Halloween Treats

Hi All!!!  I took a break from Christmas preparations and put together some goodie bags to give away to little ghosts and goblins that come ringing the doorbell on the 31st.  I just love this time of year, the leaves are changing colours and look absolutely beautiful, Christmas is around the corner and with it comes a season of love, joy, and lots of time with family and friends, then there's Halloween where the little kidlets come out and are so cute dressed up in the costumes.  Totally CUTE!!  Anyways here's what I've put together with help from my two big guys:

Aren't they cute??  The box was cut out using the SU MatchBox Die.  My oldest son assembled the lids of the boxes and punched out the scallop circles while my second son stamped all the images and punched out the coloured circles.  I assembled the base of the box and punched out the images since it was a little trickier.  We had so much fun and it was great quality mom and son(s) time!  We put together 148 boxes and filled them with chocolate.  They will each be taking 32 to school to give to their friends, classmates, and teachers.  The rest of the boxes are packaged up with some other treats that we'll be giving away to the kids that come to the door.  Here's a pic:

What do you think?

Thanks for looking!

Christmas In October

As mentioned in my previous post, I'm getting a start on my Christmas cards.  I really need to get myself organized so that I'm not rushing and stressing out at the last minute, besides, I'm having fun experimenting with my Copics since I am fairly new to the colouring world.



These two cards were made using the CC Designs Santa Birgitta image and coloured in with Copics.  The dsp was a gift from my friend Paola who was sweet enough to send some to me.

This little lady is the CC Designs Christmas Emma, also coloured in with Copics.  Once again the dsp was a gift from Paola (I know, isn't she awesome!?)

What do you think?

Thanks for looking!

Getting A Jump On Christmas

So in between getting things ready for Thanksgiving, I've been playing with my Copics and have made a few Christmas cards.  I have to make about 40-50 of them so I decided that I was going to try and stay ahead of the game.  Seems to be working....for now! lol

These two cards were made with Ornament Trevor by CC Designs.  The dsp on the first card was a scrap piece that I had laying around so I don't know the name of the company (sorry) and the second one is from my dear friend Paola who was kind enough to send me a few sheets when she joined my swap on SCS.

What do you think?

Thanks for looking!

Giving Thanks!

I've been crazy busy with preparations for Thanksgiving (for us Canadian folks, it's in October).  Here's a card that I made for my wonderful friends at our last get together, it is also the card that I will be giving to my family for Thanksgiving.  There's been way too much going on to come up with 20 different designs and besides, I don't have many Thanksgiving sets.

The pumpkin and leaves are from SU's Fall Whimsy set, the word "grateful" is from Small Script , and the "For You" is from Happy Everything.  I coloured the images with my Copics and hand cut them out, then popped the pumpkin up with dimentionals.  I sponged the Whisper White layer with Crumb Cake ink and layered it onto Early Espresso cardstock. 

What do you think?

Thanks for looking!

August Get Together

WOW!  I guess I work in spurts!  I had a pretty good run there and then I've been awol for almost a month!  Once again, life got hectic with back to school and routine changes, it just took me awhile to get back into the groove of things, but I think we're almost there. 

I can't believe where the time is going!  So you know how I keep mentioning a group of friends that I meet on SCS?  Well August was our get-together-versary...I can't believe that it's already been a year and at the same time it's only been a year.  Does that make any sense?  Let me clarify...I mean time is moving so quickly that I can't believe it's already been a year (that part's pretty self-explainatory) and yet I feel as though I've known some of these women my whole life since we've become pretty close so I can't believe it's only been a year.  I know..so sappy.  Anyways..here's a picture of those of us that made it out:

Starting from the bottom left corner and working clockwise: Me, Dion, Michelle, Suzanne, Karen, Ina, Krissie, Teresa, and Christyne.  Karen, Teresa, Christyne, and I are the original four (I think I've mentioned that somewhere before) and the others were welcomed addition to our group.  I hope that I get the chance to meet many more wonderful ladies through this crazy (and expensive..lol) hobby of mine. 



