Country Roads Stamping

All is Calm

Whew - this house is unbelievably quiet now!  All the kids left on Sunday morning before 7 a.m. and after that Grandpa and I just pretty much crashed!  We didn't even venture out to church - the house had to be put back into some order and I needed to wash sheets so we could move back into our room - plus neither one of us felt good - so figured no one would want us around in case we were starting with some weird flu bug - today we feel better.  Yesterday was spent taking down most, not all, just most of the Christmas decorations - yeah.  I'll move outside on thursday and Friday when the temps are to be in the 50s - can you say Hallelujah?!  Love the sound of 50 degree temps for the first day of January. 

 So today I'll show you the three winners on the Christmas cards and the rest of the week I'll post the rest of the cards that came to me from friends, customers and downline.  Here's the three winners - but I've not notified them yet so not sharing who won which place.

 
This one was made by Stephanie P

 
This one from our own Terri D, who comments on here regularly and

 
This beauty was done by Kay Ling, who just signed up to be a demonstrator. 

All very nice cards - there were fewer this year but they were very very well done - some of the best I think I've ever seen, so good job ladies.  I'll be putting the rest of the cards I received from team members and customers and even my niece before the week is out.  However, I thought I'd put a picture of the three ring circus we had here last week:

 
We tried hard to get even one of them to look at the camera - and they had all been smiling until the cameras started to flash!  Then forget it - we all just took pictures and hoped for the best.  Poor Gideon screamed and cried when he put the suit on in the morning, but then he didn't want to take it off!  They all really can smile!!!  It is pretty quiet here without them buzzing around and now one has asked me "What you doing Nana?" in a full 24 hours!   Have a great day. 

Oh the weather outside is frightful!

Bleck - that pretty much describes the weather here for the past 24 hours and it doesn't look better any time soon.  Ofcourse - rain is better than snow - so I must be careful to not complain too much!  I'll be traveling through the mountains where it snows year round (or so it seems) in order to travel to Jan Wakeland's so my hope is that this rain continues and does not turn in to that awful white stuff.  I am going to go ahead and post today, Tuesday for the rest of week since I will be out of town and then I won't have to worry about the weather.

 
Love this Deck the Halls designer paper - made a very easy card to put together.  Simply punched out the paper with the scalloped square punch and then layered it on to the card.  Stamped my greeting, added some ribbon - and voila - Christmas card done and ready to head out the door! Oh ofcourse I forgot - one or two shots of glimmer mist!.  I do believe every surface in my stamp room is now covered with the stuff - I have the nifty little spray catcher but never put it up! 

Important news in the Stampin Up! worlds - watercolor crayons are now available - hallelujah!!!!  As well as the 2 1/2 circle punch and the fancy flower punch.  Things are looking up!!! So there you go - watercolor crayons in time for Christmas!  I can tell you that they will be on my order today!  If you want them - give me a call or send me an email.  Oh yes, welcome to December - let the madness begin!!!

Something a little different

Well, I did say there would be some different things this week and this card is one of them.

 
Didn't I tell you?  I saw somewhere and I have no clue where it was so I'll never be able to find it again - anyway - the front of the card was punched out using one of our scalloped sizzlits  - I punched it out twice to make a large opening.  Then I used the lovely snowflakes from the Northern Frost strip :) and adhered them together as if they were "dancing" across the opening - yeah yeah, I know - too whimsical - but what else do snowflakes do?  anyway, I thought it looked kind of neat.  Ofcourse I hit the front of the card with the dotted swiss folder.  Love the fact that this is simple but looks like it is complicated.  Now it would be a little tricky doing your greeting - but ofcourse there are always ways to work around that kind of stuff!!!

Today is the last stamp camp for the month and last night's was fun.  I expect tonight's to be the same!  Then, thankfully I will be done with Christmas cards!  By this point, I don't even want to do my own Christmas cards.  I'm ready for Valentine's and spring and birthdays!  Ofcourse I say that today - but next week - I'll still be doing Christmas!  Have a great day - enjoy what little bit of nice we have left in the weather - spoke with my SAM from Stampin Up! yesterday and they had 14 inches of snow!  Ackkkkkk.  So I won't complain about the rain today. 

Naughty or Nice?

Well, I've seen this style card in several places, but when I saw it on my friend, Ruth Murphy's blog - I just had to do one myself!  I decided this would be a perfect card to send to my friend in Michigan - Mrs. Krauss!  So she'll probably see it on here and have some comment but then she's so busy getting ready to take off for PA that she may not make it here for a visit.  This is pretty cute and uses the top note die for the elf boots. - Note that I made my elf "female" so I guess she's an elfette- see the lacy stockings?

 
I just love these - I used the glimmer brads for the little balls on the tip of her shoes.  Every time I see this I think of the old show "My Three Sons" and it started out with the pictures of all their feet for the opening shot - and ofcourse, I've just dated myself by putting that information up here - but then it was no secret anyway!!  Maybe I should just say my husband used to tell me about that show! 

Several things to put up here this week - some unusual ones - gifts that I am making and ones that I had planned on giving away - but now can't part with!  However, today I must finish prepping for my two final stamp camps of the month.  Have a great Monday.

Celebrity in the family

Well, I have to tell you that I was really surprised yesterday morning when my husband was reading the paper and said - Wow! guess who made the front page of the newspaper this morning?

 
Now I realize that many of you would have no clue who this is - but the minute I saw it - I knew!  This is my 80+ father driving off to deer hunt!  He had no clue he was being photographed as he drove his 4 wheeler.  He didn't even realize it was himself when my mom showed him.  He said that some fellow did stop him after he was hunting that morning and ask if he'd had any luck but he didn't know if that was a newspaper employee or not.  So we now have a celebrity in our midst  Thought my daughter would get a kick out of this seeing him on his 4 wheeler.

