Less is More: White Christmas

I absolutely could not pass up this week's challenge at Less is More - a white on white challenge with a Christmas theme!  Is there anything more perfect than an all-white Christmas card??

A recent favorite of mine (yes, I have a lot of favorites) is Clearly Besotted Stamps.  CBS is in the midst of its first birthday celebration.  I saw the first stamps from a year ago and fell in love with Signature Christmas but my excitement died when I realized they were in the UK and I was in the US.  I naively thought it would be a pain and very expensive to order. But then, as part of a design team, I got a free set!  I added a few other items into my order and it showed up faster and cheaper than some big-name US companies!!!  I've been back to order since.  My last order included a fun Halloween set, the Signature Christmas set that I had drooled over a year ago - PLUS a brand new Signature Additions set and DIES!!!

Since I am excited over the stamps and absolutely love white on white Christmas - it seemed like a good time to bring them all together!



The set obviously includes multiple patterns for the wreath - and also multiple patterns of ornaments and Christmas trees!  I'm not even going to put it away with my Christmas stamps yet - because I want to do each of them and I want to try color!!

• Stamps: Clearly Besotted Stamps Signature Christmas and Signature Christmas Additions
• Paper: Stampin' Up Shimmer White
• Ink: Versamark
• Accessories: Clearly Besotted Signature Christmas dies, Stampendous White Pearls embossing, Ranger Super Fine Detail Gold embossing, Maya Road Sparkle Gold twine

What a Wonderful Weekend!!

I have had a truly wonderful weekend!!  A good friend in town, a dozen amazing card makers, an entire day focused on cards and fun and chatter!!  Yay for World Cardmaking Day!!  How many of these people do you recognize??





You may not recognize everybody from their bitty photos on their blogs - but I guarantee you know them all!  There's a picture of everybody with links on my Facebook page!!

Seven hours of crafting takes energy, so we were heavy on the snack food too!!

The whole event was hosted by Michelle, the creative mind behind CAS-ual Fridays Stamps.  She is a truly wonderful lady - a great hostess and an amazing talent.  I have to admit to getting a quick sneak peek of some new stuff that's coming from CAS-ual Fridays and it's going to be a great release. They started peeks today on their blog!

And to make it all even more amazing, the wonderful Stacey Schafer came in for the event (we gave her honorary Coloradan status for the day). We managed to do quite a bit of craft shopping and ate some huge meals (even after the feast shown above).  I took her to the airport early this morning so the weekend is officially over!!!

I had thought that she and I might spend a little more time celebrating over drinks - this was the first time we had met in person!!  But I totally wore out by the end of each day with all of the crafting craziness!!   I had made this card for her in advance of our wild times! (Stamps by Paper Smooches)

I also wanted to be sure to thank Michelle.  When you make a card for her you have to use CAS-ual Friday Stamps, right??

I did use the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches for this card and the sequins and chevrons from the CAS-ual Fridays challenge.

I did get some cards made yesterday, although less than you might think for seven hours of crafting.  But they are all for posts later in the week.  I am definitely going to take a day or two off (it's going to take me that long to put everything away that I had carted over to the event!) - I'll be back in a few!

Catered Crop: Canning Jar Recipe Swap

This week's recipe swap at Catered Crop is to use canning jars.  They can be real jars or stamped jars.  The challenge says...

For this challenge you can use a canning Jar (Mason, Kerr, Ball, etc.) and fill it, alter it, tag it, decorate it . . . what ever you want to do. Or you can create a card (or scrapbook page) with a canning jar on the card.

As usual, Linda has put together a Pinterest board full of inspiration and I almost felt inspired to alter a real jar.  But I am so firmly into paper-crafting, other types of crafts totally elude me. Luckily, there are great canning stamps out there!


It's hard to tell from photos, but this is just a tiny 3.25" card.   I've been having fun with this size lately - it's easy to put the entire focus on special stamps that might get lost on a bigger card, particularly when I tend to keep lots of white space.
Did you know it is World Card Making Day today??!!  I hope each of you gets a chance to celebrate!

