Sarah Kay Christmas Stamp

I am always drawn to how cute and adorable the SK stamps are. Love this one and ended up using colored pencils, copics, radiant pearls and some twinkling H20s. {I think I have too much stuff. } Also embossed the background and added some Martha Stewart Glitter Snowflake stickers as well as a pearl flourish and red bow.

Back to a touch of Vintage

On this card I stamped the image in versamark then used some glitter embossing powder from Judikins which gives such a nice sparkle to the image. It's hard to capture the twinkle through a computer screen but trust me IRL it's very shimmery. I think this is one of the very first Christmas stamps I ever bought. I really love the tenderness of the child being held in the angel's arms. I never feel like I ever quite do this stamp justice so I don't use it that much but it still holds a fondness in my heart.

I am off to Disneyland!!!

Hey everyone just wanted to let you know I am jetting down south with my mom to enjoy some much needed R&R time and of course what better place to go than Disneyland to see all the holiday decorations and of course eat all the yummy treats!. I am taking my Smash book to capture all my moments and will update with photos later.

I have scheduled posting on the blog so will have stuff to share even while I am screaming my head off while riding the Tower of Terror or singing along with the Pirates of the Caribbean. And wanted to give you a glimpse back in time with a few photos (not mine) of Disneyland. And upon my return if I can muster up some quality photos I will be sure to share.

A Cute Fun Christmas Elf

I am alway on the lookout for stuff on clearance because you really can find some great deals as long as you don't mind that it's not the latest and greatest. In this case I picked up this little Doodlebug Sticker last year and of course now just getting around to using him with some Echo Park pp. I also embossed the background which is a great way to get a pp like feel.

Back to some Christmas cards

Hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving time with family and friends. I know I definitely enjoyed spending time with my family and the much needed break from work.

So getting back to the cards, here here is a card that I am using some older Melissa Frances product which I secretly love but never get a chance to use that much. I am always torn between the romantic vintage and the cute perky fun colors. The stamp is from PapertyInk.

Sneaking in another layout

Wanted to share one more layout of my cute gs, Zack. When he meets strange people he doesn't know he closes his eyes or puts his hands up over his eyes, so I decided this should be captured, right? Funny thing is he does it everytime he sees my youngest son or his Uncle and he sees him at least once a week. He also does what my dd calls the "stink eye" and I hope to capture that one day as well.

A Cookie Bag

I couldn't resist these polka dot cookie or treat bags and thought what a great idea to hand out to co-workers or neighbors with some tasty holiday cookies. So this is my prototype which isn't too difficult. I just die cut and embossed the background square, die cut the doily and tag, stamped the tag and added the ribbon and epoxy sticker (from KandCo).

And for a fall holiday twist for a cookie; try an Oatmeal cookie, change the cinnamon for 2 teaspoons of Pie Spice and use chopped up dried apples instead of raisins, after you bake and cool the cookie drizzle on some caramel sauce (melt down caramel chewy candies for a simple method). And you have a nice delicious apple oatmeal cookie that just screams fall.

Back to the Christmas Cards

So here is another card that will have to be hand given since the flower adds so much bulk but one of my favorite things to do with these paper flowers is to spritz them with some Perfect Pearl mist. It adds such a nice sheen and really adds elegance to some otherwise ordinary flowers. Using a Kraftin Kimmie stamp for this card which was colored with some copics.

One more layout

So still working on fun baby pages, this was from my middle grandson's cake smash event we did at a nearby park. Which was all the way back in Feb so I have had these for awhile and was glad to finally get them done and into his album.

