CD Calendar - October, November and December

October is a haunted house with bats flying around; all stamps in the set.
November is leaves and pumpkin also in the set.
December is a holiday wreath and Santa and reindeer also all in the set.
Tada! All done using the Holiday Home stamp set.

CD Calendar - July, August, September

July's fireworks were made using the star from the Holiday Home stamp set and adding the tails using the white gel pen.
August is sunshine!
September is an apple orchard. I stamped three trees then added red apples using the darkest Cherry Cobbler Blendabilities marker. Then I used the Old Olive Blendabilities to make the tree leaves. Each tree was fussy cut.

CD Calendar - April, May, June

I wanted to make April showers... so I took the string of lights from the stamp set and inked just the tip of the light bulbs with Smoky Slate, then I rubbed that edge up the cardstock at a slant to make the rain. I colored the house in grey tones using my Blendabilities to add to the rainy day feeling.
For May I wanted to make May flowers but since there isn't a flower in the stamp set I decided to make blossoms instead... Cherry blossoms. I used the snowflake stamp set to make the blossoms then added just a touch of green in the tree branches using a marker. I put the trees in a row to resemble an orchard.
June is sunshine and green trees! I stamped the tree and then used my Old Olive Blendabilities to make the leaves. I wasn't thinking about the bleed that occurs through the card stock. So, I had to be sure to place the calendar over that blur on the reverse page.The sun was made freehand using a Blendabilities marker. This time I was thinking about the bleed but just made another sun on the reverse (see August tomorrow).

Holiday Homes Calendar

I have been making CD case calendars for many years. After seeing the framed Holiday Houses for a Year on Butternut Sage Designs I decided to use the Holiday Home stamp set and Homemade Holiday framelits to make this year's calendar pages. The top photo shows the CD case set up to display the current month and store the extra pages. You do have to take the case apart and put it together "wrong" to get the display "easel".
I challenged myself to only use stamps in the Holiday Home set.
January was pretty easy since there are snowflakes and snowman included in the set.
February also was easy since the set has a cute little heart and I used the lamp post also in the set. A word of caution when using photopolymer stamps... they stick to everything! I used most of the stamps as I was making the calendar pages. I needed a clean block so I pulled the lamp post off a block and did not put it away in the case. When I was putting everything away I couldn't find that stamp. I searched everywhere on my desk top. Then I began to search on all surfaces. I had already put so many things away. After searching for well over 30 minutes I finally found it stuck to one of the ink pads I had used and put away. So, my advice, "Put the stamps in their case as you finish using them."
For March I used the heart stamp to make the clover and then grabbed my marker of the same color and made the stem free hand.
The next three months will be posted tomorrow.

Petite Pairs Stamp Set

Here's two cards using the Petite Pairs stamp set that is currently on sale October 1-6 from Stampin' Up! It's a great set as the expressions can be used paired or alone. The top card also uses the Age Awareness stamp set and the layout design is a CASE from Linda Heller. 

The bottom card is a repeat design from a previous post. But if you missed that one it uses the Homemade Holiday framelits to make the arrows. Just use the tall skinny house framelit and cut of the chimney after you run the DSP through the Big Shot. I've used up some retired DSP scraps and the last of my retired More Mustard cardstock. Yippee! More room for other card stock and it's on sale now, too until October 6th!

Happy October! Happy stamping!

Christmas Cards!

I decided it was time to play with a few of the stamp sets and new tools in the Holiday Catalog. What fun! Here's the first card design I wanted to share.  

I made this one with Pool Party and Basic Gray card stock first. I wanted to do some more sponging and used the same layout as my Halloween card from last week. But I also wanted to use the new Confetti Stars Punch (135861) with the Holiday Home stamp set (135095 photopolymer) and Homemade Holiday framelits (135857). Get the Holiday Home and Homemade Home bundle (137631) and save 15%. I wasn't happy with the stars punched through the sponged moon and I wanted to try the design in another color combo. 





