Jar of Love

  I have been totally enamored with the Mason jar trend and I finally have some Mason jar stamp images in my stash!  I purchased this Unity stamp set, "Jars of Love x 3" from Shop Pumpkin Spice:

My papers, twine, and glossy accents also came from

Shop Pumpkin Spice:

papers:  Glitz design "Yours Truly"
twine:  The Twinery "stone"
glossy accents

Happy Thursday!

Pinspired by Neat and Tangled

  I just happened upon a new challenge blog called Pinspired Challenges.  It is a bi-weekly challenge blog that turns pins into projects.  Here is the current "pinspiration":

  My inspiration came from the hint of greens and blues.  I searched my paper stash and chose the hexagon patterned paper (BasicGrey "Urban Prairie."  I combined three Neat and Tangled stamps (from the "Fresh Blooms" stamp set) with the bee hive cut from my Cricut "Create a Critter" cartridge.  I also used glossy accents (heart and bee) and Stickles (bee wings.)

Happy Wednesday!

Joyful Hearts card

 This week the Joy's Life DT are creating cards from the "Joyful Hearts" stamp set.  I used the solid little heart twice...such a perfect size...and a sentiment from "Wintery Puns."  I own too many 6x6 pads than I care to admit, and some are barely used.  But my My Mind's Eye Indie Chic paper pad is down to bare bones.  I absolutely love that collection!  These wonderful hearts and sentiments from "Joyful Hearts" seemed a perfect match.  Wanna see the entire set?

 And my current favorite sentiment stamp set:

 Look how nicely they stamp too:

Happy Tuesday!

Paper Smooches SPARKS Picture Perfect challenge

   My card is inspired by this photo for the Picture Perfect challenge at Paper Smooches SPARKS.  The bold orange and white patterns, the shiny silver upholstery pins (I used 3 i-rocks), and the hint of grey in the sheets (my grey heart) are such a fun combo:

I used my favorite Paper Smooches stamp set, "Warm Hearts."

My heart is from the "JOY" stamp and 

I also used the "Love will keep us warm" sentiment stamp:

 I used scraps of "a walk in the park" collection by Echo Park...I love that collection, and I have very little paper left from it.  If the photo inspires you, I hope you will play along with me and link up at:

I also used this old sketch (Dec.2, 2012) from Cardabilities:

Happy Monday!

Pumpkin Spice and Cardabilties challenges

  Doubly challenged!  I created this card for this week's Shop Pumpkin Spice challenge:

Blue and White and something Round

as well as the current sketch at Cardablities:

I had fun creating this card from my untouched 6x6 BasicGrey "Life of the Party" paper pad.  Two of my bloggie friends (Amy Tsuruta and Julie Tucker-Wolek) have been using hoarded stash for the posts recently instead of just new stash.  They both inspired me to peruse my unloved stash of things I just had to have, but have not used.  I purchased this BasicGrey paper pad two years ago, but have not cut into until today.  Yikes!

Happy Sunday!

Winter Birthday

  This week the Joy's Life design team is featuring winter theme projects.

This polka dot paper caught my eye since I love red, elephants, and polka dots.

The dots reminded me of snow and the

Joy's Life "Oh Christmas Puns" sentiment seemed a perfect fit.

  Check out the beautiful fonts and sentiments in this set:

Supplies:
stamps:  Joy's Life "Oh Christmas Puns"
papers:  Glitz "Yours Truly"; red linen card stock; SU glitter paper
die:  SU snowflake die
pearls:  Hero Arts

Thanks for stopping by!

CAS-Tangled (no patterned paper?!)

  It has been a long while since I created a card with NO patterned paper!  I love patterned paper as much as I enjoy my stamps.  And speaking of stamps, I absolutely adore Neat and Tangled stamp sets.

  For this card I used two Neat & Tangled sets:  Little Tangles (scallops) and Fresh Blooms (flower/boat, lady bug, bee, and sentiment.)  I colored with topic markers and added a red button (Bazzill) for the body of the lady bug and glossy accents for the bee.

  I was inspired by this week's CASology challenge:  Blue

and

Little Tangles:  All About Buttons

Happy Sunday!

