It's beginning to look a lot like.........

Life has been a blur for me for the last month and I've barely even seen a rubber stamp, never mind had time to create anything. Next year I am starting early (umm, didn't I say that last year? I think I might have...) Anyhoo, I have some time off work over the Christmas period and I am planning some selfish creative time.

Hope everyone has a fabulous Christmas and that Santa brings you everything you have been wishing for.

OWH Blog Hop Winner

Thanks so much for all the kind comments on both of my hops. There was only one prize though... (that's the drum roll!)

I asked my veteran to pick a number and he said 45, which makes the winner Night Shift Nancy! Nancy, please contact me so I can get your "God Bless America" set in the mail.

Angel Art Blog Hop

I know!! Two hops in one weekend... I didn't realize when I signed up that they would be so close together, but I made it.
This hop was put together by my fellow Angels and it's just perfect for this time of year - the theme was "Holiday Cards and Tags in 10 minutes or less" - who couldn't use some inspiration of that kind?

Because this is an Angel Company blog hop, most of the products youwill see used are from TAC. My first card uses the set Simple Joys and it truly couldn't have been simpler! It was inspired by a card I received in a recent swap which was made by Shirley Hotop. I tweaked it up a little, but the concept is all hers - thanks Shirley. I stamped the image with versamark, embossed it with gold and silver embossing powder, "stickled" it with icicle stickles and mounted it on a scrap of gold card (non TAC ) then mounted that on to Cuttlebug embossed cardstock. Simple!!



Easel cards are so cute and so easy! Under 10 mins, really :) I stamped the main image from the Vintage Santa set in Palette Burnt Umber on TAC Ivory cardstock, distressed it and ran some Brilliance Galaxy Gold around the edges. ( I didn't notice it had smudged in to the image until I edited it in Picasa..... oh, well!) He was mounted on TAC green cardstock. The paper is from TAC's Reece collection, the sentiment comes from the same Vintage Santa set and the ribbon is also TAC.



The last card was the easiest of all! It actually looks better IRL but regardless of how many pictures I took, it always came up looking a little blah. I'm sharing it anyway... The paper is from TAC's Amelia collection (one of my favorites!) and it uses one of the labels that is included. The sentiments are from two retired sets, JustBe 9another of my favorites) and Trendy Holiday Tags.

Melisa is next on the hop and I know you are in for a treat! She does some fabulous work and has been featured in the Angel Company catalog.

Here is the complete list of bloggers, just in case some of the links are broken.

Laurie W
Teresa
Jamie
Diane
Jen
Rita
Shirley
Julie
Kim
Laurie U
Kay
Melisa
Stacy

Operation Write Home Blog Hop

Welcome hoppers! If you've been following the hop from the beginning you should have landed here from Caryl's blog. If you just dropped in randomly from cyberspace, you caught me participating in Operation Write Home's Veterans Day Blog Hop.

Operation Write Home is a group of crafters from across America (and beyond!) who make handmade cards for deployed heroes so they can keep in touch with their loved ones at home! We serve all branches of the military in all deployed locations, including those stationed aboard ships.

We also make "Any Hero" Cards. News from the homefront—even from strangers—is a treasure to those far from home. "Hero Mail is great," says one Chaplain. "I go out and pray with the soldiers before missions and I hand out Hero Mail." Letters are distributed to those who rarely get mail, or to those most in need of encouragement the day the box arrives. "It helps to know that we are remembered!"

The challenge for this hop was to create an Any Hero card and a Valentines Card (the next big holiday we are all frantically making cards for) I spent last weekend creating, and got so caught up in it all that I forgot to take pictures of the Valentines cards so I'm sharing two of my "Any Hero Cards instead. These cards were made with paper from K&Company's Army Collection and the sentiment is from The Angel Company's "God Bless America" set. It's got a bunch of sentiments which are just perfect for cards or scrapbook pages with a military theme and I'm giving one away today. All you have to do is leave a comment by midnight on the 15th and I will have my veteran pick a number at random to decide the winner. Don't forget to leave me a way to contact you and thanks for stopping by!

Now hop on over to see what Dawn has been up to! I "met" Dawn on the last OWH blog hop - you will love her blog!