Child's Birthday Card Swap

I am participating in a card swap on Splitcoaststampers that's for Cute Children's Birthday Cards.  There's still plenty of time to join since the due date isn't until December 1st, 2010.  We're supposed to make 6 cards per spot and we'll get 5 back, the plus one is always for the hostess, but in this case the hostess will be donating all her cards to The Ronald McDonald House Southern Alberta Charity.  I think this is such a great and worthy cause, so much so that I joined up for 2 spots and am thinking of just making a bunch of cards so that she can send along with the ones she's donating.  Here are the cards that I've made for my two spots:

I used SU's Make a Monster set for this card and used my Copics to colour it in.  I'm trying to use up all my retired colours so the cardbase here is Ballet Blue, and the dsp is mounted on Apricot Appeal.  There's also a bit of Certainly Celery on the card, I know it's not retired but I just had to tie in the little green monster.

This one is a Cricut creation using the Disney cartridge.  I finished putting Mickey together but didn't really like all the white space so I decided to cut out a huge head in Real Red cs and I think it gives the card the finishing touch.

What do you think?

Thanks for looking!

Cricut Card

I finally got to play with the Cricut and I am hooked!!  My dear friend Suzanne brought over her baby for me to play with when we had our girls' stamping weekend and OMG!  I knew that it was amazing and could do so many things, but I didn't know what I was missing!  I am guilty of thinking that I have the Big Shot so there really is no need for another die cutting machine, but the Cricut truly is in a league of its own.  There really is no comparison.  Lol..I sound like an ad for the Cricut.  So after I had to part with it when the weekend was over, DH said that I could get my own (I know, I'm a spoiled brat)...woohoo!!  So I will be the proud owner of the chirping bug this weekend!!  But in the mean time, here's the very first project I made:

This card was made and given to our friend Karen who had ordered Chow Mein one night for dinner and instead of getting noodles, she got a styrofoam container full of bean sprouts.  When she called the restaurant to complain she was told that Chow Mein is bean sprouts and if she wanted noodles then she would have to pay extra.  Ummm...she's Chinese (and so am I) so we can confidently say that Chow Mein translated means Fried NOODLES!  Lol...so we (Suzanne and Christyne) thought it was quite funny and fitting that she get this card.

Here's the noodles that she didn't get with her order!

What do you think?

Thanks for looking!

An Italian Wedding

I took a little break from all the scrapbooking and have made some cards!  DH had a request from a collegue for a wedding card, she didn't want to have a card that anyone else would have.  The catch is that the wedding is in Italy so obviously the card had to be in Italian.  Well, since I'm not Italian, google translator was my best friend for this project.  Hopefully the translation is right!

The translation is "Congratulations on your Wedding Day", or at least I hope it is.  The background is embossed with SU's Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder.  I used the small image stamp from SU's Artistic Etchings set to stamp the smaller white layer.  The birds are from Asian Influence set, stamped with Basic Black ink, punched out with the 1 3/4" circle punch and mounted onto a 2 3/8" scallop circle.  The greeting is computer generated, although was inspired by Occasional Quotes (if only it was available in Italian).

And this translate to "Love begins in a moment, grows over time, and lasts an eternity" (again...at least I hope it does) also inspired by the Occasional Quotes set.

What do you think?

Thanks for looking!

SCS Friends

For July's get together, we went to Red Lobster for our monthly outing.  Originally there were supposed to be 11 of us going but unfortunately 3 couldn't make it for various reasons, so there were 8 of us that night. But by the time I realized that I should take a picture of the group, Krissie had already left.  Sorry Krissie!!  It wasn't intentional!

So starting from the bottom left and working my way clockwise, there's Dion, Suzanne, Karen, Teresa, Christyne, and Michelle.  Dion is the newest of the bunch and that was actually the first night we met her.  She went MIA for a few days after this gathering so we thought we scared her away, but she came back...lol, I guess we're not that scary/crazy.  Suzanne joined the group a few months ago and there's a funny story about Orangeville and 4 Asian women...but that would take too long to tell..lol.  Karen, Teresa, Christyne and I were the first to meet in person and I'd like to think of us as the 'founders' of the group..hehehe.  And Michelle joined us shortly after the 'original four' met and has not yet left, further proof that we're not that scary/crazy!  August 26th will mark the first anniversary of our get togethers!  I can't believe how time flies!

