Earlier I said I was going to show you a project I am working on to be a bit more organized. It is also a project that will hopefully teach me a few things in the process of setting it up. But it is getting to late tonight for explaining it so instead I will just share another quilt themed card.
Have I mentioned I LOVE these little blocks...... I thought so! So much can be done with them........Tomorrow I will try to get my project up here!

PHOTOS TO THE 6th DEGREE

Yesterday when I visited my friend Christi st her BLOG Story About A Girl she had a post about sharing the photo that was the sixth picture in the sixth file in you Pictures on your computer. I thought I would play along. I would have posted my pic last night but it needed a bit of work to make it presentable, but here it is now.......

I think it is a very appropriate picture since it is a winter scene from 2007. Ah the good old days when we used to get snow, not ice! This wasn't a big snow fall as I remember it and from the looks of the picture, but it was a pretty one. It's been a very long time since we've had any real snow accumulation totals. I would love to have another 2 foot snow storm like we used to get every other year or so.....they give so much time to stay home and stamp and sew!!!!!! No reason to go anywhere because you can't get anywhere and no one is open anywhere anyway!

Back to the picture. This is a picture taken from our kitchen looking out the sliding patio doors (that's what they are called even though we don't have patio) into our back yard. I guess actually it's looking more into our next door neighbors yard where the pretty snow covered trees are. Well that's my picture....tonight I hope to be back with some photos from an organizational project I started this week.

THIRD TIME IS A CHARM!

I finally got it right. That is my challenge card for the Belli Challenge of the week; CBC52 . This card has all five ingredients for my "cake".....no more no less!
There is...

1. Sugar: designer paper (hard to see in this photo but it is the layer my little quilt is places on and the layer my tag is placed on. Not much but it's there!)
2. Butter: vellum
3. Eggs: scallops (The border on the vellum)
4. Vanilla: ribbon
5. Cocoa Powder: hardware ( the metal buckle the ribbon is going through)

This card really did not photograph well. Its much prettier in real life. I must say however though it meets all the requirement for the challenge and the other two don't. Of the three this is my least favorite card. Oh well! I guess that's life in my stamping room! I need to once again give credit to Papertrey Inks for my wonderful little quilt blocks. They are from their Quilter's Sampler set. The rest of the materials except for the flowers are from Stamping Up.

I have one more card that I've made using my quilt blocks. It is one that came out of my head. My most common way to make cards is I start with a stamp set I want to use and go from there. They just seem to spring up on their own. Not a whole lot of pre-planning other than the kind of card I'm making; birthday, get well, sympathy etc.....I will explain the process I often use in "birthing " a card in my next post. Till then...bye bye!

BELLI CHALLENGE---2 CARDS!

This morning I wrote about finding a fantastic new BLOG to follow and that on this BLOG Creating with Chrissy a Belli Challenge is given every week. I also said I was going to try and take part in this challenge by making a card for it today. Guess what I did!!!!! I not only got one card done but two....though my first one isn't really a card for the challenge since I forgot one of my cake ingredients.

Here is how Chrissy presented the challenge.....

"For the week of January 28, Belli #52, we are hosting a VERY special Belli Challenge in celebration of our One Year Anniversary. ...........

We will be BAKING A CAKE to celebrate our First Anniversary of Belli Challenges.

How do we play BAKE A CAKE? Listed below is a list of cake ingredients. You all must pick 5 ingredients.

Here are the ingredients, be sure to choose 5!

Flour
Sugar
Butter
Vanilla
Eggs
Salt
Baking soda
Chocolate
Nutmeg
Milk
Cinnamon
Powdered sugar

Cream cheese
Cocoa powder
Coconut

Oil

This week to play here is what you need to do...

