A Blog Called Wanda

Season's Givings Blog Hop! Happy New Year 2015!

 HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015!

MANY BLESSINGS FOR AN AMAZING YEAR AHEAD!

Thank you very much for coming by today as we celebrate "Season's Givings" with a giant blog hop and awesome prize giveaways! I was so happy to join this great hop and I hope you are having fun looking at everyone's blogs! What a great way to start off the new year right? The entire link list is further down in my post. And every blog has a prize! There are all kinds of great things to look at! 

This blog hop is all about us thanking YOU, our awesome followers and readers, for supporting us and sharing our joy of crafting. For lots of us, the main reason we blog, is that we develop wonderful friendships with a greater creative community and we uplift and inspire each other. Truly, thank you for joining me on my blog journey. If you are new to my site - welcome! I hope you find something(s) you like and I'm happy to have you here today.

Each blog on the hop has PRIZES! It's our way of saying thanks! I have two prize packs to give away to two lucky winners (see photos below)! Each prize pack has five brand new stamp sets...and I will probably throw in some more stuff too!  In order to be eligible to win, please leave a comment on this post and tell me your New Year's resolution for crafting and creativity! What projects are you going to work on in 2015? Maybe a new Technique? Lemme know! 

Leave your comment before 9:00am PST on Sunday January 4th. I will post the winners here on my blog later that day, and I will also email you for your addresses. Sound good? Heck yeah! 

Did you arrive here from the fabulous Marisa Ritzen's blog? If you're going in order, she is right before me... Next up click on through to Jenny Peterson's awesome blog! Or, you can look at the full list below in my post. 

Since you're here, I thought I would share a fun New Year's Card with you! I looooove black and gold/silver for New Year's! And Here, I popped some bright yellow glitter carsdstock. All of the supplies for this card are from Taylored Expressions. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be sure to hook up with me on social media - all the links are in my left sidebar! And, I would love to have you as an email subscriber too - just put your email in the box under my photo. Oh, and I have to warn you, I am pretty addicted to Instagram! I would be happy to share with you there! Thank you for coming by today. Enjoy the hop! 

 Wanda!

Contest has ended! Winners announced on 1-4-14 blog post! 

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL BLOG LIST!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

FIVE YEAR BLOGAVERSARY! And, my end of the year wrap up for 2014!

Oh my goodness! FIVE YEARS! How can that be? How is it possible that I started this journey five years ago already? And who would have known how much fun this would be!? Here it is time to celebrate my FIVE YEAR blogaversary and do my end-of-the-year wrap up for 2014. I love doing this every year, and it helps me reflect on the past years, and also chronicle stats and numbers. SO fun! Just to see what I wrote, I clicked back to my VERY FIRST BLOG POST and read it yesterday! When I began blogging, I would never have known what would happen - the things that could happen! Wow. What an enormous blessing. I was really afraid to start, but like lots of things, I'm glad I took that first step. My blog has been one of the most rewarding things I've ever accomplished. I'm so happy to be here in this place right now. With you guys. 

Happy New Year - a little early! I have a REALLY cool blog post coming up at midnight on New Year's Eve, with prizes, so be sure to check in then! 

2014 was a very good year! Yay, right?! 2013 was a not-so-good year, so I am extra appreciative of all the great things that happened this year! 2014 was a time of thought and action both. I spent a great deal of time reflecting, mostly because of my 50th birthday. That milestone really made me introspective and thoughtful. I am a different woman and I will carry on new goals and new ways into 2015. For me, one of the best gifts about getting older is the ability to learn and grow faster - to make changes and to trust your gut. No more time to dilly dally - it's time to move! I'm looking forward to a fantastic 2015 with renewed energy and focus. 

My three words for 2015 are: PLANS (God's plans are bigger than my dreams - proven fact), MINDFULNESS (this message keeps coming to me) and CREATE (Time to grow as an artist in my own style). Do you choose focus words or resolutions for the new year? I'd love to hear! 

Something I love to do here on the blog at the end of the year, is to take a look back on my creative journey from the year before! This annual post is kind of like a cyber scrapbook! Thank you for joining along with me. 

