Let the Holidays Begin!

I love this time of year and even more than that I love the beginning of the holiday season. To me, November kicks off the holidays as I get excited for Thanksgiving. I have so much to be thankful for and it reminds me to get out there and help others in need. I started a food drive at our church for a local outreach and had the joy of dropping off the food to a downtown Denver ministry that helps the homeless in the area. It is called Urban Outreach and they do so much to help people on the streets. We'll be going next weekend to hand out the food that was donated. I think it's a great experience for me but also for my boys to step out their tiny world and see some of the rougher stuff in life.

Anyway, anyhow, anyhoo.... I made a Thanksgiving card and plan on making a bunch more. I got the color inspiration that I needed from our friends over at Play Date Cafe. Aren't these colors wonderful?

Here is my take on the color challenge:

I made this card with lots of layers. I distressed, crumpled and inked a variety of Tim Holtz (TH) papers and then embellished the card with pumpkin colored raffia, crinkle ribbon, satin cream ribbon and a TH stick pin. What I liked about the TH papers is that there was a page filled with thanksgiving recipes and I picked the pumpkin pie one and paired it with the pumpkin picture. Just love little details like that.

Off to enjoy a fun weekend! Thanks for stopping by.

Update in Shop!

Autumn is officially here! I don't have to put off getting my fall decorations out any longer! It took a lot of self discipline on my part not to drag out my pumpkins and leaves and candles when stuff starting showing up in the stores - in JULY. I don't know about you but I feel like stores are rushing us through the seasons now. I like to celebrate them one at a time! And fall is my favorite!!!!

Anyway, I have a new TWeeK up in my shop, WinterBerry Glen. It is a pillow box set with autumn in mind. Pumpkins and leaves make this a kit that you can use the next few months for lots of gift giving ideas.

Here is a pic of my pumpkin pillow boxes all done up. Each kit comes with supplies to make cute gift packaging for 5 gift boxes.

There are also two different styles of pumpkins and buttons to choose from to make it mixy matchy. I am going to be giving these out right before Thanksgiving break to my little guy's teachers. I also think that they will make really cool place settings at our Thanksgiving dinner. I can write each person's name on the pumpkin and inside I can tuck some little treats.

I also sell the pillow boxes by themselves to be jazzed up for any type of gift giving.

Thanks for stopping by!

Dog Days of Summer

Hello, friend. It seems like I'm in the dog days of summer. It is still really hot during the day and since a cold ran through the whole family this week we've been doing lots of laying around. Not what I had in mind for my Labor day weekend but it's nice to have the chance to recoup! And I don't know if it's just my perception but it seems like summer colds are the pits! Maybe even worse than the winter? I have a feeling that the kids are boosting up their immune systems once again now that school has been in session for two weeks. And, of course, they love to bring it home and share with the rest of us. ;)

I did have a little time this evening to get up into my craft room. The dishes can wait, right? So I made another teensy weensy kit as well as a few projects for some challenges. I started off with Retro Sketch #27 because having a good sketch helps me to get my ideas going when I've been absent on the craft seen for a bit. And I've been wanting to do this week's MIM #80 over at Papertrey Ink. It is a love note to all things bunting and I just adore it! Garlands, fabric bunting, felt, glitter.... just love it all. Since we haven't been well all week I had to use my time wisely when I got a few hours to play with my paper goodies. So my card is kinda simple but I hope you like it.

Here is the sketch that I followed:

I really had to take a bit to get the juices flowing. I was really excited to use up some Pink Paislee (Prairie Hill) paper since it was still laying on my desk. I had forgotten about it in the throws of Kleenex and crackers; it was such a nice surprise!

Here is a close up of the bunting/garland. I used Ashley's technique over at Papertrey to sandwich my twine between two layers of banners. I used Heart 2 Heart #6 to die cut those cute little flags (PTI). Then I used my Tiny Tim to staple the twine onto the fence. The fence die is from PTI and I stamped a light gingham background onto it to give it some pattern but not too much. I also distressed the fence and the bunting with Burlap Distress Ink. The kraft background I came up with out of necessity. It was my way of adding some sun rays to the focal point without having more patterns; I've got a lot going on with the card so I needed a landing place where the eye could rest a bit and yet still draw attention to the picket fence. The sentiment "for you" is from fillable frames and is generic enough to be a birthday card or thank you card.

Thanks for stopping by and I will be posting soon with a shop update and a new Teensy Weensy Kit.
Happy Labor Day for those of us who have the day off!!!!

Final Post for Tonight!

Whew! I feel like I am on the home stretch of a blogging marathon. I usually do a post or two over the course of a week... but I'm on my third one for the night!

This last card that I made combined two more challenges. One is from the folks at CAS-ual Fridays and the other is from Sassy Lil' Sketches. Both were a blast to use!!! For CAS-ual Fridays CFC24 I had to make a halloween card without using the color Orange. Seriously?!!! okay, I always like how OTHER people can think of non-traditional color schemes for holidays. Me, however?! I'm hopelessly traditional.

I tried, folks. Really I tried. Not including orange was bad enough but I couldn't think of any other colors that looked right to me other than purple and black and charcoal and green.
The second part to my card is the lovely sketch SS0S8 at Sassy Lil' Sketches. Sometimes that is half the battle right there coming up with a LO for a card... and with creative minds over at SLS they did some of the work for me. I took the sketch and turned it on its side. I framed the tree silhouette with a piece of burlap for texture. I used some cream tulle, a stitched felt pumpkin with metal flower doodad, and some stitched leaves to add a little more femininity to the focal point. And that's it from me for one night!