• Stamps: Paper Smooches Crystal Clear, Word Salad
• Paper: MME Adorbs, PTI Smokey Shadow
• Ink: PTI Smokey Shadow, Limeade Ice, SU Smoky Slate, Hero Arts Pale Tomato
• Accessories: SU Island Indigo twine, clear sequins

Happy 1st Birthday to Fresh Squeezed Stamps!!

Happy 1st Birthday Fresh Squeezed Stamps!!


May you keep moving forward to many, many more!!

And that's all the chatter you get from me today.  I need to get ready to pick up a friend from the airport!!  A great friend whom I've never met in person.  Stacey Schafer's plane is taking off as I type! I'm not quite sure what we are going to do today because the weather is truly miserable.  She had wanted to see the mountains but the snow is coming down hard and she wouldn't see anything besides the interstate.  But tomorrow...fifteen Colorado blogger/crafters are getting together for World Card Making Day!!!  I am still pinching myself over the group that I get to mingle with (including Stacey, our Coloradan-for-a-day).  We've already gotten hints that one stamp company owner is bringing surprises and that another big name designer is bringing product to play with.  We also have gummi bears and Oreos!!  Such a day we are going to have!

• Stamps: Fresh Squeezed Stamps String Me Along (the sneaker), You Said It Sister (dots and sentiment)
• Paper: black and white
• Ink: Hero Arts Soft Sand, Stampin' Up Poppy Parade
• Accessories: May Arts twine, misc sequins

CAS(E) this Sketch: Give Thanks

It's time for a new sketch at CAS(E) this Sketch!

I have to admit to playing around for awhile trying to come up with something other than three of the same stamps down the middle.  But...the truth is...if you have a great stamp, it absolutely works to showcase it!!  I love this woodgrain heart!!

I'm looking forward to seeing what everybody does with this!!  I think it will give me insight into your favorite stamp!

• Stamps: Reverse Confetti Forever Fall
• Paper: Stampin' Up Ruby Red
• Ink: Stampin' Up Summer Sun, Pumpkin Pie, Ruby Red, Chocolate Chip
• Accessories: Misc buttons, May Arts twine

Avery Elle: Winter Wreath Gift Cards

Avery Elle has a new stamp set with a beautiful big wreath called Winter Wreath.  It also has a bow and pine cones and little dots for ornaments and sentiments in the signature Avery Elle script!  But instead of going big - I just stamped a portion of the wreath and made a little 3.25" card for tucking into gifts.


The set also comes with a "to" and a "from" stamp so you can even personalize it!
I did give it a little sparkle by adding glossy accents to the berries and then dusting it with a fine glitter.

I used the cheerful colors from this week's Merry Monday color challenge.

And here's what I love about creating my own cards.  Same basic card...different colors...different embellishments...an entirely different look!!  (I love those teeny little pinecones!!)

Curtain Call: A Neat & Tangled Halloween

It's time for a new inspiration photo from Curtain Call and we are getting spooky!

Neat & Tangled is our fabulous sponsor for Curtain Call Inspiration Challenge: Spooky Scene!  Danielle Walls, owner of Neat & Tangled generously provided the crew with their choice of Graveyard Shift or Halloween Scene to create spooky scenes for today's challenge!

Neat & Tangled is also offering a wonderful prize to the Spooky Scene LEAD...a choice of any stamp set in their store!  

I got to work with Halloween Scene which is perfect for the house in the inspiration photo.  I was also inspired by the decoration in the upper left corner which looked like a sunburst because...guess what?...I also have Neat & Tangled's Sunburst stamp!  A little neon orange ink and check out my not-so-spooky scene!

It's that month where you should have your Halloween stamps out anyway - so play along!!  If you don't do Halloween, how about a black and white card with a smidge of orange?!

• Stamps: Neat & Tangled Halloween Scene, Sunburst
• Paper: white
• Ink: Hero Arts Neon Orange, Memento Black, gray Copics for shading
• Accessories: misc silver and black sequins (BTW - Neat & Tangled has gorgeous sequins, but I started my collection with Christmas colors and with their fall and winter mixes so didn't have the colors that I needed for this card!)