Happy New Year! - Our Christmas Cards

Happy New Year!

After a busy Christmas season and vacation, I finally have time to post. Woo Hoo! Hopefully, I can begin to stamp again next week. 

This year I once again created our family's Christmas cards using My Digital Studio.

I love how easy and quick the program is to use and how I can customize the colors to match my photos. Best of all, I was left with plenty of time to spend with my family making happy holiday memories.

You Stamp With Dawn and Friends - Heating Up the Holidays

My two projects have posted to USTAMPWITH DAWNANDFRIENDS so now I can share them with you.

This section features new items from the holiday catalog. I chose to create a Halloween project and Christmas Project for this session.

I just love the Howlstooth and Scaringbone DSP. I don't send many cards, so I thought I would show off this paper on a wreath. I added a few large black roses and the new Googly Ghouls to set off this fantastic paper.

My next project was one that uses the new stamp set "Winter Memories". This set immediately caught my attention since I love to color in stamps.

 

I wanted to create a vintage look and used the new Woodgrain embossing folder inked up to create some texture and distressing. 

To get the tutorials for these projects and over 40 other Autumn, Halloween and Christmas projects, created by an amazing design team, click the blinkie below.



Christmas Vacation - Homemade Decorations

The crafting closet is closed for the holidays and we are up in Mammoth Lakes, Ca for our Christmas Vacation. The kids and I arrived here on the 18th ( and Marc will join us soon) to find very little Christmas decorations available in the stores. We hit the Ben Franklin store in Bishop for a little fabric, twine, glue and other items and made our own decorations. This is what we came up with.

A few flowers in some mason jars, pinecones in a basket and we have our homemade Christmas decorations. Definitely not a Better Homes and Gardens look, but festive enough for our simple, homemade Christmas. Next year, we'll bring the decorations with us:)

Wishing you and yours a

 Very Merry Christmas!

The Paper Players Challenge - Ann's Color CAS Challenge - Time to Say Adieu

Yes, it is time to say adieu to you and you and you.. I can't believe how quickly my time as Guest Designer has flown by. How could 3 months seem more like 3 weeks? It has been such a wonderful experience for me to be a Paper Players Guest Designer. Not only have I worked with amazingly talented, funny  and wonderful women,  but I also had the opportunity to explore all the amazing, creative talent of all the challenge entrants. 

So on to the challenge...... This week the fabulously talented Ann has a color combo - very vanilla, cherry cobbler and gold  - as well as a Clean And Simple design challenge. I love these rich colors together and really had to work to keep the design simple. 

I started by embossing my background paper using Creative Elements stamp set and gold embossing powder. Since this design has quite a bit of pattern, I wanted to keep the rest of the card simple. I used My Digitial Studio and found a sentiment from Wishes and Greetings and sized it to fit my card. After cutting and mounting the greeting, I accented it with Gold Glass Glitter. A quilted cherry cobbler ribbon, cherry cobbler seam binding and glimmer brad finish the card. 

Join us this week for The Paper Players Color and CAS challenge. Visit each of the design team's beautiful creations 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

Susan Joyce ( November GD)

Paper - very vanilla, cherry cobbler card stock

Ink - Versamark

Stamps - Creative Elements - Wishes and Greetings (MDS)

Accessories - gold embossing powder, gold glass glitter, cherry cobbler seam binding, cherry cobbler quilted satin ribbon, glimmer brad.

The Paper Players - Jaydee's Color and CAS Challenge

This week the Paper Players are working with some CAS designs and crisp colors ( just like the weather!) for Jaydee's challenge this week. I tried to keep this card simple but was just loving all the bling and glimmer that SU has to offer this season. The glimmer paper, the embossing powders, the dazzling details etc. were all calling to me. They really pop when combined and contrasted with the dark Night of Navy.

I started with embossing Bells and Boughs with silver embossing powder and making an extra poinsettia to brush with dazzling diamonds glitter and pop up with a dimensional. Again, My Digital Studio has come to my rescue and I printed the sentiment to my specified size using the Beautiful Season Digital Stamp. The Silver Glimmer Paper, glimmer brad and jewels all sparkle and are in keeping with the silver of the color scheme.

Make sure to visit the other design team's beautiful blogs and leave a wonderful comment.

The Paper Players Design Team

Ann Schach

Anne Marie Hile

Jaydee

Julie Marshall

LeAnne Pugliese

Lesley Croghan

Nance Leedy

Tara Bilbao

Susan Joyce ( November GD)

Stamps - Bells and Boughs, Beautiful Season (MDS)

Paper - Silver Glimmer Paper, night of navy and whisper white card stock

Ink - Versamark

Accessories - Silver embossing powder, Scallop Trim Border Punch, dazzling diamonds glitter or dazzling details, basic jewels, glimmer brad, Petals-A-Plenty embossing folder, circle dies, whisper white satin ribbon

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. 

