Happy Thanksgiving!

I always love the Thanksgiving feast - but getting all the food to the table (on time and still warm) can be a challenge! Despite my worries, every year it seems to work out fine. So, I'm posting my Happy Thanksgiving wishes a bit early because I know you will be busy tomorrow too!

It continues to be cold, wet and dreary here and this little gal just cheers me up! I watercolored her after taking my online class...I still need practice but it is a lot of fun, I must say.




I want to tell my readers and customers how thankful I am for your continued support and encouragement! I love hearing from you...

As my thanks - and because I know you'd rather stay home instead of hitting those crowded shopping malls this weekend, tee hee! - I am offering you my own Thanksgiving "sale". In the past, The Angel Company had offered a Gift with Purchase program. This year's catalog brought a few changes and those are now Purchase with Purchase (PWP) specials...they are a super deal for just $2.95 each; but, if you place an order with me by midnight, 29 November (Sunday), you can pick one free PWP for every $30 you spend, my treat!



Click here to see these better!

How do you take advantage of this special offer? Remember you get to pick one for every $30 you spend before shipping and tax...

1. You can order directly online on my website (and I will mail you a check out on Monday morning for the number of PWPs you earned and ordered), or
2. You can email me your order and tell me which PWPs you want for free

This also a great time to take advantage of the Christmas Delights special that I blogged about here - however, you must email me to get this low, low price on these special stamp sets!

Hoping you have lots to be thankful for this Thanksgiving Day...and that you may be blessed in the upcoming year!

OCC Color Challenge

This weekend I attempted my first color challenge...eeck! I think this was definitely harder than a sketch challenge. What do you find easier?

As a Demo for over 6 years, I have lots and lots of stamps from The Angel Company and since I buy what I like, I seldom get rid of any, even when they retire. That means often something sits neglected for a while or worse, cut and never used (like my Decorative Corners)! This card makes me feel good about using both neglected stamps.

So, back to the color challenge, it was white, orange, cocoa and dark brown...and here is what I came up with!

I watercolored the mouse and leaf...and then did the leaf once more and cut it out and popped it up a bit.

Card Materials: All stamps from The Angel Company

Stamps: Pick of the Patch, Decorative Corners

Accessories: Sizzixlet border strip, Nestabilities label, watercolor paper, Tombow markers, aquabrush, Noir palette ink, misc papers

Once I put my card together, the right side just felt really "empty" and it hit me that I could stamp these corners and then twist the image to give it a back to back (or side by side) look...I love, love, love the result! And, it felt good to finally use this stamp set.

It's going to be a busy week (I still have to design 10 cards for my Christmas Card workshop next week - yikes!), hubby and kids home half the week and Thanksgiving over at my sister's house. I hope to pop in again before Thanksgiving...hope to hear from MISSY about my blog candy. If not, I'll be picking a new winner on Friday. Have a super week!

Christmas Delights

The Angel Company has announced some special stamp sets to help make your Christmas even MORE delightful! And, if you email me your order I can offer them to you at an unbelievable savings as my special thanks (I'm talking less than half price) - but you must have a minimum $30 order to take advantage of this special. That's the only "hitch"... but I think you'll be tickled and delighted!

I had also promised to show my "trick" for some great looking snow - see my last post for a sample. It's not really my trick at all but I discovered a tutorial from a blog I follow called, Stamping Between the Dishes and the Laundry which directed me to a blog called, Hog Wild About Stamping. I'm sure there are other places that show this too but she said to get styrofoam balls from the dollar store and rub them together, so that they flake apart. I couldn't find any balls (and $3 at Michael's was too much to pay for this experiment) so I went with the flat disks which I did find (two for $1). What a bargain! Warning: these are noisy when you scrap them together so do not sit next to your husband if he's trying to watch TV...and be careful to scrap over a container, it is MESSY! :)

To adhere this "snow" to my card, I just put down dots of glue and then sprinkled these chunky flakes on top. Good luck and have fun with it! Have a super weekend!

So cute

I've always loved snowmen, but these latest little guys and gals from The Angel Company are just so cute!

Here's a very simple sketch (inspired by Amy Rohl) and it uses the Merry Wishes paper pack that is ON SALE from The Angel Company. I love, love this paper pack and had been hoarding it until they just put it back out "while supplies last".

