We have a winner!

I just finished accessing random.org for a random number to find a winner for the stamp set and card I'm giving away. I was given the number 16, which belonged to Sheila's comment. I have e-mailed her asking her for her mailing address. If I don't hear from her by Wednesday, Nov. 5, 10:30 A.M., I will pick another winner. Congratulations Sheila!

Sheila's favorite holiday stamp set from Stampin' Up! is Deck the Halls, which is part of the Holiday Mini catalog. If you don't know what it looks like and want to see it, click on My Stampin' Up! Site (upper right hand corner of the blog), click on Shop Now and either search for it or browse through the Holiday section. It is very cute, and I actually hadn't paid much attention to it until just now. I just might have to order it! But since it's in the Holiday Mini catalog, I only have until January to order it. Then it will be gone forever (or until/unless Stampin' Up! decides to bring it back in the regular Idea Book and Catalog.)

You might be wondering what my favorite holiday stamp set is. I have only purchased two sets, plus the Country Living Holiday Collection Stampin' Kit. I bought Snow Swirled (in the Idea Book and Catalog) and Season of Simple Grace (in the Holiday Mini Catalog.) I really like both of these sets. I love snowflakes, so Snow Swirled was a given. And I wanted a set that reflected the birth of Jesus, which is the real reason for celebrating Christmas. You can scroll down a few posts to see the candles I stamped using Season of Simple Grace. I have a couple cards in the works with Snow Swirled, but they're not ready to post yet. I haven't had a chance to do anything with the Country Living kit yet, but I'm super excited because I love making ornaments, and this kit has so many possibilities for that (as well as cards, gift tags, and even garland.) It has everything I need, even down to ink, glitter, and ribbon! And it's an incredible bargain for everything that's provided in it! And now anyone can buy it. So go on over to My Stampin' Up! site, check it out, and fall in love with it like I have!

Giveaway Time!

I've been thinking about doing a giveaway for a little while and was trying to decide when. Well, I found out that there are all sorts of giveaways happening now connected with the Bloggy Giveaways Quarterly Giveaway Carnival. Click on the link to see the plethora of freebies! I have chosen to get involved with that. So what am I giving away, you may ask? It's this fabulous stamp set by Stampin' Up!, Greetings Galore! It is brand new and has been mounted and ready to go for you to get creative. I am also including the kindness card I made for a challenge. And if I'm feeling super generous when I get ready to mail the prize, I may just get a flat rate box and put in all sorts of other card making/scrapbooking/collage/assemblage goodies.

Here are the details for entering:

1. For U.S. residents only.

2. Check out the fabulous Fall-Winter 2008 Idea Book and Catalog from Stampin' Up! If you don't have a copy of your own, you can click over to the site if you click on My Stampin' Up! site in the upper right hand corner of this blog.

3. Leave a comment with which Holiday set is your favorite. You can find the Holiday section on p. 25-47 of the catalog.

4. You will receive an extra entry if you click on My Stampin' Up! site and request my newsletter.

5. You will receive 10 extra entries if you make an online purchase at my Stampin' Up! site.

6. Please make sure you have a valid e-mail address listed somewhere in your comment (or link to your blog) so that I can contact you.

7. I will use a random number generator to find a winner around 10:00 A.M. (EST) Monday November 3. I'll be working all weekend and won't have a chance until then.

8. I will e-mail the winner to request a mailing address and post it here. If I don't hear from the winner within 48 hours of sending the e-mail, I will draw another winner.

My first ever challenge-WSC63

I just completed my first challenge! I've been seeing all sorts of wonderful creations, and I decided to join in. I really liked Beate's weekend sketch challenge #63. Here is what I came up with.

I've been working all weekend, but I was thinking of what I wanted to do all through yesterday and today. I had various ideas, but as always, the card didn't go in the direction I was first thinking. I used the Parisian Summer DSP along with Pink Pirouette and Bravo Burgundy. I used my marker to get just "kindness" from the Heard from the Heart stamp. I had the perfect size scraps to work with the Bird and Blooms Sizzlit. After I had everything done and was working on putting the layout together, I realized that I would have the burgundy flower on burgundy paper. To help it stand out, I added the dots with my white gel pen and mounted it with dimensionals. With this being my first challenge, I am quite pleased with how it came together. I really like this layout.