Tea for Two?

I made this tea card for TWO challenges this week:

Shop Pumpkin Spice blog:  Coffee/Cocoa/Tea

and

Mojo Monday #276

I used three different collections of Echo Park papers, all purchased at Shop Pumpkin Spice:

• Grandma's Kitchen (tea pot sticker element and floral background paper)
• For the Record (yellow "lace stripes" background paper)
• Winter Park (light blue and neutral solids)

The self-adhesive lace is by Hero Arts and the paper doily tag is by Martha Stewart.  The sentiment stamp is by Impression Obsession.

Happy Sunday!

Thank You SNOW Much

  I created this little 3D snowman for the snowman/snowpeople/snowperson challenge on the Shop Pumpkin Spice blog.  There is still time to play!  Link up your snowman project for a chance to win.  I used Carta Bella "Traditions" papers for the scarf, background, and even the nose :)

  The black gems are i-rock gems.  The arms are from Cricut "Winter Frolic" snowman p.31 cut @ 3".
My white circles are cut @ 2", 2.5", and 3".  The card base is 4.25" x 8.5"

  My sentiment is from my favorite Joy's Life stamp set, "Wintery Puns."
Click to link your snowman card to here.

Happy Friday!

Love and Traditions

  I think my new favorite paper company may be Carta Bella!  It is a close tie with Echo Park (it's sister company) and My Mind's Eye.  Before CB, EP, and MME, I loved BasicGrey and before BG there was Doodlebug too...all of which I purchase from Shop Pumpkin Spice.  I can get all my paper love in one shop :)

  The Carta Bella papers seem to be a heavier weight and are especially nice to work with.  I created this card completely from Carta Bella "Traditions", kraft card stock, and a button and twine from the Shop Pumpkin Spice "Winterland Fun" December kit.  The sketch was inspired by a card I saw on Pinterest by Kimber.

  My tag was created using a circle punch in the CB "Traditions" paper and kraft card stock.

Happy Thursday!

Triple Embossing Technique

  It's new technique week on the Joy's Life design team blog.  I decided to try triple embossing.

I cut my base layers at (red linen card stock):

2 1/4" x 3 1/2"

3 1/4" x 4 1/2"

5 1/2" x 8 1/2" (card base)

I cut the pink layers at:

2" x 3 1/4"

3" x 4 1/4"

4" x 5 1/4"

Layer the 3 pink rectangles and attach with a little temporary adhesive.  Place the triple layered pink rectangles in an embossing folder and emboss.  The embossing on all three layers lines up!

Carefully separate the three pink rectangles and where each to the red linen card stock as shown.

I love this sentiment from Joy's Life "Wintery Puns" set:

My card was made completely from scraps...wahoo :)

Thank you for stopping by!

Joy's Life Mini Book blog hop

 Welcome to the Joy's Life mini book blog hop!  You should have arrived from lovely Laura's blog.

If not, please start at the beginning at Joy's Life.  The stamps used on the cover are from three different Joy's Life stamp sets:  All Around Sentiments, Joyful Hearts, and Wintery Puns.

I created my mini book from 6 envelopes measuring about 5 1/4" x 7 1/4".  I chose six 12x12 BasicGrey papers cut at 5"x7" to cover each envelope.  I inserted the envelope flaps inside to create pockets to hold these 4"x5" tags:

 Room for pictures, journaling, and more Joy's Life stamps!

 The heart in the bottom right hand corner is from Joyful Hearts stamp set:

 Another stamped heart from Joyful Hearts stamp set:

 And one more for the back cover:

Now I just need to add photos, journaling, and more Joy's Life stamps!

I inked and stamped with Tim Holtz distress inks.

I hope you enjoyed my mini book and I appreciate your time to stop by my blog.

Your next stop on the hop:  magnificent Megan!

New Product in my stash

  This week the Joy's Life Design Team blog is featuring projects made with new product in our stash.  My lovely friend Lauren gave me a 6x6 paper pad for Christmas.  I wanted to use those papers to make her a thank you note, and this is what I came up with.  I cut circles from the My Mind's Eye "'Tis the Season" pad, inked the edges with my black stamp pad for dimension, and punched gold ornaments (SU punch) from gold moire mirror paper.  I embossed a scrap of blue Bazzill card stock with my "Snowflakes" embossing folder.  I added some MME twine and a red button from my stash.

