Just Dandy

K & Company Christmas

Recently while browsing the paper aisle of my local craft store I came across this.....

The colors immediately caught my eye! Love the whimsical designs and the bright, cheery colors! Aren't they so fun!!  I had to purchase it and couldn't wait to get it home to start creating! 

I wanted to be sure that once I started with a sheet that I would get the most out of it before I tucked it away and then forgot about it. I have a really bad habit of that at times...trying to do better! I chose to use the entire sheet and make 4 cards with matching lined envelopes.....all out of this one sheet! Can't beat that!

 

I love the fancy ornaments and I think that is what initially drew me to this paper pack. I wanted to make those the focal point for most of my cards and chose to trim three of them out. For this first card I started by adhering a piece of patterned paper, the backside of the ornament side, to the front of my Kraft card base. I used my Fiskars Apron Lace border punch for the border along the top and bottom. The ornament was attached to my oval Nestability base and then it was all attached to my card front.  My greeting 'Merry Christmas' is from Mixed Messages and that was stamped on a Martha Stewart tag.

This next one isn't quite as intricate! I do, for the most part, enjoy cutting things out but sometimes I like to keep it a bit simpler. I chose to use the ornament side of the paper for this one. I roughed up the edges a bit....hard to see in the picture, tied my ribbon with a piece of twine and a button and stamped my sentiment, from Peaceful Poinsettia.

 

The sentiment for this one is from Believe. I used lots of glitter and bling ....

Stardust Stickles was what I used around the edge of the ornament!

And last but not least, my favorite out of all four. I repeatedly used my Fiskars Threading Water punch for this one and just love the result! After trimming my ornament out, I again added glitter and rhinestones to fancy it up even more!! The greeting is from Holiday Wishes set. 

That's all for today! I hope you are all enjoying your Saturday!

Til next time....

 
  
 {Merry Christmas Ornament}

Stamps: Mixed Messages (Papertrey Ink)

Ink: Berry Sorbet (Papertrey Ink)

Cardstock: white, Kraft (Papertrey Ink)

Patterned Paper: K & Company Peppermint Twist collection

Accessories: New Leaf ribbon, twine, Spring Moss button (Papertrey Ink), Spellbinders Nestability, rhinestones (Michaels), Fiskars Apron Lace punch

{Merry Christmas}

Stamps: Peaceful Poinsettia (Papertrey Ink)

Ink: Hibiscus Burst (Papertrey Ink)

Cardstock: Spring Moss, white (Papertrey Ink)

Patterned Paper: K & Company Peppermint Twist collection

Accessories: Hibiscus Burst ribbon, Spring Moss button, twine (Papertrey Ink), Fiskars Apron Lace punch

{Friends}

Stamps: Believe (Papertrey Ink)

Ink: True Black (Papertrey Ink)

Cardstock: Spring Moss, white (Papertrey Ink)

Patterned Paper: K & Company Peppermint Twist collection

Accessories: white button, twine (Papertrey Ink), Ranger Stickles, rhinestones (Michaels)

{Season's Greetings}

Stamps: Holiday Wishes (Papertrey Ink)

Ink: New Leaf (Papertrey Ink)

Cardstock:Kraft, New Leaf, white (Papertrey Ink)

Patterned Paper: K & Company Peppermint Twist collection

Accessories: Fresh Snow ribbon (Papertrey Ink), Fiskars Threading Water punch, rhinestones (Michaels), Ranger Stickles

This day

Hello my dear friends!! I'm sure a lot of you will be doing the same thing I will be doing today....baking and prepping for the big Thanksgiving meal tomorrow. Before I get busy with all of that I thought I'd share a card using two of my favorite Rubber Soul quote sets.

I started by stamping lines from Papertrey Ink's Background Basics: Retro set onto my card base. I love those lines. Such a simple image but they can create such a POP on your card and they can be stamped in SO many different ways along with all the other images in the set. Check these out.....HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE! A piece of Pure Poppy was adhered across the center. Next, I created a tag out of white cardstock and rounded my corners with my EK Success punch. The flowers are from Life Affirming and the quote is from Peace. The flowers were stamped in black and then colored in with Copics. The larger flower was trimmed out and attached with dimensional adhesive.  I thought it needed just a little extra something so I used my white gel pen and added tiny dots to the flowers centers!
 

