Love at First Stamp Group

I thought I would have picture from Christmas to show but they did not turn out that well. So during this mini vacation (the Holidays), I started to work on some pages that I tried to start a while ago. These pictures are from September! My Stampin' Up group's name is "Love At First Stamp". When we go to Regionals or we do an event as a group, we wear our "Love At First Stamp" shirts. Our shirts are black with a bright pink heart with white lettering. Before we went to Cincinnati Regionals, we went and got Mani-Pedis. Kim, our up-line, made up a bag with gifts for Regionals. She also gave us black Flip-Flops with pink flowers made from using the Big Shot. When we got our toe nails painted, all of us had them painted bright pink. They looked great with the Flip Flops. When we got to Regionals, we all wore our shirts and wore our matching Flip- Flops.

This is the one of the pages that I am working on about our trip to Cincinnati. I stayed with the black, white and pink color theme to match our shirts. Kim took so many pictures of us getting ready for Regionals, our trip to Regionals, Regionals, and our time while we were in Cincinnati. We had a GREAT time!!!

This page was made using MDS. I am so glad that I bought it. I am having so much fun with it. I find that I am getting more pages finished because I can take my laptop with me and work on it when I am not at home. I hope you enjoy this page. When I look at it I remember how much fun we had that night.

I will be back with more cards and projects next Monday. I need some extra time to get my Christmas things away. I need to make room so that I can start working with my stamping supplies again. I had to put my stamping things away to make room for all the Christmas decorations I have up in the Dining Room. I can't wait to begin to use my new goodies from the new Occasions Mini!

Everyone have a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

This is my dog Lucy. If you look very closely you will find a Christmas message on her neck piece. She, along with me, wishes you and your family a Merry Christmas!

Longaberger Weekend Page 2

Here we go again. I can't tell you enough what a wonderful time the four of us had together. These three pictures were taken at the Longaberger Homestead. These were taken down by the Gazebo. If you look real close, the sleigh is a giant basket replica of the original sleigh basket. It was so neat to see! I wish we could have stayed when it got dark so that we could have seen it when everything was lit up. Again, I am working on these pages using the MDS. I am using it more and I really love it! I was afraid of it when I first got it. I don't know why I was afraid because it is so easy to use! I can't wait until all the pages are done and I have it printed as a book. What a remembrance of a great mini vacation!

Riley's First Snow

This is Riley's first snow. Riley is my daughter's dog. He is a four year old Pembrooke Welsh Corgi. Riley was born and raised in Mesa, Arizona. My daughter and her husband moved to Pennsylvania during the summer, so Riley has never been exposed to any type of snow. He loves the grass here. He turned green when he first came because he rolled around in the grass so much. He loves the rain. When he lived with us for a month, he would lay in the yard, on his back, chewing his chewy in the rain. So we were all anxiously waiting for snow to see how he would react. Well, he loved the snow too. He was surprised when he woke up and looked out the patio door and saw something white. His ears went up and wanted out to check this new stuff out. He loved it. For the first half of the day, he just wanted to look out the patio door at the falling snow. But as the snow got deeper, I think it lost some of its charm for Riley. Especially went it got higher than the height of his short legs. He does look like he is having fun though! Another quick page using My Digital Studio. This was a template that was in the program. It did not take long to click and drop each photo in. If I would do this page again, I would place the title up a little higher. That is the beauty of MDS. If you don't like the page you are working on, it is so easy to change it. Go out and enjoy your day today! Riley will be enjoying his day, I am sure.

Longabger Trip MDS

I told you last week about our trip to Longaberger for a Holiday Handcrafted weekend package. We had so much fun. Four women went on this 30 hour whirlwind road trip to Ohio and back. The time went so fast but it we did not feel rushed. We did a lot of crafts, shopped, and just had a very nice time with friends. We are in the process of sharing our pictures with each other and plan to make a lot of scrapbook pages. Here is one that I did quickly this morning. The pictures are of our time at Longaberger Homestead. They had so many decorations all over the place. There were quite a bit of photo ops there, so being the "quiet" girls that we are, we made sure we took advantage of every photo opportunity we could! What a blast! Using the MDS made working on this page so simple and easy. I can't wait to have more time to sit down and do more pages. It was so nice this morning to work on this page. All the good times that we had last weekend came back to mind and I could not help but have a big smile on my face. Hopefully in the next few weeks I will be able to show you more pages that I have worked on. Now I have to get ready for a party at my up line's house. We are having a cookie exchange and we will find out who are Secret Santas were. Have a great day! I know I will be having one. Who can help it when you are surrounded by friends.