My blog is my journal and here I keep a record of my progress.  So, on that note, here are some fun stats from the year. At the end of 2013 I had written 722 blog posts, received 7527 comments, had 185,000 total visitors, 521 email subscribers and 506,000 total blog hits. At the end of 2014... I have written 855 total blog posts (133 this year!), received 10,365 kind comments, had 259,000 total visitors, 665 email subscribers... and...618,000 total blog hits! YAY! How long will it take me to get to a million visitors? I can't wait for that milestone! 

Two years ago, I started a tradition of recapping my favorite projects from the past year! I get so many nice comments about this! Here are my favorites from 2014!! These are in chronological order starting with January! 

 

 

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! I appreciate all of you so much, all of your love and kindness and support! I wish you the very best year ever! Cheers to 2015! XOXO

Gold & Aqua for New Years!

Hey crafty friends! Did you survive Christmas in one piece? Have you recovered yet? Lol. I hope you all had a marvelous holiday and are doing well. With New Years right around the the corner next week I figured I'd better get going on some crafty projects to celebrate 2015! This card was inspired by the AMAZING new paper collection from Teresa Collins that I bought at Joann's last week. It is soooo gorgeous - lots of gold with bright white and aqua. Bam. SO pretty. Then I saw Linda's beautiful card for the AAA Card Challenge and the theme is 'use a little gold' and a project was born! 

Before I show you my card, I wanted to tell you to be sure to come by my blog next week - I have SO much going on. I'm in a huge blog hop on New Year's day (starts 9pm PST) and every blog has a prize package (I have two!) Also, I'll be doing my annual, year-end blog post, and celebrating my five year blogaversary! (YAY). 

But for now, here is my New Years card!

 

 

 

 

The paper and the 'cheers' word are from Teresa Collins. The numbers and letters dies are from Papertrey Ink. I seem to always be drawn to these big numbers for my New Years cards - used them last year too! The numbers are cut from bright gold glitter paper! 

 

 

 

 

I put a strip of vellum around my card and mounted the numbers on top of the vellum with foam tape. The star die is also from PTI! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PLEASE CLICK HERE to go to the AAA Cards and enter your card into the 'use a little gold' challenge! You have plenty of time - it just went live today! :-)

Warm Wishes for a Merry Christmas 2014! With love from my home to yours!

 

MERRY MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Warm Wishes from my home to your home - and I hope you have the best Christmas ever! I hope you are surrounded by those you love and that you are enjoying the magic of the holiday wherever you are! What a wonderful day - to remember the birth of Jesus and to relax in the company of friends and family. It's perfect! We are having a low key holiday at our house and I am very happy about it. So much going on the past few weeks, and now the holiday is here and *poof* just like that it will be over. Take it all in....

I have one last Christmas/Winter card to share today before we completely switch gears going into January. I just adore this pretty stamp from Neat & Tangled and wanted to use it before this year was over. I decided to use it as a focal point for a chalkboard card, and combined it with some pretty dies. Hope you like it! 

 

 

 

 

 

I love the look of the dies when used with Kraft Core paper! The paper has pretty nostalgic colors and when you sand it, the center is kraft, so it looks perfectly aged! The bottom layer is black paper with the kraft core, and I think it works perfectly as a chalkboard! 

 

 

 

 

My saying was embossed with crisp white embossing powder and versamark ink. LOVE. 

 

 

 

 

The bow die comes in two pieces and you fold the ends over and glue it onto the bottom piece. I added a gorgeous gem my friend Holly sent me from The Netherlands! My bow and holly dies are also sanded to let the kraft come through. 

 

 

 

 

This bow has a pretty scalloped edge...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

SUPPLY LIST FOR TODAY: 

InLinkz.com

Season's Greetings - Masculine Christmas Card!

Hi guys! So, in case I wasn't already busy enough, I decided to make a couple more Christmas cards yesterday! I have SO many IDEAS in my head for Christmas and the time ran out on me! I made one to share today and one last one to share on Christmas day. How is your weekend going? I'm having a blast! Stamping and crafting all day yesterday. What a nice day. Today we'll get back into the holiday frenzy, but a break from the outside world was needed. Hope you are doing great! 