Anything To Do With Moving Swap

A little while back I participated in my friend Karen's swap over on SplitCoastStampers and forgot to take a picture of my card.  Luckily for me, Christyne also participated in this swap and received one of my cards as one of her return cards at our last get together, so I swiped it from her for a quick second and snapped a picture.

I really liked the way this card turned out but it took FOREVER to stamp all these little houses.  The swap requirement was 5+1, so 9 little cubes x 6 cards is a lot of little houses to stamp.  I tried freehanding the roofs but in the end figured that the roof of a house needs to actually be ON the house.  So for this project the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig was my best friend.  The set used was part of this year's Sale-A-Bration called "Good Neighbours". 

What do you think?

Thanks for looking!

Barbados Scrapbook ~ Part 5

Yay!  Halfway done!  Once I finish the first copy then I can move on to reproducing it...times 5!  Yep, by the end of it, there will be a total of 6 copies.  One for my parents-in-law, one for us, and one for each of dh's siblings.  These pages are of my dh's older sister and her family with their parents.

This layout took me forever to come up with but I think it's my favourite so far.  I really like the way the Kiwi Kiss and the Rich Razzleberry look together, too bad SU didn't bring back Kiwi Kiss though.  And I love mounting things on black, it just make the colours pop.  I didn't put a title or journalling yet, and am debating whether or not I am going to (not really sure where I'd put it, perhaps along the top or the bottom?)

Thanks for looking!

ps. sorry for the glare on the pictures, I guess the white background really reflected the light! (this was taken without the flash too!)

Barbados Scrapbook ~ Part 4

So I think I got my scrapbooking mojo back and was able to complete a few more pages...woohoo!  Maybe these will get done before too long afterall.  These pages are of my parents-in-law before we went to dinner.  Aren't they cute?

I used the Schoolbook Serif Numbers and Alphabet sets to stamp the title in Real Red ink.  And the saying is part of the Define Your Life set.  It's the definition of "together" and it reads "You and me, lonely no more. With one another, inseparable.  In harmony, in sync."

Thanks for looking!

Happy Birthday To A Dear Friend

It was my friend Ina's birthday on Friday, but I didn't have a chance to see her.  I thought that I was going to see her the following Monday so I decided not to put her card in the mail, but rather deliver it to her in person.  But unfortunately that didn't work out, so now it is on its way to her via snail mail.  Hopefully she gets it before too long.

Anyways, if you ever have the chance to meet this wonderful woman, you will come to realize what I have, she is the most generous, unselfish, and thoughtful person that you could ever meet.  And lucky ol' me gets to call her a friend. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY INA!

I used a brand new set from the new SU catalogue, Butterfly Prints.  I inked up the butterflies using Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue, and Apricot Appeal, then punched them out with the Butterfly Punch.  The 1 1/4" squares were punched out in the same coloured cardstock then mounted on 1 3/8" Basic Gray squares.  I used Barely Banana as my card base, and the DSP was from last year's Sale-A-Bration as was the ribbon.

What do you think?

Thanks for looking!

Java Minute? Coffee Swap

I'm participating in my friend Christyne's swap over on Splitcoaststampers.  It's an all about coffee swap...coffee beans, coffee cups, coffee pots. The challenge is to make a card where the focal point is coffee related.  Here's the card that I came up with:

The image and sentiment are from SU's Font of You set.  I used the direct to rubber technique for the coffee mug image, colouring the mug with my Rose Red marker and the inside of the mug and steam with Chocolate Chip.  I used my Nesties to cut out the image, Chocolate Chip and Rose Red ovals, and my swirly tag.  The sentiment was punched out with SU Word Window punch.  I chose Rose Red for my card base, and the DSP was mounted on Chocolate Chip.  I think the flowers add a nice little touch.  Isn't the sentiment so cute??

What do you think?

Thanks for looking!

Ladies' Nite Out Pillow Box Treats

Tonight I'm going out to dinner at Red Lobster with my friends that I met on Splitcoaststampers!  Woohoo!  I can't wait!!  Tonight's group is to be the biggest group yet!  There were originally 12 of us going but 2 can't make it so there will be 10.  Here are the goodies that I made for everyone:

I made these using the SU Pillow Box Die.  Then I punched out the windows using the Large Oval Punch, stamped it with the "with love" stamp from one of last year's Sale-A-Bration sets called Yummy, adhered some acetate to the back of the windows, closed it up, and added the little white bow.  These boxes perfectly fit 5 Kerr's Fruit candies.

