Christmas Pics

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I hope each of you have had a wonderful Christmas. We had a good day. First we opened presents at our house, then we went to my Dad's and opened presents with him, and then he went with us to my in-law's for dinner, more presents, and visitng thru the early evening.

Here are a few pics from Christmas Eve & Christmas Day.

Christmas Eve







My personal tradition: an "after everyone is in bed and Santa has arrived" picture of the Christmas tree. As you can see in the pic, Sasha & Sam were "helping" me.



Christmas Day

Kendra's cat, Sam is surrounded by the cats' new toys and can't decide what to play with first.



What would Christmas morning be without those "oh so glamourously dressed" opening presents photos???

This green chair was the #1 item on Kendra's wish list.

Below: Tim is opening an Optimus Prime (Transformer) from a family in the church. He's also looking thru an exploding box I made him of pics of his cat Prissy. Prissy died last April.

Ian's mission of the morning was to hit Kendra's cat Sam with a ball of tissue paper. He finally succeeded.



Ian's cat, Tigger, enjoying Kendra's new chair.

At my in-law's house:

Dad opening a present -- Tim's dad is seen teasing Kendra in the background. Ian enjoys watching someone else tease her.

Kendra with the first item for her hope chest (no she doesn't have the actual cedar chest yet).

I wanted a picture of the 4 of us taken today. This turned out to be much tougher than I thought. Our camera is good at taking blurry shots so those that had all 4 of us looking at the camera were blurry and the rest....well, you'll see..... :)

What Inspires You & Love #3

Okay, so I have been way too busy lately and haven't had time for much stamping. Usually after work I come home, put my jammies on and surf the net and watch my soaps (I tape The Young and the Restless and As the World Turns). This brings me to what inspires me to stamp, it can be a color combo, a layout or maybe an image that I really like. I recently bought some flannel jammies and that is what inspired me for my Christmas cards this year. Here are my jammies and here is the card I came up with. I have had this Penny Black stamp of the two deer for a few years now and I was thrilled to use it for some of my cards. The base card is brown shimmer cardstock and then I layered pink Bazzill bling and light pint Bazzill cardstock that I embossed with my Cuttlebug and Snowflake embossing folder. This card is 5" x 7" so I had to cuttlebug half and then move the folder over and do the other half, and it worked just fine. I stamped the deer with Brown Versacolor ink. I notched the corners of the image and layers with my 1/2" round punch. I just put the tip of the panel in the punch and snipped it off. It's like having two punches in one! I just love that! I wanted the brads to be glittery so I wrapped each one with a Mini Glue Dot (love these) and dipped them in crystal glitter. It is hard to tell, but I added a little twinkle to the eyes of the deer with Diamond Stickles.

What I love #3

Penny Black stamps! I can't begin to tell you how many I have. My favorites are the Brushstroke images and the words/phrases. I own several of the cuter images also. I buy them here. Here are two cards made with a couple of my favorite images.

I would love to hear about your favorite things too!

Christmas Tags

For some of my gifts this year, I decided to make my own tags. For some, I'm altering blank 2"x6" bookmarks. This way, they can be used even after they've done their job as a package tag. I used some more of Basic Gray's Figgy Pudding line for these. I used the BG papers & fibers, Offray ribbon and some stickles for accents & sparkle.

Chistmas Cards

I've made a variety of Christmas cards this year. Here are a few pics of them:

I made some for a swap on Scraps-N-Such. I used Basic Gray's Figgy Pudding line and a stamp set from CTMH. I stamped directly on the ribbon and added some stickles for a little sparkle.




I used papers and stamp sets from Stampin' Up to make the following cards. I love to make the envelopes coordinate with my cards -- you see a few of those here.

Things I love #2

#2

Just about anyone who has ever taken one of my classes knows that my all time favorite embellishment is Stickles Glitter Glue. Stickles can add lots of pizazz to even the dullest of cards. My fav colors are Diamond, Star Dust and Crystal. It is a little hard to see in this pic but my DH drilled some holes into a wood block for me so that I can store my nearly empty bottles in. Ya know, I want to use every last bit I can. :)

If you have never tried it, run don't wank to your nearest store to get some. I get mine from here. Sharon tries to keep all of the colors in stock.

Fun Folds

I recently taught a class on fun folds. You know we get in a rut and do the same standard folds all too often. Let me start by saying, I am nuts about surfing the web for ideas. This first card I have seen called Joy Fold card and you can find the instructions here. It is kinda hard to see in this pic but I stamped the pinecone stubby stamp from Stamps by Judith on the left fold of the card and the pine sprig stamp also from Judith on the right side of the brown Bazzill card. I stamped the pine sprig again in green on the larger cream confetti layer that Iused under the main image layer. The main image pinecone is from Inkadinkado and I just love it! Actually I have always liked pinecone stamps. Wierd! It is hard to tell, but the pinecone and pine branches are covered with Diamond Stickles. The next card is a double pocket card and although it uses a whole sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock, the results are worth it. For this card I used SEI Mistletoe cardstock, a flourish from my Fancy Pants Bella Brush set and the Hero Arts Flourish Frame and Many Birds stamps. I used Brown VersaColor Ink and Lettuce Adirondack in for the tree and pot. I found the idea for the tree and pot in the Hero Arts Fall Supplement. I used Vanilla Versacolor ink for the flourishes on the tags. It is also hard to tell on this card, but I used Diamond Stickles on the tree and on the swirls on the pot. I can't remember where I saw the instructions for this one, but If I have time tomorrow, I will upload a tutorial for you.

Things I Love

For today, I wanted to share the website of one of our very talented local artists. Garden Path Beads is owned by Maria Grimes, whom I met while working at The Cat's Meow. Maria creates lampwork glass beads and has a wonderful, whimsical style. From time to time Maria has an auction on her website for some of her awesome beads and all of the money goes to charity. The money (100%) from her current auction will go to Toys For Tots. I know Maria would love for you to stop in for a look around. Be sure to check out her gallery, you will be amazed.

On the stamping front, I took some photos today a couple of cards and some sweet treats. I will upload pics tomorrow.

More things I love coming soon.