Today's card was inspired by everything Ralph Lauren for Christmas! I thought it would be nice to make a masculine card. I am always making girl cards! I chose plaid, and woodgrain, and red and a nice hunter green...combine it all together and here you have a Ralph Lauren-y guy card! Take a look! 

 

 

 

 

 

This die says "Season's Greetings" but it was too big for this space and looked too busy with the plaid. I made my word die cut from kraft paper. You can see there's just a touch of hunter green in the plaid and I used that color for my wreath die. No stamping on this card! 

 

 

 

 

Here's a close up of my focal image.... LOVE the gold! The shield is from Tim Holtz of course! 

 

 

 

 

This one doesn't have too many layers so it would be a good card to mail. I wanted to add some gold bling to it, but then it wouldn't be masculine any more, would it!? I am crazy about these colors together. I will have to make more with this palette next Christmas! 

Next time I see you on the blog, it will be Christmas Day!

Happy Christmas week everyone! XOXO

SUPPLY LIST FOR TODAY:  

InLinkz.com

Thanks snow much!

Hey everyone! ONE WEEK UNTIL CHRISTMAS!!! DON'T FREAK OUT!!! Oh yeah, too late! My to do list is way longer than my days, and time is a runnin' out! Do you say it every year too? "Next year I'm starting early!" Okay, so you guys have to remind me in August to start working on things! LOL. Why is there never enough time to just enjoy the magic of the season? Everyone is rushing around with a sad face and driving too fast and looking frazzled. I am making myself be mindful each day of the reason we celebrate Christmas and I'm desperately trying to slow down. I hope that you are making the most of this next week and I wish you lots of happiness, joy, and crossed off list items! 

I have a fun and happy card to share today. This was featured on the TE blog earlier, but I wanted to share it here too. One of the things we have to make AFTER Christmas is thank you cards! So I have a thank you card idea for you, made with the awesome Mitten Garland Die from Taylored Expressions. 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a close-up that super cute tiny lime green bow! Love the bright red with the lime green. I used white ink to stamp some snowflakes onto the red. All supplies are from Taylored Expressions. 

 

 

 

 

So it's super easy to make a card out of any of your larger shape dies. All you do is just fold a piece of cardstock in half and then place the die so that it goes over the fold like you see here. Instant card! 

 

 

 

 

Here you can see what's left of the fold on top -

 

 

 

 

I layered some pretty white felt on the bottom of my mitten and then added some dimension with the snowflakes and bow. Added a cute sentiment...and there you have it! A cute way to say thanks at Christmas time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's a lot going on right now and I really want to pause and say thank you - to you! All of you who leave me comments and send me emails - you uplift me! I am so happy and grateful to have this little part of cyber-space to share with you. You don't know how much it means to me.  Love ya! 

 

 

Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #249 - Over the river and through the woods...

Hi everyone! Happy Monday! Wow, a lot has happened since I last blogged and I have lots to get you caught up on. I hope your week is going well, and I'm sure everyone is knee deep in holiday preparations. I literally cannot believe Christmas will be over and done 10 days from now. Sheesh. Every year...I'm behind. It's not like the date is a surprise or anything! I am just never ready. I still have not sent out Christmas cards or started wrapping presents! Last night I did attend a really wonderful Christmas concert at church with one of my friends and that definitely got me in the spirit of the season. How are you doing? Are you all ready for the holiday!? 

Last night on facebook I saw my friend Karen's Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge for this week...and I loved the layout so much! I had to make a card!! It's a good one! CLICK HERE to go to Karen's blog and enter your own card this week!  

For my card, I was inspired by the sketch (of course) and then also by a pretty vintage Christmas ornament I bought on Saturday when we were out driving around (more on that later)... I used a pretty new stamp set from Stampin' Up - that's called White Christmas - it's totally perfect. I wish I had more time to play with this set! Okay, here's my card...

 

 

 

 

Here's the sketch image... I told you it was a good one!!! I'm keeping this one in the vault to use later fo sho! 

 

 

 

I used a kraft card base and layered some pretty red and then some stripes.... My main panel is cream card stock and all my images are stamped in brown ink. Lends more of a vintage feeling. I colored my car, Xmas tree, and other trees with distress inks and a watercolor brush pen...