It's 16 pages of cardstock (thick stuff!), 2 pages of alpha stickers and a page of tags...all for just $9.98!

Card Materials: all stamps and papers from The Angel Company

Stamps: Merriest Wishes

Accessories: Merry Wishes paper, Green #1 DCWV, MS snowflake punch, fiskars border punch, stickles, button, scrappers floss, Scor Pal, corner rounder, pencils/gamsol, ribbon

I used my scor pal here to add some interest to the all white panel. See my fun "snow" at the bottom? Come back on Friday to find out how easy it is to make this yourself!

PS. I am still looking for Missy who won my last blog candy! Please send me an email with your address before Thanksgiving or I will have to draw a new name...

We Are The...

Champions!! My son's football team won 25 - 14 during a nail bitter of a game. Honestly, I was nervous until about the last minute of the game. Crazy, but fun!

Here are some photos if you don't mind me sharing! He's 11 and this is his third year playing - I think I am finally getting the hang of things too. (But he still gets annoyed when I ask obvious questions, oh well!)

And, I had time to "play" yesterday with a really fun postcard sketch. It was a good opportunity to pull out this retired skater that I got in a grab bag from The Angel Company. I just love his funky, sassy look! tee hee...

This summer I was in a card board craze and I found this left over piece, flattened it several times through my big shot, and it worked perfectly...do you see the Vintage Santa (text and snowflakes) again in this card?! I tell you, it's a "must have" set!!

Card Materials:

Stamps: Post Card (Inkadinkadoo), all others from The Angel Company

Accessories: lace, cardboard, Rusty snowflake from AC Moore, Burnt Umber, Haystack, Moulan Rouge Palette ink, Scarlet paper from The Angel Company

And now I'll leave you one more photo of my little guy in action. Have a super week!

Game Day!!

Today is the day! The Championship playoffs for my son's team - they remain undefeated so today will be a true test. Can they do it one more time?!? My stomach is already in butterflies and I'm rushing around so this will be a quick post. Chocolate Chip muffins are in the oven - they are great (quick and delicious!) and if you check the sidebar for my recipes - you'll find them there. :)

This sketch is based on the design over at Our Creative Corner...I'm trying out for their design team since you can use any stamps and I love, love sketches!

Card Materials: all stamps and papers from The Angel Company

Stamps: Ornamental Snowflakes

Accessories: Palette ink: haystack, ballet blue, starry night, CB plate, nestabilites, ribbon, silver doo dads from Michaels

I hope you have a terrific weekend and cross your fingers for our boys today! Go Hammerheads!

Leaping Reindeers!

The Angel Company is famous for their free hostess stamp sets - and monthly specials. I was thrilled when, due to popular demand, TAC decided to offer the Stamp Stimulus and this set (which you could only earn by being a hostess) was offered to the general public for just...$6.75!
I know at Christmastime a lot of folks like to make "reindeer" food, which makes the saying included perfect. And, I just loved this reindeer and flourish. Here's my first card with it...and again, I used some of the stamps from Vintage Santa!



Card Materials: all stamps from The Angel Company
Stamps: Date Disks, Reindeer Food, Vintage Santa

I embossed the reindeer before cutting him out, and the flourishes on the red panel are also clear embossed. This set is available until December 30th and you'll find the rest of the Monthly Specials here on my website!

More Vintage Santa!

Gosh I love this set! And today I used the vintage script and snowflakes that are part of the set. I still have to use the words one of these days but they are so lovely, I know that will be an easy task!

This card is for the Card Patterns sketch that I am sponsoring this week. Be sure to check out my last post for details or find their link in my sidebar. You could win a great stamp set by just playing along!

As per usual, I went with a standard size card...although I love the look of square cards, they are out of my comfort zone. tee hee... The sunlight made it look extra "vintagy", I think!

Card Materials: all stamps and papers by The Angel Company

Stamps: Vintage Santa

Accessories: Amelia Soar with it Collection and cardstock, Amelia hardware, recycled ribbon, palette ink, sponge

I'm heading outside to clean out the chicken coop. We have had a beautiful batch of weather and I just finished shampooing out the inside of my SUV and now I have this other chore ahead of me... Not so much fun but at least I can enjoy the lovely day and after that, I may just reward myself with some stamping time! :) Hope you have a super week!