Merry Christmas

In true CAS style, this is the most minimalist Christmas card I have ever created. It warms my heart! Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

 

 

To create this card, I used the cut file Design ID #103669 from the Silhouette Design Store. Super simple and easy to mass produce. Gotta love that!

Joy to the World

Hello friends! Today I am popping in to share a little gift bag that I created using my Silhouette Cameo and a few stamps and dies. To make this a quick project, I made an almost duplicate of a previous project found here. 

 

This little gift bag holds an ornament for a gift exchange at work. I used the cut file Design ID #45733 from the Silhouette store. Then I inked up Casual Fridays Christmas Carols stamp set. I used the Funky Round tag die to die cut the tag. The green cardstock was embossed with diagonal lines from DeNami design to add a bit of texture. And it was all tied together using some New Leaf stitched ribbon from Papertrey Ink.

Thanks for stopping by!
 

December PTI Blog Hop

Merry Christmas friends. I hope you have all had an enjoyable holiday with family and friends. It's hard to believe that this year has flown by. Today I actually have a project to share with you for this month's PTI blog hop.  I think the last time I played along was in the beginning of the year, back in March ***insert blush***

Our challenge is to create projects tied up with strings. I didn't think that I would actually get to play along until I was wrapping up my mother-in-laws present.

 

 

I wrapped her gift in kraft wrapping paper and then added some washi tape around one end and. I inked up Tiny Tags II and attached them using some twine. Pretty simple, but then again, that's me. My precious daughter thought that we were giving her some butter.  Gotta love the mind of a 6 year old. I can't wait to see the other fabulous projects in the gallery. Happy hopping!

Merry Christmas

Wishing you a joyous holiday among family and friends.

 

 

Merry Christmas, from our family to yours!

Andy, Deb, Leah and Josh

CAS-ual Fridays, Let it Snow

Happy Friday! I hope you all had a good week. With Christmas less than 2 weeks away, I hope many of you have been able to accomplish a lot of your shopping and holiday crafting. Today, I have another Christmas card to share with you for this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge.

 

 

The theme for this one week challenge is to create a clean and simple project using snow or snowflakes. Would you believe it if I told you that I only own 2 snowflake stamp sets? How that happened, I do not know. 

 



Our fabulous sponsor this week is SimonSaysStamp. The winner of this challenge will earn a $25 gift certificate.

 



 

For this challenge, I created a one layer card that probably took less than 3 minutes. Too bad I wasn't creating for Paulina's 10 minute Craft Dash. I used Peace Be Still and Signature Christmas from PTI. I was inspired by a tag that I made a couple of years ago. I believe it was for a submission call to create a Christmas project in non traditional colors.

 

Here is a picture of the rejected  inspirational tag.

 

 

That's all for me today. This challenge will end early at midnight on Wednesday, December 18th. I can't wait to see what you create. Thanks for stopping by!

 

 

DeNami Pin-spired

Hi friends! I hope you are all well. We are gearing up for the holiday season at our house. The tree is up and decorated by my sweet little 6 year old. She was so eager to decorate it. The lights adorn the bushes outside. And Zach, our elf, has made a return to our house to keep his eye on our little ones and report back to Mr. Claus.

 

Today I have a project to share with you for DeNami Design. Some of the design team and I are sharing our projects that we created from this gorgeous photo.

 

When I first saw our inspiration photo, I fell in love with all of the gold and sparkle! Awesome job, Paulina! I created these tags using the same design from my most recent Craft Dash project. In that project, I really loved the two strips of Ruby Red glitter. I told you that you would see more of it! So for these tags, I decided to use some Gold glitter as well. I love the gold leaf in the photo. So I broke out my Essential glue pad and inked up some leaves from Elegant Holly. Then fussy cut them after they had some time to dry. The sentiments are from Christmas Greeting set which I inked up in Rich Cocoa Memento ink. I added a Buby Red boutique button using glossy accents to finish it off.

 

 

That is all for me today. Don't forget to head on over to the blog to see what the rest of the design team has created. Thanks for stopping by!

Butter Crunch

Over the last year, my blogging friend Leigh over at  To the Full has shared this Butter crunch recipe.  I was so excited this year to finally make a batch (or two) for my daughter and son to give away to their teachers. This recipe is awesome and so easy to make. I enlisted the help of my 5 year old to layer the crackers while I boiled the butter and sugar. Before we knew it, we had one batch done.

 

Now with my poor planning, I did not have any cello bags on hand to package this treat. However, I did have some glassine bags which did the trick. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to fill them up very much, but I guess that just means more butter crunch for us *wink*. I used Papertrey Ink's 2008 Holiday tags and some leftover tulle from another project. I used this technique that Nicole shared here to add my tag topper.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas pillow boxes

Hello friends! If you happen to catch Thursday's post, then you would've noticed that I am now an owner of the Silhouette Cameo. Several of my blogging friends own this little baby and I have loved seeing their creations with it. Thank you hubby for my early Christmas present.

