More is More

Well hello!  This is just a quick post to let y’all know I’m still alive!  I didn’t intend to take a break from blogging – in fact I have several photos to share – but the past couple of weeks have been so slammed busy I’ve barely been able to breathe!  Seriously!

I spent a good part of the last couple days dipping various stuff in chocolate – pretzels, oreos, peanutbutter smeared ritz…

The Ritz crackers stuffed with peanutbutter. covered in milk chocolate and covered in Heath pieces are DA BOMB!!!!  Those I will be making again!

Also Curt and I have been working on getting our Christmas cards out  – over 100 of them.  Here’s one of the designs – I made 30 of these using one of my all-time favorite Christmas dp’s – SU Dashing.

It’s waaaay past my bedtime, but I just had to stop in and touch base with you.  I hope you are having a wonderful week and I hope you are more ready for Christmas than I am.  LOL!

-Jami

Two friends came over today so we could all work on our Christmas cards.  It was just what I needed to get me going on the final batch I need! 

 I was up early, so before they came I had a chance to play the Sketch Challenge at SCS and I’m just tickled with how my card turned out!  I got this adorable Gillian F. Roberts clear stamp from Jacksonbelle Embellishments awhile back and he has been begging to get inked up!  Today’s sketch was just perfect for him!  I used some retired SU designer paper (maybe Ski Slope?  I can’t remember for sure) along with Baja Blue and Riding Hood Red cardstock.  I colored him with copics, paper pieced his scarf and added lots of texture with Flower Soft for the snow, liquid applique on his cap, stickles on his pom pom, crystal effects on the ornaments, glitter on the star, and blue candy dots along the side.  Sentiment is from the SU set Teeny Tiny Wishes.  A simple card really and I’ll be using this sketch again I’m sure!

Thanks for stopping by.

For the past few years the month of December has seemed to overtake us and we have struggled to keep up, much less get ahead of the game.  As much as I adore Christmas trees (real live ones!), I have even uttered the suggestion that we skip getting one altogether *gasp* a couple of times in moments of exasperation.  Fortunately my husband knows me well and has never let that actually happen.  This year I was determined to get a tree and get it early, so we went to our very favorite tree lot yesterday and picked out a beautiful flocked tree a bit larger than we normally get.  Since we will have it for a full month it seemed worth it to splurge a bit.  It’s not even December and we have a Christmas tree!  I realize this is normal expected practice in many households, but this has NEVER happened before at our house!  We have a super busy week ahead so we don’t plan to get the tree decorated until next weekend, but it’s in our living room and I am truly thrilled!

Before we brought the tree in yesterday we were playing with Tessa and I commented to Curt that I really don’t need anything for Christmas this year because I got my perfect puppy!  I still maintain that she was a gift from God dropped into our lap by angels and we both feel so blessed to have her in our family!  So it just melted my heart when I looked up from the computer last night to see Tessa plopped down under the Christmas tree with her bone.  She’s laying on the white sheet I always put down under the tree before I add the tree skirt.  And you can get a little glimpse of Beaker on his play tree in the background.

Both birds love the Christmas tree when it’s all lit up.  I can hardly wait to get the lights strung on this gorgeous tree.  And I’m anxious to see how Tessa will do with ornaments and presents…another new adventure for us.  LOL!

Now Christmas shopping is another story – I’m feeling pretty behind in that department.  And of course I still need to finish stamping cards…uh..I better sign off before I start to hyperventilate again!  Before I go….

Today Curt and I are celebrating our
18th Wedding Anniversary!

I’ve always said that I married my husband because he makes me laugh and that still holds true. No one can make me laugh like he can!  Thanks for being with me through good times and plenty of bad times. I’m so glad you married me! I love you honey!
Happy Anniversary!

__________________

I don’t know about you, but I am one of those stampers who hates to do mass production.  I know some people make it a habit to always make several of the same card, but not me.  I might use a sketch or a color combo several times, but I like to change it up and not do the same card….except when it comes to Christmas cards.  I usually try to make between 80 – 100 Christmas cards so mass production becomes a necessity.  I usually do batches of 10 or sometimes 20.  Today I get to join Taylor and some of the Baker’s Dozen girls in a little Merry Mass Production Blog Hop.  Our Challenge was to create a set of 4-10 identical or very similar Christmas cards.  I had all intention of making 8, but only ended up with 5.  I do plan to make another similar batch soon though.  I love this stamp set and I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot more of it from me!

