Lovely As a Tree

Sorry about the shadowy picture, I don't claim to be a great photographer! :)  This is the card that we made at stamp club last night.  The ladies really liked how it turned out.  First we stamped the tree in Garden Green. Then we used a two-way glue pen lightly all over the tree and then sprinkled Mica Flakes (from the Holiday Mini) all over the tree.  It gives such a pretty look that's similar to glitter, but so much thicker.  Very cool!  The paper is from the Frostwood Lodge designer series paper and the ribbon is the Cherry Cobbler Quilted Satin, both from the Holiday Mini Catalog. 

Christmas 2010!

On Christmas Eve we went to a party with the Thomas', then met my family at the cemetery to do the annual lighting of the candles, then we came home and the kids opened their new Christmas P.J.'s and 'surprise' new pillows. Then they settled into bed to wait for Santa to come.

Justus got new wireless headphones (his favorite gift) and some new clothes.

Tori got a Zune that made her very happy until it quit working that day. She's been a little hard to live with ever since. We returned it and hopefully a new one will arrive in the mail soon! She also got new clothes and a much needed coat.

Adri was surprised with not ONE but TWO guinea pigs! She's a pretty happy little girl. These guinea pigs are brothers, we learned from santa's note, and she named the black one J.J. and the white one Gizmo. They've been a lot of fun to watch and play with.

Jake and I were groggy eyed most of Christmas day since the kids couldn't wait any longer than 5:00 a.m. to wake us up. We went to my mom's to eat Christmas Brunch with the Sorensen's and have our Christmas party. It was a fun filled weekend! We're still trying to get back to normal.

Adri, Gizmo and J.J.

Big On Christmas

Happy Christmas Eve!  I hope you're all ready for the big day tomorrow.  I've been really into the snowman theme this year and this card worked right into it.  I used the Perfect Polka Dot embossing folder to add some dimension and love how it turned out.  Have a Merry Christmas!

Delightful Decorations

This is a quick card I put together for my Primary lesson tomorrow.  I made one for each of the kids.  On the inside they will draw a picture of a service they can do for someone and then give it as a gift.  The colors are Riding Hood Red and Garden Green.  

Big on Christmas

This was a fun card to make with all of the tiny little brads used as Christmas lights.  Awwwwe, cute!  I also added a little glitter to the tree.  The colors are Riding Hood Red and Garden Green.  I used the Aqua Painter to fill in the letters and tree.  The wheel is Christmas Chatter.

If you look close you can see the 'sparkling' trees that give the illusion of fresh snow!  As much as I hate the cold and snow it is fun to look out the windows of your warm and cozy house and see the trees and roof tops covered in snow.  First I embossed the trees from Lovely as a Tree (one of Stampin' Up!'s oldest sets) with white embossing powder.  After it cooled I dotted the ground and tree tops with a two-way glue pen and added Dazzling Diamonds glitter.  The colors are Pear Pizazz and Poppy Parade from the In Color Line.  The pattern paper is one of the hostess gifts from the catalog.

Season of Joy

I love this Christmas stamp set!  The colors I used are Cherry Cobbler and Old Olive.  I had to do some cutting out for this card, but I LOVE how it turned out!  I could have colored the star, tree and tree trunk with markers, but opted to stamp them separately and then cut them out and pop them up with dimensionals.

Delightful Decorations

We had a fun time at Stamp Club last night making these cute Christmas cards.  We used the Square Lattice embossing folder and ran the Real Red paper through the Big Shot to get the cool textured look.  I scored the striped pattern paper ahead of time and cut the strip 1" by 12".  Then we just fan folded them and attached the ends.  I found it worked best to use a pop up glue dot to attach it to the Old Olive Circle.  We also used a pop dot to attach the ornament.  The glitter brads are new in the Holiday Mini and add a nice glittery touch! 

Christmas at our House!

Here's the kids opening their Christmas P.J.'s on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning came awfully early.  Adri didn't sleep much (she said she slept about 10 minutes - UGH!).  Anyway, she wanted to get started at 4:30 AM, but we held her off until 5:00ish.

All of the opening was done within minutes!

Justus got a new sleeping bag, a coat and clothes.  Tori got boots, music CD's and clothes.  The kids get a new Christmas ornament for the tree each year.  This is them with their new one.

Adri got a Baby Alive, boots and clothes.  She happened to grab the pack of diapers to open first and Tori and Justus thought we were making an announcement.  Later when she opened the doll all the facts came together.  Phew!  We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Season of Joy

I love the Bermuda Bay with the Real Red for Christmas!  I'm also loving the Polka Dot Grosgrain ribbon!  The greeting is from the Four the Holidays set in the mini catalog.

