Upline Swap

Tonight I went to a demonstrator meeting with my upline Kari and participated in a swap....my first time doing a swap! Here is the card I created for the theme "Winter". I used whisper white, bashful blue and shimmery white paper, bashful blue ink, dazzling diamonds glitter on a strip of sticky strip, a rhinestone, whisper white satin ribbon and the Northern Hearts stamp set (hostess level 1 in the current holiday mini). The hole is punched with the 1 3/8 punch and the insert in punched with the 1 1/4, a piece of dental floss allows the inner circle to spin (and provides a minty aroma - hee hee) and two rows of paper piercing finish it off. I enjoyed challenging myself to swap with some very talented ladies!

Christmas Decor

Ever since I saw the picture of the ribbon wreath in the 2010/2011 IB&C (p. 190), I knew I wanted to make one for Christmas. My daughter and I started making this yesterday and with this week Stampin' Royalty Challenge being Anything But a Card, we were inspired to finish it today. At 3 1/2 Jessica couldn't quite tie the knots but she did enjoy selecting what pattern the ribbons were going to go in (it created a nice random pattern doing it this way, rather than my somewhat more regimented approach). We used white satin, old olive striped grosgrain, real red polka dot grosgrain (now retired), 1/4"chocolate chip grosgrain (also retired) and 1/4" real red grosgrain. I also used an 8" wreath form that we got at the craft store. Now we just have to pick the perfect spot to hang it at Christmas time!

Gift Certificate

My friend is just a few months away from achieving a lifelong goal of hers. She is going to Cambodia to build houses with the Tabitha Foundation. Yes, amazing! She needs to raise a bunch of money to go, and her team's major fundraising effort is going to be a silent auction so I just had to support her by donating a gift certificate for Stampin'UP! This cute card is a hybrid MDS creation and the coordinating gift certificate is held inside. The idea and instructions for the pinwheel came from Patty Bennett.

Best of Luck Estelle in your fundraising efforts!

Clean and Simple

I love to check out blog challenges to get ideas and inspiration for my paper crafts. When I saw The Paper Players had a theme of clean and simple I decided to play....I love clean and simple!

Here is Dasher embossed in sliver with some added rhinestones. For paper I used Whisper White, Real Red and Bashful Blue (one of my favorite color combos) and stamped the sentiment in Real Red. I also used the modern label punch, whisper white satin ribbon and a silver eyelet.

Blog Header

I love the new blog header I created with My Digital Studio. The hands are those of my family and if you look closely, my daughter, whose hand is on top, has a stamp on it. All the credit goes to my talented sister who took the picture.

Whoops to Wow

My husband and I have had a "mail drop zone" box for a little while, and in the previous house it was kept behind a door in the kitchen cupboards. At the new house, it sits on our desk in the kitchen nook....so it needed some dressing up. Previously it was solid wood and I thought that adhering some nice DSP would look awesome, I cut it out and Whoops!!! I didn't measure first! It was too short. So I thought, hmmmm could I stamp directly onto the wood? Yes I could. Further to that, I could also use my blender pen to fill in the stamp images. I used the Fifth Avenue Floral stamp set with chocolate chip, certainly celery and river rock ink. Then so we would know what was in our little cubbies, I added the Oval Chalkboard Decor Elements. I would have liked the two larger drawers to have the chalkboard oval in the middle, but the image was just a bit too big to go under the cutout and I was too cheap to buy two more sets.

Here is a closer look at how well the blender pen worked on the wood. Love it!