A Touch of Grace

Hi Everyone!  I’d like to thank each and every one of you for helping us make Stamp Simply Celebrates a fabulous success!   A quick reminder that my blog candy is open until Wednesday, December 17, 12:00 noon, click here to check it out and read the rules for playing.

Today Barb Schram’s Featured Project is a useful Holiday Home Decor item for YOU if you please, or it makes a fabulous gift item that will knock the socks off your friends!  It comes completely packaged with a card to match!  I KNOW you won’t want to miss out, so be sure to visit today over at Barb’s place and lap up the inspiration!!!

Today is Sharon Johnson’s - notimetostamp regular Stamp Simply Challenge.   It promises to result in some great layout options for you to use for quick projects.  Hope you can play! 

Be sure and check out samples made by:  Julie, Janine, Jennifer, Tammy, Dee, LeAnne, Becky, AJ, and Darlene.

Leslie Miller and Sharon Johnson have some BLOG CANDY for you today!

Sharon invited me to play along in her challenge today - ssnotime65 - We were to create a simple layout for a Christmas card using just a 2″ strip of designer paper, but only this one strip of designer paper, NO MORE.  We were allowed to border it or do scallops, or anything else we wanted, just no more designer paper. 

Okay, so here is my card that I made for the challenge:

As I’m photographing this photo, a bell - no pun intended - goes off in my head and I realize that I’ve used designer paper on the 2″ strip, as well as the background.  Doh!!!!! A Homer Simpson moment to be sure! 

Soooo, I run back upstairs at 9:00 p.m. and disassemble my card and come up with this card.  I’ve totally stolen Sharon’s layout as I have no time to design one of my own . . . hence . . . Sharon’s alias notimetostamp truly applied for me . . . LOL

And I like this card so much better!  Thanks Sharon!!!

• Stamps:  Flourishes (sentiment)

• Paper:  Watercolor Paper, Prism, The Paper Company

• Ink:  Versamark

• Accessories:  Tombow markers, Ranger Gold, Gold Tinsel EP, heating tool, watercolor brush, Kaiser Pearls, gold Krylon pen, gold ribbon, dimensionals, glue glider, glitter, Cuttlebug embossing die, Wizard, craft knife, glue dots

Hi Everyone!  Gee I feel like I’ve been missing in action!  Well, not so, I’m here, just incredibly busy. 

Today is day 11 of the Stamp Simply Celebration and I’m giving away blog candy to two lucky winners. One lucky winner will receive a Countdown to Christmas Bo Bunny scrapbook kit and a new, unmounted, Stampin’ Up! sentiments stamp set entitled:  ”Lots of Thoughts”.  Pictures of my completed album are shown below.  The kit consists of complete instructions, together with all materials, including a 6″ x 6″ linen and chipboard album.  A second lucky winner will receive four new, unmounted, Stampin’ Up! stamp sets entitled: “Blooming with Happiness”, “Friendship Blooms”, “Oh, So Lovely”, and “So Many Scallops”.

Okay ladies, here are the rules:  To win this blog candy comments will work like raffle tickets.  For every comment you leave on any Christmas design I’ve posted in my blog, you will be entered for a chance to win the prizes, your comment is your raffle ticket.  Leave only one comment per post please, duplicates will be deleted.  If you click on Christmas under Categories in the bar on the left side of my blog, or click here and all Christmas posts will appear.  Please comment only on the six posts that have designs that I’ve done, including this one.  You are NOT required to comment on all of them to qualify for the blog candy; however, the more Christmas posts that you leave comments on the better your chances of winning, i.e., you can have anywhere from 1 to 6 raffle tickets.  I will use Random.org to choose two names from each of the six posts.  Once I have the twelve names, I will then use Random.org to choose two names from the twelve finalists to determine the two lucky winners.   You have until December 17, 12:00 noon (Wednesday) to post your comments.  I will announce the lucky winners on the morning of December 18. 

Every year I take a lot of pictures at Christmas and never seem to find the time to scrapbook them.  I’m very challenged at scrapbooking and that’s why I absolutely love the Bo Bunny kits.  I adore the Countdown to Christmas kit, it was super fast and easy to put together.  I’ve made one and embellished it a bit more than what is in the kit.  I’m showing the entire scrapbook album and the pages so that you can see my “more is more” version.  I’m all set to go, I’ll fill it with my Christmas photos the week following Christmas when everyone is busy playing with their new “toys”. 