Christmas Cards Done! - Now it's time to celebrate the season and relax

Ahhh, the Christmas cards are created, addressed, stamped and ready to go. I think I am finally done with all the Christmas preparations. I know, I know, I shouldn't create all the 75+ Holiday cards by hand, but I can't give it up. I know I should try My Digital Studio and make my life easier, but I enjoy creating hand made cards and have the mass producing process down; however, I did have too many elements and steps on my Christmas card this year but found time to work it all in. In addition,  I enjoyed the process of assembling the cards while I watched "Christmas Vacation" with my family in front of the Christmas tree. Here are the cards I created for for those who celebrate Christmas and a Winter Wishes card for my Jewish friends along with a few pics of the "assembly line".

Now it's time to load the 2 kids, the 2 dogs and the cat into the car and head to Mammoth which has accumulated 15ft of new snow over the weekend. There is a fireplace, a couch, a blanket and a Nook just calling my name.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and a very happy, healthy New Year!

Jolly Holiday Frame

I love adding beautiful Designer Paper to picture frames. Last night's stamp club created picture frames using designer series papers. I also demonstrated this picture frame using the Jolly Holiday DSP which is just fabulous. Add a few buttons and a greeting and you've got a pretty frame that would be perfect to send to your loved ones; however, mine is going right next to my living room chair so I can enjoy these smiling faces ( aren't they cute!)

Paper - Jolly Holiday, very vanilla, cherry cobbler and old olive card stock

Stamps - Four the Holidays

Ink - Cherry Cobbler

Accessories - Assorted buttons, wood frame, glue dots.

Christmas Tree

Megan and Jake Decorating the Christmas Tree

The Supervisors - Dempsey and Barney

It is always a special night when the Christmas Tree goes up in our house. We don't have a beautifully color coordinated tree that you see in decor magazines with matching balls, ribbons and embellishments but we LOVE decorating our tree with our special ornaments. We collect our ornaments when we travel and it is so fun to pull each one out of the box and remember our family trips. Many times we cannot find a traditional "ornament" on a trip so we alter an item that we find and hang it on the tree.  We also have special ornaments given to us by family members and friends. These all are very dear to us and we think of each person as we hang the ornament on our tree. Our Christmas tree may not be the type to grace the cover of magazines, but to us it is absolutely perfect.

Ornament from St. John

Christmas Tag

Here is the tag I created for our stamping group. I have been wanting to try my hand at the folded flower and had this design in my head for a while.  Even though the picture doesn't show all the detail, the branch is accented with white flock and a bit of dazzling diamonds to look like snow.  I think this tag would be the perfect holiday tag for a nice bottle of wine.

Stamps - Friends 24-7, Four the Holidays, Stampin' Around Music Notes
Ink - Staz-on black, cherry cobbler, old olive, chocolate chip, more mustard
Paper - Jolly Holiday, Love Letter DSP, very vanilla, cherry cobbler, black card stock
Accessories - Glass Glitter, flock, dazzling diamonds glitter, large brad, cherry cobbler seam binding, 1 3/8" circle punch, 3/4" circle punch, scallop border punch

OOhhh It's a Jolly Holiday

Every time I think of this DSP the song from Mary Poppins pops into my head " Oh it's a jolly holiday with Mary." I just love this holiday paper. It is so versatile and GORGEOUS. I am trying not to make too many Christmas cards at this time because I want to enjoy the Thanksgiving season. Yah, remember that one? I don't think the retailers do since Christmas decor goes up on October 31st. Anywhoo, enough of my rant.

We created this Christmas card in my Christmas card class. I wanted my customers to have plenty of time to order items for their holiday cards and gift giving so we created Christmas cards right after Halloween - and we had a jolly good time.

Paper - Jolly Holiday DSP, very vanilla, old olive, cherry cobbler card stock

Ink - cherry cobbler, old olive, basic black

Stamps - A Cute Christmas, Short and Sweet 

Accessories - Scallop trim border punch, 1 3/4" circle punch, 2 3/8" scallop circle punch, old olive satin ribbon, thread, red button, corner rounder punch

SPCC #73 - Real Red, Certainly Celery and Pear Pizzazz

I have had ONE moment to stamp between volleyball, soccer, lacrosse and football. I actually made this card in 10 minutes between school and soccer practice last night, and had to get it out on paper. It was that simple! The SPCC challenge was calling to me with these colors to create a simple Christmas Card. I used the beautiful hostess set Peaceful Season for a quick and beautiful sentiment and added both certainly celery and pear pizzazz to the holly leaves. A little DSP and of course a pretty bow and it is finished.

Paper - Greenhouse Gala DSP, very vanilla and real red card stock

Ink - real red, certainly celery, pear pizazz

Stamp - Peaceful Season (hostess)

Accessories - real red satin ribbon, real red glitter, scallop trim border punch

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

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. 