1. Anyone Can Play! Spread the Word! :)

2. Pick your 5 ingredients!!!
3. Find out what the ingredients equal to in Embellishments!

4. Make a completed project with your CAKE INGREDIENTS -

5. Share the link here in the comments linking to my Blog and CBC52. When you post to Splitcoaststampers or Paper Craft Planet or to your Blog, be sure and put CBC52 as the KEYWORD and mention of the challenge - with a link!
6. I will do a drawing and the person whose name I draw will be a BELLI GUEST DESIGNER the last week of February
7. Deadline for entry is Tuesday evening 7 p.m. Central time."

I have a favorite cake recipe "Flourless Chocolate Cake" so to bake my cake I choose flour, sugar, butter, vanilla, and cocoa powder as my five ingredients. I found out what these "ingredients" translated to in card making elements and got to work.

I really like the first card I made, but I guess it probably didn't taste to good because I forgot the eggs! I'll show it to you anyway since I like it..........It's hard to see in the picture here but behind the vellum is a Quilt Block made out of squares and triangles of designer paper. You'll have to trust me that you can see it in real life! I ran the vellum through my cuttlebug with an embossing folder to look like quilting stitches. Like I say I got everything in this "cake" except the eggs! Into the card inventory this Get Well card goes and back to the drawing board or rather kitchen I go to come up with another card that contains all five ingredients!

Here is my second card......Can you figue out what element the eggs are????? You shouldn't have to look too carefully. I like this card also. With the first card I tried embossing the vellum for the first time. (Hint: If you emboss vellum treat it gently it will crack and slip if you are not gentle!) I tried another new technique on this second card. It is one that I read about on the Kub's BLOG back when cuttlebugs were realitivly new on the market. (Yes that long ago and I'm just trying it.) Actually I reversed his process. He showed inking the negative on a cuttlebug folder and I inked the positive and then I embossed the vellum. Like the Kub I used chalk ink to do this. I like how it highlighted the detail to the embossing. So here is my second card.

Can you tell I'm into quilt blocks at the moment. I think its because I have quilt show thoughts on my brain. Serious planning has begun for our local 2009 show in April and I'm on the committee.

So that is my work for the day! I hope you enjoyed seeing them. Oh I suppose you would like to know what the cake ingredients translate into for the card and its emements and embellishments. Here is the list Chrissy gave us to work with......

Flour = brads
Sugar = designer paper
Butter = vellum
Vanilla = ribbon
Eggs = scallop punch/nestabilities
Salt = watercoloring
Baking soda = beads
Chocolate = buttons
Nutmeg = markers
Milk = distressing
Cinnamon = sponging
Powdered sugar = embossing powder
Cream cheese = chipboard
Cocoa powder = hardware
Coconut = flowers
Oil = glitter or stickles

So my card needed to be made with.....designer paper, vellum, ribbon, hardware, and I had to use a scalloped punch. And my missing eggs was the scalloped punch use!

Drat!!!!! I just noticed I still didn't get it right!!!!! I must have ice on the brains.....I was debating whether to use chocolate or cocoa powder for the chocolate in my cake and I just realize I ended up using both!!!!! Oh well.....it will just be a super chocolatey flourless cake!

If I have time tonight or tomorrw I will try a third cake (card). They do say third time is a charm............I hope if you take up this challenge you do better than me!

I FOUND A NEW BLOG TO READ!

It's a very icy morning here in Maryland. A good day to stay home on the computer and in my stamp room!!!!!!! Every morning I do a quick check of the BLOGS I follow through Google Reader and this morning was no exception. One of my favorite places to stop (among many!) is my good the BLOG of my good friend and flying buddy Lee. What an incredibly talented young lady she is....I proud to say I knew her when....meaning when she was just getting started stamping and card making. WOW what a difference a few years makes! She is definitely a fast learner. If you have never visited her be sure and go to My Reality.....Its All Good! You won't be disappointed I assure you......