 

 

 

 

The car and Xmas tree are mounted on foam tape. I added some pretty diamond Stickles to the whole situation (love) and also added some red ornaments! Kept it soft and pretty.... This card makes me think of two things: Christmas Vacation Movie (LOLZ) and the song "Over the river and through the woods..."

 

 

 

 

 

For my ornaments I used the teeny tiny pearls from Stampin' Up and colored them with a Copic Marker. Easy peasy... Get those tweezers out! 

 

 

 

 

My green panel is layered onto the stripes with foam tape also, just makes things look nice I think. I use a lot of foam tape at my house! LOL. 

 

 

 

 

The Peace and Joy sentiment is from Papertrey Ink - I liked how it fit right there in that spot. It is also stamped in dark brown ink. 

 

 

 

 

So...here is the ornament I bought! See how it inspired me!? Isn't it the cutest little thing ever? I bought it at a store in Sutter Creek, CA that has all kinds of beautiful items! 

 

 

 

 

We had a BIG storm here in Sacramento last week - Thursday and Friday. I caught Buddy trying to get a little shut eye with all the wind blowing! Isn't he sweet? He's like "mom, I'm so tired, can you make the storm quiet down?" Love this kid. 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday we had planned to go to San Francisco for the day for the hubs' birthday but that plan got derailed. On Thursday morning I woke up with the worst headache I have ever had in my life. It was scary and I haven't really felt good since. So we decided to take it easy and just go for a drive close to home - and get me out of the house. Turned out to be a really lovely day. Here is a photo of the pretty town of Sutter Creek California, all decked out for Christmas. So quaint!

 

 

 

 

This is a little antique store we stopped by on our journey. How much do I love this paint job?? A lot! 

 

 

 

 

And a pretty church we discovered - built in 1894! 

 

 

 

 

Here is a snap of a cute tiny birdie we saw when we stopped for a minute! So sweet. 

 

 

 

 

This one is blurry, but I thought it was cool anyway - love the wings! 

 

 

 

 

So the other thing that's going on behind the scenes is that I'm really busy working on my samples for Tim Holtz for the CHA show! Here's one little sneak peek for ya! If you want more - you can always check me out on Instagram (stampcatwg). I {heart} Instagram....

 

Okay, that's enough. I'm tired tonight and want to go settle in and watch The Voice final show. I'm crazy about The Voice!! I can't believe the season is over tomorrow. Take care until we meet again and Happy Holidaze! XOXO 

 

12 Tags of 2014 - December - Season's Greetings!

Hey bloggy friends! I hope you are having a smashing week! Today is my hubs' birthday so a big shout out to my better half today! Woot Woot! Love you honey! Later tonight we'll be grabbing some dinner together and then on Saturday I think we'll make a trip to San Francisco to celebrate some more. It's raining cats and dogs (and hamsters and everything else) this week. I know we need the rain but this is kind of crazy. Our poor state has been very dry for so long...Now it's coming all at once.

Oh my goodness. How can it be that it's time for the last tag for 2014? You know how much I love making tags for Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2014! I'm kind of sad that here we are at December already. But, I can't be too sad because the inspiration tag for this month is AMAAAAZZZING and really got me in the mood for Christmas and Winter! I had lots of ideas flowing almost immediately and you know I love that Prancing Deer die so much because I already used it on another project last month!

I may have gone overboard with the glitter on this one...but I'll let you decide. Personally I think it's pretty hard to have TOO MUCH glitter!! Especially on frosty Winter tags and cards. I was in the craft cave all day Sunday whipping up this one... 

After I dyed my tag, I used the leftover water and ink to dye my ribbon. You can see here that I also added some brown to both the twine and the ribbon. See that star? That is one of the really sparkly Tim Holtz Rhinestone stars... I wanted it frosty so I tried a few different things. First I tried crackle paint which I didn't like. Then, I used the matte medium and coated it in a couple of layers of Rock Candy Distress Glitter. The result - awesome frostiness! 

