Free Shipping for Cyber Monday and In Praise of Stampin' Blends

Well, if you snoozed, you loozed out on the great deals from Online Extravaganza, which ended yesterday. The last order went in last night! But good news! All is not lost, because today, Stampin' Up! has announced FREE SHIPPING all day long, Cyber Monday! That's like 10% off everything in the catalogues! WAIT!! That's more than 10%, because our tax is calculated on the shipping as well as the product, so BONUS! But don't snooze again! Get your orders in to me today by 7:30 pm at the latest. Order will go in at 8:00 pm. But because there are no minimum orders on this, you could submit your own order online and not worry about that high flat rate shipping charge because - IT WON'T BE THERE! Just head over to my On-Line Store and shop to your heart's content. Just be done by 10:55 pm.!!  If your order is less than $200, please use the Hostess Code:    Q2CT33CB when placing your order online. If you do, I will include a package of Rhinestone Basic Jewels with your order, free from me as a thank you! And who doesn't need a little extra bling over the holidays??

Today, I want to share a card with you that I made to show you more of the benefits of the Stampin' Blends alcohol markers. This card has a layout that follows a sketch that I love from Freshly Made Sketches Challenge #314:

I took a swirl that I had die cut from Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper using the Swirly Scribbles Thinlits and I coloured it using the darker shade of my Cherry Cobbler Stampin' Blends marker. Because it's an alcohol marker, and permanent, you can colour all sorts of things, Glimmer Paper included. You just don't want to do it a lot with the same marker, because it has the potential to ruin the brush nib of the pen. Conversely, you could purchase an alcohol marker of each colour eventually just for the purpose of colouring other objects. Let's see if you can find anything else that I coloured with my Stampin' Blends:

• I started with a fairly clean look with lots of Whisper White space on a base of Cherry Cobbler. I added a narrow strip of Merry Music Specialty Designer Series Paper for the bottom-most element of the sketch, then added the Glimmer Paper swirl. I had added a Multipurpose Adhesive sheet to the back before die-cutting, so after colouring it with my Stampin' Blends, I just had to remove the backing and stick it to my project.
• Next was the "Sentiment/Strip" from the sketch. I found this NOEL edgelit in the Christmas Stocking Thinlit Dies. It was the perfect thing for this element. I tried it in Cherry Cobbler, too, but it needed the black to make it pop!
• The smaller shape in front is represented by the detailed star here. This was die cut from Silver Glimmer Paper using one of the dies from the Starlight Thinlit Dies. It was also backed with the Multipurpose Adhesive sheet, so was easy to stick down.
• That brings us to something else coloured by the Cherry Cobbler Stampin' Blends marker - some small and medium Clear Faceted Gems. I added them to the card front to balance things, then added a couple of rhinestones to complete the balance. The Cherry Cobbler faceted gem in the middle of the star really helps it to show up better.

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today.

Product List

Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper [135315]	Silver Glimmer Paper [135314]	Merry Music Specialty Designer Series Paper [144623]	Cherry Cobbler 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [119685]	Basic Black 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [121045]
Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100730]	Cherry Cobbler Dark Stampin' Blends Marker [144575]	Clear Faceted Gems [144142]	Rhinestone Basic Jewels [144220]	Swirly Scribbles Thinlits Dies [141497]
Starlight Thinlits Dies [141840]	Christmas Stockings Thinlits Dies [141841]	Big Shot [143263]	Big Shot Die Brush - New Configuration [144262]	Multipurpose Adhesive Sheets [144106]
Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]	Fast Fuse Adhesive [129026]

Merry Christmas from Playing with Papercrafting!

Well, the big day is almost here! You've decorated, baked, shopped, wrapped, cleaned, partied, crafted, mailed and spent countless hours getting ready to celebrate! Hopefully, now you'll be able to relax a little and enjoy the fruits of your labours, but experience tells me that you probably won't really get to put your feet up until Christmas dinner is done. I learned to enjoy Christmas amongst the busyness and noise of the season. There have been a couple of years where it was all too quiet and I really didn't enjoy that at all, so appreciate it while you can!

Since this is my last regular post before Christmas, I want to take this opportunity to wish all my readers and customers a very Merry Christmas and to thank you for continuing to be my readers and customers over the years! I hope you all have the chance to celebrate together in peace and love this weekend!

For those of you who don't celebrate Christmas, let me wish you Happy Holidays and extend the same wish for peace and love for you and yours this season!

Let's all try to reach out to someone this season and make it brighter for them. I have a feeling that this next year may be very difficult and we're going to need to stick together and help each other rather than turn against each other. Let's start that right now in the spirit of Christmas!

Here's an illuminated easel card that I made just for this occasion using the Hearth & Home Framelits:

• I tried to come up with some wainscoting for the wall, by using the Simply Scored tool to score some Whisper White cardstock to make bead-board, but in the end, die cutting the fireplace in the middle took out most of the scored lines and also flattened them a little so it doesn't look half as cool as it did at first. However, I did rescore the lines after die-cutting, the camera just doesn't pick them up very well. This side shot will show you, though:

• I cut the flames for the fireplace freehand from scraps of Gold, Red and Pumpkin Pie Glimmer Paper. I used Fast Fuse to adhere them together and then onto the Vellum cardstock that backs the card front.
• The Hang Your Stocking Bundle has larger stockings, but I noticed that there was one stamp and one framelit of a smaller size that was just the right proportion for the Hearth & Home Thinlits. I stamped one and die cut it and then just die cut another out of cardstock and added some of the decorations from the bundle to it.
• The mantle decorations consist of evergreen branches made with my old Martha Stewart leaf punch, various holly leaves and poinsettias and trees from the Hang Your Stocking stamp set, which all have coordination dies and 1/2" Circle punched pieces of Gold and Real Red Glimmer Paper.
• The sentiments are both from the Oh What Fun stamp set in the Annual Catalogue. To see how to make an illuminated easel card, check out this tutorial!

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today.

Product List

Hang Your Stocking Photopolymer Stamp Set [142114]	Hang Your Stocking Photopolymer Bundle [143512]	Oh, What Fun Photopolymer Stamp Set [140386]	Gold Glimmer Paper [133719]	Red Glimmer Paper [121790]
Pumpkin Pie Glimmer Paper [142029]	Vellum 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [101856]	Presents & Pinecones Designer Series Paper [141986]	Sahara Sand 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [121043]	Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100730]
Emerald Envy 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [141415]	Emerald Envy Classic Stampin' Pad [141396]	Real Red Classic Stampin' Pad [126949]	1/2" Circle Punch [119869]	Simply Scored [122334]
Christmas Stockings Thinlits Dies [141841]	Hearth & Home Thinlits Dies [139666]	Stitched Shapes Framelits Dies [145372]	Layering Ovals Framelits Dies [141706]	Big Shot [143263]
Paper Snips Scissors [103579]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]	Fast Fuse Adhesive [129026]	Glue Dots [103683]	Stampin' Dimensionals [104430]