Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! These are the photo holiday cards I made to send out this year. I used the Merry Merry digital kit by The Greeting Farm. LOVE it!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas day and got everything on their wish list! I'm enjoying the magical Christmas that goes with having two little ones...I love the joy and happiness they bring to Christmas.

Happy Birthday, Chica!

I made this card for my good friend, Angela, as it was her bday on the 16th and we were getting together last night. Now, it was tough to make this card, one b/c I'm in awe of her talent and 2, b/c I would be giving it to her in front of the designer, LOL. This is the first time for me to ink up WS - Megan and I seriously suck at coloring curly hair - going to have to get some tips on that in the future. DP is also from TGF - Happy Anyaversary pack. Thankfully, she loved it and said she doesn't get many handmade cards b/c everyone says they don't want to give them to her b/c she's SO good --- haha, true, but I'm glad I didn't let that stop me. I love giving my handmade cards to people I know and love b/c I truly put a little bit of myself into each one and I find it more fun to design a card when I actually know the recipient. For me, it's SO hard to design a good card when I'm just going to sell it to someone randomly. I don't know if any of you feel the same way.

I used this weeks Mojo Monday Sketch and also this weeks theme at Cupcake Craft Challenges - two challenge cards in one - now that's been a rare thing for me lately but it was fun and fitting as I needed a bday card and the sketch is just awesome.

Thanks for looking!

Finally - the teacher gifts!

I finally finished the little Jr. Legal Notepads for Tolla's teachers. Good thing, nothing like waiting to the last minute as today is her last day before winter break! LOL I spent all day coloring Teacher Anya yesterday which I think was just fitting for these. My hubby couldn't believe I was making all of these but Tolla does have 5 rotating teachers in her preschool!! haha I just enjoyed the excuse to make these adorable little things. I love them. I'm going to make another one for myself to keep track of all my to do lists at work. I just have to figure out which would be the perfect image to use for work! Please feel free to comment with your suggestions!

I colored Anya with Copics (the hair took forever, and I have brown ink stains on my fingers. LOL) Then I colored the apple with glitter pens and covered it with glossy accents for some extra dimension. I only used ONE sheet of double sided DP for all of these which was awesome. Then the 3 different colors of sparkly cardstock to layer it on. I love the sentiment which says "find joy in the little things" b/c it's preschool and our kids are little!!! Isn't that perfect? Then I added the teacher's first initial on the front of each notepad using grungeboard covered in white crackle paint and rubbed with tea stain ink. Too cute and seriously these are the easiest things to make!

And of course, when mommy is making cards - Tolla wants to make cards so here are the ones she made for her best friend at school and his mom. Aren't they cute? Santa Ian is for her friend - his name is Aidan and the mermaid is for his mom. I think she wanted to use the mermaid b/c his mom has this beautiful red hair!!!

Thanks for stopping by!!! I've had fun creating this week so far but now I must pay some much needed attention to my household chores! LOL Oh wait, I need a birthday card....guess the laundry will have to wait at least a couple more hours... ;)

Club Anya Holiday Blog Hop!!!!

I have been looking forward to tonight since the announcement was made a couple weeks ago about the public blog hop. I love these stamps and was so excited to be a small part of the release - I've been seriously lacking in the stamping dept lately but wow, I think I've finally found my groove again. I didn't have time to stamp this weekend so I stamped ALL day today getting ready for tonight! LOL I hope you enjoy the projects I've made:

First, I want to make some gifts for Tolla's teachers as it's her first year of school and she's just done so great -- she absolutely loves school & talks about her teachers all the time. There are five that rotate around the preschool classes so here are the cards I made to go with their little gifts. I used this weeks Taylord Expressions Sketch Challenge and it also follows this week's TGF Farm Fresh Friday challenge KISS. Check out both places for great inspiration.