Album cover and back.  The zig zag stitching is Kaiser rub ons.

Inside covers, front and back and the front page of the album.  I’ve added brads, the little Christmas tree and some brass hardware.  Each page will be filled with pictures of the 10 things I love about Christmas.

Pages 1 and 2:  I have changed the designs a bit from what is in the kit and have added brass hardware.

Pages 3 and 4 are so adorable!  I used a quickie glue pen to draw on the holly leaves, ornament, and gingerbread man and added glitter.  I used SU’s mat pack to create the faux stitching on the large circle and photo corner on page 4.

I added a lot of extras to pages 5 and 6.  I love the stars, I entwined gold cord around the largest one and added glitter to the embellishments. 

I added the oranments, ribbons, stars, and a boot to pages 7 and 8.  Again, I didn’t exactly follow the instructions that came with the kit, most of the layouts have been altered.  I added faux stitching and glitter.  I like to take these kits and do a “more is more” version.

Pages 9 and 10 were fun to make, I can’t wait to fill these pages with photos of my family.

The final page wraps up the scrapbook. 

Other scrapbook samples can be seen by checking out:  Barb, Jennifer

AJ Otto - The Willow Garden - Are you wrapping gifts yet?  Probably!  I’ll bet you need some pretty tags to dress those packages up — well, be sure to check in on AJ’s Featured Project today to see all her gift tags.  And then play AJ’s challenge so you, too, can have some nice gift tags on hand!!!  Be sure to stop in at AJ’s today!

I love the idea of making gift tags.  Below are tags I designed for gifts for my girlfriends, showing both a close up and a group shot of them.

I was shopping the other day and came across a box of notecards that had a beautiful wreath on the cards.  I bought them, came home and cut the wreaths out using a circle nestibilities.  I used my JustRite stamper and embossed the monogram in gold using Gold Encore ink.  I used a refill bottle of Encor ink and placed it in the JustRite Small 1-Reversible Ink Pad.  I cut the gold and Rose Red scallops using the petite scalloped nestibilties.  I drew around the edge of the monogram and wreath with a pale gold Krylon pen.  I tied gold cord bows and adhered to the front of the tags.  A super simple project that didn’t take long at all.  It’s hard to see in the picture, one of the tags is adhered to a Gold Christmas tree filled with chocolates.  There’s a larger gold bow and red ornament at the top of the tree. 

You can see more tag samples by checking out the blogs of:  Heather, Janine, LeAnne, and Sharon.

Deb Saaranen of  Dream in Color is also offering Blog Candy for us today!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Hi Ladies, I’ll try to be back later today to post my design, I got in late last night from Chicago, totally exhausted.  We had a wonderful time, my son took this picture of me in the snow.  Now I know being out in the snow is no big deal to many of you, but this is only the third time in my life that I’ve seen the stuff and I thought it was absolutely positively wonderful and oh so beautiful!  I so wish it snowed in Florida.  We got snow flurries the first day we were there and a couple of inches the second day.  Daniel and I wanted to make a snowman and soon realized you can’t with fresh snow, it’s too powdery.  Daniel did, however, make a snow ball that landed square in my back.  I could totally be a kid out playing in the snow.  I never got cold . . . maybe it was the excitement.

Today is Day 8 of the Stamp Simply Celebration.  While I don’t have a design to share with you today, I want to let you know that the party continues and hope you visit everyone to see their fabulous designs, join in Julie’s challenge and enter to win the fabulous blog candy that Julie is giving away.

You can see more great examples today from Julie’s designers:  Leslie, Deb, Joan, Barb, Jennifer, Sharon, and Tammy.

Hi Everyone.  Today I’m flying back home to Tampa and hope that I’ll have time to play in tomorrow’s challenge.  I was so hoping I would have a design for you today, but it just didn’t work out with me being away.  I will, however, be posting all week long and have blog candy coming up on December 11.  I’ve done a wonderful Christmas project and will be giving away a kit so that the winner can make the same project, together with a few fun Christmas goodies.  I hope you will continue to celebrate with me all week long as we continue with the Stamp Simply Celebration.