We will remember them.....

I grew up in Scotland, where Veteran's Day is called Remembrance Day, sometimes even Poppy Day, because we all wore red poppies in remembrance, something I don't see in the US but if you are interested, the history can be found here.

It falls on the same day, the 11th of November, and if it fell on a weekday, all the schools attended a church ceremony and we observed a two minute silence at 11am to honor the fallen. As a child, I probably fidgeted a lot during that two minutes, and didn't appreciate the symbolism of it. As an adult, who became part of the military family, who has friends serving overseas and who has lost friends to war, I fully appreciate it now.

Life has become so busy now, I can't imagine it stopping for two minutes during the work week, but if you take two minutes to watch this video, as you do so, please send out good thoughts and prayers to all our heroes of every nation serving in harms way. The video shows the very moving part of the annual ceremony of remembrance at the Albert Hall in London where poppies are released over representatives of all branches of the British armed forces to symbolize the fallen. I remember hearing once that there was one poppy for every fallen British hero, which makes it even more sobering to watch.

Until everyone comes home, we should remember.

Christmas is coming......

......the geese are getting fat! Do you have that Christmas song here in the US? I have lived here so long now that I can't always remember what is from where so if that first sentence sounds totally random, just take my word for the fact it's actually a Christmas song.
Today is the postmark deadline for Operation Write Home Christmas cards and I have 50 all safely in their priority mailer ready to go. This is one of them. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It was really easy to do - the thing that took the longest was waiting for the Stickles on the lettering to dry. You can't use glitter on OWH cards, but you can use Stickles (because it doesn't flake off) and really, what's the Holiday season without a little sparkle? This is an SU set that I don't remember the name of - my aunt let me stamp a bunch of images with it when she bought it last year - colored with Copics and Stickles, then mounted on red mirrorcard. The snowflake is a MS punch and the gem in the center of it came from the $ spot at Michaels.
I'm heading to the Post Office today to get my stash in the mail. I tried last week, only to be rejected because I had tape on the priority mailer - what is the deal with that? Is it just me, or is the Post Office getting really picky?

Fall Back!

I am just loving the extra hour! Don't you wish we could have one every week? For some reason it seems to be lasting way longer than 60 minutes...
I had every great intention of making a bunch of cards today but then got sidetracked by the mess in the craft room so I have spent most of the afternoon in there tidying away all the Halloween paper, glitter, ribbon etc in readiness to bring out all the Christmas glitter and gloriousness so instead of a card you are being treated to a picture of the spooky seven layer dip I made as an appetizer for last nights Halloween dinner party. Look really carefully and you will see the wine glass markers are toe tags (complete with gummy toes in them) and the wine on offer was a Pinot Noir called "Vampire". We had a perfectly splendid evening.... I have the best friends!

Not a Halloween Card!

I know, totally shocking, but I've moved on... I may squeeze in a couple of last minute Halloween cards, but for the most part I'm done until next year.

Time to start on the Christmas cards! Don't you just love this image from Mo Manning? I love all her images but these two characters are among my favorite. This was colored with Copics and blinged up with Stickles and glitter. Ivory Flower Soft was used on the brim of her hat - boy, that stuff is messy!!

This time of year is very busy for me with my day job, so blogging is taking somewhat of a back seat. Actually, I'm kind of amazed I've kept going as long as I have because I have a fairly short attention span, not to mention a low boredom threshold, but I'm really having a good time with it, mainly thanks to my bloggy buddies in Oceans 11 and all the other lovely people I have "met" out there in Cyberspace. Thanks all!!

Tombstone Invitation

So I couldn't find the memory card adapter anywhere and finally had to break down and buy a new one. I found a wonderful price online and rushed to click the PayPal button without reading the fine print - the price was so wonderful because the store is in Japan!!! 7 - 14 days from order to receipt but the price was a whopping $1.16 or something equally ridiculous and since the shipping was free, i don't think I will worry too much about whether or not it ever makes it here. In the meantime, I found one on sale in WalMart. I did have to buy a new memory card to get the adapter and it cost a little more than $1, but it's in my hot little hands now and I have cards to share again, so all's well that ends well.

