My Top Ten Cards (and Templates) of 2010

Hi everyone! I happened to see this Top Ten hop on Anita Hovey's blog, and checked out the link to Suzi's blog (who started this fun hop). So I went through my blog for 2010 and decided that I had to do a top 10 cards and a top 10 templates (since I LOVE my templates)! So here are my Top 10 Cards. This was done for a JustRite hop and I gave this to my mom for Christmas and made another for my in-laws. I think it's my favorite of the year! I went to a workshop at my LSS, Buffalo Stamps & Stuff, and learned a new technique from Wendy Vecchi (from Ranger Industries). I LOVE orange and it paired so nicely with the gray. The Paper Makeup Stamp was perfect for this technique. My friends Cheryl, Tracy, Debbie, and I entered the Paper Works Ultimate Summer Challenge and ultimately ended up winning! This is the card I entered for the team challenge. I used this Flourishes image to make this card for my MIL's birthday. I'm not a fan of purple, but I loved how this card took on a vintage feel. There was something about this card that I just loved. I think it's the colors...some of my favorites! I love the image from Paper Makeup Stamps called Rose. I remember seeing this layout from Taylored Expressions and loved it. I used this set from Paper Makeup Stamps to create this fun card. I love the raindrops! Oh, I love the colors in this one! PMS had an inspiration challenge using a picture of a room from Pottery Barn, I believe, that had an arched window in the picture. I used that as my inspiration along with those great colors! I love the layout, colors, and image (from PMS) in this fresh and fun card! I had fun layering the fruit in the image to get some great depth. My final Top 10 card is this one. I'm a teacher, so hello...this is right up my alley! I made it for a student who gave me a very nice gift at the end of the last school year. It screams school, doesn't it? Image and sentiment from PMS.

Well that's it for my Top 10 Cards. Now I just have to share my Top 10 Templates. I hope that's ok. If not, just ignore this section! This was my first project as a design team member for My Time Made Easy. The Shop Around template was a mega template with lots of design options. I love dogs, so I used a dog theme!And speaking of dogs, I made this dog house for my PMS DT member, Stephanie, as a gift for her new puppy, Butterball. It's a MTME template as well.I made this for a Just Us Girls template challenge. It's from Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs. I love how that basket looks so real and the strawberries were so fun to make! I think this was for another JUGs template challenge using this fun and sexy set from Paper Makeup Stamps and a MTME template. Don't you just love the sentiment? This was done for an Artful Inkables challenge when I was on their Design Team. I love the color of the flowers! Love this MTME template, PMS sentiment and the dp. So how cute are these? From MTME for a JUGs template challenge. OK, so these are even cuter! Once again from MTME and JUGs template challenge (I think!). I love the little ghost pleading to be released from this MTME box and the other one peeking around the corner! The colors and dp are some of my favs! And this is probably my favorite template of the year! I love the stacked star boxes from MTME and the colors are so festive! The poinsettia is so pretty atop these boxes too!

Thanks for sticking with me to reminisce about my Top 10 Cards and Templates of 2010. What are yours?

Merry Christmas!

Hi everyone! I just wanted to stop in and say Merry Christmas to all of my friends who celebrate this holiday! I hope you are celebrating with loved ones and enjoying this special day! I'm also hoping that Santa was good to you and your family!

I look forward to sharing more inspiration for you from Paper Makeup Stamps, My Time Made Easy, and Just Us Girls in 2011! I am so grateful for the girls on these three design teams and am proud to call them my friends! And thank you to all of you who have left the nicest comments on my blog throughout the year! It meant so much to me!

Merry Christmas, my friends, and happiness always!

The Last Christmas Card!

Happy 5 days 'til Christmas! I was sending out my cards this weekend and had one last card to make for my neighbors. I used a layout I saw on my friend Diane's blog that made this card super easy to make.
My neighbor, Karen, has this pretty ice skates ornament that her husband and son tease her about. She loves the ornament and they think it's pretty lame! I think the ornament is so pretty, and these skates reminded me of it.

This card was super easy to pull together. The dp is from The Homemade Christmas Stack from DCWV. I matted it with real red cardstock and added the SU ribbon. The sentiment, skates (from On Ice stamp set), and die are from Papertrey Ink.

Thanks for stopping by! I may not be back here until after Christmas, but you never know! Enjoy these last crazy days!

Just Us Girls - Color Challenge

Just Us Girls has a great color challenge for you today! Andrea chose a refreshing color palette for us this week....a nice respite from the traditional red and green we've all been using a lot lately! Although I still used these colors to make a Christmas card! It was a super quick one, as I had to get my Christmas cards written and in the mail! The dp is SU's retired Wintergreen, and the ribbon is PTI's Aqua Mist. It doesn't look like it matches very well in the picture, but it really does look nice in person. I made a bow using the Bow Easy and added some jingle bells. The sentiment is from Inkadinkadoo's Ornate Christmas stamped in Memento Tuxedo black. See? Super simple! Kind of hard to mail with the bells, so maybe I'll give this to one of the secretaries at work so it doesn't have to go postal!