 

Gosh, I could not love all this Tim Holtz Winter stuff more...sigh... It's so vintage-y Christmas and I cannot get enough! I used Tim's color scheme but then popped in a little red for good measure and to make it my own design. You can see I used most of the same dies as the inspiration tag... Here is a close up of some of my glittery stuff! Oh yes, I did it, I used the Fired Brick Distress Glitter.... POW! Love that red! 

 

 

 The snowflake adornment is silver, and I coated it with picket fence paint and then rubbed it off with my fingers to add a white patina. I attached it to the clip with a jump ring...

 

  

Here's a close up of that red glitter! I colored the die cuts with Fired Brick Distress Ink and then added the matching glitter on top. I like how it's not perfect and looks aged. You can also see my pine leaves here. I used two shades of green and then edged them in brown before adding Rock Candy Glitter. (Good thing I have the GIANT size bottle of glitter!)

 

  

These are all the dies and some of the supplies in their 'natural' state...

 

 

 

 

I used a Manila tag, and all my die cuts are cut from the Ranger Watercolor paper.

 

  

MMMMMMMM. I put three shades of blue ink down on my craft mat and put down lots of water.... This is how I made the background color on my tag. I really wanted it to look like a dark Winter night sky...

 

  

Here is my tag after I ran it through the ink and water mixture, and after it was dry. I flicked paint onto it to mimic snow!! I love how this came out! You can see in the final photo, I edged the entire tag with brown ink and a sponge dauber. Then I added glitter to the corners. 

 

 

I came up with a cool idea for coloring my deer! I watercolored him first in a few shades of brown ink. Then I dried him with my heat tool. After that I took the Tim Holtz Speckles Stencil and some dark brown ink and I added spots to him! I thought it would make his coat look very natural. I kinda like how this came out. 

 

  

What do you think?!

 

 

 

Here are my pine leaves in progress....

 

  

Okay! After all the inking and coloring, here's what I have! READY for GLITTER! LOL. This is the very best part...assembling everything together! You can see that I ended up only using the word greetings. It seemed like too much going on to use both words... 

 

  

Here is my tower of ink pads! I used all these colors! I took a white pen and wrote on the side of my ink pads, because I store them in stacks. This way I can find the color I need. It's not fancy, but it works! 

 

  

 

 

  

My reindeer needed a collar of some sort so I took some twine and a little jingle bell and put them on him. See that glitter!! Did I mention there's glitter? LOL. 

 

  

 

 

  

I added my greeting in sort of an interesting way. At first I had it flat, but I thought I wanted more dimension, so I took it off. I ended up glueing the two ends down and making an arch out of the word. Guess I'm not mailing this one! For the pine leaves I cut and layered different pieces until I had to look I wanted. 

 

  

 

 

Whew, that was a long post! Thank you for joining me in this creative endeavor! You have all month to enter your own tag. Won't you make one too? I love seeing what everyone makes each month! Until we meet again, have a great day! XOXO

 

 

PROJECT SUPPLIES!

A lovely invite and a lovely day!

Hi Peeps! Happy Weekend! Yesterday I had the very distinct pleasure of hanging out with some awesome crafty girls here in my local area. We were extended a lovely invitation to come to the beautiful home of the super fabulous Regina Easter for a day of stamping, crafting, fellowship, and tasty treats. I had the best time! Isn't it wonderful when we can all get together around the circle of stamping and just laugh and enjoy each other's company? Yes, indeed! Crafty girls rock! My friend Ashley was there and my friend Lezlye, and I met some fab new friends too. What a gorgeous event Regina put together. I thought I would share some about my day - the projects I brought, and the treats I made, and all that good stuff. BIG thanks to Regina for being such a wonderful hostess! XOXO

We all brought a make-n-take card project to share so we all left the party with eight finished Christmas cards. The rules were simple, make it Christmas, and keep it clean and simple. Every single person brought a great card! Each one more pretty than the last one... I have had an idea in my head ever since I bought the FUN sweater dies from MFT so I used my idea for my card...

 

 

 

 

 

I LOVE this idea so much! I am obsessed with anything Nordic, Winter, old-fashioned, sweatery!! Does that make sense?? It just evokes a simpler time and place for me. Here is a side view of the layers. I didn't add a lot of papers - we were to keep it clean and simple, because we made nine cards in one afternoon! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like to make my word banners come off the edge of the card sometimes to add some visual interest. Here I used the cute sentiment from My Favorite Things and some rich black ink. 