Here's a close up:

What do you think?

Thanks for looking!

Bestest SIL's Birthday Card

We just got back from a 5 day weekend at the cottage.  The weather was AMAZING and we couldn't have been more suprised since the weather doesn't usually co-operate when we plan outdoor functions, outings, trips, etc... Life had just gotten so hectic with "end of school" things and the frenzy to get teachers' gifts completed, planning summer activities, and both my older boys birthdays fall in July so there's invites to get ready before school lets out, that we decided to just get away from it all for a few days and do absolutely nothing but spend quality family time together, and that was exactly what we did.  But now back to reality...before we left and amongst that craziness I did manage to make my wonderful sister in law a birthday card.

What do you think?

Thanks for looking.

25th Anniversary Card

My husband's older sister and her husband have been married for 25 years!  Between that and his parents' 50th anniversary this year it has really been a year of love and meaning.  In this day and age, it is almost unheard of to celebrate such milestones so it really does make me appreciate and value all that I have.  I know that there are "horror stories" about in-laws but I have been lucky enough to be blessed with in laws that are truly some of the best people that I know.  So loving, accepting, and generous....who could ask for anything more?

Anyhoo...moving on to the crafty side of things...here is the card that I made for the wonderful couple to celebrate such a incredible point in their lives.

I am just loving this pack of dsp...go figure that it's retired now...lol.

And here is the card and gift package that I put together for my parents to give to the happy couple.

I know it's a little hard to see but there is a porcelain plate that says "25th Happy Anniversary" and a set of 6 crystal liquer glasses with silver detail rims.

What do you think?

Thanks for looking.

Barbados Scrapbook ~ Part 3

These pages are of where we went for dinner to celebrate my parents in law's anniversary.  We went on their actual anniversay and the vow ceremony was the day after.  Since their anniversary fell on Easter Sunday and with Barbados being a very religious country, we couldn't get a bishop to come to the resort to have the ceremony.  It was all very touching all the same.

The restaurant is called The Cliff.  It was the most beautiful restaurant I've ever been to and the food was absolutely scrumptious.  If I could, I'd go back to Barbados just to go to that restaurant again.  The restaurant was situated onto of the cliff that overlooked the ocean.  The sun was setting while we were there and it was one of the most breathtaking scenes I have ever seen.

Thanks for looking.

Barbados Scrapbook ~ Part 2

For the next couple of posts, I'm going to be posting pages from our Barbados scrapbook.  I'm hoping to have the book finished by the end of June so that I can give a copy to DH's parents and siblings. Yep..that's right...that'll be a total of 6 scrapbooks that I have to make.  Luckily they will all be the same so the hard part will be done. So these next two pages are of the entire family after the renewal ceremony.

There were 19 of us all together, ages ranging from 70 to 1 years old.  I am so lucky and blessed to be part of such a wonderful family. 

Thanks for looking.

Barbados Scrapbook ~ Part 1

A few posts ago, I mentioned that we took a family trip to Barbados to celebrate DH's parents' 50th anniversary.  It was truly a wonderful and touching experience.  To witness two people who have gone through so much together and love each other and their family so much is truly an inspiration to me.  It really opened my eyes to what's really important in life.  I mean, a person can have the most expensive clothes, the biggest house, the coolest car, and so much money in the bank that they've lost count but if they don't have the love of their family, does that all matter?  I don't think so.  So this first layout is the vow ceremony.  It's on a two page spread (a lot of pages in this book are) since there were so many special moments that I just had to make all the pictures fit.  There's a total of 15 different pictures on these two pages.

Oops...the picures are too big to fit side by side.  I was thinking that I needed to add something, possibly some journalling or a title but as you can see there's really no room.  Thoughts?

Thanks for looking.

Care Package

About a month ago, a friend of mine underwent a hysterectomy.  She's quite the busy little bee so when she was told that she couldn't do anything but relax for about 6 weeks she went just a little bit stir crazy.  I'm sure it's easier said than done but she managed to fully recover in record time.  So I put together a little something for her to make doing nothing a little bit easier.  What better way to indulge than with chocolate, right? 