Have a great evening!

PS. I found out that it wasn't too late to enter the Paper Issues 31 Days of Halloween. So I did! Hop over there to see some amazing projects for Halloween.

Give Thanks Journal/Scrapbook

I have finished this journal/scrapbook and before I put it in my etsy shop I thought I'd preview it on here. After making one for my friends as a thank you for their service in our Kids Ministry at our church, I found myself totally excited about making another one. I don't know if it's like potato chips but I find that one is just not enough!

There are so many times in my life that I can take it for granted that God has blessed me with so many things. I find it helpful to keep a journal to realize just how many blessings I have to be thankful for . I thought I'd make this journal for someone who also would like to journal down all of life's great blessings. I love to go back to my journal during those hard times in my life to remember all of those good things and to help me keep a positive perspective while I am going through the "trenches" so to speak! It helps me to take my focus off of my problems and look instead at all of the wonderful things that God has provided. In any one given day, I can find at least something to be thankful for. Someone at the grocery store helping me with my bags, a song I hear on the radio, a phone call from a dear friend, my son telling me about a good day at school... any one of these can lift my spirits up and remind me of all of the wonderful things that surround me!

Anyway, I think I will be making another one soon. This time I have a specific person in mind. She is a young girl at our church who is quiet and a thinker... she is shy and I see her writing down bits of things on little scraps of paper. Her mother is a single mom who is struggling to raise her and her two other daughters while trying to work and go to school. I think she would love to have a journal and some journal supplies so I will be doing that next. :)
Anyway, I just wanted to share with you what I've been up to this week!
Take care!

Autumn Blessings Journal/Scrapbook

I can't believe I am posting more than once this week! I just wanted to share with you something that I've been working on. It is a gift for Children's Church Leaders that are stepping down from their position at our church. It is a husband and wife team and they have been with my boys for the last 3 years and have done a wonderful job!!! The husband has to travel alot with his new job and isn't able to keep up all that he has been doing with our Kids Church. While I am very happy that he is doing well with his new job, I am sad that he and his wife won't be running the Kids Church anymore. It is bittersweet!

Anyhow, this is a journal/scrapbook that I have been working on for them. I am going to have my kids help fill out some of the journaling spots in it (so that their leaders can see what they thought of it all from a kids' perspective). It has plenty of pockets and tags and such for them to fill out as well as they reflect on the ministry that they lead for the last several years. I will also put in some fun pictures and wrap it and give it to them soon.

As it turns out, it fits in nicely with CAS-ual Fridays Challenge this week. CFC22 is to make your project using loops; big ones, little ones, any kind except that on a bow. I used twill loops to make a banner and then stamped the text "thanks" on it. I also used loops to make tabs and tag pulls with them.
If you are like me then you probably have the same kind of ribbon fetish that I do. I just love the extra texture that it provides!

Well, thanks for looking. :) Have a great weekend.

Vintage Autumn Pumpkin Card

I just thought you'd like to see what is going on at my Etsy shop. I've been loving the cooler temperatures this week here in Colorado. I don't know about your neck of the woods but over here fall comes early and doesn't last very long. Already it is down to 40 degrees at night so it won't be much longer before our trees and plants start to winter over.

So because of that I've been making some fun fall cards. Here is one that I made using a die cut label and distressing it until it looked like an old weathered barn door. To do that I painted it with dark brown acrylic paint, added some crackle paint glaze, painted it again with a cream acrylic paint, and then distressed it with some ink.

I used a stamp from BoBunny to make my own background on the paprika colored cardstock. I distressed it with some ink from Tim Holtz. I used an embossing folder to give some texture to the Harvest Gold (PTI) cardstock that I matted behind my pumpkin cutout. I distressed it with some vintage photo ink (TH) and added some copper Stickles to make the swirly pattern pop out.

I sewed a button onto some fabric leaves and adhered those to the label. I also wrapped some stain Harvest Gold (PTI)  ribbon to the label and tucked a mini tag onto it with some twine and a tiny attacher. The sentiment is from PTI's Gratitude Journal.

Thanks for looking. I hope you are enjoying some great fall weather wherever you call home!

Make It Monday at PTI #32

I just love checking in on PTI's blog to see what's going on with their Make it Mondays. I don't think that I will ever feel like I can't learn a new trick or two. Sometimes it's good to even remind myself of the old ones that could use some dusting off! ;)

Make it Monday #32 is all about using acrylic paints with your stamps. They certainly have a different feel and add a new creamy look to your stamps; less rigid in their patterns. I used this technique with just some ordinary acrylic paints.

Here is my take for Make it Mondays. I used PTI's Houndstooth background stamp with some dark chocolate acyrlic paint. I die cut the bottom and adhered it to the base of the card. The pumpkin I made with my new die from Tim Holtz. I painted that as well and then added some crackle paint to it to give it that weathered and worn look.  The burlap tag is just to give it some fun texture.

Let me know what you think! And as always, thanks for looking.

Paper: Bazzill
Stamps:  Houndstooth, Think Big Favorites (PTI)
Dies: Edgers Die (PTI), Pumpkin (TH)
Inks:  Distressed Ink in Tea Stain (TH), Chocolate Chip (SU)
Accents:  Buttons, ribbon, twine, leaves, burlap, corner rounder