And until now I have also never used this terrific stamp set:

Have you played with your new holiday stash?

My card was inspired by this sketch at Artful Delight:

They have great sketches each month and wonderful monthly card and scrapbooking kits.

I will be in Florida for a week visiting my grandmother and aunts...and no internet access.  Yikes!

New weekly challenge blog: Pumpkin Spice!

    For 2013 my favorite online store (Shop Pumpkin Spice) will also host weekly challenges on the Pumpkin Spice blog.

The first week's theme:  New Year

• New challenges are every Saturday (close the following Friday.)  
• Enter as often as you like!  
• Your projects must be *new* creations that follow the challenge prompt.
• please link the Shop Pumpkin Spice store (http://www.shoppumpkinspice.com/) somewhere in your blog post.
• Winner chosen randomly each week.
• Winner will receive a badge to post on their blog or Facebook AND a shout out in the monthly newsletter with a link to your blog and a picture of your project.

And $25+ more product to be won:

• Every month a random entry (not just the weekly winners) will be announced on the next monthly Pumpkin Spice blog hop (first Saturday of the month).  On that post the prize package and random winner will be announced.  Please check to see if your name is chosen!

Of course my card is created from Shop Pumpkin Spice goodies:

papers:  Glitz "Yours Truly" 6x6; blue Bazzill card stock (Yankee Doodles kit); kraft Bazzill card stock

stamps:  (star) My Pink Stamper "Freedom Rocks"; excellent stamp set if you make hero cards for Operation Write Home

button

twine (December Pumpkin Spice kit "Winterland Fun")

Enter your New Year theme project here.  (Please be patient, the page loads slowly.)

Happy crafting!

Shop Pumpkin Spice January hop

  I hope you will hop along with the 2013 design team for Pumpkin Spice (my favorite online store.)  I've had a sneak peek at some of the projects and there is a lot of talent and inspiration among these ladies.

Blog Hop Order:

Missy:  www.quickchickdesigns.blogspot.com

Tanya:  http://little-scrapper.blogspot.com/

Agnes (FLOWERDISCO): http://flowerdiscosscraphut.blogspot.com/

Cheryl (Shestamps): http://shestamps.blogspot.com/

Heather: www.housesbuiltofcards.blogspot.com

Marlene: http://scrappincookie.blogspot.com

Court: http://www.courtscrafts.blogspot.com/

Carissa:  http://happilyeverpapercrafter.blogspot.com/

Saundra: http://luvscrappingtogether.blogspot.com

Lezlye: http://lezlyes.blogspot.com/

Denine www.pumpkinspiceblog.blogspot.com

Happy hopping!

Thoughts of You for 2013

 Happy 2013!  I have been enjoying the holiday season with some of the friends and family I love most.  I hope you were able to do the same.  I chose to enjoy each day rather than stress over the holiday bustle.   I have a few gifts that are still not wrapped and shipped, but it will get done.  Until last night, I even took a vacation from crafting and social media.  We had a nice unexpected surprise...a white Christmas!  And Santa even brought a sled; perfect.  We have had lots of fun doing puzzles, playing games, and sledding in the snow.

  Yesterday the postman brought me a package of goodies from Pumpkin Spice, so my daughters and I headed to my craft room.  My girls created sticker mosaics that Santa brought while I played with my new papers and stamps.  The trees and the sentiment are Paper Smooches stamps and the papers are Carta Bella "Traditions".  I love the weight and feel of the Carta Bella papers.  They seem higher quality to me than some of my other 6x6 pads by various manufacturers...just my opinion!

  The brown card stock is from my December Pumpkin Spice kit, "Winterland Fun."  The red dotted card stock, dark brown ink, and my acrylic stamping block all came from the Pumpkin Spice kit, "Mooey Doodles."  The gems and crinkle ribbon were also purchased from Pumpkin Spice...I love that store!  Great prices and reasonable shipping.

I wish you all a healthy and happy 2013!