PPA66 - A Sketch Challenge

I know we are days away from Halloween and I post a Christmas card. Crazy eh? When I saw Margaret Moody's sketch, the bottom circle was calling out for me to use the snowflake from Sweet Season so I switched gears from Halloween preparation to Christmas.

I haven't had much time for stamping with Halloween costumes to make, a sick little cat ( that is being spoon fed) sports activities and school projects - BUT - I had to stamp today even for an hour. I have been waiting to create cards with the new A Cute Christmas set. Both the stamps and the new Candy Cane Christmas paper are wonderful. 

Now it's off to finish 2 Halloween costumes, soccer practice, volleyball practice and piano. 

Stamps - A Cute Christmas, Sweet Season, Short and Sweet

Ink - basic black, baja breeze, real red, pretty in pink

Paper - A Candy Cane Christmas, whisper white, real red card stock

Embellishments - scallop punch, dotted scallop ribbon border punch, dazzling diamonds glitter, glimmer brad, dimensionals

My Poor Boo

I came home from a school meeting to find my little Boo writhing in pain in our hallway. Upon taking her to the animal hospital, we learned she broke her hip. Although, shocked we were not totally surprised since she is not the most graceful of felines. We have dubbed her the "black elephant" due to her heavy footed ways. When running on the hardwood floors she really does sound more like an elephant than a cat.

Boo had to have surgery yesterday and some of her hip bone removed. She came home this morning with a cone and a bare tushy and is resting in her favorite spot on our bed.  We are glad to have our little girl back. She is always around to help with card making, homework, any computer work and as always to pounce on our dog Barney.

Here she is at work.

Helping Me Cut Paper

Helping Megan with Homework

Handmade Holiday - Special Bundle Offers

Now through December 16th you will have the opportunity to purchase select products--perfect for Amazing cards, Beautiful packaging, and Cherished gifts--at a 20 percent discount!

Additional products from current catalogs may be purchased on the same order.

There is no minimum purchase required to participate in this promotion.

You must use the bundle item codes provided. The 20 percent discount will not be applied if individual bundle item numbers are entered separately. 

Click here to order your Holiday Bundles online or contact me and place your order directly with me.

Operation Write Home - 92 Cards Created!

Our Stampers Hard at Work

Our Finished Cards

This Sunday, I hosted an Operation Write Home day to make cards for our service men and women to send home to their loved ones. For more information about Operation Write Home click here or on the OWH name above.

We had four stampers working through the afternoon to stamp and create holiday cards. The OWH deadline for holiday cards is October 30th. We used lots of discontinued paper as well as our new and old favorite stamps to create various designs. You would think that there would be a lot of chatter going on, but our group was so focused on reaching our goal of 20 cards each, and concentrating on the assembly of the cards that it was very quiet.

Here are our creations

Kim's Cards

Marianne's Cards

Megan's Cards

My Cards

After Kim and Marianne left for the day, Megan and I created these cards using the self adhesive die cuts from the Simply Scrappin' kit from last year ( discontinued). Simply scrapping kits are a great way to QUICKLY make a variety of cards and contain almost everything you need to make a great number of cards. These cards literally take about 2 minutes to make. 

It was such a joy to host an afternoon for Operation Write Home. It is so fun to see other stamper's creative process and work side by side to create something together for others. I will definitely be hosting another Operation Write Home event after the New Year. Please check out the OWH website and host your own OWH gathering. 

My DAUGHTER Made this Card!!!!!!!!

Friday was my anniversary and my beautiful 13 year old daughter, Megan,  made this card for my husband to give to me. She covertly grabbed the items from my stash and made this beautiful card. I was so impressed. I can't believe she even used the embossing folder for the background. I am so proud of her! Since the colors were exactly what this weeks Paper Players challenge calls for, I had to put her card in the challenge post. Yea Megan!!

Fall Themed Card

After a record breaking high of 115 here in California last week, it is so nice to have a little rain today. It feels like Fall is finally here. I am always in need of thank you cards and created this Fall themed card to accompany the weather. I created the background paper by inking up a texture plate. I always get so nervous when I try this technique but it always comes out perfectly. I should know it's just plastic and the ink washes right off, but applying the ink to the plate makes me squirm. The results are worth the effort and I am happy with my card and the weather:)

Paper - cajun craze, chocolate chip and very vanilla card stock
Ink - chocolate chip, cajun craze, more mustard, daffodil delight
Stamps - Autumn Splendor, Afterthoughts ( hostess), Notably Ornate, Woodgrain
Accessories - linen thread, dotted scallop ribbon border punch, antique brad, dimensionals

Wicked Class

These are the 2 projects we completed this weekend for our Halloween stamp class. The "wicked" accordion tag banner design was altered for Halloween from the original Christmas design by Sharon Johnson from the Just Rite Stampers blog. We also made some treat packages using my new favorite Big Shot die "Candy Wrapper". I know this die is going to get a lot of use for all the holidays and when I entertain at home. I used Wicked Fun DSP for this project and can't believe how much paper is contained in the packages. I bought 2 packages of the DSP and I was able to do a workshop for 15, a class for 11 and still have a bunch of paper left over . What a WICKED value!

Paper - Wicked Fun, basic black cajun craze, rich razzleberry, old olive, whisper white card stock
Ink - basic black, old olive, tangerine tango
Stamp - Wicked Cool
Accessories - Raven lace trim, Black and white striped ribbon, pumpkin pie taffeta ribbon, jumbo brads, bat punch, scallop circle punch, 1 3/8" circle punch, 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" square punch, brads, candy Wrapper die