Merry Sparkly Christmas!

Hello there stamping friends!  

Today I'm sharing another Christmas creation I made for my stack of Christmas Wishes this year. I've been creating TWO of each style of Christmas card I make lately, and I'm glad I'll have a personal copy.  I think this one is one of my most favorite this year!

I got a big box of FSJ stamps, dies, and goodies in the mail the other day and I was so excited to play this weekend.  I used a couple of the sets here.  Well, Three sets here!  Winter Season (love the elegance), Modern Tags (oops- I need to get the dies next- fussy cut it this time!) and You Deerly (love the deer in particular)

The background was stamped with Cranberry Bliss ink.  The sentiment panel was stamped onto ButterCream cardstock.  The deer and sentiment panel were stamped with Cocoa Powder ink.  I distressed everything with ButterCream ink.  I colored the sentiment with a few Copic markers too.  The whole cardfront (Pool Play and Cocoa Powder) was attached to a Cocoa Powder card base.  

As you take a closer peek, you'll see that I attached some Candy Apple satin ribbon, a red sparkly snowflake (purchased at Walmart) and a little jingle bell (also from Walmart) with some Journey Natural Twine.  I also added some Journey glaze over the sentiment to give a bit of shine.

Cozy Wishes and...Coffee...

Hello there Stamping Friends!

Today I'm joining the BILLIONS ;) of stampers worldwide as we hop, hop, hop on the Holiday Coffee Lovers Hop.  It's such a fun and inspirational hop and I look forward to visiting each and every blog (It takes a DAYS, but it's worth it!) to be inspired and filled with cafe love...and maybe a few teas here and there too.

I decided to play along a few times and this is my first group of cards.  This is a new Kit of the Month set called Cozy Wishes by Fun Stampers Journey.  I like the little knitted cozy around the mug and it was easy to add a bit of Copic coloring to the knit pattern.  The mug was attached to a background I created with one of my new FSJ stencils and some modeling paste.  I just received these supplies in the mail the other day and was ITCHING to play this weekend!  WOO!   A little distressing over the background after it was dry and it made the stencil pattern come to life.  Added a few strips of FSJ washi tape, a jingle bell, a red sparkly star from Walmart and a little stamped tag finish it off!

Isn't it yummy?!?!

I turned this mug into a gift card holder.  Although the first card doesn't show a gift card, it too will hold a gift card and will be sent to someone special this Christmas.  On this second card, I changed the color of the background distressing and added a little Rudolph image from another FSJ set I love. 

 Some Stickles sparkle was all it needed to make it "fancy".  LOL

And there you have it!  My first contribution to the hop.  I'll be back again tomorrow (or Tuesday) to add one more project.  I know you'll love it.   And....to one lucky blog READER, there will be a sneaky coffee themed prize...Let's see who will read and not just preview/scan/picture walk and comment (I'm an elementary school teacher and I have quite a bit of experience with "picture walks") ha ha ha. 

Want to join the hop?  You have until Dec. 18 to participate.  Just create a card with the coffee/tea theme and link-up your post with the blog HERE

All items used (except the tiny jingle bell, seam binding, Walmart Sparkly snowflake, and the Red Stickles on Rudolph's nose) on these cards are Fun Stampers Journey products and can be purchased through a coach (I'm a coach!) via my webstore.  If you're interested in purchasing this exclusive Kit of the Month, feel free to contact me, I'd be happy to help you.  

Cozy Wishes...

Hello Journey Friends!

Welcome to December!  WOO HOO.  I'm getting excited about the colder weather and the possibility for SNOW.  Yes, I LOVE snow!  It's the perfect partner to toasty PJ's and tasty hot drinks.  This month, FSJ is releasing the newest Kit of The Month that is PERFECT for winter, coffee lovers, hot chocolate lovers, tea lovers, etc.

Introducing:  Cozy Wishes!

My kit will be arriving in just a few more days and I can't wait to get started creating.  I can't wait to decorate the mug with lots of festive images.  WAHOO!!!

Interested in joining the KOTM club with me?  Here are the details:

Big Partnership Announcement!

Oh my goodness!  I'm so excited today!  This week has become an amazing week of awesome news and I'm so excited to share a little bit of it with you today.  Richard Garay announced today that FSJ has formed a partnership with Webster's Pages to create an exclusive line of Planners and planning products for FSJ.  I am SO excited!!!  Make sure you head over to Richard's blog because he's offering a chance at a few FUN stamp sets...All you have to do is comment, like and share.  (You can also check him out on Instagram and Twitter!)  ;)

Obviously, you can see from the photos that I ALREADY have a Color Crush planner and have been having a ball trying to keep myself organized while also having a fun stampy time embellishing my pages.  