Today is Day 7 of the Stamp Simply Celebration.  While I don’t have a design to share with you today, I want to let you know that the party continues and hope you visit everyone to see their fabulous designs, join in Susan and Dee’s challenges, and enter to win the fabulous blog candy that Sharon and Susan are giving away.

Today’s events:

Blog candy:   Sharon Johnson

Blog candy:   Susan Roberts

Challenge:  Susan Roberts - Gift Card Holders - Be sure to check out the wonderful designs by Susan, and her sample designers: Janine, Jennifer, Darlene, and AJ

Challenge:  Dee Jackson - Food Packaging - Be sure to check out the wonderful designs by Dee, and her sample designers: Sharon, CAT, Jennifer, Darlene, Barb, and Heather 

I would like to extend a big thank you to each of you for visiting my blog and helping us with the Stamp Simply Celebration.

At the end of this first week of Stamp Simply Celebrates I’d like to extend a special thanks to Julie Koerber for sharing the above fabulous Christmas image she made for the Stamp Simply Celebration with us.

A special thanks to Sharon Johnson for very generously sharing her posts and links with the celebration designers.  This celebration would not be possible without Sharon.  There’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes with designing, photographing, posting, blogging and linking.  It takes a lot of coordinating with all the designers, their challenges, their blog candy, etc. and Sharon has worked tirelessly these past several weeks to make this celebration happen.   

Hi Everyone, I hope you’re enjoying day six of the Stamp Simply Celebration.  Today I’ve designed placecards I want to share with you together with a tutorial on how I made the cards without the ribbon showing on the reverse side.  My inspiration for the cards came from one of Debbie Olson’s beautiful designs.  To see all the events going on please visit notimetostamp (Sharon Johnson) and click here to see the information on the tab at the top of the page, above the blog banner, we are calling it Party Central.  Sharon and AJ are both giving away blog candy so you’ll want to visit their blogs.  You don’t want to miss out on all the goodies and festive ideas!  For the next several days there will be challenges, blog candy, and lots of fabulous designs from some fabulous designers to help you prepare for your holiday season.  I’m excited to be a part of this wonderful Christmas celebration and hope that you enjoy it as much as we did working behinds the scenes getting ready for it.  Thank you so much for stopping by. 

Anyone can play any of the challenges by any of the hostesses during our 12 days of Stamp Simply Celebrates!!!  You DO NOT have to have a Blog to play — uploading your project to SCS (Splitcoaststampers.com) is not only permissible, but HIGHLY ENCOURAGED.  When doing so, use the KEYWORD SSC08.

Today’s challenges are being hosted by Heather of Cardz and LeAnne of Wee Inklings.  Their Featured Projects are Table Decor and a Holiday Planner.   If you are uploading your project over at Splitcoaststampers, please use the keyword SSC08 and link back to Heather and LeAnne letting them know you’ve participated.

My table decor theme is poinsettias and holly leaves.  I’ve designed poinsettia placecards  for my table.  This is a close up view of one of the place settings.  The dishes are my Fitz and Floyd Winter Holiday collection.  I bring out the crystal and silver once a year for Christmas. 

This is the full view of my dining room table and decorations.  The large santa and reindeer on the table is part of my Fitz and Floyd Winter Holiday collection.  I purchased the vintage santa standing on the floor beside the buffet several years ago when my children were small.  I used to place him beside the fireplace but now that my guys are older, they don’t like him and I’ve moved him to the dining room.

A close up of the placecard.

The placecard consists of four layers.  I’ve taken a picture of three of the four layers on each placecard. I drew the gold borders on before assembling the layers.  The image on the left is a frame that I cut out using the nestibilities and Wizard.  The second image is a cut out of whisper white paper, cut the same size as the frame.  The third image is the watercolored design that will rest within the frame.

I adhered the frame on top of the whisper white panel.

I then placed dimensionals on the reverse side of the watercolored image.

I’ve placed the watercolored image within the frame.  The panel is raised on the dimensionals, but the dimension is not showing in this picture.  The embossing shows up really well in this picture.

