I've Been Published!

Actually, I've known for some time that I would be, but I never did post anything here. So, if you'll forgive me (well, even if you won't), I'm going to brag just a little bit. I submitted a bunch of cards to Stampington for the Winter Take Ten and miracle of miracles, they published three of my cards. This one featuring a gorgeous butterfly stamp from Starving Artistamps is on page 84, and I also have cards on pages 108 and 113.

Thanks for indulging my need blow my own horn. Just for being such patient readers, I'm going to offer up some blog candy. Yup, you heard right...BLOG CANDY! Just post a comment here before midnight (EST), and you'll be the lucky winner of....shhhh, it's a secret! But don't worry one bit...you will NOT be disappointed.

Oh, and although I'm certainly not trying to discourage you, please don't feel like you have to post a comment saying how wonderful my cards are. I'll be choosing the winner randomly, so you'll have just as much chance to win if you just say "Gimme candy"! I'll choose the winner sometime tomorrow, and if you leave me your email addy, I'll be sure to notify you. Otherwise, make sure you check back here.

Happy New Year!

Patriots Game Tonight!

Just in case you didn't know, the big game is tonight! If the Pats win tonight (and why wouldn't they?), they'll be the first team to go undefeated for and entire season since the 1972 Dolphins. Good luck, Patriots!

I've been spending the week doing whatever I want, whenever I want. Returning to work on Wednesday is going to be such a shock. But in the meantime, I plan to pretend that I don't need to work for a living and squeeze in as much carefree stamping time as possible.

Today's card uses stamps from Starving Artistamps, ornate tooled leather BG, fern leaf tooled leather BG, the heart from the scalloped ornamentals set, and a sentiment from Sun Spirit Studios (also available at Starving Artistamps). The dark blue background uses the Faux Denim technique from the Dec. 07 Techinque Junkies Newsletter with the ornate BG stamped over it with Prussian Blue Marvy Matchables Ink. The hearts are embossed with silver EP and I filled them in with clear embossing liquid to make them look like enamel. Sketch Challenge 155 at Splitcoast Stampers provided the layout.

Aaaaah!

I don't know about you, but as much as I love Christmas, I love the day after even more! We had a wonderful holiday with our kids and grandkids -- I hope yours was wonderful too.

Santa was very, very good to me this year. I am now the proud owner of some new Magenta and Penny Black stamps, Fluid Chalk ink pads, and a couple of paper punches. Still on the way are a set of Prismacolor markers, Lyra watercolor crayons, and some pearlescent acrylic paints. Yes. Santa was very, very good! I've also got piles and piles of new rubber from smARTworks and Starving Artistamps. Can you guess what I'll be doing the rest of the week?

Here's my first non-Christmas card in what seems like forever. These stamps are from Starving Artistamps -- one of the horses from set 6012, P14.09 grass, and the ornate tooled leather background. The layout for this card comes from Splitcoast Stampers Sketch Challenge 156. I stamped the background with Brilliance Graphite Black ink and added some highlights with a cream Prismacolor pencil. The horse is embossed with black embossing powder, and to ground the image, I stamped the grass with red dye ink. I sponged the edges of the pieces with black ink just to grunge them up a bit and embellished with natural twill tape and a piece of chenille cord. Not my usual style, but I really had fun with this one. Hmmm...what should I play with next?

Season's Greetings

With all the last minute preparations, holiday parties, and life in general, I haven't had much time to stamp and don't have a new card to show you. Instead, I thought I'd share this picture I took during the snowstorm last Thursday. It snowed heavily for hours with no wind at all -- one of the prettiest snowfalls I've ever seen.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

We're Snowed In!

We've got 10 inches on the ground, and it's STILL snowing hard. I really have no choice but to stay in and stamp tonight...darn!

This is a card that I made for the Ways to Use It Challenge on SCS. The challenge for today is to use a monochromatic color scheme. I don't often do that, and I'm not sure why because it's FUN! I just might have to try another one...or two...or three.

The Technicalities
Stamps: Magenta Poinsettia Tile, Inkadinkado - Season's Greetings
Papers: Digital paper from ScrapGirls, white and brick red cardstock
Ink: Fluid Chalk - Warm Red, Blush Rose
Accessories: Brads, Ribbon, Red Stickles, Prismacolor Pencils

Let it Snow!

That right...storm Alexander is on its way to Connecticut bringing plenty of snow so I thought this would be the perfect card to share with you.

The cute little snowman and all the silver accents on this card are Magenta Peel-off stickers. I colored the snowman with glaze pens and a Stardust Silver pen. The snowflakes (Inkadinkado) on the background are stamped on vellum with PearlEx interference blue/gold ink and the blue patterned paper is from Heidi Grace. Oh yeah, and I used Splitcoast Stampers Sketch Challenge #152 for the layout.

Partridge in a Pear Tree

Every two months we do a designer's challenge at smARTworks. Susan sends us each a stamp set, and we don't know what it will be until it arrives. We each have to make "something" with the stamps...anything we want. But, and this is the hard part, we can't talk about it, and we can't show each other what we've done until everyone is finished. This time we all worked with the Pear Tree set (page 37 in the catalog), and I was very surprised to see how similar our projects were. Then again, they are all very different! See for yourself: smART Cookies Design Challenge #2

My projects are both colored with Prismacolor pencils. The shiny black "enameled" pieces are done on black cardstock and embossed with clear EP. I used Brilliance gold ink to stamp the images on black, and Fluid Chalk Olive Pastel for the images on green. The gold linework is done with a Sakura Stardust gold pen.

TGIF, and enjoy the weekend! We're putting our tree up this weekend, and hopefully, getting the Christmas cards ready to mail. I think I have a few more to make so I could be burning some midnight oil!

It's Tea Party Time Again!

It seems that I start every one of these Tea Party posts with "I can't believe another 2 weeks have gone by!" But, it's true...time just flies by this time of year. I wouldn't change a thing though; I love the holiday season.

This is our 4th Tea Party Challenge, and this time Susan Liles is hosting. She joked in a email to the design team that her sketch was "lame-o", but I totally disagree. I tend to use alot of straight lines in my designs so I found the wave in the background very refreshing...what a simple way to add interest!

The stamp set I used for my card is Tree Quartet from smARTworks (of course). The blue patterned paper for the snowy sky is from Heidi Grace, and the white snow hill is made with shimmer paper that I embossed with my Cuttlebug. It's very shimmery and sparkly in person. In fact, everything shimmers on this card...I stamped the tree with Pearl-Ex blue/gold ink and highlighted with Stickles. The scalloped square is cut and embossed using Nestabilities dies and I added extra fine glitter to the edge.

Be sure to check out the other Cookies' blogs to see what they did with this awesome sketch: Susan Trask, Dina Kowal, Trish D'Antonio, Heidi Kingery, and Susan Liles.