Christmas (post) catch-up!

If you'd noticed I wasn't posting, you may have been wondering where I was. I've been swamped at my day job and trying to get ready for Christmas. In the meantime I had a stamp camp and a stamp club meeting that I made projects for.

The gift card holders are Stampin' Up!'s preprinted holders that I embellished with a scallop punch done twice in different colors and then added grosgrain ribbon in either Old Olive or Real Red. These came out cute once I figured out what to do with them. I don't know if others were confused by them too once they had them in hand, but when I went searching for inspiration, there just weren't many examples out there!

The color is way off in these photos, but I'll show you the layouts just the same. The first is a catalog case as requested by my stamp club hostess for the month. All I changed was the use of rhinestone brads down the belly and the background stamping is a little different.

This second card is also a stamp club card. I'm so sad this set will be retiring so quickly! It hardly seems like it got a chance! The stitching was done with the cutting kit tool used for perforating - I just ran it over the Old Olive pad and then wobbled my way around the edges of the main image a couple times to replicate stitching. The star was colored in, covered in Crystal Effects and then doused in glitter.

Thanks for hanging in there with me! I cleaned off my stamp table and hope to show off more samples (more often) as the new year gets under way. :)

Blessed Christmas

I wanted to send out wishes to you and yours for a blessed Christmas.

Christmas is a time for feeling blessed and being blessed. I wanted to share a few of the things that have been so poignant for me this year.

We had Christmas already with Ky's family, and had a wonderful time. We felt particularly blessed by our quality time spent in particular with our niece and nephew (10 and 13 respectively) and not to be too sappy, but I just really enjoyed our interaction with them and my heart felt warmed to have them as family. It really renewed my intention to try to spend more time with them before they hit the true teen years and lose interest in us! One particularly sweet moment for me came when my nephew asked my husband if he would be willing to teach him to throw pottery like he'd offered a while ago.

Earlier this month we had Ky's Christmas work party at one of our favorite restaurants and the company was wonderful. I was so pleased to get to see Ky be recognized for his efforts. He has been working long days and evenings and hiring really wonderful staff to make things work like they should, and in the president's speech, he mostly focused on Ky and his appreciation for him. The night was topped off when 4 of us (me, Ky, and Ky's co-worker that Ky initially followed to the current company and his wife) were left wrapping up the evening with the president of the company after everyone else had left. We mentioned that we're going to Hawaii in December 2008. At that point, the president said how happy for us to have that as something to look forward to and went on to say that because Ky has worked so hard to make things work better and run smoother for his company, he wanted to give us a Christmas gift and pay for our airline tickets. He told us when we buy our tickets, to send him the bill! I think at that point, my mouth may have actually fallen open.

Then yesterday, we donated our 1996 Jetta to charity (a bittersweet memory, as this is the first car Ky and I bought together before we were even engaged, and it's seen us through getting married, finishing college (for me), moving a couple of times, and over 9 years of marriage). The tow truck driver that came to pick it up came around dusk, and with Ky being the chatty fellow he is, he stepped out to talk to him. I glanced out the window, but didn't go with Ky. Later her related this story to me:

Ky greeted him with a Merry Christmas, and thanked him for coming to get the car. He said the man's face was transformed at the warm words and said Ky
was the first customer to wish him a Merry Christmas this season. They talked about how God and Jesus have been pushed from the season by political correctness, and that it almost feels rebellious to wish someone something other than Happy Holidays. They talked about how the driver was trying to get his own business started and that he donates his time picking up vehicles that were being donated to charity. Then the man turned to go to work putting the Jetta on his truck. Ky went inside to the box of new leather work gloves that I'd given him the day before when we opened presents with his family. He pulled out a pair (of the Costco three-pack) and took them outside. He handed them to the towtruck driver and again wished him Merry Christmas. He said the man nearly teared up seeing Ky's gift of the gloves. He turned his gloved hands palm-up and showed dirty, holey gloves and thanked Ky earnestly saying that he couldn't afford new gloves.

When Ky told me this story, I truly felt happy that we could help someone less fortunate than us, but I also feel so blessed to be married to a man who would give away part of his gift to someone who needed it more.

I hope you and your family have what you need this holiday season and that you can take time to note those things that are extra blessings.

Stamp club card and candle

These were the projects for November's stamp camp. I can tell I'm REALLY far behind because I've had our DECEMBER stamp camp since the last time I posted! I'll just have to do my best to post those soon.

The candle we altered started out as a plain vanilla pillar candle. We progressively layered paper, wrapping it around the candle and securing it with red sticky tape. The branch and flowers were stamped and the flowers and leaves were watercolored using ink from ink pads. It was then colored and attached with Crystal Effects. The ribbon is held in place by the brads that were pushed through it after poking a starter hole with the paper piercer. When everything was where we wanted it, and how we wanted it, the flowers and leaves were dabbed with Crystal Effects.

This card is the second project for the club. It relies on texture and dimension for its impact. I think this is a great way of showcasing how a few details can give a lot more visual excitement.

The three smaller leaves are on one layer of dimensionals, while the larger leaf has a double-layer of dimensionals to make it sit just a little bit higher and stand out more. The eyelets were placed using the Crop-a-dile, and the sentiment was positioned with the aid of the Stamp-a-ma-jig.

Thanks for looking!

Stamp-a-Stack - Round TWO!

I had a very small group of customers come for round two of this year's stamp-a-stacks, but I had a great time. I got to meet one new customer who found me through the demonstrator locator on the Stampin' Up website, and I also had time to sit and stamp a set of cards for myself while lending a hand with tying ribbons for others, and stamping series of images. It was just a very relaxing, but productive time with some of my stampers.

This card was a quickie using some of this year's Stampin' Up! Dashing designer paper. The trees are colored in with markers and spritzed using the Color Spritzer. The ribbon is given a festive twist by using a flat piece of 3/8" red grosgrain, and tying just a small strip of Always Artichoke 1/4" grosgrain around it. The real cheat is that if the green ribbon wants to slip, just add a dot of Crystal Effects glue to keep it in place!

The second card was also a quick one (as most should be for a stamp-a-stack), and it was previously described and the faux silk idea was credited in my "it sure is snow-bling" post.



I do have to admit though, because of the number of rhinestone brads that would have been necessary for the number of flakes, I did go with plain, glass rhinestones in place for the event. They looked great, and I explained to the ladies that it just wasn't cost-effective for me to do the brads.

Also, I know I said I'd post more of my back-dated posts, but I've been fighting off this crappy cold that's basically taken me out of commission, so I didn't get it done. I'm hoping a full day of work tomorrow, after being off for 4 vacation days because of Thanksgiving, doesn't flat out kill me. Keep your fingers crossed for me, will you?

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you had a restful weekend of family, food and fun.

Niece's Halloween card

Sorry I haven't been posting! I've been busy creating banners and watermarks for customers of my design services. I'll be posting a few of my posts from my drafts folder today.


This card went with a candy apple for my niece when I went over there for dinner on Halloween. I thought the soft, fuzzy yarn (from the $1 spot at Target at least a year ago) would be something she would like. This card also used up scraps that I had sitting around on my desk. When I cleaned up recently, I realized I hadn't been USING scraps, I'd just been making them. The pumpkins are striped in Crystal Effects. She really liked the card and told her friend that I always make her cards, I never buy them. I felt so proud that she noticed and that she likes them. She is such a sweet girl!