Purdy's Hedgehogs are so yummy...if you've never had em, you have got to try them.

Here's the card that I made for her.  The grass image is from Stampin Up's Inspired By Nature set.  I absolutely LOVE this set.  You can make a card in under 10 minutes with this set and it's almost guaranteed to be stunning.  Definately can't go wrong. 

This is her care package all together.

Thanks for looking.

Girls' Nite Out

So I'm really on a roll now...first no posts for about two months and now two posts back to back.  Hopefully this is a start to regular posting! 

Anyhoo...tonight I went out with a few wonderful women that share the same passion as I do (of course I'm talking about stamping).  We try to meet at least once a month for dinner, gossip, and fun.  It started as a group of four at our first outing but has quickly turned into a group of at least a dozen, although I don't think there has been an outing that all of us were able to make it to.  Hopefully that'll change next month since we'll be celebrating Christyne's birthday...WOOHOO!!!  So for tonight's outing we went to Wild Wings, if you've never been and are a wings person, you HAVE to go.  They have every sauce and flavour that you could dream of...YUMMY!!  This is the prezzie that I made to give to my stamping ladies:

This is a picture of the front and back of the hearts.  I bought the Stamin Up Petal Die so long ago but just haven't used it yet.  But when I came across a tutorial on how to make this I just knew that I had to get crafting.

This is a close up view of the the "heart basket" standing up.

The inside view filled with goodies.

All lined up and ready to go...

Thanks for looking!

Catching Up

Holy Toledo!  It's been a while since I've updated this blog.  Life just had a way of getting away from me this last couple of months.  Shortly after my last post we went away on our first ever "airplane family vacation".  With two kids still in diapers, let me tell you, it was definately an interesting trip.  We took 9 bags/luggages, and one whole one was dedicated to diapers and wipes.  It was my parents in laws 50th anniversary so the entire family went to Barbados for a week...definately a great trip!  Upon our return there was 100 loads of laundry to do (or so it seemed) and just playing catch up.  So with that said, let's get onto the crafty side of things.  Here's the card that I made for my dear friend Christyne's swap that she's hosting on Splitcoaststampers:

The swap is called April Showers Bring May Flowers, it's an all flower swap, anything goes as long as the main image is a flower.  I used the scallop circle to punch out my flowers and used my paper snips to cut the lines to make the petals.  I love how easy yet beautiful it all turned out.

Thanks for looking

Easter Treats

Life has been so hectic for me lately that I haven't really had time to post and I apologize.  I promise when life settles down I'll try and update regularly, but in the meantime here's a quick posting.  Since Easter is just a few short days away, here are the treats that I made for my kids' classes.  The boys helped me assemble them and punch out the tags where they signed their names.

Here's a front view of them all together.

All lined up!

Close up!

Top view!  There's a total of 71!

Thanks for looking!

First Stamp A Stack of 2010

With Stampin' Up's Sale-A-Bration event going on right now, I figured that I'd take advantage of it by hosting a workshop.  A few hours of stamping with friends and FREE products to boot, I'd say that's a pretty sweet deal.

The theme for this workshop will be Easter and Birthdays.  For those that are attending who don't give out Easter cards, the images and sentiments can be replaced with Thank You ones.

Here's a look at the Easter/Thank You cards:

This one is a cutie!  I just love the diagonal dsp and the bunny rabbit.  The big fat bow just finishes it off nicely.















This was my first attempt at panelling.  I've seen it done and really like the effect that it gives without too much effort.















This card is my ABSOLUTE favourite out of the bunch!  The new corner and edge punch just gives the card so much more life!

Here are the birthday cards:

With so many stamps and cards leaning towards the feminine side, I thought I'd try to offer some "gender neutral" cards.  I just love the versatility of this set.














This card idea was case'd from my dear friend Paola, who was kind enough to let me use it.  Thanks Paola!! I changed the layout around a little from the original but the concept is the same. 













So with two pretty masculine cards, I just had to throw a really girly one into the mix.  Can I just say, "Oh My Gawd!!" I am in LOVE with this new embosslit!!  It's so stinking cute!


















Thanks for looking!