A while back, the Silhouette store had images for 50% off, so although my Cameo still hadn't arrived yet, I was able to pick up a bunch of images. This pillow box was one of them. The beauty of these digital images is the ability to resize them to fit your needs. Two of our family members will received gift cards and one of them was not the standard size. No problem.

 

I used some patterned paper from Papertrey Ink, a few stamps and washi tape from Target. This fall marks the third year that I started stamping, so it is tradition for me to share a creation with the first clear stamp set I bought from Papertrey Ink, 2008 Holiday Gift Tags.

This box uses Fillable frames #4, Turning a New Leaf and Signature Christmas.

 

I will have a few more treats to share on the blog before Christmas arrives. If you haven't finished your holiday shopping and wrapping, I hope this weekend gives you some much needed time to catch up. Thanks for stopping by!

CAS-ual Fridays and Craft Dash

Hello friends! You may be a bit confused when you see this post, but today CAS-ual Fridays is teaming up with Craft Dash to create a holiday inspired card in less than 10 minutes. You've got that right. Paulina has some fabulous tips to help you create your card within the time limit.

 

 

and

 

As you can see by the intricate cut of this snowflake (Design ID #36161), curtesy of my new Silhouette Cameo, this embellishment was already precut since the cardstock requires a double cut. I also used it to cut out this window. I inked up CAS-ual Fridays Snowflake Greetings for my sentiment around the cutout and added some Spring Moss cardstock behind the window. Then I ran it through my cuttlebug with PTI's linen/canvas impression plate. The snowflake was adhered using a 2 way glue pen. Clean and simple. The time to complete this card was 5 minutes and 6 seconds. I think I stared at it a bit to make sure I was happy with the results.



I also thought I would try this challenge including the cutting time. This time I hit the timer, fed my paper and ran across the house to my craftroom to start some stamping. Let's just say it was quite a scene. I used the same stamp set. I inked and stamped off the snowflakes onto some white cardstock. When my polaroid image was done cutting, I trimmed my stamped snowflakes to fit underneath. Stamped my sentiment and adhered it to the card. This time it took 7 minutes exactly. The polaroid cutout was a free download from Daniela Dobson. She has some fabulous stuff that you should go check out.

 

 

This challenge runs through Thursday, January 3, 2013 until noon. This gives you plenty of time during the busy holidays to carve out a little time and create a quick, clean and simple project. Thanks for stopping by and Happy Holidays!



CAS-ual Fridays, 8 Happy Nights

Hello friends! Tonight I have some cards to share with you showcasing the fabulous 8 Happy Nights CAS-ual Fridays stamps created by Michele Gross. This stamp set is the first Hanukkah set I own, and I couldn't be happier. My mother's side of the family is Jewish and I created several cards to send out to my family. Here are a few.

 

 

 

My last card I CASED myself from the second card you see here. I am still experimenting with splatter, so I am positive you will see more of this from me.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

DeNami Design, Medium Pine

Today is Product Spotlight over at DeNami Design. The design team is showcasing Medium Pine. You can add this fabulous stamp to your shopping cart and save 10%, one week only!

For my card, I inked up Medium Pine with some Papertrey Ink's Enchanted Evening ink and layered that panel onto matching cardstock. I tied some denim twine from the Twinery around the panel and tied a bow. Lastly, I heat embossed Classis Season's Greetings in white.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Super heros

***Warning, this post is very picture heavy***

Okay, so I realize that we are now into December, but I did promise a while back that I would share photos of my kiddos from Halloween. I semi made Leah's costume. When I asked her what she wanted to be she told me, "Wonder Woman!" So I perused the web and saw some cute costumes made with tulle skirts, so I tried my hand at making one. For someone who loves fabric, I am quite surpised that it took me this long to even make one.

I used Papertrey Ink's Star dies and some left over felt from a previous Halloween and Christmas. I designed my own headband and wristbands from ones that I had seen on the internet. I have a funny story to tell about that. Since I worked on the felt part of her costume after she had gone to bed at night, I would slip into her room and slide the pieces around her wrists to check for size. I did the same with the headband. I couldn't believe she slept through it all. To her surprise,  she would wake up the next day with a new piece of costume. She couldn't believe it!

Showing us her super powers.

Because Leah chose to be Wonder Woman, I decided that Joshua would be Spiderman. He wore a store bought costume. There really wasn't anything in his size that I could make. Most costume patterns are for babies or children and the selection for toddlers is very limited. Maybe next year.