The JUGs DT have created some beautiful cards with these colors. Stop by the JUGs blog for more inspiration and hopefully play along with us this week! We are taking next week off seeing that it's Christmas Day, but we will be back on New Year's Day with a sketch challenge! Enjoy your weekend!

Secret Angel - Day 5

Hi everyone! Today is the last day of our Secret Angel gift exchange at school. I hope you've been enjoying how I presented the gifts I've been giving to my Secret Angel. Here's what I did today.I used a My Time Made Easy template called In Suspense to package some Bliss chocolate candies. I just love this template. It's made to hang on a door knob. I tried to hang this on Melissa's door, but she was hanging around her office too long and I didn't get a chance! I had to have the secretary do it! But it really looks fun hanging on someone's door! The dp is from Jillibean and is much prettier in person than it looks here. I just added the red felt snowflake and the white glittered one on top. The sentiment is from Secret Santa from MTME.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a great weekend! I'll be spending mine getting ready for Christmas!

Secret Angel - Day 4

Happy Thursday! Two more days until the weekend! Today will be a looong day for me as we have evening conferences and I'll be at school until 7:30 tonight (after teaching antsy students all day)!

Today is also day four of our Secret Angel gift exchange! Yesterday I got some Lindor Truffles...yum! This is what I packaged up for my Secret Angel today.So you are probably wondering what this is. I should have taken a picture of the gift first! It's a picture holder. The base looks like a Christmas present and there are three holders for pictures. I used the one sticking out of the bag for my tag. The dp is from the same pack I used yesterday: The Homemade Christmas Stack from DCWV. The "ribbon" is printed on the dp, but the buttons are real. The bag is called Box in a Bag and the instructions for it are on Splitcoaststampers. Really a fun and easy bag to make. I tied it shut with a ribbon (I actually cut the ribbon tails shorter after I took the picture. They looked too long to me!

The tag was cut on my Cricut with the Secret Surprise Label cut file from My Time Made Easy. I printed the label at 85% and the red mat at 95% in SCAL. So nice to be able to adjust them like that! I used the Secret Santa stamp set from MTME also for the sentiment.. I just love that stamp set!

That's it for today! Have a great day and we'll see you tomorrow!

Secret Angel - Day 3

Wow! It's day 3 of our Secret Angel gift exchange at work. I received a candle and a pretty red ornament today from my Secret Angel. Here's how I packaged up my gift for my Secret Angel.I just purchased this paper pack, called The Homemade Christmas Stack from DCWV, on sale at JoAnn's yesterday. It's very county-ish, but I just fell in love with the colors and the paper is a heavier weight, perfect for templates. The design of this particular paper was perfect for this box from My Time Made Easy called Wonderfully Wrapped. The dp looks like pieces of fabric are stitched together, making it look like real fabric! This box takes a different twist on the traditional gable box. The sides are like wings that "wrap" around the sides. I've held them together with a pretty red brad. To give it more interest, I wrapped a red ribbon around the box and added some gold and green bells to the bow. The tag was cut with a Cuttlebug tag. The sentiment is actually two separate sentiments from the Secret Santa set from MTME. I stamped them in Riding Hood Red and Garden Green inks. Can you see the faux stitching on the dp? It looks so real!

Oh! I bet you are wondering what's inside the box! I almost forgot. It's a door hanger that's sort of like a pillow in the shape of a snowman's face. Too cute! I thought it would look good on Melissa's door (she's our assistant principal).

I have two more to share this week, so please stop by for those! Thanks for stopping in! I hope you are busy little elves!

Secret Angel - Day 2

Our Secret Angel gift exchange at work is in full swing! Today is day two, and yesterday I received a box of Snickerdoodle cookies! They aren't homemade, but they are sooo delish! I'm going to be snacking for a few days on those yummy things!

If you didn't see yesterday's Secret Angel gift I made, you can go here to see that post. Today I covered an Altoid box full of those candies that clear your head out in an instant! LOL!!I used another retired dp from SU called Frosty Day. I've always loved the non-traditional colors of this dp! I ran some bashful blue grosgrain ribbon around the perimeter of the lid and used Scor-tape to hold it in place.
The oval bashful blue piece was cut with a Marvy punch. The flower design was stamped in chocolate chip with a piece from Papertrey Ink's Borders & Corners Oval set, and the monogram was from PTI's Ambassador Monogram set. I added some star dust stickles to the centers of the flowers to bling it up a bit. Easy peasy!

I'll have another post tomorrow with the gift for Day 3, so please stop by! I appreciate your comments! Happy Holidays!

Secret Angel - Day 1

Hi everyone! Our Secret Angel gift exchange began today at work. We chose one of our co-workers out of a hat to secretly leave gifts in their mailboxes or on their desks for the next five days. I chose our assistant principal, Melissa, so you'll be seeing the cute gifts I'm leaving for her everyday on my blog this week. She hopefully doesn't know it's me (although I've become known for my boxes and cards around the school, so she may know!). This is what I left for her today.

