The Paper Players Blog Hop - Another MDS Hybrid for Me and Blog Candy

Happy Saturday everyone!  If you have been to the Paper Players Blog, you will know we are having a blog hop today!  Everyone on the team has created a Fall project!  We are linking our projects up on our blogs this week, and some of us have blog candy to share! So be sure to check out each blog.  Here is the Blog Hop list...click the names to visit their blogs.

Ann Schach

Anne Marie Hile
Cindy Hall

Jaydee

Julie Marshall

LeAnne Pugliese

Lesley Croghan 

Nance Leedy

Rita Wright 

Tara Bilbao  (you are here)

My Project today is a somewhat simple Thanksgiving Decor Item. I get so annoyed with the department stores putting Christmas decorations up before it is even Halloween. They seem to skip Thanksgiving altogether - ACK! I love Thanksgiving. Don't get me wrong I am a Holly Jolly Girl through and through, but THERE IS A HOLIDAY BETWEEN HALLOWEEN AND CHRISTMAS!! OK enough of my ranting.

I decorate my house for Thanksgiving and wanted to make a little something for my entryway . In order to get the scale a bit larger than the stamped image, I turned to my handy, dandy My Digital Studio to give the background a distressed look and to print out the Thanksgiving sentiment. I added a few hand made flowers and some pewter embossed leaves in a simple layout and I have a Thanksgiving decor item for my hall table. Yes Virginia, there is a Thanksgiving:)

I realized my center piece was crooked after I took this picture - I fixed that!

Paper - whisper white, very vanilla, old olive, early express more mustard card stock

Ink - soft suede for distressing, more mustard, early espresso, old olive, cajun craze, bravo burgundy

Stamps - My Digitial Studio - Autumn Spice Digital Kit

Accessories - 1 3/4", 1 3/8" , 1", 3/4" circle punches, scallop border trim punch, glimmer brad, small brads, frame

I have blog CANDY! Leave a comment and I will randomly select a winner that will recieve a "Button, Button" clear stamp set along with a ribbon assortment. 

Paper Players - A Sketch From Nance

This week Nance has a fabulous sketch for us at The Paper Players. I was torn between vintage and modern for this card and combined the two for this wonderful sketch - a little bit of vintage paired with monochromatic black and white give this card a bit of a quandary, but I think it works for the challenge. I continually saw the New Edition dsp against a black background and went from there to design the card. A little old with a little new - mmm   - what do you think?

Paper - New edition DSP, basic black and very vanilla card stock

Stamps - Established Elegance, French Foliage, Notably Ornate, Tiny Tags

Ink - Black

Accessories - black satin ribbon, jewelry tag punch, 1 3/4", 1 3/8" 1 " circle punches, scallop border trim punch

Nance Leedy is such a talented stamper/crafter/artist make sure you visit her blog and leave a sweet comment on her fabulous work. While you are at it, give some sweetness to the rest of the amazing Paper Players Design Team that I am so blessed to be a part of for the season. 

The Paper Players Design Team

Ann Schach

Anne Marie Hile

Jaydee

Julie Marshall

LeAnne Pugliese

Lesley Croghan

Nance Leedy

Tara Bilbao
Cindy Hall (October GD)

Our Second Annual Operation Write Home - Christmas

Megan, Traci, Martee and Marianne

Ahhh, finally a moment to post again. I have been very busy with the kids schedules and also some projects for upcoming UStampwithDawnandFriends sessions ( stay tuned for coming announcements) and have not posted much. 

Anywhoo, I am glad to post our pictures from our 2nd annual Operation Write Home day. Last Sunday, 5 of us met at my house and worked away stamping Christmas cards for our troops. We even put on a little Christmas Music to get into the mood. It's always such fun to get together with friends for some stamping, lots of chatting and laughter and of course a little food. I believe we will have completed 80 cards for our package that I will be sending off on Monday.

Operation Write Home is such a wonderful organization, please visit http://operationwritehome.org for more information. 