So, on the second card I punched a circle for the moon instead of sponging around a sticky note circle. The colors in it are Crumb Cake, Cherry Cobbler and Daffodil Delight card stock. I used Blendabilities (Cherry Cobbler 130995, Old Olive 130999, Smoky Slate 131005 and Crumb Cake 131004) Assortments to color the house on both cards. Basic Gray ink pad was used to stamp the trees, sentiment and sleigh on the top card and Smoky Slate and Pool Party ink were used to sponge the background.  Garden Green was used for the trees on the bottom card. Soft Suede was used for the sleigh and Whisper White for the sentiment. The background sponging was done with Crumb Cake, Soft Suede and Garden Green. 

More Uses for Homemade Holiday Framelits!

This card is a CASE from Stampin' Success, Stampin' Up!'s magazine for demonstrators. the arrows are made using the tallest house from the Homemade Holiday framelits. You just have to cut off the chimney to make the arrow shape. The Designer Series Paper is Confetti Celebration collection. I also used the Arrows embossing folder on the Bermuda Bay card stock area. The fifth arrow is made with Crushed Curry card stock. The base is Smoky Slate card stock. "Awesome... Thanks!" comes from the Yippee-Skippee stamp set (131344 c, 131341 w). I have some DSP scraps that are going to be put to use making some more cards of this design. 

Which brings me to the theme for the rest of this week... What to do with all those little scraps of Designer Series Paper? I have such a hard time throwing away those little scraps. I put them back in the plastic sleeve as I use the paper sheets. Eventually I always end up with just a sleeve of little scraps. I lived too many years with my Aunt Nina to just throw them away. So, those sleeves reside next to my work area until I get inspired to tackle them or the stack gets too big and I'm forced to do something with them.

Being a Pastor of two congregations my husband sends out lots of "Thank You" cards and his 'stash' was getting low. So, I grabbed a packet of scraps and told myself I had to use them all up before working on anything else. I had about 11 scraps that were 2"x12" and the rest were all much smaller. Most of a day was devoted to turning those scraps into 31 cards!

Here's the first card I designed. These pieces of DSP were just a tad longer than shown here but all the same width. They just screamed to be woven together on the card front. The "Thank You" is from Lots of Thanks (129690 c, 129687 w) and after stamping it I cut it with my Big Shot using the Homemade Holiday framelit turning that house on its side to make the label shape. The ribbon is Night of Navy 1/8" Taffeta Ribbon. That color is now retired. I was really wanting to use the Crushed Curry 1/8" Taffetta that is a new color available this year but don't have that in my possession (yet!). The background here is Cajun Craze card stock and the base is Crumb Cake.

A hint on doing the weaving. Lay out your strips on your paper and decide the length you want them and cut to size. Then lay down three longest all running the same direction. In my card those are the horizontal pieces. Glue just the ends of these three to the card stock. Then weave the other three (vertical pieces here) under the three glued. Glue these pieces when you have them all woven into place.

I had enough pieces of these strips to make 2 cards like this. Check back tomorrow to see what I did with the remaining 4 strips of this width. And how that led to another scrap that I just couldn't throw away!!!

Thinking ahead to Halloween!

This card is a CASE from Linda Heller at Stamping School. I changed it up just a bit by adding the stamped and punched Hello Honey moon. After I took the photo I realized I forgot to add the little ghost I stamped on vellum. Oh, well... I'll share some vellum ghosts in tomorrow's post.
The stamp sets here are  Mingle All the Way (135773 c, 135770 w) and Holiday Home (photopolymer 135095) from the Holiday catalog. I used the coordinating Homemade Holiday framelits (135857) and the 2-1/2" circle punch (120906). The house was colored using Blendabilities Daffodil Delight Assortment (130998) and Smokey Slate Assortment (131005). To stamp the pumpkin I used the Tangelo Twist and Mossy Meadow markers from the 2014-2016 set (133654). The card stock is Hello Honey, Mossy Meadow, Lost Lagoon, Basic Black and Whisper White.