Decorating for Christmas

Hello!  We're decorating our house for Christmas this weekend, so I thought I would add some Christmas cheer to my blog too.  I got this banner from Godelieve Tijsken's blog, Stamping Mathilda.  She is giving away this blog banner so if you'd like to spruce up your blog, you can pay her a visit.  Thank you Godelieve!

I've been busy crafting, but not too much stamping - making calendars for teacher gifts (like the one in my last post), knitting (cowls, scarves, hats), and writing and sending Christmas cards (yes! before Christmas!).  And of course, shopping and wrapping.  This weekend we'll get the tree up and decorated and the house will feel festive.

Here's a little Christmas card, one I made this summer and coloured up at my daughter's soccer game.  Happy memories of a sunny evening at the park!

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The image is one from Artful Stamper, and I coloured it with Copics and added Stickles for some sparkle.  The ornaments have some Glossy Accents for effect too. The background paper is from one of the BasicGrey Christmas packs.  This was a fun little one, and I see that Sauron the scanner has added a few extra smudges.  This must be why DH has been after me to clean the platen on the scanner after some scanning of embellishments that looked dry, but weren't. Somehow, my obsessive cleaning of my house (snort) consistently overlooks the platen of the scanner.

So, how are your Christmas preparations going?

Desk calendar

Hello!  I haven't been doing too much stamping lately as I had done a whole bunch to get ready for the craft show (more on that in another post) and am kind of taking a breather.  Hubby and I are re-watching The Sopranos and I have been knitting a lot.  That said, I did make this sample for the class I'm doing at Heather's on Saturday (click here for details).  We'll be making this pretty desk calendar, which is great for a Christmas gift.  I plan to make a bunch for teacher gifts this year.  Depending on the colours of paper you make, you can make it more masculine or feminine or neutral.  For this one, I made sheets of paper in colours for each season, and then mixed them up a little bit.  But you could make them in any colours.

If you are interested in signing up for the class this Saturday afternoon, give Heather a call at the store to sign up.

Thanks for stopping by!

Art is....

Here's a close-up of the Art is... card for the class at Heather's Stamping Haven.  The verse is from Quietfire Designs and the flower image is from Fred B Mullett's line of stamps from nature prints.

Thanks for stopping by.

Class on Saturday

Hello!  Just wanted to pop by to say I will be teaching this class at Heather's on Saturday afternoon.  Check out Heather's blog for all the details.  We'll be doing three cards in a fall theme, and they are lustrous and the colours just glow.  Go twinklings go!  We'll also be using the new Rock Candy dry glitter, tinting it à la Tim Holtz with alcohol inks.  And using a gorgeous Fred B Mullett stamp from his nature prints line.  Now how's that for an offer you can't refuse!

Liebster Award

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I found out I was nominated for a blog award.  (And no, it's not an award for Most Sporadic Blogger or Most Erratic Punctuation.)  A great big thank you to Erin for nominating me!



Here's what they say about the Liebster Award.

The best part about the Liebster Award is that in order to accept it you have to pass it along to 5 other bloggers with 200 followers or less. It's a fantastic way to discover great blogs!

ABOUT THE AWARD
Liebster is a German word meaning "Beloved," "Favorite," or "Dearest." This award is a peer to peer award in which fellow bloggers present the award to their favorite bloggers with less than 200 followers. The origins of this award is unclear, but is believed to have originated by a German blogger. This award was designed to be a blog award in the pay it forward fashion to share your dearest and most beloved blogs that have less than 200 followers.

RULES FOR ACCEPTANCE
Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to their blog. Post the award onto your blog.Give the award to five bloggers who you appreciate that have less than 200 followers. Leave a comment on their blog letting them know that you have given them this awesome award!

PAY IT FORWARD
Here are the 5 amazing blogs with less than 200 followers that I would like to pass the Liebster Award on to:

Inky Fingers by Sue McCrae
Watermarks by Maureen Morton
My Paper Palace by Vicky Fernando
Heather's Stamping Haven by Heather Hayley
Thimbles, Bobbins, Paper and Ink by Jennifer and one more because I am a more-is-more girl
Ellie's ATCs by Ellie.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving!  It's another beautiful day here and I thought I would share some of the colours we see in the woods behind our house.  I picked these up off the carpet of pine needles when we were out for a walk this afternoon.  It's so lovely and I thought it would be nice to share some of our iconic red maple leaves with you, and some others.  (Once you start picking up nice looking leaves, it's hard to stop!)

Thanks for stopping by.

Baptism card

There's nothing like a bit of mad-flap stamping before church on a Sunday morning!  I remembered at the last minute that our daughter's dear friend is being baptised today so I wanted to bring her a card.  This isn't exactly what I had in mind when I started, but the girly pink concoction that I suffered a fatal blow when I added some Wild Honey distress ink.  No amount of other inks could resuscitate it, and I was forced to switch tacks.

I grabbed some designer paper (Pyrus collection from BasicGrey) and started over.  The cross is stamped on one of the plain sheets in the pack and embossed with Garnet (gold, red, burgundy, lovely multihued effect) and edged in brown ink.  I think I put a little too much of the "old rugged" in, but I was running out of time.  A quick mat on some espresso linen and gold, then some coordinating papers underneath with the annoying realization that the cross shape does not lend itself to pleasing compositions.  Again, running out of time.  Mounted all on some burgundy cardstock (the espresso base was better, but felt that was too much brown for a happy day for a little girl).  In my defence, this colour scheme is perfect for today as we are in the midst of the fall colours and everywhere you look are glorious golds, yellows, oranges, reds and burgundies.

Well I'd better dash.  Just got busted - perhaps blogging is not on the essential to-do list for getting ready for church.  I guess we're not walking over today!

Happy stamping!