My first Christmas ornament of the year

I LOVE Christmas! I love everything about it, from the reason we celebrate it (the birth of Jesus, my Savior) to the decorating, spending time with friends and family, eating, giving gifts...all of it! And I especially love a homemade Christmas. So this is the first Christmas ornament that I have made this year. I found some great glittery felt at my local fabric store and immediately saw snowflakes. I took it home to my Sizzix snowflake #2 die and ran it through the machine. I wanted it stable, so I then took a piece of thicker cardstock (what comes with the DSP) and ran it through also. I stamped the greeting from Snow Swirled with Ballet Blue onto Bashful Blue cardstock, covered it with two-way glue, and then poured Dazzling Diamonds over the glue. I brushed a lot of the glitter off so that the greeting could still show through easily. I added a couple beads from the Pretties kit to some jewelry wire and twisted that around the bottom of the snowflake. I wasn't quite satisfied with it until I added the bling. Now I love it!

Card to welcome Shelle to Youth Haven-with my new "technique"

I created this card for the lady who is the new program manager here at Youth Haven. We are having a welcome dinner and pantry shower for her tonight. She gave us a list of pantry items that she uses, and us staff are giving here some of those items. This is the card that I made to include in that package. I stumbled upon the "technique" for it by accident when I was doing some stamped candles last week. I noticed that after I stamped on the tissue paper, some of the ink "leaked" through onto the scrap paper I had underneath. I thought it might look cool to "leak" onto a card. So that's what I did. I used flower images from Eastern Blooms with Pink Passion, Pumpkin Pie, and Ballet Blue. I placed my card underneath tissue paper and stamped onto the tissue paper. The look is similar to stamping off, but just a bit different. What do you all think? The sentiment is from Refuge and Strength. I attempted to die the white grosgrain with ballet blue, but I'm not quite satisfied with how it turned out. I guess I'll have to practice some more.

A special thank you gift

I created a thank you card and gift set for each of two of my friends, Abby and Joy. On Sunday afternoon (when it was a beautiful Indian Summer day), they washed my car. I was with them when they decided they were going to wash their own cars. I told them I didn't have the energy to do anything with mine, but that I would come outside and enjoy the day with them. They told me they would wash it for me. So I sat and read and watched them go above and beyond normal car washing. My heart filled with gratitude as they washed it, vacuumed it, cleaned and conditioned the vinyl, and cleaned the windows. I was extremely blessed by them doing all that for me. So here's what I did for them. I combined scallop square punches to make larger mats for the thank you sentiment. The So Saffron DSP (from Parisian Summer) is edged in So Saffron ink. And I added paper piercing on the bottom. I love paper piercing! When I need a little something extra but don't want to do something that could overwhelm the card, I add paper piercing. I did candle stamping with the bird from the Always set (one of my favorite images!) and a couple York patties with the flower from Always and more Parisian Summer DSP.

Gonna try this tomorrow

I found a cute idea tonight as I was blog hopping. But since I'm going to bed soon and done crafting for the night, I'll have to try it tomorrow. It's a little pouch (created by Buffy) made with two of the scallop envelope dies. Here's the link for you to see for yourself. The other projects in the post are great, but this is the one that stuck out to me. Enjoy!

Found a Great Freebie!

When we post pics to our blogs, we want them to look the best, right? And a great tool for that is Photoshop, right? And lots of us don't have the money for that software, right? Well, here's your chance to win Photoshop Elements 7! No, I'm not giving it away. But the ladies at The Secret is in the Sauce are. Click on this link to find out more and enter yourself.

Just wondering?

I just checked out my blog and found that someone from Francesville, IN was on here today. That's the small town that neighbors my even smaller home town (Medaryville.) So it could have been my mother (although I don't remember if I told her I started this blog) or someone just browsing. If the person from Francesville comes back and reads this, could you please leave a comment? I would love to know who you are.

Parisian Summer Thank You Cards

One of the ladies I work with asked me to make her some thank you cards. She is paying me quite well for them. I asked her, "Do you want them simple, elaborate, or in between?" She went with in between, and these are what I came up with. I used the retired Much Appreciated set, as well as Say it with Scallops and the Curly Label bundle. I just got my Parisian Summer DSP and wanted to use that. I used Very Vanilla for the base and took Pink Pirouette and Bravo Burgundy from the pattern of the flowered paper. The So Saffron plaid print is the reverse of the flower print. I hope she likes them as much as I do! If you have any questions about the details of any of the cards, please ask! And if you've fallen in love with Parisian Summer or any of the other supplies used on these cards, click on the "My Stampin' Up! site" link at the top right of this page and you can shop till you drop without even leaving your house!