I was excited to see this morning that she had a new post so of course I visited.....it was from her I visited another amazing BLOG that is also now listed in my Google Reader.....I have heard this woman's name before on other BLOGS and in other places, but for some reason just had never made it to her site......How silly of me.....I've really been missing out, but I won't anymore believe me! So don't you make the same mistake I did. Right now.....well after you finish here....you must go check out Creating with Chrissy......Chris Dickinson is very talented, and very sharing of her talent. As an incentive to visit I Will tell you she is giving away some awesome BLOG candy in honor of her 80,000 hit! (I'll never see that day as I sit here patiently waiting for 5000 after almost 3 years!) You need to visit her by Midnight Central Time on January 31 to enter for a chance to win so don't delay!

While visiting Chris scroll on down and find out about her wonderful Belli challenges that are posted every week. I'm going to try and do this weeks Baking a Cake challenge today. One of my favorite cakes because it is so chocolaty and fudgy is a flourless chocolate cake so my ingredients will be sugar, butter, eggs, cocoa powder, and vanilla. When I post the card later today I will give you what these ingredients were that I needed to use on my card. Don't forget the BLOG CANDY!

PAPER QUILTS

i am finally breaking out my Quilt Block sets from Papertrey. It's definitely time....they have been feeling totally unloved I'm sure, but no more. I am in love. These little stamps are so much fun.

This afternoon I stamped three sheets of white card stock full of various quilt blocks which are now waiting to be colored. That's a lot of quilt blocks since they are only 3/4 inch in size! So far I've only colored my blocks using my Copics. I am somewhat limited in the colors I have for this because I need to use my Original style Copics which have a fine point nib on one end. I feel I have greater control in filling in the tiny spaces using a fine point than the brush point. I want to try colored pencils and Gamsol, but am not sure it will work with the small spaces without blurring. I don't think I would have much success with water coloring either. I will also try my SU markers since they have a fine point on one end and I don't think I will have a problem with a streaky look because of the small spaces being colored.

After coloring each block I punch them out using my Creative Memories 3/4 inch punch, but any brand punch of this size would work. If you don't have a punch you can cut them out with scissors. I am glad I have a punch though because that means all my blocks are exactly the same size so they fit together perfectly. (In this respect I guess paper quilts are no different than fabric ones!) After I have finalized the "quilt" layout I want to use and what it will be adhered to I run my blocks through my Xyron Create a Sticker machine. I love this little tool for things like this. It's so easy to use.

The borders on my quilts for these cards were all created through layering of different colors of card stock. For the first card the scalloped square which is behind the little quilt was easy. I have a Marvy scalloped square punch that is the correct size to be used with the four block quilt. The second card drove me nuts trying to get the scalloped square the right size with good corners on the square. I had to make it using my SU Scalloped Border punch. NOT FUN!!!!! I am now saving my nickles and dimes for a set of both scalloped squares and rectangles from SpellBinders. I definitely need nesties for these........

In all fairness I must say that the first card shown here was cased. It is not an original concept though I did make a few minor modifications. Unfortunately, I can't remember where I cased it from. I was searching through several BLOGS as well as Papertrey's gallery to get some mojo going on how to use this set and I just don't remember where I saw this idea. The second card is my own design. Right down to the felt flowers which cover up a boo boo.....but we won't tell the birthday girl about that.....will we?

SYMPATHY

Once again I had the need for several sympathy cards. It seems that they never end. It's funny (I think I've written this before) but I don't like making sympathy cards and yet I do like making them very much. Both emotions at the same time.

Obviously I don't like making them because it means someone I know has died or someone I know has had someone close die. That's sad. On the other hand when I make a sympathy card I find myself thinking about the person who dies and also the loved ones they have left behind. I find myself praying for all involve. That I find very comforting and a blessing to be able to do. Even when I make these just a card to keep on hand for when it's needed I can pray that the ones receiving the card when ever they receive it and who ever they are are comforted by it and pointed toward God who can heal all sorrows.

Both of these cards were made primarily using Papertrey's stamp set Every Day Blessings. I love the two step cross image in this set. The papers for the rust card came from my Winter Craft Kit and the sentiment on the card is from Stampin' Up's set Refuge and Strength. I'm thinking as I look at this card that I shouldn't have put the two pieces of fluffy ribbon on the card. They actually look like two caterpillars crawling around the card.....NOT GOOD! I'm thinking they will be removed before the card is sent out.

