You're a Hoot!

So I tore myself away from my obsessed reading spree to make a post....well actually the truth is that I have finished the second book, New Moon and don't yet have the third in my hot little hands! It is a good thing because I have tons to do tonight and tomorrow to get ready for our vacation...I'll take care of that tomorrow thanks to my good friend Brandi! So anybody else out there reading a good book right now? I'd love to hear about it, I like to keep list of "to read" books going.

On to the cards... for these I have used a current set from CTMH called "You're a Hoot!" It is such a fun set, especially since I love owls! The card are pretty straight forward. I used chocolate brown ink and paper for the first. I borrowed Ann's design, HERE for the first card. The DSP on the others is from a CTMH promo from a few years ago. I added a button here, a flower there and a couple of chipboard letter for a sentiment and voila! Some of these photos are not all that good, I apologize, one was very rushed and I didn't have time to wait for the sun to come out!

Have a great evening and thanks for stopping by!

I think I'm in love with a vampire!!!

Oh my goodness......I haven't posted since Friday and this is the reason why. I started reading Twilight last Thursday. By Saturday, I was finished the first book. (You have no idea how hard it was to put it down and make Friday's post for the Christmas in July party - no idea!!!) Sunday, Donna brought me her copy of New Moon when we met at the berry patch to pick strawberries with our children - ya guess who did not feel like berry picking! So, by the time I got home on Sunday it was mid-late afternoon, and keeping in mind I have two children, I am at least three quarters of the way through the second book!

I have been completely and totally sucked into Bella's world and Edward makes me swoon (the one in the book, not necessarily the one in the movie -the book is far better than the movie in my humble opinion)....especially how he plays piano for her...I could go on and on....I was so surprised, I had no idea I would be so enthralled....I went to work today feeling like a different person, completely distracted and had such a hard time focusing because I am dying to know what happens next! Please tell me I'm not the only one!

So, that's my story. I'm completely distracted and don't even feel like stamping or scrapbooking - now that is rare! So, I'll be back with a card or something soon, I hope.....how long will it take me to get through the next two?!?

Off to bed, err to read, better brush my teeth first I guess....

p.s. Sorry Danielle! - I passed her the first book when I saw her last night - after speaking with her tonight, I guess I should have told her not to start it as soon as she got home, it was already getting late.......

Come on in out of the cold....

Welcome, we're so glad you could join us....if you're looking for the Christmas Party, you've come to the right place! Come on in the front, or the side, it's up to you....

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, well this is the scoop - it's party time! Maggi over at Just add glitter and Stir decided to organize a Christmas Blog Party. Since Christmas is my favorite time of year, I thought, hey why not!

Last year, we had a great time making ice lanterns filled with fun things like cranberries and bits of pine boughs, we tried some with candy canes too! They looked so beautiful burning in the dark. Too bad I didn't take more photos!

I took this one two years ago when we went out hunting for a real tree! Isn't it just so tranquil? We had a great deal of fun and hope to do it again this Christmas.

This is the fabulous tree we brought home from that tree-hunting trip. I know, it doesn't look quite like what you might call the perfect tree; however, in my eyes it was since this is the sort of tree my Nana always had. My Nan's been gone awhile now, but I'll never forget how much she loved Christmas and she always had trees that were sort of fat and misshapen. Besides, trees like this provide a great space to display all those fabulous hand-made greetings I receive from friends and family!

Here is the tree from this past year. Unfortunately, it was just too cold to go hunting for one this year, so we went and got one from the tree lot. It did the trick and filled our house with the aroma of pine, but the shape wasn't quite what I had been dreaming of......

Check out the cuite my Mom bought me for my Birthday! My birthday is at the end of November, so I often get cute Christmas decor from my Ma and this is the one she got me last year. I found the vintage Christmas balls at a yardsale last August. Yes, August, but I just couldn't leave them there!

I just had to photograph the freshly fallen snow on our apple tree in the back yard...."Oh the weather outside is frightful, and the fire is so delightful. Since we've no place to go......

I won't continue lest it comes true. The weather here in the North is not exactly seasonal this year -we're talking at least ten degress below seasonal most days - so I won't keep singing as there is a possibility that it may just happen......let's not go there!

And last but not least, you can't let a year go by without a heartfelt letter to Santa. My boys love making cookies especially for Santa and of course, leaving carrots out for his reindeer!

I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes:

"What if Christmas doesn't come from a store,

what if Christmas means just a little bit more."

The Grinch

Drive safe now, and Happy Holidays!

I have shared my project in the post below.......

also, dont' forget to check out all the other parties in progress - you can link to it here on Maggi's Blog. The party officially begins on Saturday the 25th, but I wanted to post early as I'm not good at scheduled posts.

