Sweet 'n Sassy Sneak Peek

Hey...guess what? Tomorrow marks the release of a slew of brand spanking new digi images from Sweet 'n Sassy! How exciting!! This is one of the darling images that will be available on the web site tomorrow...Cocoa stuffed in a stocking, now that would make a darling Christmas surprise! ;-) (Speaking of Cocoa...Korin has launched a brand new Cocoa challenge blog...check it out here!) Since I have a huge crafting workload this week, I opted to create a bunch of quick and easy cards (you'll see more later this week) and this baby is number one on the list. I colored the image with Copics, added some faux paper piercing around the edges of the image, and attached Ms. Cocoa (I added long eyelashes to make Cocoa a girlie girl) on top of a piece of winter-themed designer paper from Fancy Pants Design. A big 'ol bow and button was the finishing part! Be sure to check back tomorrow for a sketch challenge and another brand new image! Enjoy! PS - I have to point out a card that Korin made this morning, using this same Cocoa image, and it is stunning!! Check it out!

Keep it Simple Sunday

Yes, I know, it's not Sunday and yes, I know, this isn't a card but a scrapbook page but...it is a CAS (Clean and Simple) page, which is a perfect fit for a Keep it Simple post. And this would have been posted yesterday except that Comcast decided they didn't want to give us Internet service for the afternoon. Therefore, my Sunday is now my Monday post! :-) This is a sweet 6x6 scrapbook page that I created for my Beginner Scrapbooking class that was held at Wholly Scrap!. Years ago I took a class where we created an entire 6x6 album in just two hours and this is a version of one of the pages we created. I've used those old 6x6 album layouts again and again when creating albums and pages and this is one of my favorites. (A great tip for creating quick scrapbook pages is to keep layouts that you create in a notebook so you can reference them for future projects.) All that's needed for this page is two 6x6 pieces of cardstock (one of them being designer paper). The plain cardstock serves as the page base and the designer page is cut in half, diagonally, before being adhered to the base with three brads. I then used a JustRite stamp to create the center decoration (cardstock stickers, popped up with foam tape, work well in this same spot). A quick color with Copics and a scalloped circle was all that was needed to finish this baby! Time needed to create this page....five minutes...now that's keeping it simple! Hoping everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing everyone a happy and blessed Thanksgiving holiday! Below is a wonderful quote from George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation... “Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to “recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness: Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us. And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best."

The Little Things

Well...I had grand plans to create some Thanksgiving specific projects to post this week but...turns out my house was far messier than I thought! LOL! Thanksgiving is going to be at our house so I've been madly cleaning and preparing for the 12+ people that will arrive tomorrow! Truth be told, I can't wait! But I do miss my crafting time... :-) Today, I have a fun quick and easy scrapbook page to share with you! I've never been a big scrapbooker but since beginning to work at a scrapbook store (Wholly Scrap!) earlier this year, I decided that maybe I should give scrapbooking a try! I'm also teaching a beginner's scrapbooking class at the store, which is perfect since I'm a beginner, and I've really been enjoying coming up with easy pages to demonstrate. This is an 8x8 page that I taught a few weeks ago. It was created with fun winter paper from Fancy Pants Design. The particular piece of paper used on this page was created with decorative strips that could be used a whole page or cut apart to use as border accents. I chose to cut out this fun swooping border and then turned it sideways to create a pocket. A plain Nestibilities circle made a fun ornament and my sentiment (from Tim Holtz) made me think of my little kiddies that make life big, bold, and blessed! To those elements, I simply added a piece of brown grosgrain ribbin and a tab for my picture mat (the tab was created with another Nestibilities die, which I stamped with 25 and cut in half to create the tab). Enjoy and wishing everyone a very blessed Thanksgiving!!

I'm Back With a Keep it Simple Card!

And it's good to be back! It was a long week filled with boxes of tissues, Tylenol, cough drops, and not enough sleep....but it was far better than it could of been and for that I am thankful! I was also thankful to make it in to the craft room to create one CAS (Clean and Simple) card last week. This is a card I created for the SCS CAS design team call. I didn't make the cut but now I have a card to share with you kids! :-) This was a super easy design, made up of only a few small pieces of designer paper, from Basic Grey, and cardstock. The sentiment is from Sweet 'n Sassy and the rhinestones are from Prima. Enjoy and stay tuned for a few Thanksgiving posts later this week!

Presto, Change-o...I'm Sick-o

Hi all...Sorry for the long silence on the blog...It seems I've moved from feeling under the weather to feeling like I've been hit by a truck! :-) I'm continuing to fight some kind of illness and have been spending large amounts of time crashed on the couch and no time in my crafty space. I'll be back with a crafty post asap...Until then, I'm off to take some Tylenol and dream of all things paper and ink!

Presto, Change-o...it's a bag!

