Scrapping Our Stash December Blog Hop

Welcome to another Scrapping Our Stash Blog hop. For December we chose an Anything Goes theme. You might be arriving here from LYNE'S BLOG. You can find a full list of hoppers at the bottom of this post!

 A Christmas Story has long been a family favorite of ours, and Ben's love of chunky black glasses helps him bear a pretty good resemblance to Ralphie Parker. I don't know why, but this year he agreed to be Ralphie for Halloween. We thought we'd have to really work on him, but he loved the idea and agreed to give up his typical Star Wars costume for the low, low price of a small custom box of See's Candy. He loves wearing that costume much more than Ralphie did, and so we brought it with us to our holiday family photo shoot.  Apple Blossom Photography took the most amazing pictures of my sweet Ben in this crazy bunny suit, and these pics needed a special page all their own. I used the December 1st sketch from Stuck? Sketches for this single page layout.

I combined a Memo Fundamentals notebook paper with some (retired) Charlotte pink papers, Cranberry and Whisper Cardstock, and a bit of City Sidewalks holiday paper. I splattered some black watercolor over the notebook paper, and hand-wrote Ralphie's Christmas Theme onto the background. I diecut some snowflakes from silver glitter paper to go with the whisper snowflakes I stamped and then I embellished the snowflakes with lots of bitty rhinestones. I cut my title using the Flower Market Cricut cartridge font combined with some stamped words stolen from the February SOTM (sneak peek!). I finished with a lot of rhinestone embellished silver hand stitching and some American Crafts washi tape. I'm also linking this page up to the current issue over at Paper Issues.

Next up on the hop is SANDY'S BLOG. Happy Hopping!

DECEMBER SCRAPPING OUR STASH HOP:

Wendy Coffman

Sandy Ross

Majken Pullin

Lyne Schnable-Blodgett

Sweet Cupcake Rainbow Birthday Card

When I saw this week's Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge sketch, the center element reminded me that I has one practice cupcake shaker element hanging out on my desk without a home. I had originally intended for this card to be a shaker, but that plan ran out of implementation time.

I built the shaker by die-cutting the cupcake out of craft foam. Then I stamped the cuppie image onto white cardstock and topped it with the negative image diecut from a second white cardstock panel. I added rainbow glitter to the cupcake liner, and wiggly eyes to that sweet face. I layered the shaker stamped image, then fun foam diecut (filled with sequins and chunky glitter), a panel of overhead projector acetate, and then the diecut cardstock panel. Lots of Liquid Glass went into this project, which I weighed down with ink pads to hold it together until it dried. 

I stamped the background with a sentiment from the Flower Market bundle. Then I layered on a rainbow of shimmer tape and added some hand drawn outlines using a super fine journaling pen. This was a fun an easy sketch to make - I hope you'll pop over to Atlantic Hearts and play along!

Snowman Happy Holidays Card

It's the last week of school before Winter Break. Winter. Break. 4 more days and school is over for 2016. Is anyone else wondering how that happened? In any case, I needed cards to go with our holiday gifts for the boys' teachers. 

Luckily it's Monday, so there was a new sketch from Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge. I grabbed some of the pieces I'd already diecut from Cozy Christmas and got to work. I have some glitter card bases that have been in my stash for so long I can't even remember where I got them. I layered on some City Sidewalks papers left from finishing my Workshops Your Way Kit. I embossed a white cardstock panel with snowflakes and mounted the diecut stamped images over the snowy background. 

I knew I wanted to add a bit of teacher theme, so I stamped and colored the apple from School Kids for the snowman to hold. I bent the snowman's arms on the block before stamping them so he could better grasp that shiny red apple. I hope you'll pop over to Atlantic Hearts and try out this fun sketch for yourself!

Sending Smiles Snowman Mason Jar Card

I'm starting to transition out of Holiday cards now, but today's card is a bit of a bridge into winter card. I just got my new Flower Market Cricut cartridge and when I found the mason jar my wheels started turning...

So I flipped over that mason jar and filled it with the Cozy Christmas snowman. I used the matching Thin Cut dies to do his hat and the holly sprig. I loved being able to shape his arms into a friendly wave with the flexibility of a clear stamp. After I stamped his body I masked it off with a post-it and stamped on the "snow" texture using one of the stamps that came with my Flower Market Cartridge. I mounted my mason jar snow globe over two kinds of embossed white cardstock (stripes and snowflakes). White on white textured backgrounds make me so happy! I used the Mojo Monday sketch as inspiration for this card design.

I cut two of these flowers from the Flower Market cartridge. I loved how the layered flower was so easy to make since the layers are automatically sized so you don't have to figure out all the measurements. I cut one at 2" plus one at 1.5" and the cartridge resized all the layers automatically - so easy! My SENDING SMILES sentiment came from another of the stamp sets that are part of the Flower Market bundle. The mixed fonts are just so pretty. I didn't mean to make more holiday cards at this point, but I'm snow glad I did!

Merry and Bright Blog Hop

Welcome to the Merry and Bright Blog Hop! You might be arriving her from BECCA's BLOG. On this month's Blog Hops with Heart we made you some fabulously merry holiday projects!

For me, holiday crafts are the most fun. I love that holiday decorations are never too sparkly! This year I added a sweet Holiday Banner and an advent tree to our entryway. I used some rhinestone covered push pins to hold up my new decor creations.If you want a closer look at that triple block decoration hanging from what is normally just key hooks, you can see that ornament up close HERE.

 I found the banner in my to be decorated project drawer. Perhaps it originally came from Michaels? I can't be sure. I painted most of the banner pieces with a dark red acrylic paint and swiped the edges them with the green. I flipped the colors on the dividing banner.  I outlined every letter with glitter gel, and embellished the banner with wooden snowflakes, sequins, rhinestone and bitty sparkles, and more glitter gel. Lemme tell ya, that was a lot of Liquid Glass, Stampin' Friends.  I tied the banner pieces together using baker's twine and topped the bows with more rhinestone sparkles.

I found a blank tree wooden decor piece at Craft Warehouse. I painted it with the same dark red and green acrylic paints. I outlined each tree "branch" with silver glitter gel. I stamped the numbers on for a guideline, and then I filled in the letters with a sharpie marker. I found a very vintage CTMH rhinestone circle frame sticker, which I mounted on Ruby cardstock and topped with a gingham bow to create the Advent marker. It moves along with the help of a glue dot behind the bow.

I coated the entire piece with a glitter acrylic paint topcoat. This isn't the greatest picture, but can you see the bling? It might just be the sparkliest paint ever! I adhered a glittered kraft star diecut to the top of the tree for one last touch of sparkle. I know there wasn't a lick of paper on my projects today, but almost everything (but the tree base) came out of my stamp room stash, so I hope you'll still enjoy my glittery decor items!

Next up on the hop is AMIE'S BLOG. Happy Hoppin' Holidays!