Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way....

Well, apparently I haven't been in a blogging kind of mood as I now realized my last post was nearly a week ago - oh well, life happens and I've kinda been in a bit of a fall cleaning, no - more like organizing mode. And, well maybe I'm a little tired too. I haven't been creating at all for a bit, but this is one of the fun samples I made for the Charity Stamping Party we had a few weeks back. A number of years ago, I saw Donna use Jingle Bells on a Christmas Card and have wanted to try it ever since. (Thanks for the inspiration girlfriend) Well, when the new Holiday Jingle stamp set appeared in CTMH's new catty, I had to finally give it a whirl. I'm pretty happy with the outcome; however, upon closer inspection the jingle bells look like they are a little droopy & need more glue dots and I would make the kraft strip with the stars on the left narrower next go round. Once again the paper is from the Rusty Pickle.

Take care,

Shanna :)

Sparkle's Christmas Card Challenge week #42

Hello everyone!

I am back after an extended absence - I was away at Scrapfest and have spent the last few days trying to get "back to reality." Let's face it - there isn't much "real" or "everyday" about spending five days away with a great bunch of girlfriends shopping, talking, eating, taking great classes, winning free stuff, scrapbooking, meeting others who share your passion and sharing ideas. And, on top of all that, I was able to see Rascal Flatts and Darius Rucker with Donna and Judy - what a fabulous concert! One of my favorite songs was Darius Rucker's version of "Purple Rain" - wow! So, I had a great time, but as the end of the trip draws near, I always feel a little sad that it is coming to an end, sort of how I used to feel after Christmas as a child - all the hype and then all of a sudden it seems it is over it all happens so quickly....thankfully, it has become an annual trip and hubby hasn't questioned that fact as of yet, so all is good. I shall start looking forward to next year's trip!

I discovered something new this trip - Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels. Although our LSS has had this product in the store before now, I hadn't had a clue what it was at the time and didn't take the time to find out, too bad as it's REALLY cool! I did the Tattered Angels make N take as well as their class and had the opportunity to play with their awesome stamps and screens as well as the mist. It is pure creative, messy bliss! I cannot wait to get my hands on this stuff - the best part is that "Christmas" is not quite over (if you will) as our LSS is putting an order for this line in asap! Yahooo!

As for my card - The stamp set is Childhood Portrait, one of CTMH's new ones. I LOVE this stamp set! Card base is Kraft which I've had a lot of fun with lately. This fun paper is called "O Holy Night" from The Rusty Pickle's White Christmas line. This is a two-sided paper and I love both sides!

Have a great day! I'm going to try to make some visits today too - maybe once everything is unpacked. :)

Shanna

Scrapfest here we come....

Thank you for all your encouraging comments! Another quick post today as I'm supposed to be packing for my trip to Minneapolis for Scrapfest. We are leaving at 7 am - I can hardly wait and yet I feel I need another two days in order to feel packed and organized enough to leave my family behind for the entire weekend! By this time tomorrow, hopefully we will have arrived.

My card - I had so much fun with this one. I had been looking forward to using my new "Grown with Love" set from CTMH and our charity Pyjama Stamping party gave me the pefect excuse to play since I really wanted to have lots of fun samples to showcase. Well, I pulled out some Kraft paper and some new Cosmo Cricket and this is what I came up with. The sentiment is from CTMH's September word puzzle which is one of my favorites. The stitching seemed to complete the design. The tree stamp on the inside is from another CTMH set called "Treetops".

So when Donna saw this card, she ooohed and said "Oh, I see you made my Birthday card! Can't this just be my Birthday card?" Hmmm, does that mean I already have one of my October Birthday cards done!?!

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend, I'm sure I'll have some stories to tell when I return.

Hugs,

Shanna :)

Sparkle's Christmas Card Challenge week 41

Good Monday morning! Just a real quick post to link my card for Sparkle's challenge - you can find her on my sidebar. I used the sketch she used from Unscripted Sketches (#22). I love the sketch, but admit to having a hard time making it work with this Imaginisce paper. I thought a sentiment would just be too many words, so I used my craft knife and cut a slit to slide my main image thru so I could see all of Jingle - it sort of worked for me anyhow. Have a great day!

Childhood Portrait

I am so thrilled to finally have a chance to play with this fun set! (Childhood Portrait from CTMH's new fall/winter catalogue) I had it in my hot little hands a few weeks back, but didn't get to play right away. So, I pulled out the set and thumbed thru my stack of new Bo Bunny paper, and this is what I came up with....

I used brown Bazzil as well as Bo Bunny's "Kitchen Spice Cloves" & "Kitchen Spice" (the back side of both actually). The image is stamped on colonial white cardstock in Cocoa ink. The stitching seemed to be just what it needed and the little birdie seemed a pefect accent for the inside of the card.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Shanna :)

p.s. If you are collecting CTMH's Month Word Puzzles, you should know that they are on the list to be discontinued as of the end of December. They are still available while supplies last.