The second card uses papers from SU's Designer paper package Green Tea; which I love. Both the paper and the tea! I made the little flowers using one of my SU punches. I think the sentiment on this card came from a GinaK set that had a variety of sentiments in it, but I'm not totally sure. The little leaf twig is from SU's Refuge and Strength and I used their new Wide Oval punch to punch it out.

I did make a couple of other cards using another favorite group of sets from Papertrey. Their quilt block and sentiment sets. It should not be surprising that I would love those sets seeing as my other passion in life is quilting. Tomorrow I will hopefully be back to show you those cards.

Thanks for stopping by......TaTa for now!

CHECK OUT MY NEW T-SHIRT!

So do you see my new t-shirt. Well my new one in the BLOGing world anyway! It will take you to Melanie Muenchinger's wonderful BLOG. And yes I do love Melanie's stamps which I get from GinaK of course!!!!!!

A SHOUT OUT TO SHEETLOAD!

Two posts in one night...well really two posts in one hour. It takes something special for me to do that and this is pretty special. I want to tell you about SheetLoad of Cards. It's a great site with great helps and layouts for when you need to make a set of cards of the same design. I love it. Their designs are fantastic and I don't have to do any guessing of the measurements of the pieces. They do all that. Also they give you lots and lots of samples of how other designers used that same layout. All of this comes in a wonderful monthly E-zine.

I've also used there layouts to make just one card. And I go back and use layouts from past issues of the E-zine in a new way. The most recent layout I used was from their July issue Christmas in July. But I used it to make a Christmas card in December. You can see it in my BLOG entry here. It is the second card shown in this entry. For other things I done look for SheetLoad in my labels. There are probably others from before I started labeling items as well, but those will be harder to find.

You can see and download a copy of their January E-zine here. Check them out. Also anytime you are visiting me and would like to get to SheetLoad of Cards site just click on there "blinkie" on my right hand side bar. It will magically take you there.

Oh and to be totally upfront and honest, though I honestly do love there site and E-zine, by giving them a shout out and sharing them with you I can be entered into a drawing for some wonderful JustRite products. Another company I love!!!!!

WHEN VALENTINES ARE NOT VALENTINES

Last year Stampin' Up came out with a new Valentine set called Happy Heart Day. I normally don't do special holiday cards except for Christmas, but I thought I should have at least one valentine set in my stamp collection so I ordered it. I did use it to make a couple of Valentine cards for family members, but it hasn't been out of its box since last February. I know that is really sad....With February coming on strong and fast I decided to pull it back out of the closet and see what I could do with it.

There was a challenge on SCS, I forget which one since I haven't gone back and uploaded to it yet, to use hearts on your card. I guess that's why I thought of this set. But I didn't want to do a Valentine card. I'm barely out of the Christmas mind set....I'm not even ready to consider that Valentine's Day is coming in less than a month. I also knew I wanted to kill two challenges with one card and I pulled out the striped designer paper to use from my winter craft kit.

My little mousie friend was holding his heart and I used a heart punch to create some interest along the bottom edge of the card. So those were my hearts. The strip DP had red in it and I wanted my punched out hearts to be red so I placed a red strip of paper under neath them. I then pulled in the blue from the striped DP in to the scalloped ovals. I just felt another color was needed to liven things up.

Going back a moment to the hearts and the red strip of card stock. The scalloped edge under the hearts make the top of the card quite a bit shorter than the back of the card. The card won't stand up because of this, but I don't really care about that. The red is adhered to the inside of the of the card. If I had wanted to design the card so it would stand I could have adhered the red to the back of the card front making the front the same length as the card back.

Looking at the outside of the card alone I guess it could be a Valentine card. BUT.......when you open it up you discover a big birthday wish! You can also see that by adhering the red to the inside of the card rather than the front I could add some more interest with another scalloped edge.

