The Christmas Crunch and Mom's Christmas card

It's hittin' me! Yes, I'm sorry I've been a bad blogger but the Christmas crunch is hittin' me! This past week i celebrated the American Thanksgiving...YES...I am Canadian...but I grew up in a border city and am very much influenced by American traditions...one being the Detroit Lions Thanksgiving Day football game. I must say I have managed to avoid it for the last almost 50 years but this year my hubs has Lions seasons tickets (yes you can all groan now) so the good wife that I am trotted to Michigan to see the Lions lose yet again. Fortunately for me, there was nobody sitting next to me so I could slouch over the seat beside me and gett a little nap in during the second half! Seriously...I AM NOT KIDDING....i did nap!!!!

On a stamping productive note, I did get my Mom's xmas cards done and delivered today! And for the first time in three years I got them to her BEFORE Dec 1st!...That is a big load off my mind. I do enjoy making her cards because I know everyone anticipates receiving one. Hopefully they won't be disappointed this year because I decided not to watercolor them...I opted for embossing. With work, plus the uncertainty of having to be on call, and weekly classes at Pickle I just couldn't take on the added pressure of watercoloring 30 cards!

This card is a take off of one I did for World Card Making Day. One of the challenges was to use a tree and I did it in golds. It looked a little blah to me, so when I saw the new Basic Grey Wassail paper I had a new vision to use red! A simple card and easily mass produced. The tree is embossed in Sparkle N Sprinkle Japanese Laquer and I added red stickles to the partridge and Star Dust Glitter on the border over top of Krylon Gold pen. Mom likes glitter so it was the least I could do since I didn't watercolor them!

Now I just have about 30 more cards to do for me, many of which I have already done and just need to reproduce so hopefully I'll have those done in the next week! So if I am MIA, you know I am heads down working on my Christmas cards!

Homespun Wreath

I don't know why I'm calling it that, but this card just gives me a nice cosy Christmas feeling. I love wreaths....especially fall and winter ones. I picked up this unmounted Impression Obsession stamp at Pickle yesterday and thought it would pair nicely with the Basic Grey Archaic paper. I coloured the evergreen with my prismacolor pencils, but used copics on the holly. Added glitter to the berries and the gold ribbon is something I've had in my stash for a couple years. I also distressed the edge just slightly with Antique Linen distress ink.

Now, if i really wanted it to be homespun, I should have stitched on it!

That's it for today, gotta go cut paper for this week's class, work on my mom's Christmas cards and clean up my mess. It's amazing how much mess I can create for one card!

Benefits of Training

Hi Everyone, quick post today. This week I am in Southfield Michigan with my BFF work buddy Kathy taking some technical training. What's so good about that you ask? Well, I'm only about 20 minutes from Paula's!!!!!!! Whooo hooo! Last night we met up at Carabba's for dinner and I gave her a little belated birdthday card. I used the Art Impression ladies that I picked up when we were shopping in London and just had to color them up in orange because we all know that is Paula's fav color! I used my copics on the ladies, but shaded with my pencils and gamsol.

Better get ready for another day of Data Stage! Told ya it would be short.

I DID IT!

Yes, I finally broke down, hauled out the Bernina from storage, dusted it off and sewed on a card.

WHY HAVEN'T I DONE THIS EARLIER? 1) Well, the bernina is over 10 years old, and it's all metal, before they went to plastic casing SO IT'S HEAVY...and it does not have a permanent perch so I have to lug it out of the closet, and 2) somehow in my head it seems blasphemous to me to use my beloved bernina to sew paper!

You'll also notice another little gem on there...my kajinker jem that I ordered from Stamping Bella. I'll admit...i loaded it incorrectly the first time, then thought it best to read the directions! It took me a few attempts to get the feel of it, but I've got it down pat and I do really like it! Em knows a jem when she spots one!

