Merry Christmas!

My family and I would like to wish you and yours a very merry, blessed, and peaceful Christmas!

We are spending time offline with extended family to celebrate the holiday together.  May you be surrounded with love and peace today and always!  Thank you for being a part of my life!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today we are celebrating my Mom's momentous birthday in style!  (More on that later with pictures too!)  The festivities began with our 2nd annual birthday spa day  over a week ago for my mom with my sister, sister-in-law, and me.  (Hey, we celebrate birthday SEASON!)

Today I'll be giving her this 5"x7" card, made with the Kaleidoscope Workshop on the Go stamp and the Kaleidoscope paper pack.  (I thought she needed a big card for a big birthday!)  To create the focal image, I worked from the bottom up, stamping the cake plate in Whisper, then the cake layers in Pear, Canary, and Pixie with Gypsy and Canary candles on top.  (I used Slate for the sentiments so they would stand out a little more.  My embellishments include green and pink shimmer trim, green enamel and glitter triangles, and a faceted circle gem from the Kaleidoscope Assortment.

Happy birthday to the best mom I could ever ask for!  May today be as special as you are!

A Few More Base & Bling Necklaces

Here are a few more of the Base and Bling necklaces that my daughter and I made to give to her besties.

We hope that they like them.  They are so fun and easy to make!

H2H Challenges: Gifts from the Heart

We all know it's better to give than to receive, so the final Heart2Heart challenge of 2015 is "gifts from the heart."  We'd love to see what you're making for gifts.  (All of our December challenges run through the end of the month, so you can wait until after the holidays so that you don't "spill the beans.")

This evening my older daughter and I made pendants for several of her girlfriends.  When they are thoroughly dry (tomorrow), then we will add charms (snowflakes, jingle bells, and charms) before sending them to their special someone.  Here they are modeling two of the jingle pendants.

(For some reason the girls wouldn't let me show their faces.)  I would like to wish each of you a very blessed Christmas!  Be sure to check out what all of the H2H Designers have to share with you this week.

CTMH Blog Hop: Stamping Techniques

This month, my group of blog hoppers decided to share some stamping techniques with you!  (If you're already hopping along, then you should have found me from Michelle B.'s blog.  You'll visit Terrie's blog next.)  I wanted to give you some easy gift ideas.  You can take one stamp set and paper pack to create a lovely card set to give as gifts.  For the first cards, I random stamped the flowers from the Sangria Workshop on the Go stamp set on my card bases.  The first cards use the Sangria paper pack (Poppy, Pomegranate, and Eggplant inks) and the second uses the Nevermore paper pack (Eggplant, Slate, and Whisper inks).  When you random stamp, start with the largest image first and work in triangles of 3 images.

For the next cards, I used the vine stamp in a very definite pattern.  There wasn't anything random about the stamping on these cards!  Again, the first picture is the Sangria collection and the second is Nevermore.

Don't you love how changing your color palette/paper pack totally changes the feel and look of your cards?  Though I did use my Cricut for some of the card sentiments, you could fussy cut the pieces also.  I am a huge fan of our shimmer trim since it easily adds lots of sparkle without any bulk.  I used Coral on the Sangria cards and Silver on the Nevermore set.  I also used Poppy thick twine, metallic bakers twine, and silver sequins for some holiday sparkle.

I hope these cards have given you some ideas for some quick and easy stamping techniques and holiday gifts.  Now go see the terrific project TERRIE has to share with us!

Click HERE for all the hop participants and their blogs.

December Stamp of the Month: Candlelight Garden

Welcome to the December stamp of the month blog hop featuring the Candlelight Garden.  (If you're already hopping, then you should have arrived from here from Terrie's blog.  You'll visit Michelle B.'s blog from here.)  I have two very different cards to share with you today.  Both of them use our watercolor paints.

When I saw this stamp set, I knew that I wanted to watercolor the flowers in the mason jar.  I used the Kaleidoscope paper pack and its pretty pastel palette as my inspiration.  To keep my stamped images from smearing with the watercolors, I stamped them in Slate pigment ink.  Doesn't the B&T paper look like flower petals?  In case you can't tell, I stamped the string of lights across the top of the Pear card base and then colored the lights with yellow watercolor paint.  I like how the paint holds its color on a colored base.

The second card features the White Pines paper pack.  You can read more about it HERE if you'd like.  All of the yellow on the card is watercolored.  I used Chocolate pigment ink to keep the images from smearing and paper pieced the votive candle.

Thanks for visiting!  I hope that my Candlelight Garden cards have inspired you to start creating.  Be sure to check out Michelle B.'s blog next to continue the hop for even more great ideas!

Click HERE for all the hop participants and their blogs.