So this is my Valentine card that is not a Valentine. I still have a couple of weeks before I need to start thinking hearts and flowers of February. I do think this might just be a birthday card for someone who has a birthday around February 14, and I know more than one person who does............

BACK TO BASEBALL

I know there are places where the snow is flying but although quite cold here its just rain that's falling. Still neither snow nor cold rain make one think of baseball....I did though. Its time to get back to work on my nephews baseball album. When I got my winter craft kit I knew I would use part of what came with it in making pages for this album and yesterday I came up with five more pages.

Here are two of them. They are actually pages that will go at the front of the album since they deal with information on the season. So I had to move some pages around. I am so glad that I am using and SU album where you slip the pages into page protectors that are help into the album and not the Creative Memory Albums I started scrapbooking with years ago. If you found pages that needed to be made an inserted in between already completed pages it was much harder because it was the pages were attached into the album and the page protectors simply slipped over the pages. (Did that make sense?) So in many cases , and this would have been one of them I could not have kept the flow of the album what I wanted and also inserted these two pages.

Let me see if I can explain this better. I had finished pages 1, 2, 3, 4,.....of the album and they were in a chronological order. The odd numbered pages are on the top, inside the page protector, or the right hand side of the album. The even numbered pages are on the bottom, or the left hand side of the album. I needed to place pages A and B after page 1 so my new order now is 1,A,B,2,3,4,......With SU's system I simply needed to get a extra page protector remove page 2 from behind page one insert A in its place. Than put B in the front of the new page protector and page 2 behind it on the bottom. Of course I need to take the album apart to put the new page protector with pages B and 2 in but that's no big deal.

With the Creative Memory album and many other styles the problem is that your page layout is adhered directly to the album page. So you have to hope that you can remove the page two layout from its foundation without damaging or destroying it. It can be done, but its much more scary to do. The only other option is to forget about the flow of the pages and just insert the new pages so your new order is 1,2,A,B,3,4.........Also if you only have one page to be inserted than you do need to create a second page. With the SU album its a pain to add just one page because you have to shuffle all your pages not just one, but with CM you can't even add one page out of order without having a blank page!

So know I am sure I have either totally bored or confused you. But to end I will just say THANK STAMPIN' UP! Your albums are expensive, but I love them for their ease of use!

A HOLE THROUGH OLIVIA????

I got the glitter somewhat under control and have moved on to the next challenge. This one was not a SCS challenge, but a Sweet & Sassy sketch challenge from this past Monday. I haven't actually posted it for the challenge, but am posting it here.

So why have I titled this entry "A Hole Through Olivia?" Look carefully at this first scan of my card. I decided to paper piece Olivia's belly feathers. What do you think???? I think she looks like someone got her with buck shot, poor baby, and blew a hole right through her! That must have hurt.

So what happened here. I made the mistake of using the same paper for her belly that I used for her background. This just doesn't work. It makes it seem hat you can see right through her to the background. Like I said poor poor Olivia! She needs some emergency medical care before she can be sent out to someone else to bring them Get Well wishes.

Of course the adhesive I used in the paper piecing was a very effective adhesive (my Xyron sticker maker). The stripped paper was not going to come off without some serious damage being done to Olivia.........(can there be anything more serious than an apparent hole straight through her???? I wonder???).....anyway...what I had to do was simply adhere the correcting paper over the top of the offending paper. Voila...Olivia now has a blue belly! No more hole!

Fully cured, she is now winging her way to a friend in need of a little cheering up. I hope her wishes for good health work. It's not fun to be sick...............

Today, I spent the better part of the day getting my creative juices flowing. I must tell you that once I got into the groove I was amazed. But that story is for another day as it is now well past my bed time and I must be heading upstairs. Tomorrow is a big day......the Christmas tree is coming down and being packed away for another year!

GLITTER IS EVERYWHERE!

I have discovered when using glitter no matter how much you try to contain it........IT GETS EVERYWHERE! I think I will be brushing glitter from things for weeks to come after doing this project.

