Happy Monday, y’all! As we count down – FAST! – towards Christmas, I hope that you’re making your way thru the seemingly endless list of “to-do’s” to be “ready” for the big day!! And that you’re getting a little time to spend enjoying the season.
My card today truly celebrates the reason we have the season at all. And it comes to you from a beautiful Retiring stamp set in the 2019 Holiday Catalog, called Light & Peace. Take a look-see:
‘Sup, y’all! How did the Fall-Back go for you? It’s 7am here. But really 8. So – you should be wide-awake and perky! Your dogs and cats and ponies are looking at you like – what the HECK!! – but…YOU got an extra hour of sleep.
Or…did you??!
Regardless – we’re in it now until Spring. Bleh.
If you were able to join me last night for my Facebook Live video, I appreciate you spending part of your last evening in Daylight Savings Time with me! If not, but you’d like to watch the replay – here ’tis on YouTube!
The project we did last night is quite timely, since we’re plunging headlong into Gift Card Giving Season (GCGS). I like giving gift cards – I do! – but…they always seem a little like I phoned it in. So…I feel BETTER about it if I can present them in a beautiful and/or clever gift card holder. And this one is both! With the gorgeous Christmas Rose stamp set and bundled Rose Dies, atop wunnermus Christmastime Is Here Specialty DSP. Take a look-see:
Morning, y’all! Happy Sunday!
If you were able to join me last night for my Facebook Live video – I appreciate you spending part of your weekend with me! If not – but you’d like to see how to make these fun decorations, here’s the replay. 🙂
A customer – and friend! – asked me about using Vellum and battery tea lights with the Mini Curvy Keepsake dies. She also asked about using the Delicata inks on the Vellum. So…I did it all – and made some Christmas and wedding/anniversary decorations. Take a look-see:
Morning, y’all! Happy Monday! I, for one, am hoping that we woke up to some sunshine and a little warmth today. The entire weekend was entirely too yucky for us – wet and nasty. It was the kind of weekend where you just wanted to roll over and stay in bed. Maybe with some kind soul bringing a cup of hot chocolate. And maybe a cookie.
Or twelve! 😉
If you were able to join me last night for my Facebook Live video – I appreciate you spending some of your weekend with me! If not, but would like to see how to make the pop-up gift card holder we worked on, here’s the replay! Oh – and the last 30 minutes is all 2019 Occasions and Sale-A-Bration Catalogs Sneak Peeks! Just sayin!
Good morning! Winter has struck again here in GA – it was nasty last night! Bleh. Cold and rainy and…well…NASTY! I even brought the horses back in a few hours early so they’d start to get dry before the temps really dropped. Even the girls were ready to come in!
Since it’s Sunday and I’m home – we’ll get together tonight at 8pm Eastern on my Stamps-N-Lingers FB page for a little video! And we’re going to make a fun-fold that’s just perfect for Christmas time giving! Take a sneaky-peak!
Happy Monday, y’all! Hope you had a great weekend! We got the promised snow and holed up at the house on Sunday. Watched the Bronco’s.
Let’s just not talk about that game, okay? 🙁
I want to share a really cool project kit from the 2018 Holiday Catalog – it’s called the Sincerely Santa Kit. And it’s totally cool. Take a look-see:
Happy happy Hawwwmp Day, y’all!! About this time next week we’ll be done with the “hard” part of the test and will be in cruise control mode to the end! We’ll be back to “regular” hours and weekends completely off! And – I’ll be only about a week and a half from heading home! Whoo-hooo! 🙂
So – couple of things before we get going. First: it’s time to be thinking about 2018 Holiday Catalog Shares! I’ve got mine open and welcome you to take a look-see and get signed up! Check out all the details and find a form for signing up right here. Second: today’s the last day to get entered to win the Pqper Pumpkin Blog Candy! Click right here to get your name in the mix!
Okay – so. While we were on the cruise, we got a great sneak peek at a few of the products in the new 2018 Holiday Catalog. One of the things they showed us is the Timeless Tidings Project Kit. Every demo in the room oooh’d or ahhh’d when this one came up. Oh my – it is SO beautiful! Take a look-see:
Good Monday! So…this is the next-to-last 12-hour Monday for me. After the next one, we should go back to “regular” (to include actually taking the weekend off – gasp!) so that will be a relief. I’m not as wired for this kind of schedule as I used to be. 12 hour day? Got it. Five in a row? Cool – can do it in my sleep. FIFTEEEN days in a row? Not so easy any more.
