etsy Christmas blowout

Check out what's happening now on my Etsy shop! :D

---HOLIDAY SPECIAL OFFER---
Now through 31 Dec only, FREE With Every Purchase, Your Choice Of:
- 5 card set with sentiment of your choice, made just for you
OR
- 10 tag holiday set, made just for you
Please indicate your choice and sentiment, if applicable, {happy birthday, thank you, love you, etc} when placing your order!

---HOLIDAY SPECIAL OFFER #2---
BUY ONE GET ONE FREE! While supplies last, buy any one Christmas card or set and get any other one Christmas card or set {of equal or lesser value} for FREE! That's right- free! Please include in the comments which card or set you would like to receive!

merry CHRISTmas

Merry CHRISTmas

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”- Isaiah 9:6

May Christ Jesus' blessings be upon you not only this Christmas but throughout the year. May His Peace, Joy, and Love be felt in your life always.

a few good Christmas cards

in honor of Christmas Eve, a few last Christmas cards to share :) may you each be blessed with the Love and Joy of Christ in this Christmas season! and may you each have a very blessed year ahead :) I'll likely be taking the remainder of the year off from blogging and look forward to joining everyone in the new year!! i might post a card or two here and there, we'll see how long i can stay away from the craft supplies ;) hehe!
*huggs*- Shauna

get sketchy with it

Get Sketchy is hosting a Basic Grey blog candy! whoohoo :D and it's a big one!!! so head on over and {check it out}!!! if you enter, feel free to mention that Shauna sent ya ;) hehe! let's help Get Sketchy get to 700 followers!

Merry CHRISTmas Eve all!!!

hangin' with Unity

so I love Lucy Abrams' style of card design. These two were kinda inspired by her :) i just recently got these two Unity stamps and just had to use them! So I took some style notes from Lucy and came out with these :) I love them hehe. they're both currently up on my Etsy site.

support our troops

i wish I had a better photo, but here's a bunch of "yellow ribbon" cards i made for the craft fair on-post about a month ago. that was an adventure, but glad to have at least gotten my name out a bit :) love these cards though! I also made some similar ones with our division's crest. hoping to sell these at our on-post gift shop!

in support of our troops, Xerox is doing an awesome thing right now! Head over to Let's Say Thanks, where you simply choose a card design, put in your name and town, select a thank you greeting and done! Xerox will print out all the cards and send them to troops :) What a wonderful Christmas gift :) Please, it takes 2 minutes and it will really brighten the day of a soldier!

cookies

{above: dark chocolate-dipped shortbread sprinkled with coarse salt}

wow! so a few weeks ago I was on a baking spree with a fellow Army wife- we baked cookies for our husbands' company {~75 soldiers} and then made more cookies just for our DHs. we had 5 cooling racks going pretty much the whole time! we made an assortment of 5 types of cookies. here's just a bit of the deliciousness we prepared... all of these recipes are from an insert in the latest Food Network Magazine! I can post the recipes later if anyone's interested though :) other yummy goodness I made included pecan bars, raspberry linzer, oatmeal raisin, and maple nut muffins made with buckwheat flour. and you know I had to sample all these before we sent them... just to make sure they were OK ;)

{below: whoopie pies with marshmallow fluff filling... usually done with a cream filling, but obviously that wouldn't ship overseas well hehe!}


{above: Ohio Buckeyes- like the Buckeyes you can buy at Cracker Barrel!}

{below: the final product- 5 gallon and 5 quart bags of cookies we made for the company, not including the individual cookies for our DHs}

baby card

this was a custom order for my aunt, obviously for a baby girl :)

.: materials :.
{cardstock} DCWV, unknown, {inks} Memento, Martha Stewart, {stamps} Hero Arts baby feet, Martha Stewart alphabet, {ribbon} Offray,

snowflakes, snowmen, and thank yous- oh my!

these cute lil snowmen are from a JoAnn holiday stack, as is the background snowflake paper. This was a custom order for my aunt. Vellum was from my stash, as is the cardstock, Inkadinkado sentiment, Recollections gems, and Memento ink.




Another custom order for my aunt. The red DP is MakingMemories, the other DP I received in a blog candy but I don't know offhand who it's by. The cardstock is mostly DCWV, Offray ribbon, Memento ink, and I believe Anna Griffin sentiment with Recollections gems.




this was another custom order for another one of my aunts. the snowflakes are all various scraps of paper in assorted colors. I used the nestabilities snowflake set, Inkadinkado sentiment, and Memento ink. Brads and cardstock are from my stash.

non-traditional Christmas card

wow! so it's been a while since I've done a challenge... especially for Dawn's Raspberry Suite Color Challenge or 2 Sketches 4 You! Well, when I saw this week's color challenge, I don't know why, but I wanted to make a non-traditional colored Christmas card with them :) I love Dawn's color challenges- so great! And who doesn't love 2S4Y's sketches- also great! This is Shanna's bonus sketch. So I combined the two- fairly happy with the outcome. I'm on vaca, so I don't have all my supplies with me, I'd probably do that tag part a bit differently if I made this again, which I might! :) I was ruffling through all my papers that I brought, and trying to figure out how to put the colors together, when I realized I'd brought this ribbon with me, and bingo! It had 3 of the colors- rust, chocolate, and a light teal/blue :D perfect... and thus, the card was born!


