Prairie Paper & Ink

Monogrammed Wedding Gift

(all these pictures can be clicked on to get a pop-up window with a larger view).

My sets from November's Papertrey release were late (gotta love the fact that the strong Canadian $ has resulted in an online ordering spree coupled with the holiday season and everything is taking twice as long to get to me!!) and I'm just getting projects done with them now.

Here's the first project I've made so far. I started with Spiral Bouquet and the "Bride & Groom" sentiment stamps from the Piece of Cake set and 3 colors of ink (Tempting Turquoise, Certainly Celery and Chocolate Chip Classic inks by Stampin' Up!) and stamped a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11" white card stock. After I took the picture I decided to use my Color Spritzer and Chocolate Chip marker and added light spritz of color all over the paper (you can see that in the finished picture at the end).

I've had this little wooden box from Michaels sitting here for months now (I think I paid $1.50 for it? It was really cheap!) so I thought it would be great to turn into a customized gift container.

I flipped over the paper I stamped and traced out each side of the box with a pencil. All sides of the box (including the bottom) fit on the paper with some left over to spare.

I then cut out each piece then adhered it to the box with Mod Podge. Any rough edges I sanded with files from my Basic Gray precision file set.

Of course to customize the gift I used Papertrey's new Ambassador Monogram Edition along with the new Borders & Corners Monogram Edition.

I stamped the circular frame from the B&E Monogram Edition set onto white card stock, then stamped the M from the Ambassador Monogram Edition inside it. I used an Extra Jumbo Scalloped Circle punch (the yellow punch) to punch it out, and matted it with a Super Jumbo Scalloped Circle (the blue punch) punched out of Tempting Turquoise card stock.

I wrapped a length of brown satin ribbon around the box (I used double-sided tape to adhere it) before adhering the monogram - and I used dimensionals on the white scalloped circle.

The card was made using the extra bit of stamped card stock left from covering the box.

I sized the card to fit inside the box (it measures 3.75" square).

I used my 3/16" Corner Rounder Punch to scallop the edge of the stamped card stock, added some Certainly Celery CS and ribbon then the same type of monogram as the box to keep it all unified.

I Can't Believe

that I forgot to upload this!!

This is the birthday card Veronica made for Josie - she drew everything herself and had me write out "Happy Birthday Josie, Love Veronica" and then traced over it.

There was "empty space" between the words (or so Veronica said) so she filled it with a "picture of Josie in her dress" ----- LOL!!

Thank you everyone for all the sweet comments and birthday wishes - Josie got a kick out of seeing her picture on the computer. She doesn't quite "get" what the comments are but **I** really appreciated them! My blog IS mainly a stamping blog but being a mom I HAVE to gush about my kids every once in a while *wink*!!

Some Birthday Pics

Well I was right - Josie had a blast at the party and BOTH girls went totally nuts over the gifts!! It was a lot of fun and I took loads of pictures so here's just a few:

Blowing out the candle.

Sharing the smarties off her cake (I guess smarties in the US are a totally different thing then what they are here in Canada - for us Smarties are just like M&M's except they're a little larger/flatter and the chocolate inside them is way sweeter (I prefer M&M's tho! *wink*))

Opening her gifts (I wish I had had a video camera during this part - the girls were going NUTS over the gifts and being so silly).

Feeding her new baby (the look on her face here is hilarious!).

Dancing in her new dress from the Princess dress-up chest (I KNEW that was going to be a hit!)

The girls LOVE these dresses (I heard Veronica tell Tim that she's wearing this one to curch next Sunday - ROLFOL!!) and they're wearing them right now too.

I would have killed for stuff like this when I was little - and I got the whole set-up at Costco for like $35 and it included 3 dresses and accessories and a chest to store them all in (have I mentioned how much I LOVE Costco??).

Snowbunnybella

My house is completely silent right now - it's a very odd feeling!! Tim's at a bowling tournament (he'll get home right before Josie's party starts) and his parents have the girls for church and lunch - so it's just me here......I have stew going in the crock pot, veggies peeled and dips made, my mom is baking the birthday cake, and my house is mostly clean *wink*.

I gotta say life is GOOD!!! *grin* I just need to dig out Josie's presents and wrap them and I'm good to go....

ANYWHO - I've been on a major bella kick the past couple of days - I pulled a bunch of them out and have been stamping for FUN (and man did I ever need that - when working on multiple deadlines and release dates and everything else stamping can become more of a chore and that's NOT a good thing).

Here's one of the cards I made using snowbunnybella and a sentiment from A Muse (from their new Holiday Greetings clear stamp set).

I colored the bella in with Copic markers, then filled in all the "fuzzy" areas with liquid applique. I had INTENDED to put Dazzling Diamonds (Stampin' Up!) glitter over it before heating it - but accidentally used Iridescent Ice embossing powder instead! However it still worked - the LA puffed up and it just wasn't AS glittery as it would have been if I had used just glitter.

I used Taken with Teal and Basic Gray card stocks (both from SU!) on the card, then added a gray Prima Esprit (from the black collection).

For the flower center I used a Glitter Dot (these were from the Icicle pack) - this was the first time I've ever used them and I think they're really cool! The backs of them are plain and flat so you can use a dab of glue or a mini glue dot (I used glue dots) to adhere them and that's it!

The ribbon is from WalMart or Michaels (by Offray).

............................................................................

Now I'm off to wrap presents and have a shower and get ready for tonight (I'm so excited for this party - it's going to be pretty low key but I KNOW Josie is going to go NUTS! Veronica will too for that matter - one of the gifts we got for Josie is really for both of them (a princess dress up chest) since they LOVE to dress up).

Don't forget that the deadline to apply for the All That Scraps Design Team is tonight!! You can find out all the info you need to know here!!

Growing Up....

It's the 1st of December - which means my baby is 2 years old today!!

We're having her little party tomorrow since Tim has to work today (which is a good thing anyway b/c it gives me more time to clean the house and wrap the gifts!!)

I took these pics of her this morning to share with everyone on here (and YES I DO think she's the cutest little girl in the WHOLE WORLD!!! And I can get away with saying that b/c I'm her mom *wink*)

Of course no housecoat ensemble is complete without purple Barbie winter boots (at least they're still pretty clean - she will NOT take them off and I'm tired of fighting over it....) - on the wrong feet too LOL.

JOSIE!!!

CC Designs NEW STAMPS!!

FYI CC Designs released all the new winter stamps EARLY! They're all available NOW instead of December 7th - you can see them all here:

CC Designs Little Bit Kits

They are available in wood mount and EZ mount sets (and they're CHEAP!) and there are also a couple of "Little Single Bits" which are individual stamps.

The wood-mounted sets are on pre-order status until the wood blocks arrive - I'm thinking next week? The EZ mount sets will be shipping out ASAP tho!

Sadly I don't have any samples of my own to show (my sets have been seriously delayed by Canada Post - having such a strong $ is awesome but with the influx of online ordering and it being the holiday season all my parcels are taking MUCH longer to get here from the US!) HOWEVER check out all the blogs of the girls on my ATS Design Team and you see TONS of fabulous samples - they've all really outdone themselves!!

SU! Retired List is Up!!!

The retiring list for Stampin' Up!'s Fall & Winter Collection is now available! You can download it right here:

Download CAN_Retired_List_PGNUM_1207.pdf <------click! (it's an Adobe file so you need Adobe reader to be able to see it - you can get that for FREE here <-----click!)

Now I need to go through all my sets and see what all I have that's retiring.........