Christmas Goodies

Christmas time is here! The gifts are wrapped, the stockings hung, Santa is on his way. The cookies are made and ready to be put in a pretty Stampin' Up! treat box. Each year I make Christmas cookies for my neighbors and friends. I was so happy when Stampin' Up! created their own treat boxes that are not only beautiful but very affordable. Now I can present my cookies in a pretty, Stampin' Up! package. This year I have made tea cakes, lemon blossoms, melt aways, chocolate crinkles and million dollar fudge. It's a good thing the calories don't count in Christmas cookies because there is close to 3lbs of butter and over 1lb of chocolate in all those cookies.

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Cards

So I haven't posted for awhile due to focusing all my free time on our Christmas Cards. Yes, I make all of our cards. I know sometimes I should just let it go and send them out to Costco and be done with it, but I caaaannn'tttt. It is something that I just HAVE to do. I have been making our Christmas cards since I attended my first Stampin' Up! workshop over 7 years ago. I am hoping to finish my cards by Wednesday. Above is the photo we took while in Mammoth to use for our cards. I am using Old olive and whisper white since I think the monochromatic color scheme will work well with our picture. I am adding a little glitter and using the Petals-A-Plenty impressions folder to add a little interest.

Stamping lots of Delightful Decorations - after I punched these I added some dazzling diamond glitter to the swirls.

My card list and piles of cut paper ready to be assembled once I finish the Delightful Decorations ornaments.

So Boo is not in the Christmas picture, but she is ALWAYS on my worktop demanding attention. The dogs just peek their head in every once in a while to say hello but this little girl is relentless. She is in my lap as I type this out.

I hope everyone's holiday preparations are going well.

PPA19 - Inspiration Challenge - oh by gosh by golly.

This weeks challenge is to gain inspiration from a vintage sled and holly picture. I ended up with a vintage wreath and bow. The beautiful ribbons from the inspiration picture really caught my attention so I started experimenting with bows and greenery. I don't have many tools to create greenery so I used the Medallion stamp as a wreath. I removed the center using my nifty Circle Scissor Plus. I then cut it out and added red glitter to the dots to give it some sparkle. I distressed the edges of the papers ( very vanilla and real red) to give a vintage feel and used dimensionals to mount the wreath. The card is finished with a bow made with 1" double-stitched grosgrain ribbon in real red.

On another note, the weather has finally turned cool here in So. Cal and I no longer have the assistance of the sunshine to take my pictures. I will be experimenting with different lighting methods so bear with my pictures while I try and create decent lighting to photograph my items. (the kids are missing lamps from their rooms) hehehe.

Mojo114 - Sketch Challenge

Whew! After a weekend of cupcake making, football, 2 soccer games, a full Thanksgiving meal, Stampin' Up! class and a volleyball team party, I can FINALLY stamp again. Here is my card for the Mojo Monday Challenge. I used the Sweet Season stamp set along with Merry Moments DSP for a gingerbread inspired card. A "window" for the greeting was created by using my word window punch. Next up, my PPA challenge. Can't wait!

Pretty Packages for Homemade Gifts - Sweet Season Stamp Set and Merry Moments DSP

During the holiday season, many of us love to share our home-made baked goods or hand crafted items with our friends and family. After all that hard work, those gifts should be presented in a special way. Here are just a few examples of how you can make a lovely presentation when giving those hand-made gifts with the Sweet Season stamp set and Merry Moments designer series paper. To order the Sweet Season stamp set and Merry Moments designer series paper contact me or click here to order directly from my website. You can also contact me directly for patterns to make the small bag and cookie tent.

Create a small bag with red card stock and wrap some Merry Moments paper around the center. Add a stamped image such as the Santa from the Christmas Punch hostess set and finish off with a chocolate chip ribbon and corduroy brads.

This "cookie tent" features the snow flake stamp from Sweet Season along with my favorite paper from Merry Moments.

For larger baked goods or items that you present in a jar, attach a beautiful tag complete with glitter and buttons using a pretty ribbon. Here the gingerbread stamp from Sweet Seasons is used along with candy striped paper from Merry Moments.

OR thread a Sweet Season "From Our House to Yours" tag with ribbon and wrap around the jar.

My prayers have been answered with these new Stampin' Up! Treat Boxes. Each year I give my neighbors a package of home baked goodies and always have a problem finding a affordable, pretty containers. These new treat boxes are large enough for my goodies, are food safe and VERY inexpensive. A package of 5 is only $3.95. The boxes are 4-5/8" x 2-3/8" x 6-1/8". Just add a ribbon and "From Our House to Yours" stamp from Sweet Season and you have a lovely package that you can make in under 2 minutes. Pretty and fast!