 

 This is such a busy time of year that we often forget how important each day is. I love the quote on this card, "Nothing is more important than this day." A definite reminder that each and every day is precious! I hope you all cherish the time you spend with your families tomorrow, tell them how much they mean and how thankful you are that they are in your lives! This is the first year that we will be hosting Thanksgiving at our house since we moved back to Maine. I'm very much looking forward to spending time with our families this year but I'm also missing our other family...our very, very dear friends who we've shared every holiday with over the past 15 years! I will be thinking of you tomorrow and wishing you were all here ( you know who you are )!! Love ya!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

 

((Hugs))

 
Stamps: Background Basics: Retro (Papertrey Ink), Peace & Life Affirming (Rubber Soul)

Ink: Ripe Avacado, True Black (Papertrey Ink)

Cardstock: Kraft, white, Pure Poppy (Papertrey Ink)

Accessories: ribbon (Papertrey Ink), brad (Making Memories), EK Success corner rounder punch

 

Thinking of you

Evening all! I was able to get lots of stamping done today...it felt so good to make a dent in the list of things I need to get accomplished. I wanted to pop in while dinner was in the oven and share a card I created a few days ago. I pulled out my Copics for this one and am so pleased with how soft and delicate it looks! I'm loving those Copics more and more every time I use them!!

I go through a pack of white cardstock SO unbelievably fast lately...that is all I seem to be reaching for.  Papertrey Ink's stampers select white cardstock...my favorite by far! I love the clean, crisp look of a white background and then you've got your stamped image that just seems to POP on the card front! For this particular card I reached for Autumn Abundance, a perfect set for coloring!

The following list are the Copics I used:

• BG 13 - mint green
• BG 18 - teal blue
• Y35 - maize
• YG 95 - pale olive
• YG97 - spanish olive
• T1 - toner gray #1
• T4 - toner gray #4

After coloring in my pitcher of flowers I trimmed it out and adhered it with dimensional adhesive! I did a little distressing around the edge of the patterned paper. This was the first card I made with this set and now I can't wait to get back in there and try brighter, bolder colors! 

Quick post tonight...timer just went off! Have a great night everyone!

**All supplies are Papertrey Ink unless noted otherwise**

Stamps: Autumn Abundance

Cardstock: white, Lemon Tart

Patterned Paper: Bitty Dot Basics

Accessories: copics, K & Company rhinestones
 
 
 

A couple little things

Hey everyone! Just popping on to share a few pics with you all tonight!

 

First a shot of our backyard from this past weekend. Isn't it pretty?! We had about 6 inches on the ground Friday morning but it didn't last. The past few days the temps have been in the high 50's, low 60's so it's all melted away. Crazy weather, I tell ya! The weatherman said just a dusting so we didn't expect to wake up to any accumulation but it really was a nice sight first thing in the morning!

 

As you all know from my recent posts I've been painting like a mad women. I still haven't finished the foyer yet...been procrastinating about that one, plus I've had a few other things I need to get accomplished before I tackle that again. I did get all the walls painted except for the tall one though and this is the shot of above our foyer coat closet. So, so happy with it. Willow Leaf is the name and I just LOVE it!! I don't know how many paint swatches I brought home and looked through before I chose this one...I know it was A LOT!! Whoever says picking paint colors is an easy task is so wrong. And what about our name decal above the door...one of my new favorites in the house. I had been waiting to finish the foyer before ordering it and I was finally able to. The shop, Vinyl Letting, on Etsy is where I found it. I plan on purchasing a few more different ones for around the house. I love that they aren't permanent and can be taken down super easy!!

Before I share this next picture I have to give a little shout out to my friend, Wendy. Before meeting her I had never heard of anyone calling their half-bath a 'powder room'...maybe in the movies but never in person or from anyone I knew. Wendy always, always called her half-bath a powder room and I think I chuckled everytime I heard her say it. It just sounded so ritzy to me, like we should be sipping tea out of fine china with fancy white gloves and nibbling on crumpets...then we excuse ourselves to use the powder room. And now look at me...I have a half-bath and I'm calling it the same. I'm just going to have to find myself another vinyl decal ....this one saying 'THE POWDER ROOM'.  

It was so hard to get a good shot of the room due to the lighting but you get the idea. Jamaica Bay was the color of this one. I was a bit leary when I first started painting...it was a lot darker than I had thought it would be but it turned out great! Very cheery and bright!

That wraps it up for tonight! Need to get dinner in the overn...homemade pizzas! MMM

Til next time....

Teacher

Good morning all! I'm taking a little break from painting to post a card I created a while back. The painting is coming along nicely but I still have lots to do. I finished up the downstairs bath and it turned out great. The color is bright and cheery, a dark aqua. R says it reminds him of a Disney bathroom. The foyer has been started but that has been put on hold. Our stairwell is VERY tall....about 12 feet and I wasn't sure how I was going to tackle that. I had intended to paint the whole thing but the more and more I thought about it the more and more I dreaded it. I didn't want to hire anyone to do it for me. I'm pretty stubborn when it comes to the house now...I want to try myself and if I fail, well then I'll think about hiring someone. And if in a few years I wanted to change the color it would just be too much to try and tackle that all over again. So I decided to throw that idea out the window and come up with a better plan. We ended up buying a few strips of white molding to create a barrier between the stairs and tall ceiling. This way I could still paint the wall but I would only have to go up so far, leaving the top portion white and the lower part the foyer color, a deep olive. This whole home decor/improvement is so new to me. I'm not the best at it at all but I'm learning and I have to admit that it's pretty exciting when I can see the end result. 