Quick and Easy Gift Idea

This is a quick, easy, and inexpensive gift idea that you can make if you need a gift for someone at the last minute. I bought the frame at the Dollar Store and had it in my closet just waiting for an idea to pop into my head to use it. I checking out different blogs and came across Wendy Bell's blog and saw this on her blog. I CASED it. She did the word Believe but I thought the word "Joy" was just as good and it fit in the frame I had on hand. I added snowflakes embossed with Iridescent Ice all over the Whisper White background. I thought it added a little more sparkle for the season. I also punched it up with red ribbons at the top of the Christmas Balls. The supplies that I used for this project were:

STAMP SETS: Lovely Letters Alphabet, Baroque Motifs, Serene Snowflakes

PAPER: Whisper White, Brushed Gold, Handsome Hunter, Real Red

INK: Handsome Hunter, Real Red

ACCESSORIES: Versamark, Blender Pen, Yoyo Yellow Marker, Iridescent Ice EP, Gold EP, Heating Tool, 1/4" Real Red Grosgrain Ribbon, Gold Elastic Cord, Ornament Punch, 1-3/8" Circle Punch, 1-1/4" Circle Punch

My husband saw me making this project and he asked me to make one for us! He does not do that often, so he must have really liked it. Usually he tells me to give away a lot that I make because I am running out of room to put everything that I make. I took a picture of it before he took it and put it up in the family room. I hope you like this project as much as he did. Don't be afraid to get ideas from other peoples cards. Sometimes I get ideas from the color schemes they use , maybe a layout or a new way to fold a card. You can take that idea and change it to your style. Don't be afraid to challenge yourself. It will help you grow.

Secret Santa Delivered

Our Stampin' Up Group, Love at First Stamp, decided that we would have a Secret Santa exchange this year among us. On Sunday we will find out who our Secret Santa is at our Downline Meeting. My gift was delivered to me on Wednesday. This is my gift from my Secret Santa. It is a note board. It is made from using a frame and decorating the inside of the glass with the Designer Paper. The words "To Do List" is done using the Big Shot, Alphabet Die, and Vinyl. The vinyl was actually applied to the front of the board. How neat of a Christmas gift is that! I love it! So easy and a very practical gift! All the products that she used except for the frame are available from Stampin' Up. All the Just to let you know, I think that my Secret Santa is my Upline , Kim. Kim? Am I right? If so thank you, thank you, thank you! Very nice !

Girl's Weekend Get Away

The last two days have been crazy with all we were able to do in that amount of time! Four of us girls drove 7 hours at to Longaberger in Ohio for a HolidayFest mini weekend. Three of us our Stampin' Up demonstrators and the other a good friend. We left 6 in the morning on Friday and drove out there for a Christmas activity filled two days. It was kind of like a Christmas present to ourselves. Just a group of girls having a good time. Everything there was decorated for Christmas and it really helped getting us in the mood. There were so many activities planned that the time flew by and we were surprised how much we were able to do in such a short time. And we also got to shop, shop, shop, and did I remember to tell you that we got to shop also? Let's put it this way, there were four women that drove out there in a big van and on the way home there were four women in a van that was filled with packages in ANY free space that we could find in the van! When we put all of our purchases in the van, we were SHOCKED to see how much we really bought. I did not have that many pics on my camera so this is one of me out there before all the shopping took place. But it was fun, fun, fun! I am so lucky to have such great people as friends. It was really a GREAT time!

Hopefully today I can get a little stamping done so that I can share more ideas with you this coming week. Go out and enjoy your day!