Since Halloween conveniently falls on a Saturday this year, I decided I was going to hold a Halloween dinner party. If anyone has any suggestions for something suitably spooky to serve, please share because I haven't thought that far in advance. I'm sure I'll come up with something but help is always appreciated! I am really looking forward to decorating the house and the table with some of my overlarge collection of Halloween goodies. We usually have plenty of little trick or treaters in my development, so I'm thinking we will munch on appetizers and hand out candy and then sit down to dinner. I'm excited already!

And lookee..... The Angel Company has this free template for the perfect invitation! You would think they made it just for me. I linked to the free download section because there are some other cute projects too - and free is always good!

Savannah

So I was going to show you some pictures of the Halloween cards I worked on this weekend ( I know - Halloween is so far out of my comfort zone, but I do like to live life on the edge) but I have misplaced my memory card adaptor and so can't get the pictures out of my camera. So instead I'm sharing some pictures of Savannah. We had the best weekend....... I totally fell in love with the city. From the elegant Mansion on Forsyth Park............


.... to the graceful old buildings like these:





From the beautiful squares:



to the fabulous fountains:



and the delicious food:



(Fried Green Tomatoes - it just had to be done, really didn't it?)

I left a small piece of my heart in Savannah. If you ever have the chance to visit, don't hesitate!

World Card Making Day plus one

Back from my birthday trip just in time to squeeze in a card for World Card Making Day. I know lots of peeps had fun challenges posted and I've probably missed the deadline for most of them, but I did find one on the Sugar Nellie forum on SCS which doesn't close until midnight tonight so there is still time for you to join in. Details can be found here:
I surprised myself by finishing this in record time - especially since the sketch had so many layers on it.
It was nice to use fall colors for something other than Halloween or Thanksgiving - the paper is from Basic Grey's Mellow collection and I finally got to use some Primas I have been hoarding too.

Holiday weekend

It's my birthday today, so my DH has spirited me off to Savannah for the weekend to a most lavish hotel called "The Mansion on Forsyth Park" No cards this weekend (I know, World Card Making Day and I'm heading to the spa, then lunch, then some general 'sploring of Savannah ....... the shame of it)

One of my bloggy buddies from Oceans 11,my blogging group of talented stampers, shares her birthday with me - so here is a little message just for
Siobhan:



I'll post some Savannah pictures and catch up with you all later in the week!

Hippy Chick

There is something about this Gorjuss girl that just screams hippy chick to me so it wasn't much of a stretch to pair her up with some this tree hugging paper from Basic Grey. One of those cards that comes together with very little effort and makes up for all those other cards that take forever and result in much teeth gnashing....

Halloween Tree

My weakness for all things Halloweeny (yes, Barb it is a word!) means I have an insane amount of Halloween paper, not to mention a collection of black and grey Prima flowers that never looked right on any card I made, so over the Labor Day weekend, I worked on this little project using the SCS instructions for Paper Trees and used up a ton of stuff. The original instructions are for Christmas decorations and I had made a couple of Christmas trees last year and still had some styrofoam balls. And, like any good hoarder, I also have a stash of things I picked up "that might be useful one day" which includes more than a few of those metal buckets from the Target dollar spot. Look closely and you will see that it was sponged with alcohol inks to make it black and spooky! Altering tin is one of the very many cool things you can do with thatstuff.
This week has just shot by and the only crafty things I have been working on are my swaps for my fellow Angels on Paper Wings, the angels only forum I am part of. So I can't show you them yet, obviously, but I am pleased with the way they turned out, although it took me forever to decide on what to make. I don't swap often because as soon as I sign up, I become paralyzed with the possibilities, futz around for days, waste tons of supplies and end up regretting the impulse that placed me in this position in the first place but there are so many cute sets in our fall supplement that I gave in.

