Anyone else giving Ali Edwards' One Little Word a whirl for 2010? I haven't before, but it sounds like a fab idea for the coming year!
{LIFE}
Rocky Candy, how I love you....let me count the ways..... Well, if I truly did count.....this post would go on and on and on and on and on and on and ON! {And since I'm already a chatty gal, I'd rather just leave room on the post for that chatter!} But, needless to say, I LOVE the stuff, both the Stickles and Distress Crackle Paint alike...thank you Tim Holtz!
I made five total. These three went on top of the blank Stampin' Up! tags I made for my son's teachers' Christmas presents this year. 
To present them, I threaded through each set of tags with a double strand of silver cord, put a signed large Tim snowman tag on top, and tied them off. School let out a week before Christmas this year, so these were practical for the teachers to use on their gifts. Practical, crafty, and fun makes for a great gift in my book and hopefully, in their books as well. These three women have been wonderful assets in our son's life and we are thankful for all of them!Supplies:
Cardstock: White - Georgia Pacific; Certainly Celery - Stampin' Up!; Pure Poppy - Papertrey Ink; turquoise & blue - Stash
Ink: Tempting Turquoise, Real Red, Certainly Celery, Brocade Blue - Stampin' Up!; black - India Ink; Faded Jeans, Broken China, Worn Lipstick, Weathered Wood - Tim Holtz Distress Inks for Ranger
Stamps - Stampin' Up! (all except snowflake....$ stamp from stash)
Other: silver ribbon - Papertrey Ink; Grunge Paper & Board, Stickles, Distress Crackle Paint, Spica glitter pens - Copic; Paint Dabber - Adirondack; Versamark ink; clear embossing powder, embroidery floss & fibers - Stash
After staying up late to wrap presents, my eyes are puffy, and I'm a wee bit tired. But, truthfully, in the end, seeing someone's face all lit up when they have a wrapped present in their lap, is worth it. :>Source: freefoto
Blogging has allowed me to 'meet' so many different and wonderful people all over the world. And one of those people who make me smile is Karyn at French Charming! Her posts are full of gratitude, wit, and oodles and oodles of eye candy that make you smile, add a little pretty to your day, and provide some fabulous inspiration! She has three, count them....one, two, three! giveaways that you can throw your name in the hat for! Please take a smidge of time and visit her! (The giveaways are linked at the top of her blog, under the header.) Tell her I said 'hello'! :>
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Now, I'm usually a traditionalist when it comes to Christmas colors and I have a hard time deviating from the traditional red & green. I can add in some blues and metallics, But pink?! Well, my oh my, I took that leap across the canyon from the traditionally colored Christmas forest to the one colored a la Candyland...... and I liked it! A little fun with a Funky Christmas and button eKits, some ribbon corners, and more embroidery floss and a pink Chrismtas card sat in front of me .... it even makes me smile.:>+copy.jpg)
If you are curious about eKits, Sign up for the Making Handmade Cards free newsletter and get a free eKit to play with!
Back to life, back to reality (OH! that is sooo going to be stuck in my head all day now !).........
My inlaws arrive on Wednesday and my 'To-Do' lists are just a wee bit long. Those lists encompass all of this week's to-dos as well as most of last week's as well. Last week was my Monkeyman's last week of school this year and I was delighted to hear him sing "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Deck the Halls" in his Winter Concert. I got inky with some of Tim's tags and some SU Christmas tags for his teachers. But, mostly, in between taking care of my family, I curled up with a book, a blanket, hot tea, and read with the lights of our beautiful Christmas tree aglow, reminding me of my favorite time of year.
I hope you are enjoying this season! What holiday memories are you creating this year? If you don't celebrate at this time, what December delights are making you smile?
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Truth be told, I would LOVE some Nesties, but since I have none, I had to pull out some creativity and figure out another way to create my paper flower! I wanted a large scalloped handmade flower for my card, so using Microsoft Word, I drew a series of nested circles (which I then dragged apart, so that I would be able to cut them out individually). You could also cut out circles with a circle cutter, Coluzzle, Cricut, or any die cutter you have (probably those desired Nesties!). Using a touch of temporary adhesive, I adhered those circles to the back of my paper (in this case, printable paper from the Flower Train eKit from Making Handmade Cards) and pulled out an oldie, but a goodie..................scalloped decorative scissors!!
I never use decorative scissors anymore, but my kidlets do enjoy them very much, so they are still in the house and I am mighty excited to have found a great use for them! If you cut with the same point of the scissors (say either the point of the indent of the scallop or the top round of the scallop) hitting the same point in the paper (the edge of your temporarily adhered circle), your scalloped circles will come out even. See? A Nestie like nested flower with No Nesties! :>
My scallops were small and getting lost in the patterned paper, so to make them more pronounced, I added some much loved Stickles (oh, Stickles, how I love you so!) and set them out to dry. While waiting for my Stickled scallop circles to dry, I needed to distract myself......er, um, finish the rest of my card (yes, something shiny and sparkly and WET is very hard for me not to touch!). I printed another sheet from the Flower Train e-Kit for the background paper and adhered three ribbons in three different widths. Do you remember that cream ribbon that I custom colored with my Bic Mark-It that I posted about? Well, that top narrow blue ribbon is that very ribbon that started out cream!
