Mini Christmas Treat Bags

 I'm here! I know I haven't been posting much lately, but I do hope to improve on that come the first of the year after all my treatments and daily visits to the cancer center have stopped. Things are going well though and I will be happy to have this all behind me soon. I have also been lacking in visiting and commenting on the blogs of those who I follow...my apologies. Also hope to change that once this is over and I get my energy back. Meanwhile I have been trying to complete my Christmas cards as time and energy allow and do an occasional challenge to keep my mind occupied. Crafting and creating can be good for the soul!

The weekly "Hump Day" challenge last week on "We Craft Cards", was to make a Christmas treat bag. The same day this challenge was posted, SplitCoastStampers sent out their weekly newsletter with a tutorial for making a bag style treat bag. I thought it was perfect for the challenge. The tutorial shows you how to make the bags with a die and how to make them without the die for those like me who don't own the die! Super easy instructions to follow and these make up in no time at all. Plus you can get two out of one 8 1/2" x 11" piece of cardstock. Click HERE for the tutorial to make your own.

 The treat bags are small...they are about 2 3/4' wide and 3 3/4" high. Perfect for that tiny little gift or treat, and ideal for holding a gift card!

 I wish my pictures gave a better view of how these treat bags look in person. I used a cream color cardstock that has a cream color stripe. The ornament is a shiny red metallic and the green ornament with the mouse is all glittery green.

Thanks for stopping by!

Snowman Punch Art Card & Breast Cancer Awareness

Isn't this little guy cute?! I took a challenge to make  either  a Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas card using at least 3 punches. I chose to make a Christmas card. This cute little snowman took 9 punches to make him. The inspiration for the snowman came from SU demonstrator Dawn Griffith. Check out her tutorial HERE if you would like to know what punches to use and to learn how to make him.

I used some Stickles to glitter up the hearts and snowflakes  but it was a bit hard to get that to photograph. Hopefully some of these additional pictures at different angles will help to show the sparkle.

While I have your attention, I would like to take a moment to talk heart to heart with you all. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I'm sure you all have been seeing all the commercials on TV for breast cancer awareness, radio commercials as well as pink ribbons everywhere by those who support breast cancer research. Some of you might even be tired of it already....but don't be. As the commercials are saying, "1 out of 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer". That is a pretty scary number. I found out last month that I am that "one" when I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

It does not run in my family, in fact, I am the first to be diagnosed with it. I did not feel a lump, nor did my doctor during my yearly exam. Thankfully though the routine yearly mammogram caught it. An ultrasound followed the mammogram to confirm that there was a mass. Biopsy followed confirming that it was cancer. I had surgery last week and I have further treatments ahead of me. Although I have some health issues that make it harder to treat me for breast cancer, I have the fact that it was caught early in my favor.

I'm putting this in my post today with the hopes that my story will encourage those who don't have a yearly mammogram to go get it done. The key to winning the fight against breast cancer is early detection. Don't be lazy, don't be scared and don't be stupid.....schedule your yearly mammogram and get it done if you haven't already. Do it for your family and friends....do it for you.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my punch art snowman!

A Peaceful Christmas / Christmas Card and Tags

 As promised earlier, I am back with another Christmas card. I made 4 different designs this year and this was my favorite of the four. The sky is made with blending 4 inks from the Tim Holtz Distress Ink collection. I used Tumbled Glass, Weathered Wood, Chipped Sapphire and Black Soot. The village and star are  dies from Memory Box. Very clean and simple but I thought elegant looking...most certainly my favorite this year.

And what does the perfect gift need? A pretty tag of course! Below is a tag that I made using the embossed resist technique and the same village die from Memory box that I used on the above card.

 For a fun tag I used a cuttlebug embossing folder, Sizzix alphabet die and a Santa hat rubber stamp to create the tag below.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas. May it be safe, joyful and spent with family and friends.

Believe in the magic of Christmas / Christmas card

The magic of Christmas is upon us and I couldn't help but make this adorable card. This is a design that I first saw a couple of years ago and have had on my "to try" list since. It uses the top note die from Stampin Up. While there are several how to tutorials on the web, this is my favorite and the one I used to make my card : Elf Shoe Tutorial. Every Christmas I'm looking for a card design that I can mass produce and will be flat enough to require only one postage stamp. This fit the requirements! Also made one other design that I will be back a little bit later to post.

Thanks for looking!

