Cozy Rosy Christmas

Good AFTERNOON, y'all, I got a late start today : )  We're going to do game night tonight with friends and I volunteered to provide dessert, so I'm baking some things for that and my house smells like gingerbread, at least the downstairs does, which is much better than it smelling like the sealer the hubs used on the floor of our shower.  The hubs has finished sealing it (I think) and so now we just need to reinstall the glass wall and door and then we can USE that shower for the first time in three months.

Anyway, here is today's card:

I started with the inspiration challenge from Hand Stamped Sentiments:

I zeroed in immediately on the center picture, the pitcher with the roses and pine cones, which made me think of the Holly Berry Bouquet DSP.  And then I got stuck until I looked through some old sketches from Freshly Made Sketches and came across this one:

And then my card came together pretty quickly.  I'm a little too late to enter this at Retro Rubber but I'm mentioning it anyway:

This time I did the diagonal, with dies - greenery - ribbon.  I am continuing my trend of using older retired stamps:  Cozy Christmas (the greeting) is 9 years old, and To a Wild Rose is 5 years old, so both retro.  And of course my DSP is retro too : ) and so is the ribbon.  Just retro all around.

That's it for me today, peeps.  I need to frost the gingerbread bars and bake the Oreo cheesecake cookie dough that I made this morning before I took Daphne out for a walk.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Cozy Christmas, To A Wild Rose
Ink:  Real Red, Wild Wasabi, Chocolate Chip, Versamark
Paper:  Real Red, Chocolate Chip, Thick Basic White, Holly Jolly Bouquet DSP
Accessories:  Wild Rose dies, Stylish Shapes dies, White EP, white 3/8" taffeta, Dimensionals

CAS Christmas, Part 1

So I mentioned yesterday that the hubs asked me to make 65 Christmas cards for his work...well, more like winter holiday cards, not Christmas specific.  I managed to make ALLLLLLL of them yesterday.  I did five cards which are all basically the same one-layer CAS design, I just used different stamps so I only made 13 of each card.  That made me feel like I was making progress when I switched to a different design, and it kept me from completely running out of any single color of cardstock since I hadn't specifically planned for this project.  I have a very large stamp collection, so it took me quite some time to go through all my winter stamps and settle on images and sentiments for the five designs.  Almost all the stamps I ended up choosing are retired.

Here's card #1!  I used the cute cabin image from Cozy Christmas and a sentiment from the still current set Poinsettia Petals on Crumb Cake cardstock.

This was actually design #5 but I wanted to pair these two together and share the other three designs later this week.  For this one I used Serene Snowflakes and Hugs & Wishes for the greeting.  Inside of both of these designs I stamped "Season's Greetings" from Bright & Beautiful.

Very simple design, but it had to be for me to make 65 cards in a single day, and I think they're still reasonably cute.  Now I just need to sign the insides of them and see what the hubs wants as far as envelopes...

Have a great day, y'all!

Supplies for first card, all SU!
Stamps:  Cozy Christmas, Poinsettia Petals, Bright & Beautiful
Ink:  Shaded Spruce, Early Espresso
Paper:  Crumb Cake
Accessories:  None

Supplies for second card, all SU!
Stamps:  Serene Snowflakes, Hugs & Wishes, Bright & Beautiful
Ink:  Fresh Freesia, Balmy Blue
Paper:  Thick Basic White
Accessories:  None

Merry Texas Christmas Y'all! (2004)

Merry Christmas, y'all!

As promised last week, here are the layouts from Christmas in Texas in 2004.  I had *lots* of pictures from that year so I made two layouts.  Also, check out my title--the "Merry Christmas Y'all!" is one stamp, so I stamped the words and cut them apart and inserted the TEXAS right in the middle.  I felt so smart when I did that ;) I cut out some of the flower motifs in the patterned paper to use as page accents too.

This rose pattern is in the same pack of DSP, and I chose it especially because my mom was wearing that shirt with giant red roses on it.  I've been hoarding that paper for YEARS and I'm glad I finally found the perfect place to use it! (And I still have more of it left.)  I also used the Cozy Christmas stamp set which I love.

What's funny to me is I'm working on more Christmas layouts, and I almost used the same sketch I used on this one.  But then I found a different sketch to use.  Not that anyone but me would know anyway!

Today's color palette:  Wild Wasabi, Real Red, Baja Breeze (still my favorite), Chocolate Chip, and Very Vanilla.

Supplies, first layout:
Stamps:  Deadbeat Designs
Ink:  Chocolate Chip
Paper:  Wild Wasabi, Real Red, Baja Breeze, Thick Very Vanilla, Holly Jolly Bouquet DSP
Accessories:  Circles Collection Framelits

Supplies, second layout:
Stamps:  Cozy Christmas
Ink:  Chocolate Chip, Baja Breeze
Paper:  Real Red, Wild Wasabi, Baja Breeze, Thick Very Vanilla, Holly Jolly Bouquet DSP
Accessories:  None

Christmas Day 2003

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  We're going way back in time to the first Christmas after hubs and I got married in 2003.