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Who likes freebies?? Making-Handmade-Cards has a free Flower Doodle eKit if you sign up for their free newsletter! :> 
Uh-oh........it has begun. What? What's begun? The Christmas music! The Christmas music that pops in my head throughout the whole year has started to escape from me. I found myself singing "Winter Wonderland" this morning. While I was lucky enough to experience the wonders of a white Christmas as a kidlet, snow doesn't visit these parts very often.....at all (as in decades between light dustings!). So, I enjoy the white wonders of Christmas through happy, snow filled, winter Christmas music!
Oh yikes!! A little over a month ago, I promised you vintage, 1940's, handmade, little girl, hand sewn, delightful, creative family goodness passed on. Apologies all around for my delay! Here she is!
From tip to toe, she is sewn. With every detail paid attention to, she comes to life. Her face is colorfully embroidered and you would not believe how many layers are under her dress! Even I was amazed as I was not aware of all of the layers, until I began photographing her and kept finding more!
Just look at those sweet socks!! And her felt black shoes, finished off with a blanket stitch and perfectly adorned with a simple little black bead (you may need to click on the pic, enlarge it, to see the detail).
A dainty little white button hides the snaps that close the dress in the back. Snaps. Actual snaps, hand sewn in. All of my daughter's dolls' clothes close with Velcro. She wasn't even sure what those little silver things were!
And oh my! What a delightful surprise when you open her dress! Darling eyelet lace with a soft blue satin ribbon weaved through it, tied off in a petite little bow in the front. Sigh.
Under her dress, a little petticoat, trimmed in lace. Look at those sewn fingers! Sigh.
And her full slip, topped with that oh so precious eyelet, threaded with sweet satin ribbon. Still sighing here........ You?
And lastly, bloomers finished in matching lace. Oh yes, multiple sighs for each and every hand crafted, hand loved layer.
Can someone who is more skilled with a camera, please tell me how I took this first shot?! Everything around the pumpkin is in focus, so I assume I didn't move the camera. This is my pumpkin from 2006 and the faces jumping out of my pumpkin have me, three years later, still wondering what happened!
2007 pumpkins carved up to light the way for trick o' treaters. Above was baby girl's...sweet, sweet, sweet.
Look how gnarled and wrinkly this pumpkin is! No wonder Hubby chose it for his own. He likes the scarier side of Halloween and has to tame it all down since having kidlets. But, he still wears his scary mask, aka Uncle Charlie, every year and loves handing out Halloween candy while I take the kidlets trick o' treating!
Another standard pumpkin face, one that always sends me back to the faces my brother and I carved with Dad every year as a child. Mom helped scrape out the pulp and Dad helped with the carving. Thankfully, that is one tradition I've changed up a bit with our family. Hubby is the best pulp scrapper outer ever!! And so, he empties the pulp and all those yummy seeds to roast from almost all of the pumpkins................he can empty five pumpkins in the time it takes me to unload just one!
With mere minutes before Halloween begins (although, if you check your friends emails, Facebook status updates, or are there yourself, you'd think tonight was Halloween for the sheer number of Halloween parties occuring!), I thought I would share a Halloween card of my own.
So, you are probably wondering, why two pics of the same thing, same angle, etc.??? Right??? Back in 2007, you know, waaaaayyyy back when, I wasn't worried about taking pics for blogging or anything other than remembering what I made. And since my son and I were arguing, debating, conversing, contemplating, and disagreeing on which pic to use, I put both up. He thought it was a "Before" & "After" shot, simply because the windows 'lighting' (colored in with Prismacolor colored pencils) was so much...more in the second pic. As he put it, "See!! The lights are on in this one and they aren't in that one. Its a "Before and After" shot!!" I haven't made him watch too much HGTV, I swear!!!
My apologies for the shadows. I did not realize they were so strong when I took the pic and I have already given her the card and cannot retake the pic. I stamped images from PTI's Boards & Beams. The small topiary trees, I colored with Prismacolor colored pencils and then cut out with a craft knife. I stamped the house twice and cut the windows out on one of the images with a craft knife as well. I then layered the cut house on top of the uncut house with foam tape for depth. I wanted you to be able to look inside the windows. And as I have discovered many times now, I seem to like the graphic look of stamped images uncolored.
Here you can see those layers a bit better. I layered all of the pieces on a Kraft base, stamped the first half of the sentiment on the bottom, and added a Sweet Blush satin bow. On the inside, I stamped and punched out a heart from PTI's Heart Prints and stamped the othe half of the sentiment from Boards & Beams.