I wrapped 1/4″ gold ribbon on two of the corners and adhered with glue dots.

I placed a fourth panel over the ribbons to hide them.  As you can see, I’ve already drawn the gold border on the panel before placing it over the ribbon.

I’ve now placed the gold bow in the corner adhering it with a glue dot and the place card is finished.  The placecard can stand in a vertical position or lay in a horizontal position.  I didn’t write names on the placecards as I want to use them in future years.

I made twelve of the placecards, below is a group picture.

• Paper:  Chili Pepper Red (Memory Box), Whisper White (SU), Watercolor (Canson)
• Ink:  Versamark
• Accessories:  Tombow markers, heating tool, Ranger Gold/Gold Tinsel EP, watercolor brush, Martha Stewart glitter, 1/4″ gold ribbon (Papertrey, Ink.), 18K gold Krylon pen, nestibilities, wizard, glue dots, glue glider adhesive, Zip Dry adhesive

Be sure and check out the samples made by  Jennifer, Darlene, Joan, and Darlene for Heather’s table decor challenge.

Be sure and check out the samples made by Barb, Janine,  Sharon,  Deb, and Darlene for LeAnne’s holiday planner challenge.

Welcome everyone, today is day four of Stamp Simply Celebration!  To see all the events going on please visit notimetostamp (Sharon Johnson) and click here to see the information on the tab at the top of the page, above the blog banner, we are calling it Party Central.  Sharon and Dee are both giving away blog candy so you’ll want to visit their blogs.  You don’t want to miss out on all the goodies and festive ideas!  For the next several days there will be challenges, blog candy, and lots of fabulous designs from some fabulous designers to help you prepare for your holiday season.  I’m excited to be a part of this wonderful Christmas celebration and hope that you enjoy it as much as we did working behinds the scenes getting ready for it.  Thank you so much for stopping by. 

Anyone can play any of the challenges by any of the hostesses during our 12 days of Stamp Simply Celebrates!!!   You DO NOT have to have a Blog to play — uploading your project to SCS (Splitcoaststampers.com) is not only permissible, but HIGHLY ENCOURAGED.  When doing so, use the KEYWORD SSC08.

Today’s challenge is hosted by Deb Saaranen of Dream in Color.  Deb’s Featured Project is Christmas Note Cards, packaged for gift presentation.   If you are uploading your project over at Splitcoaststampers, please use the keyword SSC08 and link back to Deb letting her know you’ve participated.

I’ve designed Holly Leaf Christmas cards, together with a gift bag for the cards.  I made the bag using Memory Box Chili Pepper Red cardstock, Anna Griffin Holly Leaves DP, and Gold DP from The Paper Company.  To make the bag I cut paper in strips and adhered them together to get the length I needed.  I punched holes on the front and back panels of the bag and attached large gold eyelets using a Crop-a-Dile.  I then attached beautiful gold ribbon to the bag for handles.  After I placed the cards inside the bag, I tied the handles together with gold cord and placed a watercolored holly leaf tag on the bow.

I embossed the panel with an Anna Griffen embossing template.  The green panel underneath the embossed panel is Prism textured cardstock.  I used an 18K gold Krylon pen around the edges of all layers, including the card itself.  I used Martha Stewart glitter on the berries.  The holly leaves were watercolored, cut, and placed on dimensionals.  I tied a very simple bow and attached it to the panel using a Glue Dot.  The panel is on dimensionals as well.  The gold brads are Making Memories brads that I picked up at Michael’s.

I’ve included a couple of pictures to show you the cards in bulk.

This photo gets in a little closer to show a little more detail.  I included it in this post because it shows the gold edges in more detail than the cards above.

• Paper:  Naturals Ivory, Very Vanilla, Anna Griffin Holly Leaves, Prism Green Textured Cardstock, Watercolor Paper, Gold DP from The Paper Company, Chili Pepper Red DP from Memory Box (Ellen Hutson’s store)
• Ink: Versamark
• Accessories:  Tombow markers, watercolor brush, heating tool, craft knife, Ranger Gold/Gold Tinsel EP, Martha Stewart glitter, dimensionals, cutting mat, gold brads, gold ribbon (Papertrey, Ink), 18K gold Krylon pen, Scor-It, large eyelets, Crop-a-Dile, Glue Glider Pro, gold cord, tissue paper, Anna Griffin embossing template, Wizard

Be sure and check out these fabulous samples:  Jennifer, AJ, Tammy, Janine, and Julie

Hi everyone.  I was so hoping I would have designs to show you today, but it just didn’t work out.  I’m going to Chicago tomorrow and have not had time to get these projects completed and blogged.  I do, however, have projects that will be posting tomorrow and Saturday.  Please stop by to see what I designed for the challenges on those days.