 

 

 

 

This thing here.... FAVORITE STENCIL EVER. EVER. EVER. Buy it and thank me later. Seriously. Tim Holtz is a genius. Oh yes, and I do have a snowflake manicure at the moment! LOL. 

 

 

 

So I die cut my sweater shape from white paper and placed it on my table. Then I taped the stencil over it. I chose one of the big flower shapes for the very center of my sweater and then colored with some pretty Fired Brick Distress Ink...

 

 

 

 

CAN YOU STAND IT?? I cannot. That is all. 

 

 

 

 

The way the stencil comes out it makes the lines look like they're fuzzy like a real sweater! 

 

 

 

This die set comes with the collar, bottom, and cuffs too. I cut those pieces out of red paper and glued them on to my sweater. Tweezers help! 

 

 

 

 

In addition to bringing a project, we each brought something to eat to share. We had the most delicious lunch. Sandwiches, and veggies, and dips and hummus....All healthy stuff. But, I brought cupcakes! LOL. I really enjoy baking cupcakes and decorating them, so that's usually what I will bring to a potluck or event. For my cupcakes for our party, I made my chocolate peppermint cupcakes. Here is a photo of my toppers I made for them! Sweet Wishes.... 

The stamps are from Papertrey Ink and they are so adorable and the perfect size for this project. 

 

 

 

 

In addition to making cupcakes, I also really like to take pictures of cupcakes! LOL. Here they are, all ready for transport to the party. The toppers are glued onto the Wilton cake pop sticks. They are perfect for this. I glued the stick to the back of the topper and then put the two pieces together with foam tape. My scallop circle and plain circle are punches, which makes it easy to make a lot of them.

 

 

 

The paper wrap around the outside of the cupcakes is from Taylored Expressions. Too fun, right? I used some pepperminty striped paper to keep it festive. 

My cupcakes are Devil's Food - really rich. The frosting is a regular frosting recipe and then I add Peppermint extract to it - so it's nice and minty. Then I take some candy canes and break them into tiny pieces, and sprinkle them on top. MMMMM. 

 

 

 

 

Here is a super useful link about how to choose the right frosting tip for your cupcakes. I used the tip in the photo that has the pink icing.  After I ice my cupcakes I put them in the fridge for a while. It helps keep the frosting pretty and in the shape you want. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here we all are at the gorgeous table stamping away. How nice it was to just sit and chat and craft as a group. Most of the time stamping is a solitary activity for me. It was a real pleasure to feel the energy of everyone else and share ideas. 

 

 

 

 

Regina made each of us a box to put our finished cards in - and placed the boxes at our seats. What a nice touch. I need to start putting jingle bells on everything, right? How adorable. 

 

 

 

 

Here is the table, before we started stamping. Our projects were put in red and green bins - so festive and pretty. 

 

Ashley is really good about making me take a photo when she's around. Since I don't really like to be IN the pictures....I like to TAKE the pictures! Hahaha.  I think her cuteness rubs off on me a bit. She is such a sweetheart - I was happy to hang out with her all day! XO 

 

 

 

 

  SUPPLY LIST FOR TODAY! (Hint, you NEED that sweaters die!!) 

InLinkz.com

Paper Crafts & Scrapbooking Magazine Special Blog Hop

I'll start this post by saying I wish we weren't having a big giant blog hop today... Because the reason we are having this (amazing and fabulous) blog hop is to honor, thank, remember, and shout out to our favorite craft magazine that is closing its doors forever. I remember two weeks ago when I started seeing the buzz on Facebook that our beloved PaperCrafts & Scrapbooking was to be no more, I was really sad. I will miss it. I will miss the beautiful projects made by my crafty friends, the awesome go-to gals, I'll miss the fun editor's notes, the cool tips and techniques, the new products, the great photos, all of it. I guess the saying is true that all good things must come to an end. But that doesn't make it any easier does it? 

Here is my card - which says it all.... Thanks with all my heart - for everything!  