Shanna :)

Welcome and Season's Greetings....

In the spirit of the holiday season, I thought I would share with you the project that I created last year for my family. The idea all started one day as I flipped through one of the many papercrafting magazines that I subscribe to. One of the articles discussed the idea of setting up a jar or two filled with slips of paper and markers and encouraging family members to write down their favorite Christmas memories, etc. Well, I filed that idea and let it simmer. In October of 2007, we purchased our first home. That Christmas, my entire family decided to fly up together (a first) and join us for the holidays in our new home! I should say that I live about 17 hours from my immediate family as I moved up North ten years ago to begin my career. The last time I spent Christmas at "home" with my entire family was five years prior, in 2002 when my first son was not yet a year old. Anyhow, I digress....My parents, my two brothers, my sister and two significant others would be arriving early on Boxing day and staying until December 30th. I was ecstatic! I finally had the home I had dreamed of for years and my family was going to be here to join in the festivities! Then it dawned on me - I would have my chance to "corner" them all and get them to share and record their Christmas memories.....

This is what I did....before they arrived, I prepared several chinese food style take-out boxes - filling them with slips of paper and/or pre-cut tags and markers. I deocrated the boxes with ribbon, etc just for fun. On each box there was a different question for them to answer. The first question was "What is your favorite Christmas tradition?" The resulting layout is above. As I planned all of this, my idea was to create a Family Christmas Memory Book based on the responses to the questions and give it to them all the following year from Christmas. I had been sitting on this idea for quite some time, and couldn't wait to get started....

The next question asked about their favorite Christmas treat or recipe. In these layouts, I decided to feature recipes from both my Nana and Grandma who are no longer with us. Both receipes were mentioned in the responses and it was important for me to include them. I even made my Nana's recipe for Christmas Pudding and remebered to photograph it. I served it to my family for dessert after out Christmas Dinner together that year.

I was so lucky to have my Grandma's punch recipe in her own handwriting. I simply copied it onto good quality paper at the printers and added it to the page. Click the photo to take a closer look at the recipe, you won't be sorry, it's a keeper, so yummy. I'm thirsty now...

On of the more difficult parts of this project for me was to keep the journaling original. However, it was important for to me to keep the originals at least on some of the pages as I was then able to capture the hand-writing of my entire family in this one album. On some pages, I had to transcribe what they wrote due to space constraints or for design purposes.

I decided to work in 8x8 format as I had decided that I was going to produce five identical albums. Because there was no way I would have had the time to make them all original, I color copied each page as I completed it, but before adding any 3D embellishments. I cannot believe how beautiful them came out! I copied them at the Print Shop on quality paper and added embellishments later. I kid you not, once the embellishments were in place, it was nearly impossible to tell them apart from the original posting.

These pages were about favorite Childhood Christmas Memories.....

I so loved the papers I used on this layout, I had been hoarding them afraid to cut into them! They are from Daisy D's. Don't they just scream vintage wrapping paper!?! I still have some I havent' used!

I admit that this one has to be my favorite - it is me when I was about two years old and not so sure I wanted to be sitting on Santa's knee!

And this facing layout is of one of my younger brothers. This paper was also paper I was "afraid" to cut into, but it was so worth it because I love how it turned out!

I used the last page as a dedication page for my parents and managed to incorporate some stamps into the text, something I had been wanting to play with.

Well, I worked on this throughout 2008, it certainly wasn't something that could be thrown together in a few evenings, at least not for me. I put a lot of thought into it and was so pleased with the outcome. It was my first time working with older photos, so I scanned and printed them all at my local Black's store and that took the stress out of working with originals for which I do not have the negatives.

I was so excited to give this to my parents and my siblings last Christmas and I know that they really enjoyed it. I intend to keep it a bit of a "living" album, adding a couple more pages each year or so as I still have many ideas of pages to add. There were a few more questions everyone answered for me that I was not able to get into these pages - one asked "What is your favorite Christmas song or album?" I have a really hard time choosing a true favorite, there are so many I love. I have to list two favorite albums - Conway's Twitty's "A Twismas Story" and Alabama Christmas. I am a country girl at heart. You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl. My favorite song would have to be "Silent Night" and I often sang my boys to sleep with that one, especially my youngest who was born in November. My other favorite to sing him to sleep with was "Away in a manger" - he used to ask for it all the time, didn't matter if it was August...

So what is your favorite Christmas tune?

Don't forget to stop by all the other Christmas parties happening today - you can access the list from Maggi's blog HERE. Check it out, you won't be sorry!