.: materials :.
{cardstock} bazzill, DCWV, {ribbon} Michaels, {stamp} inkadinkado, {ink} stampcraft, {button} unknown- got it in a swap, {twine} from Michaels, {eyelets} we r memory keepers, {border punch} fiskars

a different kind of Christmas poem

...a dear friend emailed this poem to me, and I wanted to share, it's worth the read...

please remember our troops around the world, especially this Christmas season. Xerox is doing a lovely thing over on Let's Say Thanks, you simply pick a card design, put in your name and town, pick a thank you greeting, and they print and send it to a soldier. It only takes 2 minutes of your time, and I know our troops really appreciate the words of thanks :)

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.

Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.

My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know,
Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.

My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.

A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"

For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts.
To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said "It’s really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night."

"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.
No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at 'Pearl on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.
I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.

Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother.
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."
"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."

"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."

SPCC #28

Yays! My second SP Diva card :) LOVE the color combos that Samantha comes up with, so be sure to join in on the fun every week over at SPCC- don't forget there's some awesome prizes to win too!!
This week's prize: from iCopic.com!!

SP Color Combo #28


my card for SPCC#28
.: materials :. {cardstock} the paper company, {DP} dcwv, {brads} recollections, {inks} memento, {stamps} Unity, {pearls} Recollections
initially, I was totally stumped on how to work these colors together... I had just gotten a load of Unity stamps during their huge sale, and really wanted to use them.. honestly, i LOVE how this card came together :D definitely will be using this LO and colors together again! and this is totally perfect for Allsorts' "pearls and swirls" challenge this week!




To enter this week's challenge:
add a DIRECT link to your blog post in Mister Linky over at {SPCC}! Please provide the DIRECT link to your project entry! {directions on how to do that over on the SPCC blog!} If you don't have a blog, email Sam a photo of your project at scrapmastersparadise@yahoo.com with your name, and she will get your project added.

Entries are due on Monday, December 21th at Noon PST

tip junkie holiday

tip junkie is having a "virtual tour of homes" and I decided to join in! since DH is deployed, the holiday spirit isn't in full bloom this year, not to mention I'll be going to my parents' for Christmas so it's kinda silly to have all of my own decorations hehe!

the "mantle" if we had one... click on the photo for larger view


coffee table: cranberry and candle accents with holiday table runner


dining room centerpiece: cranberries with PartyLite candles and holders


head on over to Tip Junkie to check out the other bloggers' holiday homes! while you're there, please check out the amazing event:

Blog . Bid . Hope

hot cocoa treats

these were for a hot chocolate swap over on SCS. next time I make these I'll make another layer for the stamped image! but I do like the papers together :)

.: materials :.
{paper} bazzill kraft, JoAnn, {staples} makingmemories, {stamp} JustRite, {ink} memento

special holiday Etsy offer

Please feel free to visit my Etsy shop to fulfill your holiday needs! Don't see what you're looking for? Send me a message and we'll set up a custom order! Cards, gift tags and more available upon request :)

---HOLIDAY SPECIAL OFFER---
Now through 31 Dec only, FREE With Every Purchase, Your Choice Of:
- 5 card set with sentiment of your choice, made just for you
OR
- 10 tag holiday set, made just for you
Please indicate your choice and sentiment, if applicable, {happy birthday, thank you, love you, etc} when placing your order!

gift boxes

another scheduled post whilst I wrap up Christmas care packages for my deployed DH.
here are a few gift packages for hubby :) they're done using tutorials from SCS.
{please excuse the poor lighting... I was on vacation at the time}

ornament

so I guess I ran out of scheduled posts, hehe. still runnin around crazy gettin my DH's Christmas care packages out! a fellow Army wife and I spent the last four days baking an absurd amount of cookies, both for our own husbands and their company.



so here's a few more scheduled posts whilst I wrap up the care packages :)
this is an ornament that I made for my mum's bank. it had to have something to do with banking {hence the dollar sign} and they wanted origami too... also the ribbon has the bank's logo on it, so had to use that too! Oh! And this was my first time using my brandy-new Crop-A-Dile! LOVE it :D and now my neighbors won't complain about me hammering my eyelets :P

UPDATED: December 2012

OK, so this one isn't much to look at, but you can easily spruce this up! I had limited supplies at the time when I made this ;) Stiff cardstock would make a beautiful ball shape. This would also be a neat way to gift money as a gift!!