This was the first time in a very long time that I decided to try the SCS Technique Challenge. Of course I had to choose the week when the messiest technique was the challenge. It was to use sticky strip and glitter to make a design element for your card. Well I have lots of sticky strip in various strip widths and shapes.....as well as letters. And though I don't use it very often because of the mess it creates I also have lots of glitter. So I thought WHY NOT???

I must say it was fun and I really do like the sparkle of the card. But no mater how I tried I ended up with glitter everywhere! Not only on my stamping surface, but on the floor, on my clothes and in my hair. Oh yes and on my card....

I chose to use two different width of sticky strip (I purchase mine from Oriental Trading and the package comes with three different width rolls at a price I can life with.). I used a turquoise glitter on the wide strip and a spring green on the skinny strip. Using my stamping grid paper from SU helped greatly in getting my strips straight and evenly spaced. I wanted to make sure my card was symmetrical so I started with the strips at the top and bottom and then placed the strip in the middle of the card. Then I worked from there filling in the top and bottom half of card with three more strips, two narrow and one wide.

So the glitter went on with out the colors getting mixed up I first removed all the tops of the wide strips and covered the exposed sticky with the turquoise glitter. I tapped and rubbed it in fairly hard so that all the areas would be covered and the glitter was well stuck down. I did this over a piece of copy paper so that when I was done and tapped the excess glitter off onto the paper I could easily get the glitter back into its container. Then I gently used first a swifter sheet to get off any other lose pieces of glitter and finally used a small soft paint brush on the card stock to get the final bits off. The next step was to remove the protective strip from the skinny strips and cover them with the green glitter. I used the same method as before and it worked well.

I now had a very glittery card front that still needed an image of some sort and a sentiment. I've needed lots of Get Well cards lately so choose to make another of them. I pulled out one of my favorite SU sets.....Nice & Easy Notes....got the Get Well pill bottle and stamped my image. I colored it with my copics and once again turned to my circle nestabilities. (I can't wait till I can get some other shapes). A little ribbon for embellishment and voila....................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................................
my card!

I only hope who ever gets it doesn't get showered with glitter when they open the card. Or if they do that they have a good sense of humor!

Oh, I just noticed when looking again at the card. When I created the circle to go under the stamped image I decided it looked too plain so I ran it through the cuttlebug using my swiss dots folder. I think it provided just the little additional texture that took the card to the next step.

So there's my messy project. I am afraid that my next few projects may have bits of glitter on them where they are meant to or not................................

A GOLDEN GET WELL

Here is another card that I made using items from the winter craft kit. The reds make it a lot different from the blues and purples I've been using.

It is a card I also made for SCS's sketch challenge 208.

The gold and black I think really complement the burgundy red of the designer paper. I once again got to use my new "nesties" and also my old friend tag punch. I am totally hooked on the nestability dies and hope to some how come up with some "fun" money that I can use to get some new sets in different shapes. I have a few sets that I know would work wonderfully with either the square or rectangle set.

Back to this card.....I used brushed gold card stock to back the black circle. It's a very heavy card stock, but my cuttlebug and the "nesties" handled cutting it just fine. The tag was embossed using a gold encore pad to stamp the image and then detail gold embossing powder. I also used the encore gold pad to stamp the snowflakes on the background card base, but did not emboss them.

Well that's it for today,s card....tomorrow I have a very sparkly project to show you. Not a card that is at all in my "comfort zone", but one that I do really like.

AN ICY STAMPIN' DAY

No snow here to make snowmen with; just a lot of rain and ice! Not as bad as the forecast, but bad enough to make me stay inside and off the roads. So I took the opportunity to spend time in my craft room. If I could do this every day January through March winter might be my favorite season!

I don't often try challenges on SCS. (I just don't think of them.) When I do I really have fun with them so that is what I did today. I actually finished 3 of them, but since I don't know when I will actually get to stamp again I'm only going to show one today.