Tim n' Martha

So I've had this set of Tim Holtz Alcohol Inks sitting in my craft room for at least 6 months now. I picked them up at Michaels one week, while wandering round looking for something to use my 50% off coupon on - you know, because I couldn't not use it and miss out on saving.. my DH LOVES that logic. "look how much I saved you today, honey"

Anyhow, I dug 'em out when I played along with the Macabre Monday challenge, viewed Mr Holtz (genius) doing his thing with them on YouTube and then played with them some more to create the back grounds for these little lovelies. The stickers are from the same MS pack I found on clearance last year and the bats are a MS punch and some sparkly paper from the stash. I'm really pleased with the way they turned out and I pretty much likes them all, but I believe the owl is my favorite. I do love Halloween.....

Operation Write Home

I make Cards For Heroes, or at least I used to! Now I make cards for Operation Write Home - same people, different name. There are a couple of very good reasons for the change and you can find them all here, but the reason for sending cards to them hasn't changed so if you have a few (or a lot) of spare cards in your stash, or you just need a reason to make a bunch o'cards, check out the guidelines on the home page (that whole "no glitter" thing is a challenge for me!!) and get a package in the mail today!
Here's my Halloween stash, sneaking in just before the deadline .....

Halloween Gorjussness

More Halloween cards! I think little Miss Gothic Gorjuss lends herself very well to the spirit of the season - so I decided to play around with her a little. Whaddya think of her with a green face? Purple hair? More alien than goth in the end, IMHO, but maybe someone will love her.
I've had a perfectly splendid Saturday - my first order from The Angel Company's "Inspiration Avenue" arrived with lots of yummy new holiday stamps (there just might be a new Halloween set in there... just sayin') so I spent the afternoon happily trimming and organizing.
And as if that weren't enough I found Bejewelled Blitz for my PC!!!! I have been totally addicted to this game since I found it on Facebook but the PC version is way better. Any of you fellow addicts rush to Target and buy this immediately so I won't be alone like this............

I remember.........

HDH Macabre Monday Challenge 04

Barb Foster is a fellow Angel. We've never met, but I've seen her posts on Paper Wings, the forum for Angels, and I've admired her work in the TAC catalogs because she is frequently featured there. Recently I discovered that Barb, like me, is a big Halloween fan. She is such a big fan that she has a whole blog , Haunted Design House, dedicated just to her obsession. I love it that sort of dedication!
It's been a long time since I played along with any challanges but how could I resist a Macabre Monday challenge? We are challenged to use a ghastly poem within the design and really who is more ghastly than Edgar Allen Poe?? My poem is "The Raven" I've had these Martha Stewart stickers sitting around in my Halloween stash for over a year now with a vague idea of what I wanted to do with them, so this card came together really quickly. I printed the poem on a piece of TAC's (retired) Kamalat DP and inked up the edges with Tim Holtz Vintage Photo ink. Then I used the MS drippy goo punch on a scrap piece of glittery black paper from my stash and mounted it on a piece of glossy card that I doctored up with Tim Holtz alcohol inks and entered it in Barb's challenge.

Light up my life

As soon as I saw this Inkadinkadoo set, I knew they had to be mine. And I knew exactly what I was going to do with them - make Halloween cards! I love this card (she said modestly)
I honestly don't often love my cards - comparing myself to some of my stamping idols, I'm frequently unhappy with the results, but not this time .I was so happy with it I made the mistake of asking my DH his opinion.

Me: " Look what I made - what do you think?"
Him: "What does a chandalier have to do with Halloween?"
Me: "Well, don't you think it's atmospheric, doesn't it make you think of old houses and ghosts and such?"
Him: "Nope - I still don't see what it has to do with Halloween."

Which made my doubt myself for about 5 minutes........... and then I stamped a whole bunch more for Cards For Heroes. See......

I change up the colors and ribbon (because the ribbon on the first card is way sparkly and you can't use sparkle on CFH cards because of the risk to our heroes of stray bits of bling showing up on night vision goggles. Who woulda thunk it?) but I still love these cards regardless of what DH says. What does he know anyway??

The cardstock is TAC kraft, the paper came from a Halloween pad of paper I picked up at Michaels, the "Halloween" sentiment is a TAC stamp from last year, the "happy" is from an SU set that i don't remember the name of , the ribbon also come from M's . Think that's all folks!