Today is the third day of the Stamp Simply Christmas celebration.  While I don’t have anything to share with you today, I want to let you know that the party continues and hope you visit everyone to see their fabulous designs, join in the challenges, and enter to win blog candy.

Today’s events:

Blog candy:  Joan

Blog candy:   Jennifer

Challenge and Featured Project:  Tammy Hershberger of Stamp Happy.  Tammy’s Featured Project is making Christmas cards in mass production.  You’ll want to hop over to Tammy’s blog to check out her fabulous cards, as well as those of her sample makers, Darlene, AJ, Leslie, and Barb. 

Thanks for stopping by!  Please stop by tomorrow, I’ll have some very pretty designs for you.

Hello everyone!  Today is the second day day of the Stamp Simply Christmas celebration.  I don’t have anything to share with you today, but I wanted to let you know that the party continues and hope you visit everyone to see their fabulous designs, join in the challenges, and enter to win blog candy.

Today’s events:

Blog candy:  Sharon

Blog candy:   Janine

Challenge and Featured Project:  Darlene Pavlick of Dar’s Crafty Creations.  Darlene’s Featured Project is making Christmas post cards.  You’ll want to hop over to Darlene’s to check out her post cards, as well as those of her sample makers, Leslie, CAT, Janine, Heather, Dee, and LeAnne. 

Becky Oehlers of Hemidemisemiquaver Design is featuring some fabulous over-the-top gift packaging ideas, as well as blog candy.

Welcome everyone, today is day one of Stamp Simply Celebration!  To see all the events going on please visit notimetostamp (Sharon Johnson) and click here to see the information on the tab at the top of the page, above the blog banner, we are calling it Party Central.  Sharon and Janine are both giving away blog candy so you’ll want to visit their blogs.  You don’t want to miss out on all the goodies and festive ideas!  For the next twelve days there will be challenges, blog candy, and lots of fabulous designs from some fabulous designers to help you prepare for your holiday season.  I’m excited to be a part of this wonderful Christmas celebration and hope that you enjoy it as much as we did working behinds the scenes getting ready for it.  Thank you so much for stopping by. 

Anyone can play any of the challenges by any of the hostesses during our 12 days of Stamp Simply Celebrates!!!   You DO NOT have to have a Blog to play — uploading your project to SCS (Splitcoaststampers.com) is not only permissible, but HIGHLY ENCOURAGED.  When doing so, use the KEYWORD SSC08.

Today’s challenge is hosted by Janine Orchard.  Janine is hostessing a cookie recipe exchange.  It’s quite simple, simply choose your favorite recipe, bake, package, add a tag or card (in my case a spatula), and post the recipe.  You have one week to complete your project.  Please see Janine’s blog for further instructions.  If you are uploading your project over at Splitcoaststampers, please use the keyword SSC08 and link back to Janine letting her know you’ve participated.

I’ve baked my favorite cookies, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies.  My mom made these cookies for me when I was growing up and now I make them for my kids.  If you’re a peanut butter fan, these cookies are a must try!

This was super simple, super fast to make!  I embossed a  poinsettia, cut it in half, watercolored it and then adhered it to the panels.  I used the large nestibilities to cut the panels.  The recipe was typed on my computer and printed out on Whisper White cardstock, then cut with the nestibilities as well.  I outlined each panel with a Krylon 18K gold pen.  I embossed holly leaves, watercolored them, and cut them out and adhered to the bag using glue dots.  A strip of 5/8″ grosgrain ribbon was tied around the bag and a miniature spatula was inserted into the tie.  A super easy project with a beautiful presentation!