This card not only was made for SCS's sketch challenge 209 but it uses card stock and papers from my winter craft kit. It's actually a get well card for a friend of mine who is going in for surgery next week. The hope is that the surgery will give here major relief from growing back pain that she has been experiencing for several years.

It is a fairly simple card. I colored the image using my copics and added stickles and white liquid applique for interest. I should have stamped the word "hope" before I put the "Get Well" stamped on the inside.

WINTER KIT

I have a number birthday cards that need to be mailed out this month. So I thought I would make them with a winter theme.

The Stampin' FLYBaby Winter Craft Kit supplied me with the perfect papers and embellishments for this project. I was also able to put to use my Cuttlebug.

The first card I made features snowflakes and snowmen. (Not that we see much of either here in Maryland lately.) I combined embellishments from the kit on a background embossed using my snowflake embossing folder . Of course with that much snow you have to have snowmen!

The snowflakes were covered in glitter and I ran them through my smaller Xyron to put adhesive on the back of them. The cute little snow men are made of felt and I cut the three off a 12 inch boarder strip. I adheared them with mini glue dots. To give the embossed cardstock background a softer look I rubbed Blue Bayou ink carefully over the embossing using a sponge.

For the second card I pulled out my brand new circle nesties....thank you Nate!...I used them to create a background for the snowflake. The layout for this card came from the SheetLoad of Cards Christmas in July e-Zine. You can find it by clicking on the SheetLoad Archives and downloading July 08.

On both of these cards the only stamping is the sentiment. The interest comes from the papers and the embelishments rather than an image. I'm happy with both cards. Especially since they will each be going to a mail I don't think they will be considered to "girlie".

Well that's it for today. Not sure yet what tomorrow will bring........

TIME????

Oh my!!!! Where has the time gone? I'm having a hard time believing that it has been almost a month since I last posted here. Not that I have done a whole lot of stamping or crafting in that month, but the time has gone by soooooooo......fast and so much has taken place since my last posting. Most notably the Christmas and New Years holidays.

So let me take a moment and wish each of you who stops by here a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!!! 2009, boy talking about time speeding by we will all to soon be into the second decade of the new millennium at this rate and it seems as if we were all just worried about Y2K just yesterday. My grandmother was so right all those years ago....the older you get the faster the days and years speed by......

Well so much of that bemoaning the speed at which time passes. 2009 promises to be a year of new beginnings as well as a year of many challenges to be met. One of my new beginnings is working toward more playing with my crafting in order to learn and try new things. I want to be willing to make mistakes so I can learn how to do things better and to learn new techniques. I want to stretch myself to move out of some of my comfort zones.

That said, my first projects of 2009 DO NOT meet those goals or challenges. They are fairly simple Thank You cards for the wonderful Christmas presents family and friends gifted me with. I had purchased the Handmade Holiday Card Element kit from SU (item no. 112016). I think I thought they would be quick and easy Christmas cards, which I', sure they would have been if I had time to make Christmas cards. Rather than just pack the kit away for next year, when I probably wouldn't have time to make cards either, I decided to see if I could adapt the cards to make my Thank You cards. (Now that Christmas is over I have more time to craft.)

I think this worked quite well. I to do not particularly like blank card space on the background of cards so I did use some stamps to do a watermark on the card bases. I then simply exchanged using "Thank You" sentiments for the "Merry Christmas" or "Seasons Greeting" that the kit called for. I followed the same basic layout to save time in planning, but didn't follow the particular paper and diecut plans that SU suggested. I put together my own.

I really like the combination of Ruby Red and Mellow Moss for Christmas colors. I think it is a much softer and more vintage combination than the standard Real Red and Glorious Green.

Now that the Thank You cards are complete I can move on to more challenging projects. First up will be beginning to work with my Winter Craft Kit from my SCS FlyBaby group.

I hope all have a blessed and exciting as well as a creative 2009. I hope you visit often and I hope to visit you as well if you have a BLOG!