Happy Haunting

I had a lot of fun this weekend putting together some Halloween cards for my next Cards For Heroes mailings.
This little witch is from TAC's "Happy Haunting" set, the spider and the sentiment came from a Michaels Inkadinkadoo set, the kraft cardstock is TAC's and the DP came from the scrap pile. A little coloring, some stickles and she was done! I was so pleased with the way it came out, I whipped up a bunch.
Halloween and Kraft Cardstock - two current obsessions. Also the series "Weeds" which I have been watching on Netflix and Bejewelled on Facebook. What's your current obsession?

Be Bubbly!

Stamping Bella holds a very special place in my heart because it was these little ladies that finally tipped me over the edge in to the unmounted stamp world - and oh, the places I've gone since!
Back then, the thought of unmounted stamps scared me for some unfathomable reason but because of the irresistible cuteness of da Bellas I put one toe in, then another, then my whole foot and now I am the proud owner of mounted rubber, unmounted rubber, clear stamps, digital stamps - you name it, if the image calls to me, I own it. A proud equal opportunity stamper
The image is a Bella, the sentiment from a retired TAC set called "JustBE"

Inspiration Avenue

I have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of TAC's new Fall supplement which they have called "Inspiration Avenue" because there has been a lot of chatter about it over on Paper Wings, which is a forum for Angels. Mine arrived over the weekend and I have to say I'm very impressed. There are lots of cool new sets (42 new sets to be exact) and I have generated a fairly lengthy wishlist

I also like that they have included instructions for making some really neat seasonal projects. There is an ornament box that is just adorable and the template for it is going to be available from The Angel Company website as a free download. I've honestly been in two minds whether to continue my demoship with TAC but if this is a sample of the direction the company is taking , I think I will hang on in there for another wee while.

Here are a couple of sneak peeks for you- it goes live for ordering from on Sept 1st.









How cute is that Christmas set? And see the instructions for the Christmas Trio of Treats?

I'm also loving the tea set - it's on the wish list.... which will no doubt be tweaked and edited a couple of times before the order gets placed next week

Anticipation of new rubbah is almost as good as the real thing, no?

Pretty as a princess

I think I've mentioned my fondness for the Gorjuss girls once or twice before... I love them all, but this little Miss Attitude is one of my very favorites. I thought she went perfectly with the sentiment from TAC's "Yield To The Princess" set.
The DP is from Basic Gray's "Sultry" set. My addiction to that paper is also well documented .......

I finished it off with a butterfly from my MS punch and a tiny bit o' bling. I found these little sparklies at Michaels and I believe they were intended to decorate hair accessories but repurpose very nicely wherever you want to add a wee sparkle!

Digital Stamps

A couple of weeks ago there was a thread on SCS about digital stamping which was very interesting. I am very much a" live and let live" kind of person and I was quite surprised by the passion this subject stirred up. I guess, for me, there are subjects much more worthy of getting worked up about than whether a digital image should or should not be called a stamp. I'm glad it came up though because if it hadn't I would never have found the work of Mo Manning who is the illustrator of the digital image used on this card. Next time, I think I will size her down a little, but I just love this image !
She was printed on WalMart GP cardstock, using my HP deskjet, then colored with Copics. The background paper is the (sadly) discontinued Khalamat line from TAC

Blog Awards

I'm still kind of new to this whole blogging adventure, still feeling my way around Blogger and all its many moods, and still more likely to blame myself than gremlins when I can't get things to do what I want them to! I was very lucky to find a group of blogging buddies early in the journey - the lovely ladies of Surfin' Oceans 11, all of whom are listed on my blog roll and all of whom have been invaluable allies in helping me to figure some of this stuff out.
A couple of weeks ago, Holly gave me my first blog award but I didn't know how to "accept" it, so she helped me out with that too!Thanks, Holly!

Then I got an award from Kathy:
And then I got one from Siobhan

Thanks so much for thinking of me, girls and thanks for taking the time to explain how to display them. Getting these have made me feel like a real blogger!!
There were directions and conditions that came along with each award, such as passing them on to others but it has taken me so long to work out how to actually do this that I am just going to promise to do better if there is a next time - and hope that I won't have forgotten how to do it if and when that day comes.