Christmas Wreath Card / Martha Stewart Pine Branch Punch

It's my turn to host the weekly member challenge over at the CardSwaps forum on the CardMaker site. I'm challenging everyone to make a card with a wreath on it. It can be stamped, made with punches or die cuts, made with ribbon or buttons etc. Any holiday, season or colors but you must showcase a wreath on your card. I chose to use the Martha Stewart pine branch punch to make my wreath as the example for the challenge. I used Bazzill cardstock to punch the branches. Gemstones and ribbon are from my stash.

Why don't you come join us over at CardSwaps for the weekly challenge? Would love to see you there!

Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas Wreath Card

Wow! Two posts in one day from me....and back to back ...LOL! Sorry about that. I meant to add this to the previous post and I no sooner clicked on the publish button when I realized I hadn't added this card to the post. So I decided to just make a separate post for this card. I promised myself I would try very hard to have my Christmas cards done early this year. Of course I say that every year and I always end up at last minute trying to get them all finished up and mailed. I'm thinking about designs though and I had fun making this one.

The wreath is made with the Martha Stewart pine branch punch. I punched several out in white cardstock and then placed them around a circle shape I had cut out with a Spellbinders die. I wanted to keep it simple and more of a white Christmas type of theme. Therefor I chose to have the only color be the red embellies on the wreath and bow. The border design was made using a Martha Stewart border punch. I had fun making the wreath and plan to try it out in green next.

Thanks again for stopping by!

Bare Trees Christmas Card

The current weekly challenge over at Card Swaps on the CardMakers site is being hosted by Ana and she asked that we add glitter to our creations.

I am also entering this into this week's challenge over at Paper Sundaes Challenge Blog. The challenge is Winter Wonderland.

I was inspired to dig out my brass stencils and rediscover them when I made my card in my last post for the Autumn Blessings blog hop. So for this challenge I pulled out one of my all time favorite brass stencils by Dreamweavers designed by Lynelle Harlow. Her brass stencils are my favorite. This one is called Bare Trees.

I started by dry embossing the image then I stenciled it using Colorbox pigment inks. I then added glitter to the snow part of my image which succeeded in me getting glitter everywhere....my face, hands and clothing. It was even in my hair! The cardinal is a clip art image I found online and printed out.

Stores have their decorations up and the sales have begun. Many people have put up their Christmas trees this weekend. My son commutes to the city (Chicago) for school and he came home the other day and told me that Michigan Ave, was all lit up and looking festive. He said as he walked down the street to the train , the song Silver Bells was playing and people were ice skating at Millennium Park. The magic of the season has begun!

Now to get all my Christmas cards made...addressed and mailed!

A Sparkly Glittery House Mouse Christmas

Back with another post for today. I am entering this card into four challenges:

House Mouse & Friends Monday Challenge Blog - Christmas Sparkle - I have glitter on each of the bows on the heads of the mice. The green , red and gold cardstock is metallic and the bows / ribbon are also metallic. Had a difficult time getting a good photo to show all the sparkle so please believe me...the card sparkles in real life! :)

Simon Says Stamp Challenge Blog - Sparkle and Bling with an option to use a Stampalibility stamp. I did use one...House Mouse

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge Blog - Anything Goes as long as it sparkles - I have that going on!

CardMakers Card Swap Forum Weekly Challenge - hosted by Golda this week - Golda challenged us to make a Christmas card using something you wouldn't usually see on a Christmas card - hopefully I have that covered with using mice! :)

Images are House Mouse by Stampabilities. As shown below they are one image but I stamped each mouse separately and then colored with Prismacolor color pencils. Cardstock and ribbon are from my stash and not sure of the maker.

Hope everyone is a having a happy and crafty weekend!

Rolled Ribbon Flower / Christmas

Last Saturday, October 1st, was World Card Making Day. Most online paper crafting sites were hosting some kind of event in honor of WCMD including CardMakers Card Swaps forum. There were several challenges and games as well as prizes to be won. I was only able to participate in one challenge due to a family emergency but there are a couple of others I hope to do when I have time.

The challenge I was able to do was hosted by Ana and her challenge was to make a card using a rolled ribbon flower. Very fun challenge and a fun and easy flower to make. I know I will be making many more in the future! Click HERE for a tutorial on how to make rolled ribbon flowers by Ana. Click HERE and HERE to see two videos that show how to make this same flower using fabric strips in place of the ribbon.

Hope you get a chance to check out these tutorials and try making these flowers. Also hope you were able to make a card for WCMD and send a card to someone special in your life or someone who needed a smile in their mailbox.

Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas Cards

I needed a Christmas card that I could make quickly. The sketch for last week's sketch challenge over at Card Swaps on the CardMaker's site was the perfect sketch to make a quick and easy card. I made several of these which also finished up the last of my Christmas cards. All cards are now mailed! One of these years I will start making my cards much earlier and have them ready to mail at the beginning of December....one of these years!

I expect my crafting will be on hold for the next couple of weeks while I do some baking and enjoy the holidays with family and friends. I hope all of you have a very merry Christmas and a safe, happy and healthy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Challenges from the Sugar Crash Online Crop

A week ago was the Sugar Crash online crop over in the CardSwaps forum of CardMakers. You might have read one of my earlier posts as well as participated in the blog hop that was also part of the crop. 10 different challenges were posted for the online crop for everyone to try. I would have loved to have tried them all but only had time to do four of the challenges. The theme for the crop was lots of holiday glitter, bling and glam. It sure was hard trying to get good pictures to show all the bling! The picture above was for a challenge where we were to make two or more gift tags. I used my cute House Mouse stamp and glittered up the ornament as well as I used metallic cardstock for the border.

For the picture below the challenge was to make a suspension card. I used my scraps left over from my project for the blog hop to make my card suspending a snowflake. This is the first time I have tried making a suspension card and I really enjoyed it. I will be trying this technique again.

The next two pictures were for the challenge that required us to make a gift card holder. I used Dawn Griffith's tutorial to make this which you can find HERE.


This last picture is for the challenge that required us to use silver plus one other color. I chose to use white as my other color. This was the hardest picture to take. I used a really shiny metallic silver cardstock and no matter what I did....or what angle I used....I could not get a good picture.

I really enjoyed the online crop and I am looking forward to the next one!

CardSwaps World Cardmaking Day Blog Hop

WELCOME!!!

You are on the CardSwaps World Cardmaking Day Blog Hop! You should have arrived here from Redonna's blog. Wasn't her project awesome? I hope you enjoyed her project as much as I do! I’m glad you decided to hop on over here and continue your path around.

Don’t forget, if you comment on every blog by midnight CST, October 3, 2010, you will be entered in to a drawing for prizes. The full list of prizes are on Lora's blog HERE.

There is a mini crop going on at CardSwaps and you are invited to play. Each member on the blog hop received a challenge in advance to showcase and entice you to participate!

The challenge from the mini crop I am showcasing is:

A Sketch!

I challenged myself in addition to the sketch (only the sketch is required for this challenge) to make a card in 30 minutes or less using some basic tools. Have to make things quick so I would have time for all of the other challenges on the hop..right? Of course you can take as much time as you want to do this challenge. Just make sure the basic sketch can be seen in your creation. Here is what I came up with:

I hope you like it and I hope it encourages you to try the sketch and the other challenges today at the mini crop.

For this card I used:

Stampin’ Up! Ornament Punch

Nestibilities Scallop and Classic Ovals

Basic Grey Patterned Papers

Bazzill Cardstock

Sentiment is by Inkadinkdo

I have been crafting something all my life with crocheting, sewing and card making being my favorites. As far back as I can remember I have had a fascination with paper. From making cards as a little girl with construction paper to making cards today with all the fabulous handmade and patterned papers...I love card making! I have made many friends through my love for card making. I recently joined the CardSwap forum and have been having so much fun making new friends and sharing ideas with others who also enjoy my passion for making cards. Nothing can compare to the smile you can bring to one's face when they open up their mailbox and find a card that was made especially for them!

Time to continue hopping along...

You have until midnight, CST, October 3, 2010, to post your comment on each blog on the hop (that includes mine, please!). Everyone that comments on each blog will be entered in to the drawings for blog hop prizes. In addition, if you want to participate in the challenges for the mini crop at Card Swaps, go check it out after the blog hop and upload your completed project by midnight CST, October 3, 2010. There are prizes to win there, too! I hope you complete the challenge I showcased and I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Your next stop on the hop is Jane's blog! Have fun!!!

In case you get lost along the way, here is a full list of blogs that are on the hop:

Lora

Jeanette

Laura

Faith Skrdla (Designed 2 Delight)

Redonna

SusieQ (YOU ARE HERE)

Jane

Lori (representing Stretch N Bubbles)

Irina

Meredith

Ana

Dustin Pike

Diana

Angelina

Ashley

Happy World Cardmaking Day!