Well, it's raining here in Chatham and supposed to rain all day, better build the ark! I do have to venture out for groceries this afternoon but gonna wait till Mark gets back from the office so he can come with me, drop me off at the door, bag the groceries, then pick me up at the door! He's very good at doing that! Then I'm gonna sit around listen to my new Dave Live Trax 2008 that I downloaded from iTunes and make soup! I kinda like rainy days like this.

Lots of updates today!

Saturday Paula made the journey to Chatham with her stamping/scrapping friends and we all piled in the van with Pauline and headed to London to hit Scrapping Great Deals and Stamp Art. After shopping our little brains out we came back to my place, ordered pizza and wings (some of us even had a glass or two of wine!) then we suprised Paula with a Dairy Queen ice cream cake because it's her b'day this week. I still want to keep her as a friend so I won't share the pic of her hanging her tongue out over the cake but i will share a pic of the cake!

After stuffing ourselves silly we stamped off the images that we all bought and this is one that I stamped from Paula's stash. She posted her version yesterday (which i must say is STUNNING) and today I'll post mine. MUCH different than Paula's...in typical Paula style she she was thinking outside of the box...me, not so much...I went for the obvious rustic look. I did add some Barbara Trombley's Elements Earth Textures to create tiny pine cones. I bought this stuff at Stampeddler the last time I was visiting Paula. Very cool stuff for making little pinecones! Actually it smells just like nutmeg. That is probably what it is, coursly ground nutmeg stuffed in a jar and sold for $5.95. The one I bought was called Nut Brown and there were some other varieties. I wonder what they smell like? Sorry...I digress. I just put a drop of glossy accents down, dumped on some Earth Textures and moulded my little pinecones! The little pot is from Stamps by Judith and it was stamped on a separate piece of paper, coloured up, cut out, curved over a pencil to 'bow' it and then mounted with a pop dot. I added some more Earth elements inside the pot and sprinked some below. It adds that teeny bit of texture and interest. Plus it was fun!

On a final note I'm so excited to say that Paper Pickle now has a blog! If you haven't checked it out yet you should, especially if you are a 'local'. They will be announcing classes, specials, new product, everything you need to know there. So bookmark it, add it to your google reader, subscribe or follow it today! Seriously, Kell and Kim are two of THE most creative women I have ever met and I'm so excited to see what they have up their sleeve with this. Yes, they even keep secrets from me!

coming up next...stitching on cards...I FINALLY DID IT!

Funky Christmas Trees

It doesn't get any funkier than this folks, unless you are Cindy Lou Who and you live in Whoville!

I've had this stamp for over a year and when Pickle got it in Kell and I looked at each other and both had pink green and turqoise colors flashing in our eyes. Well, I finally got around to it and pink, green and turqoise it is! This is a Sunshine Designs stamp and if you've ever worked with them, they BEG to be embellished. I embossed this one in silver, coloured it up with Tombows, added glitter, liquid pearls, glossy accents and liquid applique.

I'll sure be making up a few of these this Christmas to send to some of my funkier friends! I may even stray from my color it first, find paper later trend and look thru my stash for something really retro to inspire me! LOOK OUT....the possibilities are endless!

anudder birthday

Yesterday was Mark's birthday and we spent the day in Windsor. Oddly enough, this is not his card...I'm so pathethic I didn't make him a card. I'm kinda like a plumber who has leaky faucets in his own home! LOL! BUT...I did get him Sirius satellite radio and took him to dinner at one of our fav Italian restaurants. And we also browsed the big honkin LCBO where we got some new wines to try and on Mark's recommendation I splurged on a bottle of Taylor Fladgate 10 year old Tawny Port. OMG, it's gonna be really hard for me to ration myself on that stuff!

Todays card uses MFT Punny Farm. I stamped the first cow, masked him, then stamped the other two. Coloured the cows with my copic markers then added grass and a bit of blue sky with my pencils and gamsol. The sentiment is from River City Rubber Works and the sentiment inside says 'celebrate until the cows come home'. Used my spellbinder ribbon skide for the sentiment. Paired it up with Memory box paper, Papertrey ribbon, and SU river rock paper. so sad that it is no longer available.