I knew that the new TE stamp set Christmas Blessings would be perfect for this challenge.  I have a ton ideas for this set and the solid images and wonderful choice of sentiments make it easy to create beautiful cards very quickly. Everything you need is all in one set!

For this set of cards I used designer paper from the Christmas Mint Collection  at TE along with SU cardstock in Garden Green and Ruby Red and some shimmery Posion Ivory.  TE has a set of Prism cardstocks to coordinate with this paper, but I forgot to order it so I was really happy to see that these SU colors also work well.  The card base is a 4.25″ square.  I had originally thought of doing tent toppers, but as I played around with the layout I ended up extending the image panel out to the right.  The overall width of the card is 5.5″ so it fits into a standard envelope.  I was really pleased with this look as the Wise Men seem to be traveling off into the distance.

The trick to mass production is to design the first card and then do the rest in an assembly line fashion.  The main image was stamped onto the ivory cs with chocolate chip craft ink (those craft spots sure do come in handy!) and heat embossed with clear ep.  Same with the sentiment.  The image was then die cut with a rectangle nestie and the sentiment was punched with the SU scallop oval punch.  The garden green layers were cut with a scallop rectangle nestie and punched with an SU wide oval punch.  The image layers were sponged and then assembled onto their matting layers.  The card bases and layers were cut and assembled.  It was then quick work to adhere everything together.  I used some foam tape from TE to pop up the sentiment.  In the end I decided to add some clear Taylor’s Tiny Twinkles which can barely be seen in the photo, but I just really wanted a touch of bling.  Honestly if I’d had a little more time and had planned ahead a little better, this would be a really easy card to make a batch of 20.

Here’s a close up of a single card.  I didn’t get a chance to photograph the inside, but there is an ivory panel on both the left and right of the inside.  The left panel has the Bible verse from the stamp set

“Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:11

On the right panel is the sentiment

Christmas Blessings

I have one more little tip to share for using the 6×6 papers from TE or from the scaled down 6×6 pads you might have in your stash.  In the case of the Christmas Mint, I had 4 sheets of 6×6.  I could only get one card front from each sheet, but then I had a number of various strips left over.  So I made this 5th card using some of those strips and I have enough  left to make a few more cards – I just ran out of time.  I just cut random widths and I actually really like the look.

So when you are running out of designer papers, look at ways you can use up your precious scraps! 

Now I can hardly wait to hop around and see what the rest of the girls have to share.  Need some Christmas inspiration?  Then come hopping with me!

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great day!

I’m excited to show you a little sneak peek of one of the new Taylored Expressions stamp sets that will be available on Saturday October 3rd.  This gorgeous set is called Christmas Blessings and it’s something I’ve been wishing for for a very long time.  Christmas has deep meaning far beyond Santa and snowmen, yet every year I struggle with making my own Christmas cards to reflect the magnitude of the birth of our Savior.  Don’t get me wrong – I love cute Santas and snowmen as much as the next stamper, but I’ve longed for a *religious* Christmas set that I would want to use and almost every year in the past I’ve been disappointed. Finally!  Here it is!  I am truly thrilled with this set!

Since I’m not part of the Baker’s Dozen Design Team, I was not originally planning to post anything today, but unfortunately the mail seems to have gotten caught up at the northern border and our two Canadian designers, Laura and Dawn, haven’t received their stuff.  Since I had a card made already, I’m happy to step in to pinch hit this morning.

I have many ideas running through my head for this set, but the very first one I just had to try was pairing it with kraft cardstock!  The framed manger image was embossed with white craft ink and white embossing powder on kraft cardstock.  Then I sponged on Not Quite Navy ink to create a night sky.  The image was then die cut with a rectangle nestie and layered onto a NQN scallop rectangle cut with another nestie.  That was then wrapped with some linen thread.  I stamped the kraft cardbase with a retired SU background stamp, Crosshatch, in NQN ink and added a few white dots with a gel pen.  Then I just inked the edges with my white craft ink pad direct to paper.  A few of Taylor’s Tiny Twinkles finish off my design.

For the inside I used three different stamps to create my sentiment –

“May your Christmas be a time to reflect

on the simplicity of His birth

and the magnitude of His purpose”

-the flourish is a separate image-

“Christmas Blessings”

I wanted to keep the inside very simple so I didn’t add any further embellishments.

I can hardly wait to see what Taylor and the Baker’s Dozen have created with this set.  Wanna come with me to check it out?

Thanks so much for stopping by.