A bit sketchy today...

I love Clare's blog, it was one of the first I started following when I got into blogging, so this is her sketch this week:

And because I am still about 11 cards behind, I opted, you guessed it, to bring a little joy to the picture. Ta Da!

I randomly found these cool square metallic alphas in my embellie bin:

I used lots of bling, from glitter, to silver thread, to tiny rhinestones:

This next sketch comes from i heart 2 stamp:

My first Noel card of the season:

I wish this pic had come out better, but eh, oh well, these are cute teeny little translucent mitten buttons with the teeny tinist little buttons on top:

And of course the noel:

And last though certainly not least from Taylor's blog:

A cute little gingerbrad boy:

I finally decorated my stupid tree!

So... my tree has been up for roughly two weeks now, with nothing to adorn its branches with the exception of the pretty multi colored lights it was pre lit with... Like this:

I just hadn't found the motivation to actually decoratye te silly thing. This past Saturday we went to the Christmas party thrown in neighborhood where I grew up and I suppose all of the ensuing merriment took hold and SundayI caved and threw it together with the kids... Here is a pic of the kids with Santa (notcie that no one is crying, in fact they are all smiling and it just turned out fantastic! Yay!):

And here is what we managed to do to the tree:

We dont usually do garland, we do tinsel, but I had bought this a the end of last year to decorate my desk at work... but since I quit working back in July, and this a faux tree, and picking tinsel off the tree seemed nightmarish at best, we used all three strands on the tree... The lids thought it looked awesome, and since they did most of the work, I left it as is. Afterall I'll have plenty of time to decorate a designer tree once the munchkins are grown...

Anywho, each year we make our own ornaments for the tree. This was the project last year, grown from pipe cleaners, boiling water, borax, and tons of patience:

And this year's simpler, less time consuming, but still too cute design:

Happy Holidays everyone... I'm off to finish up my cards and such... they need to go in the mail by Wednesday!

Snowman Kisses

Check out this little army of snowmen:

These little paper boxes are stuffed with a packet of hot chocolate and little Ziploc of marshmellows... I made them for Zachary to give to his teachers as Christmas presents.

I made a tag for each that says "Snowman Kisses"... I wanted to do snowman poop, but you never know who might be offended, so I thought kisses would be too cute. I wanted to make them for Zach to hand out in class but apparently the school has a rule that does not allow children to distribute xmas gifts, go figure...

This guy is my favoite:

Aren't they just adorable... Well, I had better go, I've got a few more to crank out for friends and family... TTFN!

Christmas Kick...

Ok, so I have been on a roll today, and of course, still on the Christmas kick... I mean do you have any idea how much family I have, not to mention friends??? So I figure doing the challenges is a fun way to come up with new card ideas and also flare up some inspiration. The first comes from Kristina Werner's unbelieveably awesome blog. I can not tell you how addicted I am. She has an amzing talent and everything she does looks perfect! Here's this week's color inspiration:

And here is what I did with it:

See the fun brads at the top and the faux stitching:

A close up of the merry sentiment. All I did here was take the sticker slap it on some cardstock, (which is more teal than sage shadow, but it just worked here), drew some polka dot edging with a gel pen and wrote in the rest of "merry":

And the coordinating brads at the bottom:

My second source of inspiration comes in the form of a sketch, complimenti I {heart} 2 stamp. This is a blog I recently started stalking, and I really like the projects they create here. Anywho, the sketch:

And what I did:

These brads are the major colors used in the card:

I just had to add some bling:

And here we are again coloring those stamps:

Adios Amigos!

A cute little Rudolph and Kitties in love...

Here are a couple more challenges I have been working on. The first is from Amy over at Prairie Paper and Ink you can see her sketch here:

And here is my cute little Rudolph card:

Like I mentioned in my last post, I am finally getting into rubber stamping and coloring. I borrowed some colored pencils from the kids stash to finish the Rudolph, and I had a lot of fun with shading and blending. I alwasy did love coloring in school!

I also really like the way green, brown, and blue work with each other in this card. What a fun color combo!

And then the second challenge I decided to conquer was from Caardvarks and te only stipulation was to use NO patterned paper. I had this idea for a card some time ago, but I thought this was the best time to use it, my two little kitties in love:

Again, I am off... This post is lovely, happy, and short, and I have cards to make before I sleep...

"A few of my favorite things!"

