to Remember - family
    Designer Kits\Family Fun Photobook - fun 4
    OVERLAY STAMPS\Epic Overlays\Epic Overlays - best ever, 

I am going to get this page in on time this week!  Last week I designed my page but forgot to post it!!  I didn't realize it until I checked the MDS Monday blog post on Monday.

We are having a bit of FALL weather here and I love it!  Tuesday I don't know if it even got up to 60 degrees!  And today it has been misty all day and in the lower 60s - a good day for a bowl of chilli. Yesterday I had a dentist appointment in the morning and didn't check the weather before getting dressed.  I put my capris on with a 3/4 length sleeve .... my legs were a little chilly!!  

I also went to Davidson College yesterday for another testing session.  I finally FINISHED the Brain Games I was having to do at home.  I was so glad!  I was doing 4-5 of the games a week and each one took an hour of my time.  That's a lot of time I was losing!!  And they were getting harder and harder.  I will go back to Davidson in 8-10 weeks for my final testing session.  So far, I have gotten $100 for it but believe me, it is worth every penny!!

I Missed the Deadline!

Last week I did a scrapbook page for the MDS Monday challenge BUT I forgot to post it to their blog!!  Oh well - guess I didn't stand a chance of winning, huh?  Anyway, here is the MDS page I made.  The challenge was to use white, vanilla or ivory as the main color.  I thought this picture from our Alaska trip fit the bill.  I used the photo of the snowy Mount McKinley as my background.

As promised, here are a few pictures from the Steeler - Panther game that we attended on Sunday night.  It was really hot - still in the 80s when we left the game about midnight.  I had been hoping for some fall weather and had thrown in my sweatshirt thinking I would need it later in the evening but ended up not even carrying it in the stadium.  The Steelers beat the Panthers pretty handily - it was the first loss of the season for the Panthers so I was not so sure about that win in advance.

We went to the Olde Meck Brewery in Charlotte before the game for dinner.

As usual, Sonny made a few Steeler friends!

Great seats

The Panthers started leaving during the 3rd quarter!!  

Our Selfie!

Here are this week's Weekly Deals - good through next Monday.