December Technique Card #3

This is the last card that we are making in my December Technique Classes. I am showing my customers how you can take the BRIDE SPECIALTY DESIGNER PAPER and give it many different looks. The striped paper that you see is the Bride Specialty Designer Paper. The reason it is not white is that we colored it by brayering Classic ink all over the paper and wiping it off with a paper towel. What a clever way to color paper designer white paper which can be coordinated with any color! The supplies that I used for this card were:

STAMP SETS: Tree Trimmings, Serene Snowflakes

PAPER: Old Olive, Whisper White, Real Red, Bride Designer Specialty Paper

INK: Old Olive, Real Red, Versamark

ACCESSORIES: Silver Embossing Powder, Real Red 1/4" Grosgrain Ribbon, Brayer, Word Window Punch, Modern Label Punch, Eyelet Border Punch, White Gel Pen

I really like this card. It has a more vintage feel to it. It took me a while to figure it out because for some reason. I kept changing colors and then I changed stamp sets. Sometimes you have to try a lot of different things until you get the final card. Don't be afraid to try different colors until you find the color combination you like the best. Don't think that you have to make the perfect card the first time. Sometimes designing the card is the part that takes the longest. I hope you like this card as much as I do.

Gingerbread Houses

Here are pictures from my trip on Wednesday to a local shopping village. I had a wonderful time shopping the day away with my two daughters. The one thing that we always look forward to is seeing the entries for the Gingerbread House competition. The have various catagories such as student, kid, creative houses, adult, and more. I love the details that these people put into their work. I took a few pictures and would like to share a few of the entries with you. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Santa Treats

Here is a really really quick way to package sweet treats for the Holidays. I put sweet treats into a cello bag and made a topper for the bag. It is a piece of Real Red card stock folded in half. I took a Whisper White rectangle and tore the edges to create a furry look. I then took a strip of Basic Black and glued that down to make the belt. I finished the look with a rectangle of Brushed Silver and cut out the inside rectangle with an Exacto Knife. Finally I attached the topper to the bag. Voila! A quick and cute way to give a treat to those you care about. I have part of the bag hidden behind the greens because Lucy (my mini Schnauzer) tried getting into the bag before I was able to take the picture. Fortunately I caught her before she was able to get to the chocolate. Enjoy your day!

December Technique Card #2

This is the second card that we will be making during my December Technique Classes. It is an acetate card. They are really neat to make AND receive. It is very hard to see because the card is made from clear acetate and and the snowflakes were stamped on using White Staz-On. The trick to this card is how you attach the stamped image onto the acetate. You need to adhere the papers for the sentiment and the images strategically so that you do not see the adhesive. The supplies that I used for this card were:

STAMP SET: Snow Buddies (Level 2 Hostess set from the Holiday Mini)

PAPER: Acetate/ Window Sheets, Whisper WHite, Bashful Blue, Night of Navy

INK: White Staz-On, Black Staz-On

ACCESSORIES: Colored Pencils

This is a unique and easy card to make for those special friends and family on your Christmas list. Just a personal update, I had a wonderful time at Peddlers Village yesterday. Great shopping, unique gingerbread houses (will show pics later this week), and a nice surprise. My oldest daughter arranged for my younger daughter to join us for the day. I had no idea! She just showed up in one of the stores where we were shopping to surprise me. We had a very nice day together. So go out and enjoy your day, you never know what the day will bring. Hopefully you will have a nice surprise as I did yesterday!

A Cardinal Christmas-Technique Card #1

That is the name of the stamp set used to create this card. I love this set! It is a set that can be used all through Winter. It is a set that can also be used on a manly card. It is nature at it's best. I love watching the cardinals that fly around our backyard in the winter. They look so majestic against the white snow. My husband has a rough time with putting a cardinal on a Christmas card because it doesn't feel that it is festive enough but I think it is regal.

This card is an easel card and is one that we will be making in our technique classes this month. I have been seeing these easel cards on a lot of blogs lately and felt it was time that I tried to make one. They are very easy to make and I love the idea that after you open the card, you can display it nicely. The supplies that I used for this card were:

STAMP SET: A Cardinal Christmas

PAPER: Always Artichoke, Real Red, Whisper White

INK: Always Artichoke, Real Red, More Mustard

ACCESSORIES: Gold Brads, Dimensionals, Brown Colored Pencil, Ticket Punch

I hope that you enjoy this card. I am on my way to a day of shopping with my oldest daughter. We are going to Peddler's Village for the day. They have such unique shops placed in a small village setting in Bucks County. I enjoy going to the gazebo where they have about 100 Gingerbread Houses on display that were entered in a contest. They have student entries as well as adult. Some of them are so neat and creative. My daughter tries to take me each year in December to shop and see the unique decorations. It is a special day that we share together each year. So go out and enjoy your day because I know today that I will be enjoying the day with someone special.