A few Christmas cards

One of the wonderful parts of being involved with a stamping community is receiving extra (and handmade) Christmas cards. Check out these beauties:

This stunning card is from Nancy. It sparkles and shine with all the metallic paper, glitter, and silver embellishments. Truly magnificent!








Then there's this amazing card by Lila. The paper piecing done with the Basic Grey Figgy Pudding collection is gorgeous!

I'm off to Calgary tomorrow, for about a week. I'm not sure what the internet status will be. I'm bringing some stamping stuff with me, but I don't know if I'll be able to upload it. I've got a few posts saved in here, just in case I find myself busier than I expect.

For now, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!

Some overdue RAKs

This first one I got quite a long time ago from Diane (My Little Stampin' Spot), but I had misplaced it and forgot to post it. It's a really beautiful card! This layout is awesome, and it's one of my favorite colour combos-caribbean, celery, and chocolate.

This second one is from Colleen (Distinctive Touches). I received it earlier this week. I just love the colours she chose for the polished stone technique. This is a technique that I really enjoy, but rarely do anymore. It's nice because it can work alone as a cardfront, as Colleen did here. It's really quite stunning!

A RAK and a colour challenge!

First up, is this lovely card by the very talented Charmaine of Oodabug Alley! What a delightful treat to receive in the mail! Thank you!

Next up, I was feeling rather uninspired, so I checked out the Tuesday challenge (the colour challenge). This week the colours are ruby red, elegant eggplant, and certainly celery. I paired those with 2 neutrals (kraft and white) and set to work. I pulled out a non-retiring set, Simply Said. I keep forgetting that this set is still around. I used it a ton last spring, but then the new catalog came out, and there it sat, in my drawer.

Tulips and a RAK

I took some photos of the tulips today. They are so pretty. I was especially excited to do this because I bought my new camera in winter. And really, as pretty as winter scenery can be, flowers are so much more fun! I was playing around with a few settings. For those others out there who have the Olympus SP-510UZ, I found I got the best shots with the "cuisine" setting in brightly lit areas. I actually use this setting for my card photographs (indoors or outdoors). I've had the most luck with what the camera decides to auto-focus on in this setting. It usually picks the right thing, and you get that cool out-of-focus background. I thought I'd just share that tip. So here's my lovely tulip photo:

In fun mail news, I received this awesome RAK from Tara. It's beautiful! Love the papers and colours she used. There's a touch of glitter on the flower, it really sparkles. Thank you!

It's like Christmas!

First off, I received this amazing RAK from Lauri of I lie, cheat, and CASE. It's absolutely beautiful! These colours are so cheerful and springy!

Next up, I know fellow bloggers seem to love the vicarious "good mail days", so I thought I'd share some of that here. I got a nice boxful of goodies from gelatins. They are not all pictured here, these are just the holiday items, some embellishments, and stamping accessories. The sets here are Retro Flakes, (large and mini with sayings), Fancy Flakes (large and mini with sayings), and Holiday Cheer. I also received Sewing Kit and You Spin Me Round. So I shall be having lots of fun today. My camera batteries are on recharge for the day (seriously, takes like 8 hours...), so I don't know if I'll have any creative updates until tomorrow.

Yay! A RAK!

I love receiving fabulous cards from other stampers! This one is from Nancy. I love the fun spring colours she used! What a delightful surprise! Thank you Nancy!

More April Birthdays...

Seriously, I know too many people with birthdays this month. Here's one for my uncle. I decided to do this week's sketch challenge, since it's been a while since I last did one. I really like the Stay Tuned set, but have maybe used it 4 times. So this morning, I was determined to put it to use. I also didn't feel like doing a lot of background stamping, so patterned paper it was! This assortment is from the 3rd Costco paper pack I believe. I had the card all done, but it wasn't feeling done. So I added the navy ribbon, but then the balance was off. So, I added little knots onto the ribbon with glue dots. Then, it seemed to work again.



In other news, I've received my 2nd blogger's rak! Very exciting. (I guess I need to get moving and send some more out!!) This one comes from Allison of Stampin' When I Can!. I love it, what cheerful mail! Thank you! Happy Easter Weekend everyone. Don't over-do it on
chocolate eggs and other yummies!

Paisley Kisses and my first Blogger's RAK!

One of my gelatins sets (Bloom) has this big, gorgeous, solid flower. It's just begging to be stamped against a background stamp. I decided to try it against Paisley. I love how it turned out. I added some chocolate chip faux stitching, just because I felt like the flowers needed some outlining. I added a button to complete the whole fashion theme. The greeting is a Hero Arts message (thank you for being my friend), that I curved to make for a fun stamped sentiment. This is also one of the many nice things about clear stamps. They are flexible. You want a curved sentiment, you've got it. Allison (queen of all things blog candy) had a good tip about doing this. If your sentiment isn't staying exactly where you want it, adhere it to the block with some double-sided tape until you are done. I didn't need to do that with this, but perhaps if I was making a circle with the, I would need to.

Now for my first blog rak! It's from Peggy Lo (aka smallpigpig). The lady amazes me, she does so much, and still has time to share her awesome projects with us, and organize swaps! Check out her blog, she's got a great writing style too The Life of a smallpigpig. Here's the card she sent me! Isn't it fabulous!