But – I can do anything for 2 more weeks, so…this too shall pass. I’ll be glad, though, to get back to having a little time and a lot more creative energy to make cards. I have a lot of “wanna” when I get to the hotel at night, but…not a lotta “DO”!
Fortunately, one of the goodies that arrived in my pre-order was a Santa’s Workshop Memories & More Card Pack. I used a few goodies from that, along with a large Poppy Parade Santa’s Workshop Card and Envelope from the pack we got as a free give-away on the Cruise. And not one ink pad was opened in the making of this card! Take a look-see:
Merry Merry Christmas, y’all! I hope this finds you well and opening presents and making dinner preparations! I’ll be deviling eggs and bringing my Prime Rib to room temperature in readiness for cooking!
No card today – just a greeting from me and Finn.
Thank you all so very much for a most wonderful year! 🙂
As you sit down to dinner today and give Thanks for the Blessing of this Day and this Season, please remember our men and women in the military. So many of them are spending this day away from their family and friends so that we may be with ours in Peace and safety. Say a little prayer for them, if you please.
I’ll see you tomorrow, my friends.
TTFN
Mary
HOST CODE FOR 25 DEC – 15 JAN: QGAJHYYU
Use this host code when you order and receive a free gift from me! But, if your order is over $150, please don’t use this code (you’ll miss out on your own Stampin’ Rewards if you use it) but you’ll still get the free gift. The free gift is your choice of any item valued up to $10.00 from the 2017-2018 Annual Catalog or the 2017 Holiday Catalog! And – you can even select one of the Host-exclusive sets! See my Rewards page for more details.
Would you like to receive host benefits ? Would you like to build up your Stampin’ Up! tool chest a little at a time? Well then – an Online Host Club might be the perfect solution for you!
My next club will start up on 3 Jan (coincidently with the arrival of the 2018 Occasions Catalog and the start of Sale-A-Bration!) and I have a few openings available.
How does it work? Well – at a glance…
You sign up for a 6 month term and agree to:
And what do you get in return?
What are catalog shares, you ask? They’re your chance to try a little bit of everything and see what you like the best from a new Stampin’ Up! catalog!
I’ll place our Shares order first jump out of the box on 3 Jan 18 and use expedited shipping so I get it back fast! Then I’ll get it all cut up, packaged and out the door quick as I can – hopefully during the week of 8 Jan!
We’ve got new Designer Series Papers, new ribbons and trims and all sorts of fun embellishments!
Shares are open to anyone – including demonstrators, so…check it…
I’ve got a few options for you to pick from: a New Designer Series Paper Share, a New Ribbons/Embellishments Share, and an I Want It All Share (this one gets a free extra bonus!!). You can see everything included in each share type and find a handy sign-up sheet on my 2018 Occasions Catalog Shares page!
If you’re not a current customer of mine but would like to be, you can request your copies of the catalogs on my Contact page right here.
If you need any stamping supplies, I’d be very happy to be your Demonstrator. Just click on the Order Stampin’ Up! Online Now button on the right side of the screen to go directly to my online store or drop me an email if you have any questions. Happy Stamping!
Shop the Clearance Rack here. Earn FREE Stampin’ Up! Products – Join my Punkin Head Peppermint Rewards – My online customer thank you program!
This is a card that I made and gave to my mom for Christmas – I gave her 10 of these and 10 of a card I’ll show you later. My mom lives in the mountains in Colorado and loves all things woodsy – particularly pine cones! When I saw this set in the 2014 Holiday Catalog – it was the first item I ordered from Stampin’ Up! While it is certainly great for Christmas cards, it’s got a lot of uses for the rest of the year. You should probably plan to see more cards using this stamp in the future! 