Why hello Monday, how did you get here so quickly? Is it just me or is everyone super busy at this time of year? I have home projects, classes, cleaning, and a whole lotta prep to do before Thanksgiving, which is **gulp** just over a week away! I'm not ready!! Someone contact Superman and have him do that thing where he makes the earth go in reverse so I have more time...hee hee Well...since I'm pretty sure that isn't going to happen I must trudge forward and this week it's going to be all about class projects since I have Wholly Scrap's monthly PMS (that would be Pizza, Music, and Stamping) class this Friday. It's a great class and a fun time to hang out and stamp with the amazing customers from the store.

This is one of the projects from this week's class...a Bag-a-lope! I've seen these on blogs for years but never tried to make one myself, until last week, and I love it! Such a fun project and super easy! This is a 9" x 12" white envelope that gets turned into a bag...Perfect for holiday gifts! You can find directions here. (For you girls attending class and reading my blog...No peeking at the directions until after class!! LOL!)

As for the bag decorations...I used the new Tim Holtz snowflake stamps, inked in three colors, all over the bag. The front of the bag is covered in this lovely Basic Grey Christmas paper, a line from last year, and layered with a piece of olive cardstock that has been punched with a Martha small shell edge punch. I created the pink frame by using two oval Nestibilities. The tree is also from Spellbinders and I used a Tim technique to add color to the background before stamping the music notes image on top of the tree (music notes also from Tim). The top of the bag was created with a large label Nestibilities that I then embossed with a...you guessed it...new Tim snowflake embossing folder. A Sweet 'n Sassy sentiment finished off this sweet bag! Now isn't that fun? Enjoy!

And the winner is...

Mary Mahey! Mary, you have won the Sweet 'n Sassy Penguin digi stamp! Please contact me at ksdm@comcast.net and I'll get the image out to you asap! Thank you again to everyone who participated in the hop and left such lovely comments!!

SALT Challenge - Transformation

It's that time again...time for another SALT challenge! This week Pauline brought us our topic of transformation. You can read her thoughts on the SALT blog. In her write up, Pauline referenced a verse in 2 Corinthians, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." Since I'm feeling a bit under the weather this week, I decided to bring you a few thoughts from Martyn Lloyd-Jones (italics mine), taken from his daily devotional "Walking with God." The topic of the devotional focused on this Scripture verse is titled, "A New Creature." "A Christian can have an entirely new birth, a new start, a new nature, a new life. This is the very thing that happened to Paul. (Read Acts 9 for the account of Paul's transformation...it was quite extraordinary!) In his old life Paul was a self-satisfied, proud Pharisee, a highly religious and highly moral man - a very good man and a very nationalistic Jew. Yet he despised everyone else and was proud of himself....boasting that he kept the moral law while actively seeking to jail and kill those who followed Christ. But once he realized the meaning of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, he made an absolutely new start. Saul of Tarsus died, and the apostle Paul began to live. It was Paul who penned the words, "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." There is nothing that will get rid of the old sinful man, that we all are by nature, except through Christ's death on the cross. If you believe in Him and in the purpose of that death and what that death accomplished, you are truly dead to your old nature. Your old nature was crucified with Christ and that is gone forever. As a result of this, our whole position and status is entirely changed before God and man...You are free!" Christ really does have the power to fully transform an individual and that was my thought behind the sentiment, from Sweet 'n Sassy (the tree image is also from SNSS), on my ATC. The butterfly isn't just a bit different after it emerges from it's cocoon, it's transformed into a new creature. Such is the person who trusts in Christ... I pray that you enjoyed today's topic...Be sure to stop by the SALT blog to see the art submitted by the rest of the design team and remember, if you create something based on our topic, leave us a comment with a link back to your blog or gallery!

Christmas Itty Bitties

Happy day after the blog hop day! Did you all enjoy the hop? There was so much beautiful artwork is see and what a great display of the wonderful Sweet 'n Sassy images! (Truth be told...I'm still working my way through that impressive list of participants!) A HUGE thank you to everyone for their wonderful comments!! I'll be pulling a winner tomorrow (so you still have time to enter the prize drawing for a free digi) and will announce on Friday! Today I'm sharing a darling new Christmas stamp set called Christmas Itty Bitties. It's so cute!! The set includes six of these darling 'itty bitty' images for only $9.00...now that's a holiday bargain! I decided to keep it simple with today's card and only utilized white cardstock (one piece being embossed with the swiss dot embossing folder) and a tiny bit of green layered behind the images. I even kept my coloring simple, going with just red, green, and white. I'm lovin' the simple approach to card making these days! How about you? Hope you all enjoyed yesterday's hop and today's card! Have a great week!!