I also made this to hold some of the home made fudge I made last night. Oh my GAWD, it's good. I've been stealing pieces here and there all day (*blush*). I never knew making fudge was so easy!!! What a great gift to give someone. I love Flutter Anya - she was one of the FIRST anya's I bought earlier this year. I thought it would be cute to color her up with some Christmasy colors and put Ian's little santa hat on her head. I've seen this done with other anya's & thought it was adorable to dress them up for the holidays so I just had to try it!

And last, I made this Jr Legal Notepad (I know, it's not an Anya, LOL) but it's an adorable sprout and since I totally missed out on the Anya Elf, I had no choice...See my previous posts for a link to how to make the Jr Legal Notepads.

Thank you so much for stopping by tonight!!! I hope you enjoyed my little projects and will have fun on the rest of the hop - I'm sure there are some AMAZING projects and cards to be seen, I can't wait to see myself. I always find myself in awe with the talent of TGF fans! Plus the sneak peeks of the release tomorrow looks adorable as always!!

I found my MOJO (Monday - 116)!!

Whew, who knew I could create TWO cards in ONE day while watching my girls and helping them color / paint on the table behind me. LOL Well, I guess it is possible and it really made my day enjoyable - totally took me away from the stresses of my life. I've had a lot of stress surrounding my job and losing childcare for my girls...Some of it was brought on by myself and I have no one to blame but me, but I just keep hoping it will all work out for the best in some way, some how.

Until then, I'll keep stamping away & I hope you'll enjoy two Christmas cards I made using this week's Mojo Monday 116. Since it's the start of the month - there are PRIZES -who doesn't like prizes?! LOL I know I do!

I used an adorable Tiddly Inks Snowfight stamp from Stamping Bella - Gosh, I adore these stamps. I got this stamp nearly a year ago and wouldn't you know, today is the first time she's been inked!!! Eeek! I hate when that happens. Isn't she a doll. I love this stamp and I think I'll be making a few more using her before the wonderful winter season is over. I colored her using Copics and added the puffy white stuff to her hat, and coat and boots (LOVE This stuff as well, after admiring it on the works of many others, I finally got some myself and let me tell you - it's so fun to play with.) The I added some fine glitter to the snowman and snowballs, b/c the last snowfall we got, when I went outside, it looked like it was laced with glitter and was so beautiful! I was inspired by my girls favorite colors to color one red and the other green. :)

Anyway, hope you likey!!!! Please leave me a comment if you do - I'd love to hear from you.

PS. Can someone tell me how to get it so you can click on the picture of my card to bring it up larger? I feel like you don't get to see a lot of the detail b/c that doesn't work....

It's been awhile, but I've been stamping again!

I finally cleared off my craft desk (not that you can tell from these pics, LOL) but when I did it jumpstarted my desire to start stamping again. There had been a lot of stress in my life that has recently been released and as soon as it was removed, I was able to sit down at my desk again and the creative juices just flowed again and let me tell you it felt SO good.

I wanted to make some small gifts for my daughter's preschool teachers. Tolla is just thriving while being in her first year of school and I just wanted to show our appreciation in some small way. So, I started experiementing with these little jr note pads. You can find the tutorial here. I'm addicted to making these!!! They are perfect for making little lists which have been BIG for me lately.

Of course, I used my favorite stamps in the world - The Greeting Farm - and finally was able to ink up HG - Laundry as I just think she's adorable:

Then, I totally spaced on making an anniversary card for my hubby but I did manage to squeeze in a bday card for him a week later. This was my first comeback to stamping after about a month (if not more!) so I'm not totally in love with it, but I'm just happy he liked it and that it jumpstarted my hobby again. As soon as I saw Hugh, when Marie released him, I just KNEW I would use him for a card for my hubby. LOL He kinda reminds me of my hubby in our younger days with longer hair and just a cool/dreamy expression. Kinda what drew me to him.... :)

Anyway, thanks for stopping by! I appreciate your comments and hope to be a little more active in blogger world again!