Delightful Decorations

Here's my card trade for Stamp Club.  I tried to show all of the different ways you can use shimmer paint.  For the ornament I mixed the White Shimmer Paint with Ruby Red reinker and then used a sponge dauber to apply it directly to the stamp.  That was stamped right onto Whisper White paper and then I used the Ornament punch to punch it out.  The curly Q's behind the ornament are from the Season of Joy stamp set.  And shimmer paint was applied directly to the stamp with a sponge dauber and then stamped.  On the Certain Celery piece of paper I stamped all of the 'snowflakes' with the shimmer paint/ruby red ink mix.  The Peace on Earth was stamped in just Ruby Red ink and then I lightly sponged over it with a sponge dauber and shimmer paint.  I sponged all around the edge of the celery paper with the shimmer paint as well.

Delightful Decorations

This is the card we made at stamp club last week.  I decided to take pictures with the camera, rather than scanning it, so you could see all the sparkles!  It really worked!!!  We embossed the ornaments with clear embossing powder and then with a sponge dauber we rubbed the White Shimmer Paint directly over them.  You can wipe the excess paint off the embossing with a tissue, but whatever comes in contact with the paper stays there.  For this middle part on the green ornament we used the dauber with shimmer paint directly on the stamp and then stamped it on the green paper, punched it out and used a dimentional to attach it.  The sparkles on the red paper were made by using rubbing alcohol mixed with a little of the shimmer paint in a spray bottle.

Delightful Decorations

On this card I used the new Frost White Shimmer Paint.  You can't see the 'sparkle' on the scan, but in person this stuff is awesome!  I mixed a little bit of the shimmer paint with a few drops of Ruby Red reinker and then used a sponge dauber to ink up the little circle stamp.  So each of the circles 'shimmer'.  I also mixed some of the Shimmer Paint with a little alcohol in a mini spray bottle and spritzed that all over the card.  In the light the whole card sparkles.  I tried daubing  shimmer paint onto the greeting that I had already stamped in Craft White, but that didn't work so well.  All it did was lighten the white.  It was fun to try different things though.

Holiday Blitz

For this card I used the Bliss Blue designer paper from the Summer Picnic pack and embossed the snowflakes in white and then punched it out with the Scallop Circle punch.  Then on the white I first stamped the snowflake in Versamark and then in the Bliss Blue pad and stamped it on the white.  I repeated that process until I had a section of paper covered big enough for the Scallop Circle punch.  Then I embossed that with clear powder.  I've used the Ice Rhinestone Brads to attach the white ribbons and scallops.

Holiday Blitz

This is a pretty simple card.  I've embossed the little tree with Gold embossing powder and then used the Itty Bitty Background stamp to add some Old Olive speckles.  Then I used the small tag punch to punch it out.  I punched the larger Tag out of the Brushed Gold paper.  And also trimmed the front bottom of the card off a 1/4" or so and glued a strip of Brushed Gold paper on the inside bottom, so it's seen from the front when the card is closed.  The Olive designer paper is from the Summer Picnic pack.  I stamped the tree along the bottom of the Olive paper with Olive ink.  The tag is hung from the wide Red Grosgrain ribbon with string that I colored Olive.  I used my paper distressing tool to get the frayed look on the bottom of the Olive paper.

Holiday Blitz

I saw this technique and LOVED it right away!  It's the same as emboss-resist, but you do it on pattern paper.  I've stamped the Candy Cane in Versamark on paper from the Bella Rose designer paper pack and then embossed it with clear powder.  Then I took a sponge and rubbed Chocolate Chip ink all over it.  Of course the embossed spots resist the ink.  Awesome look!  I then layered that piece of paper onto the same Bella Rose paper.  You can get a ton of different looks just by using different designer papers and solid stamps.

Season of Joy

Yey!  I finally got the Square Scallop Punch.  I'm so happy!!!  For this card I used the Baja Breeze paper and the Urban Garden pattern paper.  I used the White Craft pad for the words on the left side of the card and the Baja Breeze pad for the snowflake.  Simple, but cute card!

Season of Joy

This set was in the Holiday Mini last year and I'm so glad it made it into the catalog.  I just love it!  I used the Bella Rose pattern paper and a Build-a-Brad for the center of the poinsettia.  

Mr. Twigster

This cute little snowman guy has a lot going on - WOW! But hey! He's VERY MERRY! The colors I used are Ballet Blue, Kiwi Kiss and Riding Hood Red. I used paper from both the Bella Rose and Urban Garden paper packs. I used the Romantic Red glitter on the tree decorations and the White Gel Pen to add some color to the presents. The snowman is watercolored using the different ink pad colors. I finally broke out my new Button Bouquet buttons. They're so cute I mostly just look at them and can't bare to use them. I used the snowflake and greeting out of the Short and Sweet set.