The technique on this card is one that I found on Pinterest (gotta love Pinterest!). At first blush, it appears pretty complicated, but once you break it down into easy pieces, you’ll see it’s a straightforward technique – and it can be used with all sorts of stamps. I’ve provided all the card cuts and supplies below. Not everything in this card is from Stampin’ Up – I was in California on an extended business trip and didn’t have all my SU with me. So, I made do – but I’ll try to tell you which SU products would work well on this card. I started with a dark chocolate brown cardstock (try Chocolate Chip or Early Espresso in SU), and used my paper trimmer to cut it to 8 1/2″ x 5 1/2″ (keep the trimmings – you can use them for one of your mats!), and then scored and folded it at 4 1/4″. Use a bone folder to make your crease sharp! Then, I made all my card cuts at once. Just cause I like the assembly line process if I’m making a bunch of the same card. Using the same color cardstock as your card base, for each card, cut a 3 1/4″ x 4 1/2″ mat and a 2 1/4″ x 3 1/2″ mat. For the light, stamped portion, I used a vanilla/cream cardstock (I’d go with Very Vanilla in SU). For each card, cut 3 mats: 4″ x 5 1/4″; 3″ x 4 1/4″; 2″ x 3 1/4″. With all the cutting out of the way you can start stamping and assembling! First, take the 3 Very Vanilla mats and, placing them on top of one another, use a little piece of tape (either double sided or a regular piece rolled inside out – does that make sense?!) to secure them lightly together. Put the tape right in the middle of the back of the two smaller mats. When you’re done – you’ll have a stack of mats that looks like this:
First, stamp your sentiment onto the smallest mat. I used a non-SU “Just a Note” stamp, and inked it with SU Old Olive. You can put it wherever suits you on that small mat – I liked it in the bottom right corner. (I’m asking myself why I didn’t take a picture of the mats in a portrait orientation….just goofy, I guess!) Then – ink up your background stamp. For this one, I used SU Old Olive ink on the needles and didn’t really worry about the stem portion. Stamp it all over your stack-o-mats. Go off the edges, turn the stamp around – make it random. You can stamp as many times as you want to – I was looking for the
forest-y appearance that I got. Next, you’re going to randomly stamp with your accent piece. I used Staz-On Timber Brown because it’s what I had, but SU Chocolate Chip, Early Espresso or even Soft Suede would look very nice. Heck – go crazy and have a few of each color! 🙂 Again – go off the edges of the mats, turn the stamp around – pine cones don’t all grow exactly the same way in the forest! Do as many or as few as you like. You can see I liked “many”! Okay – easy, peasy so far, right? Now. Carefully pull the mats apart. It’ll help to keep them all in the same orientation as you do this part. Then, layer the mats back together, but stick the “right” size dark mat between each stamped piece. I did a dry fit with mine – to be sure that I had all the stamps going the right way. The card base itself is the bottom “layer”. I adhered all the stamped Very Vanilla pieces together with their mats – use SNAIL for this part. Then, I wrapped some forest-y green twine twice around the layers (in SU think Linen Thread, Thick Baker’s Twine in Baked Brown Sugar, or maybe Gold Metallic Baker’s Twine), and added a button and a little bow. We’ll talk about bows later – they’re kind of the bane of my crafting existence! For some reason, I just can’t do them “right”. To say that it took me forEVER to make 10 cards with little perfect bows on each and every one….yea. Hello, Captain Understatement! I put a little teensy drop of liquid adhesive under the button/bow combo to keep it all in place.
I then adhered the card front to the card base with SU Dimensionals and – the front was done! I used a piece of my vanilla cardstock (4″ x 5 3/8″) and stamped a corner with the pine needles and the cone and adhered it inside my card. I did the same corner treatment to a Cream envelope, just to complete the ensemble.
And that’s it! All done! I’m really happy with this card – love the entire thing, and am really partial to this technique as well. I hope that you’ll give this a try – I think the possibilities are endless!
Card Stock Cuts for the Project: Chocolate Chip/Early Espresso: card base 8 1/2″ x 5 1/2″; 3 1/4″ x 4 1/2″ mat and a 2 1/4″ x 3 1/2″ mat Very Vanilla: Mats 4″ x 5 1/4″; 3″ x 4 1/4″; 2″ x 3 1/4″. Card inner liner 4″ x 5 3/8″
JANUARY 1 – 31 HOSTESS CODE: RMQE9AEQ Use this hostess code when you order and receive a free gift from me! But, if your order is over $150, please do not use this code (you’ll miss out on your own Stampin’ Rewards/Hostess $$ if you use it) but you’ll still get the free gift. The free gift for January is your choice of any item valued up to $4.95 in either the 2014-15 Annual Catalog or the 2015 Occasions Catalog!
STAMPIN’ UP! ITEMS USED IN THIS PROJECT
Supply List
Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog
Beth's Fancy Stamping
Card Stampin' With Clara
Stamp with Amy K
Stampin With Shirley G
Wild Wing Creations