Time out for a Layout

So I have been working on a car album for my oldest grandson from our trip to the Blackhawk Antique Car Museum which unfortunately has been 2 years in the making and I am trying really really hard to get it done for him for Christmas but I have to confess car pages are um how can I put this {yawn} boring, it's hard to get thrilled about them even though they are pretty cool to look at but don't get me started on trying to find pattern paper to coordinate let alone trying to find embellishments to use on them...so I had to take a break and do something just the opposite, cute baby pages..now that is something I can get into. So here is one of the layouts of my middle grandson that I created just to break up the monotonous car pages. And note the photo of the pumpkins with the flag that says Zack's photo, well he actually managed to snap a photo while I was hanging him upside down, perhaps he has a photographer's eye because it came out pretty damn good.

Day Three of the Christmas Cards

So not using stamps on this card but rather the diecut stickers. I love Echo Park and did splurge and buy the whole line of their 12 x 12 This and That Christmas Line. Usually I have trouble using up stickers and vowed that I would at least use them in one card so here it is. I am hoping to have lots of Grandbaby Christmas picutres for layouts this year and be able to incorporate all those extras.

A Christmas Gift Bag

So haven't decided what to do with this yet. Mass produce and fill with something for the co-workers or just use it for a gift giving bag. I used one of the Sizzix Pro diecuts and felt the need to play with it awhile back and of course set it to the side and realized I need to decide what to do with it. Any suggestions?

One More Card for Christmas

So another contest but this time for Kraftin Kimmie, ironically it was very similar to the TGF challenge, except this was create your own background scene. Ok we can do that. Used colored pencils and copics for this contest and the die cuts were from Quickutz aka Lifestyle Crafts and Paperty Ink.

First comes Halloween, and next comes Christmas

Cards that is, lots and lots of cards. The reason I start now to make sure I can get them all made and sent out in time. That and of course a few packaging projects and that wouldn't be complete without a goodie bag to take to work. So lets start with a Christmas Card for a TGF (The Greeting Farm) Challenge. This challenge had us stamp our own background. So used a very very old Stampin Up snowflake stamp and I love the pink/blue combo for that wintery frost feeling. And the sentiment was embossed with Stampin Up stickin stuff and I threw on some pink glitter and sealed it with a shot of hairspray to help it from flaking off.

It Is Officially Fall

Well all the Halloween decorations got put away, big thanks to the hubster for that as it's a chore and a half He did most of them but I did help ;-)

Any hoo secretly you know I wish to own my own bakery and having a close call with being laid off at work recently which I was taking as a huge hint that it was time to start looking into this adventure since I knew I was pretty much done with the 9 to 5 or rather for me it was more like 6:30 to 4:00 and I just couldn't see myself at my age starting over and proving myself (FYI I have been with the same company for almost 23 years). So with help from my family we are being to put plans into place, albeit I still offically have a job for at least the next 8 months so if I stay employed after that, the bakery will have to wait until retirement or whatever lay off date comes before I can make that date.

So in honor of feeling the need to bake and it being fall, I made these Apple Spice Cupcakes filled with homemade apple pie filling, frosted with a Caramel Swiss Buttercream, topped with a Vanilla Caramel drizzle and a toasted Maple Leaf made from pie crust and of course sprinkled the whole thing with some cinnamon sugar. It's alot to post here but if anyone wants any of the recipe(s) just let me know and I can either post here or email them to you. (I just didn't want to make this too lengthy here, as if it already wasn't long enough)

There is no way I want to be stuck eating all these cupcakes so tomorrow the majority go to work. Hopefully I won't hear moans of being faced with more goodies since we barely turned the corner on Halloween.

Color Combos

I love scrapbooking black and white photos, sometimes I find it's easy to make the color matching to pp much easier and if you have a ton of photos you can even do some B&W while a few in color to add interest. And when you also use the B&W to map to black, white and one other color like red,  yellow or green it really makes the whole page pop as demonstrated in a few of these layouts below (forgive the quality.) So next time you are wondering where to start with a group of photos try B&W and see how easy it is to incorporate into your pages/project.

So here is the B&W photo with Black, White and Green colors

Here is the Black and White photo being mixed with a Color Photo

And here is Black and Offwhite being mixed with Yellow. But again using that B&W photo