Supplies

Patterned paper/cardstock

ribbon

eyelet(s) & eyelet setter

2 brads

hole puncher

money or "money"

Instructions

(1) Cut cardstock into strips

(2) Punch holes into each end of the strips

(3) To start to create the ball, insert a single brad into the hole at top of each strip. 

(4) In my ornament, I photocopied a dollar bill so I wouldn't be punching a hole into a real dollar bill. So decide if you just want decorative "money" or want to use real money. 

(5) Create your origami dollar sign (I used the directions found here) using your "money" or money :)

(6) If using fake "money," simply use a hole puncher and an eyelet and attach to the ribbon. If using real money, perhaps gently use a bit of tape to create a flap at the top and set an eyelet in the tape flap (so you don't destroy the dollar!). Or maybe you could come up with a better way to attach the money!

(7) Cut ribbon to desired length and punch a hole at each end of the ribbon.

(8) Thread each end of the ribbon onto the second brad.

(9) To finish creating the ball, Repeat Step 3 using the second brad and the hole at the bottom of each strip. Now fan out the strips evenly to create the ball.

If any of those instructions are a little fuzzy, feel free to email or leave a comment, and I'll try and get you some clearer directions :)

recipe cards

here are some more links to projects I've been working on lately whilst on vacation! they're in my SCS gallery because again I don't much feel like uploading them in two places :P

DH and I love to cook- the rice n beans is pretty much a staple in our household :) the cornbread is a really neat gift in a jar!

Blue Cornbread with Pineapple
Rice & Beans

This set of cards was for a swap over on Creatively Green! Awesome forum and green scrappin' company :)

bonanza of ATCs

so I've been hard at work this past week doing a bunch of swaps... here are some of the ATCs :) they're all links over to my SCS/CG galleries because I don't feel like uploading them all again :P I know, I'm lazy... but take a visit, I don't think you'll be sorry... or at least I hope you won't be sorry! hehe

i apologize for the poor photos- I was on vacation and so the photo shooting setting was less than ideal!

Food ATC
Love Beyond Measure
Apron: Fresh Baked

PAT 13
Colors
Holidays
{close up of Holidays' altered Christmas tree ATC}
Embellishments
Fairy Tale Story/Character
Fictional Character


Movie Quote ATCs
Grease
The Lion King
The Wizard of Oz

Christmas ATC
Silent night Holy night

i'm an SPCC Diva

so back to the crafting posts {finally!} thank you everyone for bearing with me through this *dry* posting spell. I've been crazy busy- the holidays do that do ya hehe ;) the rest of the week will be a bit busy still, baking for my hubby, his platoon, and his company and getting their care packages out the door headed overseas to hopefully arrive by Christmas! If I can get my act together I'll set up some auto-posts to share the fun things I've been doing lately, hehe :)

and don't forget about the cyber monday extended offer at my Etsy shop! Free custom made 5 card set with sentiment of your choice- with every order!

whohoo! so I can finally share with you all my first creation as an SPCC Diva! Whoohoo! Hehe. I'm so excited and honored to be part of my first design team :) LOVE the color combos that Samantha comes up with, so be sure to join in on the fun every week over at SPCC- don't forget there's some awesome prizes to win too!!
This week's prize: from iCopic.com!!

SP Color Combo #26


my card for SPCC#26
{sorry the image is so washed out... my craft room was torn apart from the craft fair I had just done so this wasn't my usual photo shoot area!}
.: materials :. {cardstock} the paper company, {DP} making memories, dcwv, {brad} recollections, {ink} memento, {stamp} inkadinkado



To enter this week's challenge:
add a DIRECT link to your blog post in Mister Linky over at {SPCC}! Please provide the DIRECT link to your project entry! I am going to provide some directions for posting a direct link because not everyone knows how. I have had to correct many links and I hope this will help.
If you don't have a blog, email me a photo of your project at scrapmastersparadise@yahoo.com with your name, and I will get your project added.

Entries are due on Monday, December 7th at Noon PST

cyber monday extended offer

in the spirit of Thanksgiving and Christmas, the Cyber Monday special has been extended all week! Just click on my shop in the right sidebar and take a look :D

...................................................................................................................................................
---CYBER MONDAY EXTENDED OFFER---
30 NOV- 7 DEC, one week only, FREE CUSTOM MADE 5 CARD SET WITH EVERY PURCHASE-sentiment of your choice!!! Made JUST for YOU!! HURRY!!!
...................................................................................................................................................