I tend to like the container more than the gift! Inside this mini pizza box are three holiday post-it note pads. I thought they were so cute and we use them all the time at school! They fit perfectly into this box. (I have to admit I almost just wrapped them in paper and tied them with a bow, but I just couldn't!) This box takes minutes (literally) to make.

I cut a 6" x 11" piece of card stock and scored it on the short side at 1" and 5". Then turned it to the long side and scored it at 1", 5", 6", and 10". Then I just followed the rest of the instructions for the box. I cut a 3 3/4" x 3 3/4 " piece of dp (SU's retired Dashing) for the top, made this fab flower with the Tim Holtz paper rosette die, added the die cut ornament, tag (using a Spellbinder die and My Time Made Easy's Secret Santa set), and ribbon and was done! It took me all of 15 minutes to make! These are so nice for jewelry or any small gift. I just love these boxes because of the simplicity. And I'm in love with these paper rosettes! It looked so festive sitting on Melissa's desk, too! Thanks for stopping in today. I'll have my second Secret Angel gift posted tomorrow, so I hope to see you then!

Just Us Girls - Technique Challenge

Happy two weeks before Christmas! Are you as frantic as I am? I'm cutting down my tree today, doing the rest of my shopping (I hope!), and decorating tomorrow! Yikes! Too much to do, so little time!But I'm adding to my stash of Christmas cards (add one more thing to the list: send out cards this weekend!) with this Just Us Girls technique challenge Maria chose. It's called sparkly stained glass. There's a tutorial on SCS using glitter (which I used), but Maria says she uses stickles for hers. I think that is much less messy as I am covered in glitter as I write this!I have to admit that I was going to back out of this challenge because I thought it would take too long and I was very tired last night, but I managed to pull together some energy and try this fun challenge. There is a tutorial here on SCS and Beate does a very nice job of demonstrating it in a video. I used a very pretty image from a new set from Paper Makeup Stamps called Christmas Cheer. It was the perfect image to use.

I first stamped the image on acetate using black Stazon. Then I added Crystal Effects to parts of the ornaments and added the glitter (glitter that I have had forever and glad to use up). I repeated that for the various colors. I let it dry about 15 minutes, then hit it with my heat gun for a few seconds to help it dry. On my first try, the mistake I made was running this image through the cuttlebug...splat! All the glitter just smooshed all over the place! So I started over on a piece of acetate I cut first, then stamped, glued, glittered! Much better results! I adhered it with some glue dots behind the ornaments and the gold bells. The rest is pretty self-explanatory.

Stop by the JUGs blog and see the amazing cards the DT and our guest designer, Elise Durenberger, have done with this technique! Thanks for stopping in today and happy shopping and decorating!

Recipe
Stamps: Christmas Cheer (PMS)
Paper: Neenah white, cool caribbean, Eskimo Kisses dp (Basic Grey)
Ink: Black Stazon
Accessories: Nesties, glitter, Crystal Effects, glue dots, MS punch, gold thread and bells

Paper Makeup Stamps December Fan Blog Hop

Hi everyone! Today is our Paper Makeup Stamps monthly blog hop, but since we don't have a release this month (we are changing to releases every other month), we are having a special hop which includes fans of Paper Makeup Stamps! There are a lot of chances to win some PMS products with this hop! You can find all that information on the PMS blog. PMS is also having a fabulous sale (which includes free shipping)! You can find that information on the PMS blog.

If you've come here from Stephanie's blog, you are on the right track. If not, start at the PMS blog, get all the fun information, and start hopping!

The theme for this hop is winter or holiday. I've got two cards to share with you on this hop. The first one uses new stamps from our November release.I LOVE Christmas cut-out cookies with the anise flavoring, so this card made me chuckle! The gingerbread man is from the Christmas Cheer set, and the sentiment is a single one found here. I used the Mojo Monday sketch and some fab dp from Jillibean called Christmas Chestnut Soup. The poor gingerbread man is paper pieced with kraft paper. I added the white accents with a white jel pen.

I wasn't as satisfied with this card as I had thought I would be, so I decided to make another. I changed the stamps, used the same papers and ribbon, but changed the layout. This is my second try. I used one of my favorite stamps sets ever from PMS, Snow Happy. The image is colored with copic markers. The sentiment was stamped on the back side of my snowflake dp, then cut with a Spellbinder's tag. The ribbon was just knotted and the tag attached with some twine. I also sponged some Ranger white pigment ink around the tag and the dp to soften the edges a bit. I added some Star Dust stickles for some sparklely snow.

Your next stop on our hop is one of our fans, Lindsy Harness. Please show her some love and continue hopping! There's a possible prize for commenting on all the blogs! I've included a list and link to all the blog hop participants in case you get lost!

Thanks for stopping and hopping with me today! Have a great week!