I chose to share this card today because the sentiment rings so true. My friend's parents built their last two homes and chose every detail, but it was the people inside that made them homes that they relished being in.
My own home definitely needs updates, new carpet, a redone kitchen, and some pruning in our yards. But, it is my family that lives inside these walls with me that warms my heart, makes me smile, share hugs with, laughter, and even tears that make my life what it is. And today, I am choosing to smile as football is on the tube, my daughter playing in imagination land under the dining table, my son yelling out at the top of his lungs for every touchdown, Hubby enjoying his first real down time day in over two weeks, and me, in the middle of all of them and finally checking back in with all of you! :> What are you smiling about today?
Supplies:
Cardstock: Stampers Select White, Kraft - Papertrey Ink
Ink: Onyx, Sepia - Versafine
Stamps: Heart Prints, Boards & Beams - Papertrey Ink
Ribbon: Sweet Blush Satin - Papertrey Ink
Punch: Small heart - EK Success (from PTI)
Other: Craft knife & Prismacolor Colored Pencils
Ack! I'm trying to write this post and I have an ultra chaotic '80's mixed tape playing Styx {Mr. Roboto}, the Star Wars theme song....complete with happy little R2-D2 noises, and a good ol' fashioned "Happy Birthday" song playing in my head! Send help quick!
To paper crafters, I understand that this could be seen as too simple and without enough paper crafting love. But, let me assure you, this little seven year old boy loved it and immediately started shaking it for a moment.....maybe even two....before he made a beeline for the brightly wrapped present that it was sitting on top of! lol
Did you know that you can emboss with your Distress Inks?? Remembering hearing (okay, so I didn't hear it...I read it!) on the 2Peas stamping board (a couple of years ago) that you can emboss with Distress Inks, I thought it was about time I finally try it out for myself! Even though they are dye inks, they do stay wet long enough to pour on embossing powder and heat. Sooooooo....add another dozen ink colors for me to emboss with....yay! (There are way more than a dozen colors....but that's about the number that I own.) Does this add to your collection of colors to emboss with? Or are you an uber cool stamping encyclopedia and already have this knowledge incorporated into all those fun files in your brain? Even though I had much more elaborate plans for this beautiful stamp, once I stamped and embossed her, I found that I liked the detailed line image so much that I chose to leave it as is. Wanting a bit of color on the card, I punched a trio of butterflies to flit up the card from some Stampin' Up! DSP left overs I had on my table, inked the edges with the same Distress Ink, folded them up, glued them on, and added a touch of bling for some sparkle. Actually, while the pic doesn't show it, there already is a bit of sparkle embossed into the image. Do you remember that orange glitter I had covering my old stash of embossing powder, glitter, and flocks? Well, there was a touch of it left on the rubber of my sunflower stamp that I absolutely could not get off.......until I stamped it on my card and then it was embossed in for a permanent home. Now, I'm really glad its there as for some reason, it just works!
Here's one more trip down memory lane..............back in May, I shared with you some wonderful Strawberry Charm of and from my sweet boy. Well, here is strawberry number four....kind of. That plant has flowered and fruited many times now. But, the noisy blue jays that visit us in our backyard every afternoon this year have been eating them all summer long!! My sweet boy got so excited every time he saw a "pretty white flower" because he knew that a strawberry that he planted, watered, and nurtured would follow that he could eat. We kept encouraging him to keep taking care of it and more would come. Well, either the blue jays found something more interesting to eat or the tomato cage with the reflective strips tied on is working or my sweet boy's timing has improved because he has been able to reap the benefits of his care taking as he harvests and eats the last four ripened strawberries from his charming strawberry plant. Now he wants to grow tomatoes, eggplants, lettuce, zucchinis, and a whole host of other fruits and vegetables!
Supplies:
Cardstock: Bashful Blue - Stampin' Up!
Patterned Paper: Stampin' Up!
Stamp: Sunflower - Mostly Animals
Ink: Tea Dye - Distress Ink
Punch: Butterflies - Martha Stewart
Other: clear embossing powder - Stash; Hemp Twine - Stampin' Up!; Bling - Me & My Big Ideas
Two deets of this award are to tell you five things I like to do and pass this award on to five other people. So, here we go! 1) I LOVE spending time with my family! Last night, as I was leaving to go to Back to School Night, our kidlets were on an adventure on a research vessel in Antarctica, tracking penguins....I kid you not! I had such a chuckle over that one. Thank you, National Geographic Kids magazine (which is where I think the inspiration for their latest adventure came from)! And tonight, we are all planning on playing Monopoly together. I've forgotten what a Friday night out is like, but I'm happy there will be some family fun to cherish!
Here are this award's deets:
~And included in 504 Main's Best of Tickled Pink 2010!