• Ink:  Versamark
• Paper:  Kaiser Christmas DP, Garden Green, Whisper White
• Accessories:  Computer, Kaiser jewels, 18K gold Krylon pen, nestibilities, wizard, miniature spatula, craft knife, heating tool, Ranger gold/gold tinsel EP, watercolor brush, Tombow markers, red 5/8″ grosgrain ribbon, coffee bag

Check out Janine Orchard’s sample here.

Check out Darlene Pavlick’s sample here.

Check out Jennifer Buck’s sample here.

Check out Deb Saaranen’s sample here.

Check out AJ Otto’s sample here.

Check out Barb Shram’s sample here.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe:

• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 bag chocolate chips
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 cup plain flour

Directions:

Cream together the peanut butter, butter, sugar, and eggs.  Add in tightly packed brown sugar, salt, vanilla, and baking powder.  Now add in the flour, 1/3 cup at a time, once flour has all been added, stir in the bag of chocolate chips (I use the small bag of Hershey’s chocolate chips.  I’ve also tried mint chocolate chips and white chocolate chips, both are fabulous.).  Bake on a cookie.  The amount of time will vary on what size you make your cookies. I like to place my dough in the frig for a couple of hours, they don’t flatten out when baking if they are first chilled.  For this batch I used about 1/4 cup of dough for each cookie and baked for 18 minutes.

Hi everyone,

Well, we’re at the end of my 2008 calendar.  I hope you’ve enjoyed it and that I’ve inspired you to pull out your stamps and get creative.  I hope to make another one in the coming year and will delightfully share it with you.  If I can get up the energy, I’ll do tutorials as I go along since I’ve had so many viewers that have wanted to make a similar calendar. 

I love Halloween, it’s one of my favorite holidays.  I have many wonderful memories of my children dressed in their adorable little Halloween costumes. We dressed up when they were little, I made most of their costumes.  Stephen was the most adorable pea in a pea pod costume his first year.  I’ll never forget how we dressed the boys as baby skunks, way too cute, what a response we got.  We always decorated our house and yard with all sorts of lights and decorations, usually Pooh bear decorations, I didn’t want to frighten the little tykes.  I usually dressed as Little Bo Beep and sat outside at a decorated table with a huge caldren filled with candy for the kids to dip into. We always had a huge round aluminum tub filled with apples for apple bobbing.  Whoever got an apple could choose an extra large candy bar of their choice.  We normally got well over 500 trick-or-treaters. 

So, when it came to October, I just had to go with Halloween for my October calendar theme.  My favorite part of this page is the witch.  She looks like she’s going to fly right off the page.

November 29 is my birthday and we’re usually celebrating it during the Thanksgiving holiday.  I chose to go with a Thanksgiving theme for the November page, keeping with the Fall holiday themes.

We have wild turkeys that roam our backyard and I have to tell you turkeys are not very pretty birds, well except for the little chicks, they’re adorable as they follow their mamas around.  I decided to go a bit whimsical with this guy using Fall colors in his plumage.  My husband’s favorite part of the page is the Fall leaves. I can’t say that I have a favorite part, I like the overall image with the Fall colors.

I dedicate this page to our Father.

December .   .   . the final month of my  calendar.  All good things must come to an end .   .   . I was so happy to finally be at this point in the project, but I think a little sad as well.  For so long I had planned on designing this calendar and now it’s finished.

O Holy Night!  I think of that beautiful song every time I view this page.  In designing it, I wanted to stay within the true meaning of Christmas, keeping all commercial aspects out of it.  I used two stamps for the design, a beautiful angel and a poinsettia cluster with holly.  I stamped the angel first and then stamped the poinsettia spray around her and the edges of the paper. When attempting the background wash, I tried to make it appear as if the Heavens were aglow with the splendor of what had just occured.  The angel has such a beautiful face, I see her coming down from the Heavens heralding the birth of our dear Savior.  All Glory to the newborn King!

• Paper:  Pumpkim Pie, Handsome Hunter, , Basic Black, Canson watercolor 140 lbs. coldpress 
• Ink:  Versamark
• Accessories:  Versamarker, watercolor brush, heating tool, Ranger EP, gold/gold tinsel, velcro, dimensionals, Towbow markers, Barely Banana, Sage Shadow, Mellow Moss markers (SU)