 

In my mind, PaperCrafts & Scrapbooking was the original blog... Here's what I mean. Before we could all share creativity every day on our blogs, and Flickr, and Instagram and Facebook, we had magazines. And we would wait and stalk the mailman just looking for that magazine to show up - that was our link to our crafty universe. We all understood each other and we were inspired together in those pages. The magazine made us get out of our comfort zone and submit our work for judgment. It made our friends famous! I have been stamping for 20 years now, and this magazine has been with me every step of the way from the beginning neophyte stage to now. I remember always having a PCS in my tote bag in case I had a spare moment to look at some cards. I (totally) remember tearing out pages and very carefully putting them in clear sleeves in my Inspiration binder (still have it).

I just want to say thank you to everyone who contributed to PCS. You made a difference in my life, and from the looks of things, MANY others' lives too. THANK YOU. YOU. THANK YOU.

 

 

 

 

When crafty girls set their minds to something, amazing things happen. This blog hop blows my mind. We are blessed to know each other and feel the love and kindness that is our little community. This is probably the HUGEST blog hop ever in the history of EVER and it shows how we all feel. I'm happy to be participating - in a sad sort of way. And, I can't wait to see what everyone else made. See you later - it's not the same as good-bye. XOXO  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You should have arrived here from the very lovely and super talented Amy Kolling's blog! Up next after me is the also amazing Kalyn Kepner! How did I get so lucky to be sandwiched in the middle of these two fab ladies?  

 

SUPPLY LIST FOR TODAY'S POST:  

InLinkz.com

Simon Says Stamp! Die-cember Blog Hop!

 

Hi friends! Welcome to the Simon Says Stamp Die-Cember Blog Hop! Our friends at Simon Says Stamp have released 15 brand new wafer thin dies. CLICK HERE to see all of them! There is also the "Kit and Kaboodle" pack that has all 15 dies. CLICK HERE to see the collection pack. I know we all want to have that box show up at our house!!

As if Die-Cember wasn't great enough - there is also a huge sale category on the Simon Says Stamp site that has dies 50% off (with the coupon code DIES). CLICK HERE to check 'em out.

Each stop on the Blog Hop List will have a Simon Says Stamp Prize Package! WOOT WOOT! (Thank you SSS) so be sure to leave a comment for a chance to win. The Prize winners will be selected on December 4th and notified via email.

Now, on with a project! I made this Christmas card using two new Simon Says Stamp Die-Cember dies - the lovely Woodland Rectangular Frame and the Large Tags. I also used some favorite Simon Says Stamp exclusive stamp sets and the pretty Village Dies... Take a look! 

 

 

 

I started with a nice simple Kraft card base and layered the pretty Woodland Rectangular Frame down first. Then I cut the Large Tag die and stamped some pretty snowflakes with Antique Linen Distress Ink. My sentiment is stamped in Rich Cocoa Ink. I wanted a very 'natural' feeling with my colors for this card. I stamped some snowflakes onto the Kraft paper also - for a nice watermark effect.

 

 

 

Here is a close up of the stamping. I also gently inked around the edge of my tag with some more Linen Distress ink. One of my tried and true tricks for tags is this combination of ribbon, twine and a button. I like this layered look and I like to match in some more color at the top of my tags. This time I added a pretty gold sequin too!

 

 

 

I used the Village Die to cut out some pretty red houses and green trees, and then layered them across the bottom of my tag with some foam squares. Again, keeping it clean and simple.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sentiment says it all... Merry! Merry Christmas everyone! Thank you for coming by today to join me in this fun Blog Hop. Have a blessed day.  

 

Be sure to check out all the crafty goodness that all the ladies have in store for you! AND, don't forget to comment, for a chance to win prizes! 

To start at the beginning of the hop CLICK HERE.

I am excited to hop around myself and look at the projects. Happy Die-Cember!

BLOG HOP LINK LIST:

Simon Says Stamp Blog

Shari Carroll

Kristina Werner

Laura Bassen

Lucy Abrams

Caryn Davies

Wanda Guess (that's me)

Lisa Addesa

Sarah Moerman

Debby Hughes

Nichol Magouirk 

 

SUPPLY LINKS FOR TODAY! 

 

InLinkz.com