Guest Stamper, Holly Finney!

I'm taking it a little easier this week with my blog posts, so I can spend time with my family over Christmas. Today I thought I'd share with you the awesome lumieres that were made for me by a fellow team member. You see, every time we have a team Christmas party, we have a gift exchange - you know those wild and crazy ones where stealing is encouraged! It gets quite - Ahem - animated!

If you remember, I brought this to the exchange:

and it did see a lot of stealing action!

Here's the parcel I was so lucky to end up with:

• These lumieres were made by Holly Finney, a very creative team member, and I just love them.
• Holly created these with the Hearth and Home Framelits Dies, and they make a charming set placed around the living room with other Christmas decor!

And Tuesday means it's time for new Weekly Deals:

Enjoy!

Cozy Christmas for As You See It Challenges

I can't believe it's Friday already! Where does the time go? I'm busy this week getting ready for a local craft fair and the days have flown by. It's time once again for As You See It Challenges and the sketch this week is really different, but beautiful:

That curvy bit is gorgeous, but it brings to mind the Sleigh Ride Edgelits, and as a Design Team, we decided to limit the use of those edgelits to one or two cards. So how do you get a curve like that without a die? I didn't trust my hand snipping to get a smooth curve like that and I didn't have any other dies that would do the job, so in the end, I had to use the Sleigh Ride Edgelit with the trees. I used the die upside down and simply snipped off the trees. So this card was not overtly Sleigh Ride Edgelits, but I did need to use them.

• I wanted to use the Home for Christmas Designer Series Paper again with the musical score for Silent Night, and I pictured a rich colour scheme, so I chose Cherry Cobbler, Black and Gold to complement the Very Vanilla background.



    Cherry Cobbler                Gold                   Basic Black              Very Vanilla

• I used the Sleigh Ride Edgelits as mentioned above to form the curve on the Gold Foil Sheet, then embossed it with Black Stampin' Emboss Powder, using the sentiment from Versatile Christmas stamp set. It is mounted using Stampin' Dimensionals.
• The bells  from Cozy Christmas were the most musical of all the images I had and I embossed them in Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder and coloured in the bow and the clappers using a Cherry Cobbler Stampin' Write Marker. The image wage punched using the 1 1/2" Circle Punch and a little sponging of Cherry Cobbler ink around the edge helped to give it definition. It is mounted on a smaller Gold Metallic Foil Doily using dimensionals again.
• The flags are Cherry Cobbler cardstock and some Merry Moments Designer Series Paper.

This is the  Craft Fair I will be at tomorrow from 10 am to 2 pm. I hope you can attend at some point and get some Christmas shopping done. Be sure to drop by my table and say hi. 

George Pringle Winter Craft and Shop Fair

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

Cozy Christmas Wood-Mount Stamp Set [139776]	Cozy Christmas Clear-Mount Stamp Set [139779]	Versatile Christmas Wood-Mount Stamp Set [140389]	Versatile Christmas Clear-Mount Stamp Set [140392]	Gold Foil Sheets [132622]
Metallic Foil Doilies [138392]	Home For Christmas Designer Series Paper [139592]	Merry Moments Designer Series Paper [138450]	Cherry Cobbler 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [119685]	Basic Black 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [121045]
Very Vanilla 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [101650]	Versamark Pad [102283]	Cherry Cobbler Classic Stampin' Pad [126966]	Regals Stampin' Write Markers [131262]	Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder [109129]
Black Stampin' Emboss Powder [109133]	Stamping Sponges [141337]	Heat Tool [129053]	Embossing Buddy [103083]	Sleigh Ride Edgelits Dies [139670]
Big Shot [113439]	1-1/2" Circle Punch [138299]	Fast Fuse Adhesive [129026]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]	Stampin' Dimensionals [104430]

Pinterest to the Rescue

I have a Technique class coming up next week and I wanted some unique Christmas cards for it because the theme of the class is ...Unique Christmas Cards! With time at a premium this week, I turned to Pinterest for some great ideas. Do you use your pins? I do, all the time, but I do pin more than I'll ever have time to do! It's nice to have a variety to choose from. Usually I design the cards for my classes, but when the mojo is slow, or life is crazy, it's good to know that Pinterest has my back. The two designs that you're seeing today, are Pinterest inspired, pretty much totally. The first design with the pink poinsetta was a pin by Debby Hughes of limedoodledesign.com. What a great design! I just basically Stampin' Up!'ed it!

• On the Whisper White card base I added a panel of the wood grained Colour Me Irresistible Specialty Designer Series Paper. It was perfect for this case.
• The 2" wide tag was formed with the Ornate Tag Topper punch and embossed using the Stylish Stripes Embossing Folder.
• I stamped 10 medium petals and 5 of the small double petals from Reason for the Season stamp set in Versamark on Vellum cardstock and covered them with White Stampin' Emboss Powder and heat set them with the Heat Tool. I then punched them out using the Festive Flower Builder punch. I sponged Melon Mambo ink on the back of all of them and used the Heat Tool on low to help dry the ink more quickly. Using a 1 1/4" Circle punch, I punched out a base using Melon Mambo cardstock, and with Fast Fuse as the adhesive I added the petals to it working from the outside in. The center was punched from Silver Glimmer Paper with the Festive Flower Punch.
• The sentiment is from Versatile Christmas and is embossed in Silver Stampin' Emboss Powder.
• Some Silver Cording Trim adds the final touch.

The second project is a card that becomes a luminary with the addition of the little battery powered votive candles. This project was from a pin by Emma Palonek of Vintage Graffiti. I thought her idea was absolutely brilliant, so I changed it up a little to make it my own, and I had to figure out the way to do it myself, as there were no specific instructions on her blog.

• Basically, I used the Hearth and Home Thinlits to die cut 4 windows which I joined together and added Window Sheets for the panes of glass and I used all three of the Sleigh Ride Edgelits to create the little scenes on each window. 
• The sentiment is also from Versatile Christmas.

With the focus on the other sides of the luminary, you can see that I added scenes to each window.

I must say, I had a lot of fun recreating these great designs! Try it yourself, or come to my class next week if you're in the area! Email me if you want an invite.

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

Reason For The Season Photopolymer Stamp Set [139730]	Reason For The Season Photopolymer Bundle [140847]	Versatile Christmas Wood-Mount Stamp Set [140389]	Versatile Christmas Clear-Mount Stamp Set [140392]	Color Me Irresistible Specialty Designer Series Paper [138439]
Vellum 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [101856]	Silver Glimmer Paper [135314]	Window Sheets Base Material [114323]	Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100730]	Night Of Navy 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100867]
Versamark Pad [102283]	Melon Mambo Classic Stampin' Pad [126948]	Silver Stampin' Emboss Powder [109131]	White Stampin' Emboss Powder [109132]	Dazzling Diamonds Stampin' Glitter [133751]
Embossing Buddy [103083]	Heat Tool [129053]	Silver Cording Trim [139620]	Silver Metallic Thread [138402]	Festive Flower Builder Punch [139682]
1-1/4" Circle Punch [119861]	Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack [133787]	Builder Bird Punch [117191]	Hearth & Home Thinlits Dies [139666]	Sleigh Ride Edgelits Dies [139670]
Big Shot [113439]	Fast Fuse Adhesive [129026]	Glue Dots [103683]	2-Way Glue Pen [100425]	Stampin' Dimensionals [104430]
Stamping Sponges [101610]