Paper Players CAS Christmas Challenge #68

This week Lesley has a wonderful challenge for The Paper Players. It is a CAS (clean and simple) Christmas challenge using the colors red and green. CAS is always a challenge for me especially for Christmas. I had something completely different in mind for this challenge, but unfortunately, I ordered my new Christmas stamps too late and they will not arrive  until Monday:(

I definitely kept it simple here. I actually did not even  stamp this card but created the main image using My Digital Studio. I really enjoy using MDS for many projects and this is a perfect example. With MDS I was able to create a project instantly using digital stamps in lieu of a physical stamp. I am not an exclusive MDS user but love it for hybrid projects where I can create an image using Stampin' Up! artwork and combine it with perfectly matching paper and accessories. Contact me to learn more about My Digital Studio

I was ACHING to put some glitter on that tree or a few jewels or even dazzling details -  but I really worked at keeping it simple. The layout is from a card that inspired me from  Paper Crafts Magazine.  Again, it was such an effort not to add an additional layer or two and some bling, (glitter, glitter glitter the tree) but I kept it simple:)

Visit the Paper Players Design Team beautiful blogs and leave a sweet comment

The Paper Players Design Team

Ann Schach

Anne Marie Hile

Jaydee

Julie Marshall

LeAnne Pugliese

Lesley Croghan

Nance Leedy

Tara Bilbao
Cindy Hall (October GD)

Paper - Letters to Santa DSP, whisper white, crumb cake card stock
Ink  - NONE - I used MDS
Stamps - MDS Bright Hopes Stamp Brush Set
Accessories - real red 1/8" taffeta ribbon, real red button, linen thread

Paper Players - A Color Challenge from Jaydee

This week Jaydee has a beautiful color challenge for The Paper Players. As soon as I saw this challenge, I pictured falling leaves and created this card using embossed leaves and brayered paper. To offset the gold embossed leaves, I created a sliver of paper with glass glitter to set beside the leaves. A small sentiment finishes the card for a quick card with a great color challenge combination.

Paper - Very Vanilla, Early Espresso

Ink - more mustard, bravo burgundy, cajun craze, versamark

Stamps - Petite Pairs, Gently Falling

Accessories - brayer, gold glass glitter, dimensionals, gold embossing powder

Visit the Paper Players Design Team beautiful blogs and leave a sweet comment

The Paper Players Design Team

Ann Schach

Anne Marie Hile

Jaydee

Julie Marshall

LeAnne Pugliese

Lesley Croghan

Nance Leedy

Tara Bilbao
Cindy Hall (October GD)

The Players #66 - Music

This week the Paper Players  challenge is to use music as an element or theme for your project. It is this week that my mojo has decided to leave for vacation and I find it very frustrating given that music is such an important part of my life. I went through at least 5 different designs for a card and finally gave up on this one. I hope you all can relate to the occasional creative block. One aspect that I couldn't give up on was a card board heart. We all receive so many Stampin' Up! boxes and I had to grab a piece of the textural box for this card. I used a piece of the card board box and die cut it with Hearts and Brackets die -pulled off a paper layer and then distressed it with whisper white craft ink and soft suede.

The musical relation to this card conjoins the songs that I used to sing to my kids when they were babies. Both songs involve a heart or reference to one. I used to sing the Cinderella song " A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" to my daughter every night to put her to sleep. She was indeed a princess. My son was born on Valentine's Day so of course I sang " My Funny Valentine" to him each night.  I also sang the Elvis Presley song " Wooden Heart " to both of them so I had to create a card that used not only musical notes but incorporated a heart as well. I loved those cozy nights singing my children to sleep. The songs not only had heart in their lyrics, but were truly sung from MY heart.

This is not what I had in mind but still captures my overall thought.  Make sure your visit the Paper Players design team members beautiful creations and leave a comment.

The Paper Players Design Team

Ann Schach

Anne Marie Hile

Jaydee

Julie Marshall

LeAnne Pugliese

Lesley Croghan

Nance Leedy

Tara Bilbao
Cindy Hall 

Paper -  Neutrals DSP, Beau Chateau DSP, early espresso, riding hood red, very vanilla card stock

Ink - Early Espresso, Soft Suede, Crumb Cake

Stamps - Petite Pairs, Music Notes Stampin Around Wheel

Accessories - Hearts and Brackets die, Cardboard box, dimensionals, Victoria crochet trim, button, crumb cake seam binding, scallop trim border, dotted scallop ribbon border