I tried to take some photos of the kids while it was still daylight. We can see how much Joshua enjoyed this.

Although he didn't start walking until 14 1/2 months, he chose to be carried. So Leah took on the responsibility of collecting candy for him. She toted around his bag and made sure that everyone knew there was a bag for each of them.

Hanging out with papa.

Her red glitter shoes curtesy of Target.

Her ruffle pants were not part of her costume, but the Florida weather proved to be cold that evening. It was rather quite chilly, but she refused to wear a jacket.

As the evening went on, Joshua finally got in on some of the action. Leah still helped him by carrying his bag of candy, which was rather heavy by this point.

We didn't trick or treat very long so that we could return home and be available to pass out candy. Leah decided that would be her job and she did it rather well. We actually had a grown up return to our door because she had heard how adorable she was at passing out candy and had to see for herself.

We are still eating Halloween candy! Thanks for stopping by!

DeNami Product Spotlight, Holly Lantern

Happy Wednesday, friends! I hope you have been having a good week so far. Today is Product spotlight over at the DeNami Design blog. The design team is showcasing Holly Lantern (cling). You can add this fabulous stamp to your shopping cart and save 10%, one week only!

 

 

I inked up this gorgeous image and colored it in with my copics. I added Classic Season's Greetings for my sentiment and then layered it onto some patterned paper. I finished it off with a twine bow. Don't forget to check out the blog to see what the rest of the design team has created. Thanks for stopping by!

 

CAS-ual Fridays, Winter Blues

Happy Friday! It's been a super busy week at the CAS-ual Fridays blog. If you have had the chance to stop by, then you have seen the fabulous peeks created by the Girl Fridays. Now you have a chance to see the entire release in the store and be the first to snatch them up.

 

The challenge for this week is to create a clean and simple project using blue. A perfect challenge to get a jump start on those holiday cards. I love the challenges in blogland this time of year.

 

I used sentiments from Snowflake Greetings to create my card. You might recogize this card design from a previous card. I love laying out sentiments to create the word art that has been so popular recently. The sentiments that Michele has created for her sets really build upon each other. I finished it off with a bit of bling.

 

I hope you get the chance to pick up some of these sets. They really are fantastic! Don't forget that you have until noon on Thursday to link up and play over at CAS-ual Fridays!



ColourQ #132 and Make it Monday #61

Well, it's Sunday. Did your weekend go by as fast as mine? Way too fast, in my opinion. Yesterday I shared a card using Besty Veldman's rolled flower technique. It was so much fun, I just had to make another card using them. Today's card is another Mother's Day card using the fabulous colors from this week's ColourQ Challenge. These colors are so bold and pretty, I just had to play along.

Although it is hard to see in the photo, I did use my linen/canvas impression plate on my card base. Did you notice something unusual about my card? My card base is not white! Lately, I have been challenging myself to try new things. You know, get out of my comfort zone. So yes, I am trying to conquer my fear of using colors as my card base. I am also entering this card into this week's Make-it-Monday challenge of making flowers using a non-flower die. Thanks for looking!

Orange and blue...

... go Gators!!! Okay, so I know that it's not football season and the basketball season ended a few weeks ago, but I just had to make a card with these colors for this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge: Opposites Attract. Even though I bleed true orange and blue, these are my favorite colors that are opposite on the color wheel.

I wanted to tell my sweet blog readers how thankful I am for all of your kind words regarding my new position on the CAS-ual Fridays Facebook Inspiration team. It has really meant a lot to me and I am so excited for this opportunity.

The base of this card may look familiar to you as you have seen it on several of my cards. Sometimes I want to create a little more depth and interest on my CAS cards, so I had layers. I used PTIs linen/canvas impression plate as well for that extra *umph*. I created the flowers using Betsy Veldman's rolled felt flowers. I have been itching to make these beauties for some time now. It just so happens that they fall under this week's Make-it-Monday: making flowers out of non flower dies. Betsy's flowers call for using the negative from your ric rac die. So clever!



An Easter treat

I do not usually post twice in one day, but since Easter is tomorrow, I thought I would share the Easter treat I created for my daughter's basket. The challenge over at CAS-ual Fridays is to create something you would find in an Easter basket, and I am pretty sure after tomorrow, there will be nothing left of this little treat.

I created this little treat using PTI's Lunchbox die. I stamped Background Basics: Houndstooth over the entire die cut. Now, I usually use the other side for the front, but I decided that I would use (what I consider) the back.  I inked up Tag- it's #2  and used some scrap patterned paper from Pretty Pastels. I have a Ghirardelli chocolate tucked inside.

Since I shared a peek of my daughter's Easter dress, I thought I would share a peek at my son's romper. I still have to snap their photo in just a bit, but I hope to share with you their Easter attire in tomorrow's post.