So back to the real world - I promised you something different using Day of Gratitude and here it is:

 
This is a Christmas ornament - a very Easy one!!!  Simply stamp the shape from Day of Gratitude in blue - I used Marina Mist, then cut it out - 6 of these you need.  Score all four sides so that they fold and can be "attached" together.  I used the snowflake punch and the ice brads (check out that online salefor these!) to give it some bling - and be sure that you put your hanger in before you totally fasten all the pieces together (don't ask me how I know this little piece of information) .  This is not my idea - but rather something I saw in our Stampin Success publication - something that demonstrators get every month - thought this was such a great idea and the picture ofcourse makes it look blah and flat.  These really would not take a lot of time to whip out.  I did not write down the name of the demonstrator who submitted these so I can't give her credit but sure was a great idea!   Have a great day!

Mittens & Cookies

Mittens and Cookies oh My!  I've been seeing these mittens all over the internet but I wanted to try something different with them - so I thought on it for awhile and came up with the cookie idea!  Ofcourse it would figure that I would think of food with the mittens! 

 
Ideally I would have liked a big cup of hot chocolate - but this will have to do!  You can pretend that this is the fat man at Christmas eating his cookies if you like - or some little rosey cheeked youngster coming in from playing out side to grab a fresh baked cookie - which would be my personal favorite!  Whatever you choose - it is warm wishes.  The mittens were made using the wide oval punch and the WING from the bird punch (that is the thumb part of the mitten) and ofcourse the word window punch for the cuff.  To make the cookie I used the 1 3/4" circle punch and ran it through the lattice folder, then added some chocolate chips on it.  That's all for today - more cardstock to cut again!!!  Have a great day!

A Little Christmas

Whew - I stopped at a local store here yesterday and Christmas "stuff" was already out in the rows!  Holy cow - we just had Halloween - what happened to Thanksgiving?  the forgotten holiday?.  I proudly hung my Thanksgiving turkey on my door!!!  Then on the other hand - I'm going to put up a Christmas Card today! 

Nice and easy card and this one could possibly make the cut to be our Christmas card as it would be much easier than the other one I put up here last week!

 
Traditional colors of red (cherry cobbler) and green (always artichoke) mixed with the Deck the Halls designer paper and the Hostess Level 2 set.  Cutting out the holly leaves would be the only time consumer and it wouldn't be all that bad to do - I spritzed this with glimmer mist and ofcourse you can't visually see that here but it sparkles.  Yep - this one just might have what it takes to be our card! 

A new look a Fall Foilage

Well, I've already said that I love Fall Foilage - one of my all time favorite leaf sets - but now I've used it for a Christmas card and I love this - my husband thinks it should be our Christmas card - and maybe it will - if I can find enough on my Christmas list that are "card worthy"!!!!  I spoke with my sister in law yesterday and told her she might be the only one on my list that might actually appreciate all the work!  Here it is:

 
I truly love this and ofcourse the picture doesn't due it justice.  I used shimmery cardstock for the base of the card - used the tasteful trim die to give the two different white strips of embellishment - then stamped one of the leaves from Fall Foilage in vanilla ink - on cherry cobbler - cut them out and voila - you have poinsettia leaves - this was in Stampin Success (a demonstrator magazine) and I loved the look.  Then I added pearls and the holly leaves.  The final thing was stamping the greeting which is from the Level 2 hostess set and let me just say - you should always stamp the greeting FIRST - not whe you have everything else done on the card - and we just won't go into great detail about that little experience! 

Well, must keep moving - only today and tomorrow for hubby to go to work - woohoo!  Off to get things done!

Holly & Jolly

Well, rain was in the forecast so I kicked everything into gear to do a little posting ahead of time!  This card had been started several weeks ago and still was not completed - so I've been trying to complete projects this past week - This is from the new Christmas rub ons called Holly & Jolly which sell for $7.95, found in the big catalog on page 184.  They are a new design from our usual rubons and very easy to use. 

 
Now one of my favorite things I've been using, but not talking about is the seam binding ribbon - this stuff is great.  I've used the green here - I ordered the cherry cobbler just because I wanted to see what it was like - well, that's been gone for some time now :)  It is so easy to tie and lays nicer than ribbon and weighs a little less for those of us that are always cutting corners in the weight department!  While you can't visually see all the texture - this card has it - the base of cherry cobbler is textured cardstok and then the sahara sand piece has been run through the lattice folder.  All in all - I like it!!!  Have a great day.

Peaceful Season again!

WEll, I really did not plan on putting this card up here today - I was going to put the swap card I am taking to the meeting this week-end but then I made this one and really liked it - although the picture is not going to do it justice because it is really sparkly,

Once again - Peaceful Season and Deck the Halls dsp - this time I cut out the designer paper using the window lattice die cut - then adhered it to cherry cobbler cardstock and then ran it through the lattice folder - lattice, lattice, lattice!! I put all that on soft suede paper, one of the coordinating colors with this dsp - which is really nice because the package tells you what colors coordinate - no brainer to figure it out!

Then I punched out the two tags punch with the Sizzix in black and stamped and embossed the greeting. Now we are going to have some really cool glimmer brads in the holiday mini - and I thought I had ordered them - but evidently not and I was really disappointed when I saw that I did not - so. I made some of my own - this one is not as nice and it will probably lose its glitter, but for now - it works - I simply put a large glue dot on a build a brad and then dipped it in glitter.  It looks pink in this picture, but it really is red. 

That's all for today - off to get lots of ideas!!