Sparkle's Christmas Card Challenge Week 32 & 33

So, I had been on a roll completing Sparkle's Christmas card challenge for the last few weeks, then last week "happened". I had some Birthday cards to make and well, Christmas just didn't happen until very last on Saturday night. So, I have two cards for last week and one for this week.

This cute magnolia card with Edwin holding his lantern is for this week's challenge. I have to say that I really struggled with the design of this one as there was too much open space just "sitting" there on the right side. After letting it sit for a few days, I decided to add the scalloped oval tucked in behind the image. I think it helps. What do you think? I aplolgize for the lighting in the first photos, I took it just now under crumby lighting conditions and the silver brads look black, yikes! It is the same cards as the one below, I just added the scalloped oval.

For the second card, I used a Tilda image I rec'd on a swap at Splitcoast Stampers. I tried to follow Sparkle's sketch and challenge, but I'm not sure it quite fit. Oh well, another card for the Christmas stash in any case.

The third card I basically put together using all the scraps I had out from the last few Christmas cards I've made. I used the Snow Time set from Stamping Up. A super cute set, but sure hasn't seen enough ink. Again, I struggled with the design, trying to keep it simple and yet it needed something, so I added the staple. Hmmm, maybe my mojo has taken a hike - or maybe I just need more sleep! Speaking of which....see ya tomorrow! Sweet Dreams....

p.s. Be sure to join me and a ton of other talented bloggers for a Christmas in July Party this Saturday. Check out the details on Maggi's Blog HERE.

Baby Boy

So, I was telling you that I still had my sewing machine out....Well, I've been wanting to play around with using fabric on my cards for ages now - and I finally tried it! An aside here, hubby bought me a new sewing machine for Christmas about four years ago and I must admit it hasn't seen a great deal of fabric, mostly scrapbook layouts (a few at most) and a few hems of pants, maybe a couple of baby blankets...so I can now asure him that his money was not wasted.

So, I picked up this cute fabric for 25 cents at a yardsale a few weeks back and vowed to use it soon on a card. Those little stars screamed baby boy to me, so a Baby Boy card it was. I pretty much just pretended as though the fabric was patterned paper and went from there. The chipboard letters are from Maya Road (I think) and were the perfect size for this. The star brads have been in my stash forever so were not in the original packaging, but I'm pretty sure they are from DCWV. The last photo is of the inside of the card and the sentiment is from Three Bugs in a Rug. I cut some small strips of fabric and used them like ribbon. The one on the outside has a blue safety pin on it, just for fun but it doesn't really show in the photo.

I had so much fun playing with this that now I can't wait to go through the three big rubbermaid bins of fabric downstairs and dream about all the fun stuff I can make!!! Ya know, it's kinda like discovering big bins of patterned paper that you forgot you bought! ( But of course, I would never forget what I bought, not me...) Thanks for stopping by, hope your weekend was great!

Way to go Miss Anya

Happy Saturday! Hope you are all having a great weekend! I rec'd this image from one of the swap threads over at Splitcoast Stampers and thought she was pefect for this Congratulations card since it is for a pre-teen girl. Pretty straightforward - the DSP is some fun stuff by Chloe's Closet that I picked up from my LSS recently. I used Hollyhock CS from CTMH and embellished with some Kasier black rhinestones and a prima flower - easy peasy! The sketch is one I've used a few times before, by Taylor - click HERE to see her card. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and thanks for stopping by! I'll be back tomorrow with a fun card I made last night - I still have the sewing machine out, but this time I used fabric!

Tilda Running & Waving

Here is the Tilda card I promised. You will notice that I used the same papers and color scheme as I did for Crosstitch Tilda HERE. I was enjoying this color scheme and figured I may as well keep using that pretty paper and avoid too many scraps. So, the DSP is from Cosmo Cricket and the CS is Sweet Leaf from CTMH if I recall correctly. The sentiment is CTMH and I had to add a few Primas and some bling. My sewing machine is still out, so I've been having fun with that. I think it really helped my Tilda stand out on this one - I purposely stitched crooked, in case you are wondering. What do you think?

Oops, I almost forgot that I had some fun with the inside of this one. The quote on the left side is from Stampendous.

A couple of cards

Good evening! I had a great deal of fun making another Tilda card on the weekend and am looking forward to posting it, but I have posted a few Tildas in a row and thought I should change it up a bit....