When I heard the news, I was thrilled!  I drove home this evening ready to add more fun to my planner (I had already done my November cover page and hadn't shared it yet.  Take a peek below:  

I hadn't finished embellishing my planner page for this week so I climbed upstairs to my crappy room and got to work.  I guess I was a bit over-excited because I just now noticed that I used a 10- instead of an 11 for the date.  OOPS!  Don't you just hate that?!?  I guess I'll be heading back to my crappy room to do a little fixin' later!

I've been working on a Bible reading program and my planner is a great place to reflect on the passages and document each reading.  It's a constant reminder to keep the faith!  :)  

I also worked on creating some fun little planner clips.  I used Fimo clay (baked with my heat gun) and FSJ acrylic paints to color the disks.  I burnished the colored disks with some Oatmeal cookie ink and rubbed off the paint on the flowers to give it a rustic "dirty" look.  I also added a bit of Journey Glaze and Sparkle Dust. 

Merry and Bright

Hello Journey friends, 

Today I'm sharing the start of my Christmas card collection for this year.  Today I made a couple of these cards while playing around with the sketch challenge at Creative Blooms.  Each month, I host a sketch challenge and a color challenge and I hope that other stampers will join the fun.  I don't typically use a lot of patterned paper (I tend to hoard that because I don't want to cut it up) and I usually create my own designed/embellished papers.  

In creating this patterned paper, I used some pool play cardstock as my base.  I placed some of the snowflake elements (iridescent acetate snowflakes) onto my gelli plate then spread Journey Gesso over that.  I removed the snowflakes (and washed them in warm water) then applied the gelli plate to my cardstock.  After that, I spritzed the paper with cool pool splash and Shimmer Gold Splash. That's IT!  

For the tree (I used the Nature Trees) I applied some Copic dots for lights and some golden Liquid Pearls for dimension.  I mounted the card panel onto Butter Cream cardstock and then onto an Oatmeal Cookie cardstock base.  I stamped the sentiment with the new Tag Elements ATS.  

Look at that yummy goodeness!  Love the shimmer.  Because I inked up a whole A2 panel, I was able to cut it in half and use it on two cards!  WOO HOO!

Hope you enjoyed this project. I'll probably Periscope a tutorial sometime later in the week.  Stay tuned and watch my Instagram and Facebook for a heads up!

Happy Birthday!

Hello there Journey friends,

Today I'm sharing a card I created for one of my sisters.  It's her birthday on November 3 and I thought I'd send her a special care package with this card.  I hope she enjoys it.  I used the Happy Birthday stamp I received this year from Richard Garay and Team FSJ for my birthday this month.  

Her favorite color is purple so I used a lot of purple in this card.  It's not a color I'm drawn to so to make it palatable to me, I add red and blues.  I think it makes it a bit more "sweet" when red is added. LOL...  I used el-cheapo watercolors for the background and some watercolor paper (OH I WISH FSJ would offer watercolor paper).  

I'm working on destashing my big collection of wood veneer stars (I have TONS), so I'm using them a lot.  I think they're going to make a HUGE appearance on Christmas Cards this year!  SOOO BE PREPARED!  

Some say they love to see the Copic colors I use in my creations so I've started taking some pictures of the whole lot.  I'm happy with the picture quality of my new Iphone so it's become quite easy to just grab the bunch to take a quick shot before putting them away.

Brownie Bombs are the BOMB

 Hey Journey friends,

Halloween is over and I can share the yummy treats I made to share with friends.  They were a big tasty hit!  I had a few left over so I secretly mailed some to my sister for her birthday November 3...HEE HEE...A little after-Halloween trick and treat!

I loved being able to use the spooky set from Fun Stampers Journey to add a more festive feel to these treats.  I have some neon colored Copics that I very rarely use and they came in handy for the eyeballs in a jar.

 To give a bit more gore to the treat, I splattered some Cranberry Bliss Silk onto the skull images.  This Silk is more blood-like than shimmery, so it worked perfectly.

Of course I had to sample some so you could see the inside of the bomb.  MMMMM...Brownies and chocolate chip cookie dough.  So delish.

The wrappers and the paper straws were purchased in the dollar spot at Target.  So perfect!

If you're interested in the Brownie Bomb recipe I used, it's quite simple:

Each bomb contains 2 mini brownies (from Wal-mart)
Brownies were stacked between a small ball of cookie dough.
The sticks were carefully poked through the brownie stack.
The brownie "pop" was dipped in melted chocolate chips.

I think next time I try Brownie Bombs, I'll use Peanut Butter and JELLY!