Sweet 'n Sassy Happy Birthday Blog Hop

Yippee!! I'm so excited about the Sweet 'n Sassy blog hop today! We're celebrating our third birthday and have we got a treat for you today! We have over 30 amazingly talented ladies participating in today's hop plus a prize at every stop so you really don't want to miss a single blog! Enjoy the hop and enjoy the art! If you didn't start at the beginning, you'll want to hop back to the Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps Blog and pick up from there where you left off. Today, three years ago, Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps "opened for business" with just four acrylic stamp sets and a simple blog. Since then SNSS has grown to over 100 clear stamp sets and hundreds of digital stamps! God has been good! SNSS's images, sentiments and scripture stamps are sweet and sassy and everything in between. You're sure to find something you'll love... On my card...I'm using this darling digi image called Festive Penguin and I'm in love with him! He's so cute and I've been holding on to him, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to pop him on a card! I colored him with my Copics, added a few red rhinestones for the holly berries, and paired him with some designer paper from Imaginsce. And...Mr. Penguin can be yours! Just leave me a comment and I'll pick a winner, which will be announced on Friday, November 12. (PS - My layout is from this week's Mojo Monday sketch!) On with the hop! Hoppers will start out on the SNSS blog and will then hop along the blog trail below: Janette Lorie Kim: You're here! Janice Stephanie Leah Deb Chupa Nancy Claudia Amber Kelly Jeanette Melissa Lisa Melanie Joni Julie Ceal Micki Chrissy Debbie Monika Tricia Tami Denise Jacquie Roxie Lynne Christi Deb Felts Korin We hope you enjoy hopping along to see all the fun things we've created for your viewing pleasure. May you be inspired to create something truly amazing......something from your heart!

Tiffany Doodles Challenge - TD06

It's time for another Tiffany Doodles challenge!! Wow!! How does a month go by so quickly? :-)Did you participate in last month's challenge? Did you know that you have an opportunity to win oodles of free digis if you play along with our challenges? Fabulous!! Be sure to check out all the details here. This month our challenge is to create anything but a card. What fun! I love making creations with paper and just wait until you see what the rest of the team has come up with, definitely worth seeing! Speaking of design team...Tiffany Doodles is looking for a few new members to join the team!! Interested? Find all the details here. For my project I used an image I've had my eye on since joining the team, just waiting for the perfect creation. Let me introduce you to Pocket Mouse! This little baby was the image that pushed me over the edge to try out for the DT...I loved it and I Mr. Mouse is just adorable all dressed up in his Christmas duds. I printed out the image two times on plain cardstock and twice on designer paper. I then colored Monsieur Mouse with Copic markers and cut out just the head from one of the print outs and then just the face from the other to create some serious dimension with foam tape. (The bottom mouse image was printed on a piece of designer paper but not colored) I did the same with the pocket and sentiment (from Sweet 'n Sassy). The designer paper is from Little Yellow Bicycle and the ribbon is from Papertreyink. And hey...I made a little video to show you how to create this super easy box....Hope it makes sense! ;-) Click here.

And now for the challenge details!! Here are the rules of the challenge: Start date: Today, November 7 End date: November 30, Midnight EST Winners Announced: December 1 Don't forget to add your card to the Tiffany Doodles Flickr Gallery! Tagged with: TD06 The Prizes! You have 4 chances to win up to 7 digis of your choice from Tiffany Doodles! 1st place - 7 digis 2nd place - 5 digis 3rd place - 3 digis 1 Random - 3 digis Want to see what the rest of the team came up with? You're in for a treat, their designs are amazing! For details on any of the team cards just click on their name to visit their blog! Tiffany Cammy Deirdre Donna Julie Lindsay Peet Ruby Shannon Vanessa Virginia Enjoy and be sure to stop by the Tiffany Doodles site to enter your card into the prize drawing!!

CAS Challenge

I think that this would have been a great Keep it Simple post, however, I actually made this card on Monday...for a Monday challenge. Let's see, what day is it? Oh yeah, Friday. Humm...I think I'm running a bit behind! LOL! This card is for this week's SCS CAS (Clean and Simple) challenge, which was to create a sympathy card. So I have to share that making this simple card took me longer than making my turkey card that was posted a few days ago. Goodness, why is it so hard to keep it simple!!?? I had to giggle as I was sitting at my desk agonizing over how to make a quick card. This quick card features a brand spanking new stamp from Sweet 'n Sassy! The November Chrysanthemum features this beautiful chrysanthemum image along with five sentiments. I decided to keep my card really simple and not fill in the image with color and only added a sentiment over the image. I really liked the pink and black color combo but I hope it doesn't look too much like a wedding card...sigh...To finish the card I only added black ribbon and two pearl embellies. The card is long, I like this size, and measures 6" x 4". Enjoy!

Tuesday Throwdown Sponsor

Oh my, has it really been an entire week since I last posted? I'm not sure where I've been...which is to say I've been so busy I barely noticed that it had been a week! I have, however, been working on lots of fun crafty projects that I'll be sharing in the coming days... But for today...I'm excited to share that Sweet 'n Sassy is sponsoring this week's Tuesday Throwdown challenge. This week's challenge is "Give Thanks" and with Thanksgiving (don't remind me!!) only a few weeks away, I figured a happy turkey card should be in the works. This sweet turkey is from the Gobble, Gobble set that features Mr. Turkey and five sentiments for only $11.00! (This set also contains one of the funniest sayings ever...you can see it here). Want to participate in this week's Tuesday Throwdown? You can win free stuff!! :-) Click here to go directly to their site. More to come.... *Sweet 'n Sassy released a boatload of new stamps on November 1, check them out here! *Join me on November 9 for a birthday bash blog hop, celebrating Sweet 'n Sassy's third birthday. There will be prizes galore! Enjoy!