Sometimes I hem and haw for ages trying to pick out cardstock colors, patterned paper, and stamps to use on a particular layout.  Other times (and I wish this happened more often), I know exactly what I want to do as soon as I pull out the pictures.  This one was one of those happy times so this layout came together lickety-split.  Yay!  It's fun to look at older pictures like this too and see how much I remember of what was going on.  I do remember that Kitchenaid mixer that my in-laws gave me for Christmas that year, we still have it although it's a bit worse for wear for having been carted hither and yon as hubs and I move around the world.  But it still works and gets used on the regular.  I just had to wait a few years for SU! to come out with a stand mixer stamp to use on this layout, haha!

Today's colors are Primrose Petals (retired), Night of Navy, Always Artichoke, Certainly Celery (retired), Sage Shadow (retired), and Whisper White.  The three greens are all in the patterned paper and while I would never in a million years have combined them on my own, I do love that pack o' paper.

That's it for me today, y'all.  Christmas cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Cozy Christmas, Yummy Little Christmas
Ink:  Certainly Celery, Always Artichoke, Night of Navy marker
Paper:  Primrose Petals, Always Artichoke, Night of Navy,  Whisper White, Wintergreen DSP
Accessories:  None

It's Not Magic, It's the Force!

SO EXCITED that we're going to see the new Star Wars movie tonight!  And again tomorrow night, 'cause that's how I roll.  I'm not going in costume, but my brother is so I hope I get to see pics.

But you're here for the card today, right?  Right.

It's not magic, it's the Force.  It surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together.  Like duct tape, only cooler.

I'm such a nerd.

Srsly though, I do like how this card turned out.  I started with the color combo from Fab Friday:

Then I combined it with the sketch from Freshly Made and this card was done in about 10 minutes.  The only thing I wish I'd done differently is I wish I'd used shimmery white cardstock for a bit of sparkle.

I suppose since this card came together so fast that I could go back and make another one, but I'm too busy geeking out about the Star Wars premiere tonight.  May the Force be with you, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Cozy Christmas
Ink:  Pool Party, Mossy Meadow, Real Red
Paper:  Pool Party, Mossy Meadow, Early Espresso, Whisper White
Accessories:  Sleigh Ride Edgelits

Blue Christmas

Day 3 of Christmas cards.  Is it January yet?

BAH HUMBUG.

But I made a Christmas card anyway because I just couldn't resist the color challenge at Cupcake Inspirations:

I used Tempting Turquoise (just a smidge), Night of Navy, and some gold foil paper.  Those ornament cupcakes are SO pretty.

I also used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And I realized this morning that my card works with the Paper Players tic-tac-toe challenge too, happy accident.

I've got snowflakes on the patterned paper, sparkle or shine with the gold foil and gold EP, and I used the Banners Framelits for the sentiment panel.  Hey, it even works across the middle to use blue, shiny stuff, and embossing.  Or down the right side to do white, embossing, and a die cut.  Dang, I'm a tic-tac-toe queen and I didn't even know it.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Cozy Christmas
Ink:  Versamark, Night of Navy, Tempting Turquoise
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Night of Navy, gold foil, Season of Cheer DSP
Accessories:  Gold EP, clear EP, Banners Framelits

Cozy Christmas Wishes

I think the Christmas decorating gene skipped me.  It's December 2, people all around us have lights up on their balconies and I spy a few Christmas trees through the curtains (they're lit up, I'm not being a peeping Tom-ette).  Me?  Nada.  It just seems like such a hassle.  (Sorry, Mom.)

Maybe I should just wallpaper the house with Christmas cards...

Today's Christmas card is brought to you by the Global Design Project.

Classic Christmas colors; I added some Chocolate Chip for contrast.  This card took me a lot longer than it should have...the main panel was easy enough, even using markers to ink up all the parts of the Christmas Wishes stamp, but then the card needed some more red.  The flowers are from a past Paper Pumpkin kit and it took me forever to watercolor them...and actually I did it with a combination of watercoloring with the Aquapainter and using a marker for more depth of color.  But I think we got there in the end.  

And there's the inside.  At first I'd wanted to put that little snug house on the card front, but I just couldn't figure out how to do it with the sentiment panel that I'd already cut out.  I do like it on the inside of the card though.

Well, I'm off to get started on the next baby book.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Cozy Christmas, My Paper Pumpkin
Ink:  Real Red, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, Versamark
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Chocolate Chip, Thick Whisper White, Season of Cheer DSP
Accessories:  Lots of Labels Framelits, Dimensionals, Clear EP