So before I jump back into the painting how about a card....

Teacher's Apple is such a fun, fun set! I love having a set that is dedicated just for our teachers. This was really a simple card to create. I first started by stamping the outline of my apples in Dark Chocolate on a piece of white cardstock. They were then filled in with the lined apple image using Chartreuse Palette ink and the stems again in Dark Chocolate. I colored 4 tiny rhinestones using a Copic marker and then attached them to the tops of each apple. Teacher was stamped in Fresh Snow onto Dark Chocolate cardstock. This was then all attached to my Berry Sorbet card using dimensional adhesive.

That's all for today. I have a list of things to get done over the next few days...more painting, Christmas gifts to make, Christmas fair items to create, a field trip on Friday along with other things that I'm sure I have forgotten.

Have a wonderful day everyone!!

**All supplies are Papertrey Ink unless noted otherwise**

Stamps: Teacher's Apple

Ink: Chartreuse Palette ink, Dark Chocolate, Fresh Snow

Cardstock: Dark Chocolate, Berry Sorbet, white

Accessories: Berry Sorbet ribbon, twine, rhinestones (Michaels), button (Doodlebug)

 

Raspberry Suite Color Challenge #19

Jumping on real quick this morning to share my Raspberry Suite color challenge card with you all! When I first saw the colors Dawn chose I couldn't help but love the combo. What's not to love about green and pink together....my two favorite colors!

I started with a piece of Vintage Cream cardstock that I scalloped along the bottom with my Fiskars border punch. I stamped the row of 3 poinsettias from Peaceful Poinsettia on 3 different colors of cardstock....Raspberry Fizz, Dark Chocolate and New Leaf and then punched the squares out with my EK Success 1" square punch. Those were all centered and adhered to my Vintage Cream.

To finish it off I simply wrapped a strip of New Leaf ribbon around the bottom, tied off my button and lastly added my greeting....'I'm here for you' from Floral Frenzy.
 
That's all for today! I'm off to paint 2 bathrooms this morning. I finally decided on colors and can't wait to see the end result. Amazing what a coat of paint can do to a room!

Have a great day!

**All supplies are Papertrey Ink unless noted otherwise**

Stamps: Peaceful Poinsettia, Floral Frenzy

Ink: New Leaf, Raspberry Fizz, Dark Chocolate

Cardstock: Kraft, Vintage Cream, Dark Chocolate, Raspberry Fizz, New Leaf

Accessories: New Leaf ribbon, Hibiscus Burst button, EK Success border punch
 
   

Papertrey Ink Blog Hop

This months Papertrey Ink blog hop is focusing on the upcoming holidays and I couldn't be more excited. I have been in full Christmas mode for the past week or so and I'm still going strong. I just downloaded all my Christmas music to my IPod today and can't wait to put it on shuffle and let it go. I usually don't start listening until after Halloween (I know for a lot of you that is still WAY too soon) but this year I'm starting early. Can you believe we only have exactly 2 months from today until Christmas is here? For tonights blog hop I thought I'd share one of the many gift ensembles I've been working on for an upcoming craft fair I'm doing. I'm also making a bunch of these to put my gifts in for special friends and family.

The bag you see in this post is one from my leftover stash from last year. This one has handles (not sure where I purchased them but I know they are available at just about every craft store you can imagine). Papertrey Ink also carries a variety of bags right HERE if you want to check them out. Not only do they have the different colors...white, kraft and glassine but they also come in a variety of sizes and they are super reasonable. Can you imagine all the different gifts you can put in these bags....oh my goodness, the list would be never ending!

The patterned paper you see on both the bag and card is from Basic Grey's Blitzen collection. The white scalloped border was created using Fiskars lace border punch. After stamping my greeting, from Peaceful Poinsettia, I used my EK Success large corner rounder punch and rounded one corner of the cardstock. The leaves are also from my Peaceful Poinsettia set. They were stamped in Ripe Avacado and then trimmed and adhered to the front of my greeting with red brads.

I created the bag pretty similar to my card, keeping everything pretty simple and clean looking. Celebrate is a rub-on from Making Memories that I've had in my drawer for years but never used.  I love how it looks and how BIG it is. Hmmm....I'm thinking a stamp set with words this big would be great!?!?

I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of you have in store for gift giving this holiday season!! I know that you are all going to have some great ideas and I'll have to take notes for things to try myself!

Happy blog hopping all!!

