Christmas Reading!!

Good Monday morning everyone! Has your holiday weekend been great so far? We had friends of ours over yesterday from Maryland and spent the day at the pool and then had dinner together. It's always fun to catch up, we definitely don't get together enough. Today I'm taking my daughter and her best friend for manicures and pedicures for a kinda "back to school" gift, since school starts tomorrow (can I hear a "whoot, whoot"--quiet time in the house for me again, yippee)!! My daughter starts 7th grade and my son 5th grade...sigh...getting older & taller by the minute I think! Then I'm coming home and cleaning out my dd's and ds's closets and dressers--I can't take the disaster zones in there any longer. Plus I need to weed out their outgrown clothes to put the new school clothes away--fun for me, ha ha! Then maybe I'll get a little time to stamp!

My project I'm sharing with you today is a DT project we all did for Whiff of Joy stamps. We were to come up with bookmarks using the "Charlie and Charlotte" stamps. This was really fun and I made these 2 bookmarks with my kids in mind, since they'll be getting these when I'm all done w/ them. Not too hard to explain, I used Charlie with Snowballs and Winter Charlotte with cat except I cut her cat off so it would just be Charlotte on the bookmark. Both images were colored with Copics and cut out and popped up on dimensionals. For the "Charlie" bookmark I used some dp I had in my scrapbin with Bazzill cs--his sentiment is from Verve Stamps "Beautiful You"--I lovee this quote from Dr. Seuss, so fitting for this image! The "Charlotte" bookmark uses dp from Memory Box and the sentiment is also from Verve Stamps but from the "Fairytales" set. I added ribbon to the end of my daughter's bookmark, but my son requested their be "no girly ribbon" on his, lol! Just another great way to use these cutie pie stamps.

Make sure and check out the rest of the DT bookmarks over on the Whiff of Joy gallery--everyone came up with some very unique and beautiful ideas. And don't forget the new stamps from Elisabeth Bell (The Guardian Angels) and the new Willow/Oakley stamps will go on sale at Whiff of Joy on September 3rd. They are GORGEOUS! Can't wait till mine are here so I can show them off to you---you will LOVEEE them!! You can see sneak peeks over at Katharina's blog.

Until tomorrow...

Suzanne

Christmas Blitz!!

Happy Saturday everyone! I hope you're enjoying your holiday weekend so far. I got to spend time in my craft room today--yippee--because we are having friends over tomorrow and going to the pool for the day. I've been able to finish a lot of projects on my to-do list which always makes me feel better!

I made two cards for ya today and both are Christmas--what can I say, these stamps are too cute to not use right now! I have to tell you that I have more fun coloring these images--I just love it! Both cards use the new stamps from Whiff of Joy's Charlotte and Charlie stamps. And wait to you see what Katharina is releasing next week--omgosh, I looooovvvveee them! You need to hop on over to her blog to see some of the new stamps by Elisabeth Bell coming out, just so lovely--you'll want them all! I hope to have them in the next few days so I can give you some "peeks" and possibly some blog candy too!! Stay tuned....

Alrighty, onto the cards! These cards use "Charlotte Decorating the Christmas Tree" stamp--isn't she just a cutie all dressed up and "Charlie Building Snowman". I used Memory Box's "Winterberry" dp on both of these cards--I love that paper, gonna have to order some more ( I get mine from Ellen Hutson)! The images are colored w/ my Copics of course :)! I cut both the snowman and Charlotte on the stool out and popped them up on the cards for lots of dimension--it really makes your card feel extra special to have a 3-D element on it ya know. The sentiment on Charlotte's card is by PTI's "Holiday Wishes" set and the sentiment on Charlie's card is from Sweet 'n Sassy's "Snow Friends" set. Pretty much just layering of cs after that. I did want to make Charlotte's card a little more "vintage" so I inked the edges with brown Colorbox ink and added some corner brackets (SU punch) and buttons.

Ok, hope you like my lil' bit of Christmas for ya in August :) Have a great weekend! See ya Tuesday!!

Suzanne

A Whiff of Christmas!

Good Sunday morning to you all! As you are reading this, I am on my way to Philadelphia w/ my hubby (no kids, no dogs, & no cats--yeehaw)!! We are really enjoying our downtime and I'm sooo looking forward to walking around the city and eating some great food. We love to eat good food and we love all kinds of food, so its always fun to find great, new restaurants in different places. Last night we went to a fondue restaurant and it was really fun, but I ate wayyy too much...will definitely have to walk all these calories off while we're away :) I will probably only have 1 more post for ya while I'm away, but I'll be back next Sunday with some new stuff and some pics for ya.

I got my new stamps from Katharina today for A Whiff of Joy (a great perk of getting to be a Guest Designer for her)--I just had to ink them up and share one project with you before my vacay. They are sooooo cute--I love them all---go check them out when you get a chance!!! I also love that she included some cute boy images in her stamps (his name is Charlie and hers is Charlotte). This particular image I used is called "Winter Charlotte w/ Cat"--ya know I'm always partial to stamp images w/ animal friends on them!! I used traditional holiday colors for this card--you can never go wrong with green & red, ya know!! I love this new dp from Imagnisce's "Snowy Jo" line, the colors are softer and the patterns are really nice.

This card is 5.5x5.x5" and I used SU always artichoke cs for the card base. I wanted to give Charlotte a scene to stand in front of, but I didn't want it to overpower her--so I stamped a Christmas tree from the SU set "Tis the Season" onto PTI's spring moss cs, then added liquid applique (heated to puff up) to the tree and ground. I also drew small snowflakes with an SU marker and then added diamond stickles to the snowflakes and on top of the liquid applique. Charlotte was colored with Copics and then diamond stickles were added to her hat trim and muff (I love my sparkles)! I cut her out and added to layers of dimensionals (one on top of the other) to really pop her up from the "scene".

The skinny piece of red cs was embossed with one of my CB embossing folders and then I wrapped some sheer white ribbon around it and tied off. The sentiment is from SU's set "Circle of Friendship" and layered onto cs that was punched out with my circle punches and scalloped nestabilities. I placed the sentiment on top of a red Prima flower and then layered with the scalloped circles and placed on top of the bow's knot. For a final touch I added 3 red dew drops to the top of the card--ta da!!!

I hope you like it and hope it gets ya in the Xmas spirit (at least for a few minutes, right)! Make sure and check out Katharina's stamps when ya get a chance. I will share more projects with these stamps when I return. Have a great week and see ya soon!!

Suzanne