Sometimes someone just needs a little smile

With this busy time of year we can often forget that there may be people in our lives who just need a lift, or a smile, and something to just take their mind away from the craziness going on around them.  I have someone like that in my circle of friends right now and today she talked about her story. You may know her, she is a fellow babe and one of  the sweetest gals I have ever met. Her name is Cath and she talks about her journey here. 

Since she IS a babe, how could I not use a Stamping Bella stamp and I chose Ramona and her wagon because how could you possibly hold in a smile with something so adorable in front of you. I'm thinking some other current and past babes may also be thinking of Cath so you may want to head on over to see what Emily has cooking.

Later, Linda.

DIY Christmas stuff

I was in the mood this year to spruce up some of my Christmas decorations and Paula must have channeling my thoughts when she told me about this blog she follows, eighteen25. So I go check it out and boy did I get the inspirational kick in the pants that I needed!

This is my 'mantel'...well I don't have a mantel in my living room but I do have the top of the entertainment unit and this is how it looks today.

The subway art was downloaded from eighteen25 and they have an entire collection that you can download here! SOOO COOL! Then there are the dollar store finds...

• the frames (which I likely will replace with something a bit more sturdy when I find a good deal, but these do the trick for now)
• the white tree, i do plan on painting the pot white but just haven't done it yet...maybe today
• the plastic 'crystal' reindeer
• and the silver tea light candle

Then I have this ....which I shamelessly admit I totally CASE'd off of Nichole Heady's blog! Now I did follow the rules to change 3 things. She did a one layer card, I layered and sewed. She used copics, I used pencils. I also added LOTS of snow flakes falling over those trees and glittered like crazy. And of course, she made a card...I framed.

 

The last piece of DIY up there is this fabric circle tree. I get emails from Cloth Paper Scissors and I almost thought of stopping because they do send a LOT of them but I can't stop for fear I'll miss out on something good...and something good did come! Something that I could easily make! Lord knows there is no shortage of fabric scraps in this house.

 

 



Now lets move to the dining room. My little tree, another shameless total CASE-job from eighteen25, you can see their tree here. It was part of Michaels Dream Tree Challenge.

Lastly, I was driving home from work one day and one of the stores had all these ginormus snowflakes hanging in their window. I'm thinking "I've seen those somewhere! I need them". YES, it was the dollar store! Oh how working in the mall has its benefits!

 

That's it for today!

Off to run a couple errands and move on to the big tree in the family room.

 

Mom's 2012 Christmas Card

If you have been following me for a while you know that I make my Mom's XMAS cards. It is probably the most fun I have all year. I LOVE making Christmas cards more than anything else and I know that all my Mom's friends and realatives look forward to getting one every year.

I make about 25 for her so I have to keep the design simple enough to mass produce yet stunning enough to keep them wondering 'how'd she do that'. This year I was bound and determinded to use this Stamp Shack image that I have had for years and after a few duds, this is what I came up with.

I stamped the image with versamark on some smooth watercolour paper (available at Pickle) and applied three different embossing powders. Verdigras at the top, some PSX topiary in the middle (now retired) and sprinkle and sparkle's midnight black at the bottom.

After heat setting I spread over the entire image with Tumbled Glass distress stain and then sponged some iced spruce and bundled sage distress inks. When it was all good and dry I added the blue shading with prismacolor pencils and blended it out with gamsol.

Sentiment is papertrey, Sprigs and holly leaves are Martha Stewart punches. Background paper is Basic Grey (I think!) which I also sponged the edges,

So there you have it! Mom's Christmas cards, all done and delivered to her on the American Thanksgiving day weekend! The earliest I've ever had them completed!

 

IF you are reading this AND on Mom's list, I hope I haven't spoiled your surprise!

 

{hugs} Linda.

Laurel

Meet Laurel the Reindeer...another just squish it up adorable image by Stacey Yakula available in rubber over at Purple Onion. I will admit, I was a bit of a slacker because I was chatting it up with Paula yesterday and she said she was going to post her Laurel...and I said OMG...I was going to do that too!

So she posted hers, told you all to hop on over to see mine and it wasn't there. I got caught up in my newly acquired Netflix and the post slipped by me. Did I watch anything...NO....did I waste an entire day just cruising through what I could watch...YES! I think I have said it before....sometimes I just have to waste my day away doing nothing productive to gain some productive energy back. So, if you want to see Paula's cutie version...go check it out here! BUT FIRST ...check out mine.

She is all vintage paired up with cosmo cricket paper and to my shock...NO PENCILS were used here! Just copics. A LOT of them! So there you have it...my unproductive weekend. I did make up for it tonight by stringing three bags of red, white and silver glittered Styrofoam balls to make a garland for my little living room xmas tree and cooked up a batch of chicken noodle soup for this week's lunch's to keep me away from the fast food joints in 'the mall'.

that's it for now...till next time....
Linda