I hate my laptop!

It has jammed up on me 5 times TONIGHT...so no new posts, just a rant.

Perhaps I'll be able to post something at work tomorrow...shhhhhh!

Just had to share...

These are my darlings - don't they look precious? Yes, they know who they have to "play nice" for, LOL!

Amazingly, the little one crawled up on to Santa's knee without any hesitation (should I be worried?). At the same age, her big sister didn't get a Santa photo - there was no way I could bring myself to buy the picture of her terrified little crying face. I regret it now...and it'll only get worse when she starts thinking that she didn't get to visit Santa when she was "nearly 2".

Just thought I'd share...

An oldie...

It was a busy weekend: dinner with friends, Dad's work's kids party, so I didn't get too much stamping done. Nor did I get any blogging done!



Anyways, this is an old card that I made this past summer - yes, summer. Back when I had every intention of having all my cards made and mailed out by December 1st - ha, who was I kidding?

The image is from Penny Black and the sentiment from CTMH's "Just for the Holidays" (in case you thought of asking, that sentiment set has been sitting ON my craft desk since summer - it would be pointless to put it away now!)

The tree is up (hubby did it yesterday while I took the kids to the Christmas party), but since we then went to my sister's house for a curry dinner (thanks Johanne and Glayde!), it has yet to be decorated. So, we have a sad sorry lighted and tinseled tree in our family room at the moment. Eat your heart out, Charlie Brown!

Snow Day in Calgary

...as in severe weather warning. But, since it wasn't snowing when I left for work this morning, I decided to drive. Now that I look outside, I'm wondering if that was the wisest decision I've ever made.

Anyways, in "honour" of the whirling whisps of white fluff outside, I am going to post my snowy Anya card (image from The Greeting Farm). The sentiment is from my heavily used CTMH set, "Just for the Holidays"


Here's a close-up of her snowy accessories (using Flower Soft in Ivory)



and the inside, lovingly decorated with the small holly and ivy stamps from the CTMH set.


Hope you're all keeping dry and warm out there. Wish me luck for the drive home...I hope it doesn't take hours and hours!

Happy Birthday Chris!

So, it was my birthday last Thursday and my best friend who just immigrated from England gave me a gorgeous Tiffany's necklace - she had to ask the sales clerk in T's if she could suggest anything for a friend who "doesn't really wear jewelery" (apparently the poor girl nearly passed out, LOL!). It's a gorgeous, but plain (just like me - hahahaha!) silver disc with a scrolly-L engraved on it.

Anyhow, said *friend* also gave me a rather sarcastic birthday card - some old biddies under the hairdriers at their local salon with an associated "old" sentiment...but that's alright, I had this set, Old Brawd, from Totally Stampalicious just waiting to be used on her (it's her birthday today - exactly one week after mine)!


I've also used the Stampalicious Sketch Challenge sketch. Who doesn't *love* a sketch to get the creative juices flowing?

The brads along the top and bottom of the vertical strip match each other (ie. the 3 top ones match, as do the 3 bottom ones, but they don't match *each other*). This goes back to when my darling nephew decided to rearrange my brad storage and upended the filled container! My sister was mortified, but I learned a valuable lesson: don't assume that just because your own kids don't mess with your stuff that anyone else's kids will be able to stay away. So now I have this lovely box of "assorted" Bazill brads!

My favourite part of the card is the inside sentiment:


You see, Chris is an IT Project Manager, so the "jab" is double-edged, LOL! The little mouse image is from Hanna Stamps.


The only part I'm regretting are these little Spica glitter dots that I've used to frame the image, but once I'd started, it was too late to stop. The smaller black dots were an attempt to save it, but although I like it a bit better, I'm still sorry I used the gold glitter pen to begin with.

Oh, well...

And Chris, "you'll always be older than me..." :)

2 Sketches 4 You challenge #40

This is the first time I've used a challenge for one of my blog posts, but when I saw the sketch at 2 Sketches 4 You and then saw that StarvingArtistamps was this weeks sponsor, well...I had to enter. I'm also a great fan of the "scheduled" post, but seeing as I don't have one lined up yet for tomorrow (or rather, midnight tonight), I thought I'd make the card, photograph it, pretty it up in PSE and upload it - whew! I'm exhausted, LOL!


This card uses the image of Coco the Polar Bear from StarvingArtistamps "Santa's Sweet Shoppe". The scarf is paper pieced using an old scrap of unknown DP. Coco is coloured with cool grey Copic markers and a bit of colourless blender (plus a bit of red and a bit of brown). Sorry, I'm not yet organized enough to tell exactly *which* markers I've used...



Coco's head is popped up on a 3-D Zot (as is the sentiment - from CTMH's "Just for the Holidays"). The border punch is by Martha Stewart.



I wanted to add a bit of sparkle to Coco, so I've painted on a bit of my SU (I guess it's made by Tsukineko) Frost White Shimmer Paint (or "All-Purpose Ink" as it says on the label). I didn't realize just how opaque the paint is, so I ended up using it rather sparsely (and sloppily) since it was covering up the stamped image.

Thanks for the great sketch challenge 2S4Y...and for helping me get another card finished for Christmas!

Happy Christmas to All...

I got this image from an image swap on SCS and am still wondering if I should just bite the bullet and order the set "Wandering Words" since it's only available until January 4th. Growing up in Northern Ireland, we always said "Happy Christmas" instead of the more popular "Merry Christmas", so this image with built in sentiment really calls to me.



Again, I've used some of my favourite SU Dashing striped DP and have broken out a CTMH sentiment - I love circle sentiments that I can use some of my many SU circle punches with!



That same CTMH set (Just For the Holidays) has the ivy leaves and holly berries stamps you can see that I've stamped on the inside.

Twilight...

Well, I've been indoctrinated into the club (cult?). Curiosity got the better of me and I asked for the Twilight books for my birthday, and DH bought me the first 2 books. I am already halfway through the first book - they really are an easy read to wind down at bedtime. I've actually missed reading since I started driving to work...I was reading around 2 books a week when I was taking the train. Lately, I've been too tired by bedtime to think about reading.



So, I was inspired to ink up TGF's Edward again now that I "know" him, LOL!

I gave myself some artistic license with his hair, but I was having so much fun with the streaks - and they were looking so good (if I do say so myself)


I dug out some eyelets and blew the dust of my Cropadile to give it some industrial "edge" - not to mention how well they seemed to go with the Diamond Plate embossing folder (the one that you can hardly see - haha!)

I get the impression that Edward wouldn't dress as grungily as this, but hey, I don't know him that well yet!