Les Boys.....

Hi everyone - I'm back with the layout I promised. I had hoped to post this morning, but we took a day trip out to Sleeping Giant Provincial Park and spent a great afternoon on the beach, so here I am. We have had better weather this past week (since school went back) than we had all summer long, so since my hubby managed to take the day off, we thought we'd take advantage of the beautiful weather.

The layout: ever since I got my hands on these new Heartfelt diecut embellishments from CTMH, I couldn't wait to try them out. Now, I am always buying new and exciting stuff, but I rarely find the time to play so quickly. It helped, of course, that I have the Stamping Pyjama Party coming up and want to have fun samples to show.

Anyhow, starting with my photo and the felt scalloped circle, I thought maybe Kraft paper would work. Lucky for my my LSS had just got some 12x12 Kraft in since all I had was 81/2 x 11. I decided to play; sponging around the edges in chocolate ink. I started random stamping with the circles from "Circle Around" (CTMH) and the dotted "splotch" from "Extreme Elements" (SU) using brown bag, chocolate and garden green ink. The quote in the top corner is from CTMH's new "Card Chatter - Christmas" - I thought it would be fun to show it isn't just for Christmas cards.

Inside the circle, I used a couple of strips from some MME paper I've been hoarding for about three years! Pat, pat on my back for cutting into it! (Why is that so difficult sometimes?!?) I struggled a bit with those paper strips as they sat there looking plain even though I knew the tree was probably going to show up there, so out came the sewing machine and voila, I think it was just what it needed. K, so the tree was my favorite part! Have you noticed that I LOVE buttons, well this was my chance to play! And, I also got to play with another CTMH set (Whoo loves you) that I borrowed from Donna a few weeks back because I don't yet own it. The owl and the mushrooms are from that set and I've pop-dotted them to give dimension. I must admit, I wasn't sure of the best method to adhere the felt to the page, but I tried both my 3M tape runner and glue dots and both seemed to work just fine.

Whew, are you still with me? If so, please give me your opinion - to bling or not to bling? The reason for two very similar photos at the top is to compare - on the first I have added some Bella Bling around the bottom left corner of the circle - it didn't look right all the way around. On the second, there is no bling. So what do you think? Bling or no bling? I would love to hear your input as I've yet to glue down the bling.

Here's hoping you all had a fabulous long weekend.

Cheers,

Shanna :)

Deck the Halls

Happy Sunday everyone!

I've been playing with some of my new CTMH sets as I am taking part in a charity event happening next weekend and wanted to be able to showcase some new stuff. This is the card we will be making at the event, which happens to be a "Stamping Pyjama party". We did one last year and had so much fun, we decided to do it again!

I used the Christmas tree from Heartfelt Christmas (C1378) and the sentiment from Holiday Trinkets (D1366). The colors are Deep perfect plum and Deep terrific teal. I used Spot on Backgrounds (D1280) to add a design to the strip of Plum in the background, it seemed to be just what it needed. I stamped the tree again on Light terrific teal and pop-dotted it to give it dimension. For the scallop, I used my new border punch purchased at my LSS (EK I think) and the photo corner punch is EK as well. I embellished with Bella bling and there you have it.

I apologize for the photography. I had a really hard time with this one because it blended right into the background, so I had to experiment a little.

Even though I haven't had time yet to try out the sketch Sparkle suggested for her Christmas Card Challenge this week, I'm going to link this one up since it is a Christmas card and I didn't get to play and link last week. Fingers crossed I'll have time to try out the sketch and post later in the week.

Have a great day!

Shanna

p.s. I have a fun layout just waiting to be glued down, so I'm hoping to show you that tomorrow. I've been playing with more of my new CTMH stuff (FELT!) Can't wait to share....

Happy Birthday

Good morning! Whew, what a busy week, I'm exhausted. Both my boys started school, we have tried each evening to take advantage of the summer-like weather that we are finally getting (of course, now that school is back) and I've had a busy week at work as well. I feel like we have been non-stop busy....So, I'm finally getting around to making a quick post...

I had some fun with these ones as I enjoyed playing with all the bright colors. To be truthful, it started with some scraps of paper I had after finished a layout with this same line from Bo Bunny. (sometimes those card turn out best!) I can't post the layout since it has photos of not just my own children, but a group of my friend's children as well. I love the paper so much that I wanted to keep working with it so I decided to make some cards. I started with the fun whitish paper with the graph paper-like background and added this and that and here is what I came up with. The large dotted circle is from CTMH's circle around and the sentiment is also CTMH - can you tell that is one of my favorites? The flowers are Prima. I like how they turned out, what do you think?

Cheers,

Shanna :)