I apologize for my inactivity, but I have been busy, busy, busy what with the holidays fast approaching. I have been stalking the Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge for a whlie now, but never had a really GREAT idea to put into a card. But this week the inspiration is from one of my most favorite movies of all time, "The Sound of Music". I can not put into words how much I adore this movie, my mom used to sing the songs to me ever since I was a little girl. So, it is without further ado, that I reveal a few of my favorite things...

"...brown paper packages tied up with strings..."

This was so quick and easy, but I think it turned out really sharp. I am really starting to use my stamps more effectively too, check out the fancy pants stripes I colored... :)

"...snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes..."

I wasn't sure if it looked silly or simple, but the more I look at it, the more it grows on me, see thw glittery snowflakes, too cute!

and they land ever so lightly on the eyelashes...

I so enjoyed making these cards and they were SO easy!! There is just so much inspiration from that movie to put into some fun Christmas cards... And yes, I am still working on Christmas cards, I am making them for family and friends, and I really do love Christmas... Sigh... back to work!

2 Sketches for you... well actually three, cuz I didn't really like the first one I did...

I lumbered on over to http://2sketches4you.blogspot.com/ earlier this week, and it has taken me some time, between the baby having pink eye and my being a little lazy with the computer... So this is a little flip-flopped, because I decided to do Hanneke's bonus sketch first, seen here:

And here is the card: ( I liked using pink and light green instead of the traditional red and bright green)

And that leads us to Kazan's Shetch 14:

This is actually the second card I did, but I liked it alot:

Check out the wicked cool puzzle pieces I pushed into some timber brown ink, and the cool fabric button with silvery thread:

And then the little metal tabs that spell out "thanks":

And this is the original card I had done:

It's nice, but kind of blah...

Although I did have fun with the sequin snowflakes:

And now on to the important stuff...

First off, Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I am so excited to spend some quality time with my family and also to not have to cook. You see in my family I am accustomed to cooking 3 meals a day seven days a week.... So on Thanksgiving, we make reservations for a swanky buffet near my parents house. I love it because I don't have to cook or do dishes or clean or anyt of that, and, well, neither does my mama, but the kids love it because they have a chocolate fountain. Basically it is an evening of bliss!!!

Don't forget too... The premium outlets open at midnight tonight and the Black Friday Shopping Extravaganza begins! Woot! Woot!

Anywho, moving on to things I am thankful for:

1. I am thankful that I still have both my parents, alive and well, and that my children have a very close relationship with them.

2. I am thankful for my children and that they are healthy, growing, and learning. And also for my Jimmy, I would be lost without him.

3. I am thankful for the oppurtunity to stay at home with my children and have the time to spend playing with them, helping with homework, reading to them, and just being there. It also gives me time to cook, clean, and create. :)

4. I am thankful for my friends. It has taken a long time for me to discover who I really valued as a friend, and there was a time when I measured friendship by the number of friends that I had and now I do so by the amoutn of love I have from my friends, they are like my sisters, and my brothers too, *wink*.

5. I am thankful for my country, and that I have the privilege to be an American citizen. So many people living in this country take that privilege for granted and do not understand how lucky they are to live in such a prosperous nation.

I could probably go on, but the post only called for 5 and I think those would be my top 5. I hope everyone has a chance to enjoy the holiday and reflect on what means the most to them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Busy, Busy, Busy on this Snowy Friday...

So the next challenge I attempt, not only inspired a card, but it also inspired me to get into the kitchen and bake up a batch of chocolate chip cookies to go along with my morning coffee. Don't they look yummy... I am afraid Allie is going to try to eat them all before Zachie gets home from school. Anywho, this is what had inspired the cookies, and well, the card, too... From Stampin' with Leah's Monthly challenge #2: http://stampinwithleah.blogspot.com/2008/11/leahs-monthly-challenge-2.html:

And this is what I cam up with:

I knew I wanted to stick with a Christmas theme and challenge myself to use a non-traditional color scheme. I used some random paper scraps I had lying around and just sort of pieced them together for the shape of the card. Immediately I thought of fuzzy warm mittens. I cut out the shapes out of red cardstock and added the chocolate furry yarn for depth:

Then I rummaged through the buttons I had and tried to represent each color and also add some variety and interst to the card. I think they sort of represent faux photo corners:

Just thought I'd give a little update. I am in the groove again today, especially since it's Friday. I simply love Friday! :)