So for tonight we have a Sympathy card and a Riley. For awhile, I had no sympathy cards at all in my stash -everytime I needed one, I'd make an extra one or two, but then would end up needing them right away! After this happened two or three times, I started to feel like I might be jinxing somebody, so stopped making extras. However, a sympathy card is not so much something that should be sent "late" or too long "after the fact" (in my humble opinion), so the last time I needed one I decided to make another, but just didn't do it right away. Instead, I left

the "stuff" out and waited a few days until putting this one together and yeah, I haven't needed it yet - maybe I'm no longer a jinx! Okay, enough rambling. I'm sorry I don't know the source of this paper, but the stamp is my most favorite for Sympathy cards as I tend to stay away from saying simply "With Sympathy" - I like to be different. :) I purchased the stamp on a trip across the boarder a couple of years ago - it is from River City Rubber Works and is called "Eskimo Folklore". So glad I found it as it has seen lots of ink!

The Riley was a quickie I put together. I thought the sentiment "Driving By with a Birthday Hi" was perfect, but wished it was a little larger as my card felt off balance a bit. Oh well, can't love them all, eh? (Yes I am Canadian....)

I hope you are all having a great week! I can't believe how quickly the summer if flying by - mind you, where I am, we have had very little that has felt like summer weather, so it feels like we've hit fast forward and landed in fall - I would venture to say that the weather if very "Septemberish"! Not so fun when you live in a place where summer is way to short to begin with! Oh well, the weather does not need to be hot and sunny to stamp does it??? Thanks for dropping by and for all your comments, it makes it more fun!

A Sunflower for you...

Hello and Happy Monday to all of you! I didn't get around to making a post yesterday as my computer was frozen for much of the day, oh well. I have another Magnolia card to share with you - this time with slightly better photos! I've been having a hard time lately as it seems the wind whips up everytime the sun is shining and I need to take photos! I had to take these ones indoors in a hurry as I was heading out the door to deliver the card! At least I got a decent close up this time.

As for the card, I colored this Magnolia image called Tilda with Sunflower with my copics. I used a mix of CTMH and SU papers - the patterned papers are SU and the CS is honey and crystal blue from CTMH. The border punch and sentiment are SU and I had to add some bling from Kaiser. Once again, I punched out my clear flower from some packaging. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out - I had colored this image awhile back and finally go around to putting it on a card.

I did do a little bit of creating over the weekend, but need to take some photos still. Should be back tomorrow with another card and hopefully later in the week with a card for Sparkle's Christmas Card Challenge. Click HERE to check it out and link to some great cards.

Meet Crosstitch Tilda

Happy Friday! I apologize, I did not realize how small the card is in the photo and I thought I'd taken a close up to go with this one, but didn't - you will have to click if you want a closer look, sorry! I have had this Magnolia image for awhile now but had not colored her yet. A couple of weeks ago, I found this beautiful double sided Cosmo Cricket paper at my LSS and I knew it was perfect to go with her! If you click on the photo you will see that the DSP looks like it has crosstiching on it! And I love the colors to boot! I colored Tilda with my copics and the image is from Inkadinkado. I had been telling myself for a couple of weeks that I was going to get my sewing machine out and use it on a card - well I finally did it on this one! I really had a fun time with this one. Happy weekend everyone, thanks for stopping by!

Celebrate the Season

Good evening! I just had to share two more Christmas cards I made for Sparkle's Christmas Card Challenge this week. Of the four I managed to create this week, I think these two are my favorites. What do you think? I posted the other two on Sunday. I use the same DSP (My Mind's Eye) and color scheme, but really had fun with the Stickles this time! I even made my own clear snowflake out of some packaging from a new punch I bought - an idea I saw on Lauren's blog awhile back. These cute images are Lilly & Billy from Pink Cat Studio. If I recall correctly, Danielle passed some along to me from a RAK or swap she rec'd. Thanks Danielle, I just love them. :)

We are hoping to go Strawberry picking this weekend as we heard they should be ready this week. Hope so, can't wait to bite into one - I just love strawberries and could eat them until I'm sick. It will be a good way to escape the mess that is my yard right now - long story...it started with pulling out all the shrubs, then the lawn and now the interlocking brick patio and pathways - lots of work ahead. Thanks for visiting today!

Make a Wish

Good Tuesday evening! Thanks for all your feedback on my Christmas cards! I am having so much fun making them ahead of time, no pressure - and it is allowing me to pay much more attention to detail for each one. If you start in November, it's pretty hard to be original and I don't think I have ever used images that need coloring before now since I usually make and send somewhere between 80 - 90 cards. I am thrilled to be more than 1/3 of the way there and it's only July!

On to my card, I made this one for a friend at work who celebrated a milestone Birthday yesterday....I just love this image - I rec'd it from a swap at Splitcoast. I colored her with my copics and embellished with some bling from Kaiser. The yummy brown ribbon is from the stash that I picked up last year at Scrapfest at Mall of America. A girl can never have enough ribbon - did I mention how much I love ribbon? Thanks for stopping by.