**All supplies are Papertrey Ink unless noted otherwise** 

Stamps: Peaceful Poinsettia

Ink: Ripe Avacado, Pure Poppy

Cardstock: Kraft, white 

Patterned Paper: Basic Grey's Blitzen collection

Accessories: Pure Poppy ribbon, EK Success corner rounder punch, Fiskars border punch, Making Memories brads, kraft bag
 
 
  
 

Rubber Soul Trio

Happy Sunday everyone! I hope you all have enjoyed your weekend. It's been a brisk one here the past few days and looks like possible snow showers late this evening. It's waaaay too soon for that to happen! It feels like it should be November not October. I know some of you have seen the fluffy white stuff already and although I do love to see that first snowfall, you all can keep it just a little bit longer!

Thank you all for your helpful tips and words of encouragement concerning my pump. You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear from you all. Besides you, my cyber friends, I don't know another diabetic so it is so nice to know you're out there and available to chat with if I ever have a question or just feel like venting!! 

I should have spent today cleaning and getting ready for the week but instead spent it at my desk, stamping. I have a few orders for Christmas cards plus I'm doing a local craft bizarre for the holidays and am trying to prepare for that. I even pulled out my Christmas cd's and listened to those while working! AHHHH I love the Holidays! So much better stamping Christmas cards when you've got the music to sing along to in the background, don't you think?!

So today I have a few Rubber Soul cards to share. I created these awhile ago but haven't yet posted them.

This first one is just a super simple, uplifting card using Rubber Soul's Life Affirming quote set. I stamped the quote inside a square Nestability and then colored the sun in with my Copics. That was then layered over a scallop Nestability and adhered to my card front using dimensional adhesive. The patterned paper is also from Rubber Soul...their Garden Variety collection.

Another super simple card...this one using their Peace quote set. After stamping the earth I used my Copics to color it in. Both the earth and the quote are adhered with dimensional adhesive.

 Lastly, a halloween card and tag using a few different Rubber Soul stamps. I started by stamping the pumpkin onto white cardstock in black ink. I then stamped the mesh background over the pumpkin and then the face over that. The stem and leaf were colored in using Copics and then they were both cut out and adhered to my card and tag front. The embossing you see is from the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder.

That does it for tonight! Going to finish up the dishes from dinner and then curl up and watch The Amazing Race. Have a great night all!

 
 

{New Day}

Stamps: Life Affirming (Rubber Soul - Wordsworth)

Ink: True Black (Papertrey Ink)

Cardstock: white (Papertrey Ink)

Patterned Paper: Garden Variety (Rubber Soul)

Accessories: square classic & scallop Nestabilities

{A Smile}

Stamps: Peace (Rubber Soul - Wordsworth)

Ink: New Leaf, True Black (Papertrey Ink)

Cardstock: white, Spring Rain (Papertrey Ink)

Patterned Paper: Divine (Rubber Soul)

{Happy Halloween card & tag}

Stamps: pumpkin, jack-o-lantern, happy halloween, mesh background

Ink: True Black, Summer Sunrise (Papertrey Ink)

Cardstock: white, Ripe Avacado, Summer Sunrise

Accessories: copics, oval scalloped Nestability, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder, Papertrey Ink ribbon, buttons

My new BFF

One of the reasons for me being so quiet the past few weeks is my new little sidekick....my new BFF if you will! A lot of you have asked if I had started the pump yet and the answer is YES (thanks for thinking of me btw)! I started the middle of last month and have been learning all the ins and outs of it ever since. Between being at home and teaching myself and traveling the 3 hours to my diabetes educator every week it's taken up quite a bit of my time. It's been quite a challenge but I'm getting there....figuring out and remembering all the settings, finding the perfect place to wear it not only during the day but during the night when I'm sleeping, finding the perfect, most comfortable spot to insert the infusion set...along with many other things. But as challenging as it has been it is also so, so worth it! The fact that I haven't had to take an injection by syringe in the past 3 weeks is AWESOME! 29 years of that was enough.

Thank you to all of you who have left comments and sent e-mails of concern asking about my pump. I truly appreciate your thoughtfulness!! I would love to hear from my fellow pump wearing cyber friends about your pump experiences....what you love most about it, least? And mostly where do you wear yours? When I first started the pump I was wearing it on my belt (like in the picture) but I have since moved it and clipped it on my pocket. Still not sure it's the perfect spot...seems like I'm always banging it against something and infact have scratched the face of it a few times already. Is there really any other place to wear it....maybe one I'm not thinking of!?

Have a wonderful day everyone!

And the winner is....

Result: 56    Powered by RANDOM.ORG

Maggie Herrington

Glad to see you back and love your card and tag today! I love the fall colors and going for drives to view them. Thanks for the chance to win.

Congrats Maggie!!! Send me an e-mail (melisj_98@yahoo.com) with your info and I will pop this set in the mail to you right away!!