Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge 18

Happy Sunday stampers! The week zips by so quickly sometimes, hard to believe we're so close to Christmas now! But the reminder is the wonderful story in scripture that our hostess Kathy chose for this week from Luke 1:26-32.

"In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary.

The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored? The Lord is with you."

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David." (NIV)

This week's challenge is a sketch challenge. If you want to see the layout check out the home page here, where you also can catch a glimpse of the beautiful samples from other members of the design team.

My friend Linda in Maryland kept talking about all the snow they are getting this weekend, so when I went to my stamp table on Friday I had snow on the brain, so here you have yet another blue, silver and white card. I promise, I do have other colors in my stash. The one deviation I made from the sketch is that I incorporated my three dots or three little specks in the right hand corner into my circle otherwise they wouldn't have worked. Thanks for looking and we hope you get a chance to play along!

Stamps: Verve snowflake set (sentiment), Stampin' Up Scandinavian Season

Ink: silver craft

Paper: PTI spring rain, Holly something flocked DP, PTI white, silver and shimmery white dp random

Other: rhinestones, silver tinsel EP, snowflake punch, paper lace, SU fancy brad, silver cord, Martha Stewart chunky glitter

Frosted Windowpanes . . . Stampin' Sisters in Christ #17

Happy Sunday stampers! It is time for another challenge at Stampin' Sisters in Christ. This week's hostess is the talented Kristine, one of the challenge blog's founders. That makes her sound old or something . . ."founder." :) She's not!

Her verse this week is from Matthew 6:19-20 "Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal." And the challenge this week is to use 'treasures' on your card, gems, pearls, glitter, bling! Bling it up!

Our sponsor this week is Simon Says Stamp. Any stamper who enters a card using bling is eligible to win the cutest little stamp set! I think I might create an anonymous account and enter to win it myself. :)

This card is blingy but you can tell I had winter on my mind because we have a good covering of snow and if you live where you get lots of snow you know all about the glitter it reflects when the sun is shining on it. Also, the other day my window in the kitchen was completed frosted over and I wondered if you could recreate that look in a card.

Not only does this card use a lot of bling or treasure, I also thought of what we as women so often treasure in our hearts . . . our homes. That's where our family is, that is where we hope to have love, togetherness, peace, rest and warmth. We will have all those things and more in our heavenly homes but I wish you all of that and more during this Christmas season.

So, for the card . . . I used Tim Holtz' distress crackle in Rock Candy for the first time a little over a week ago and I'm addicted. I think I need to get a gallon jug instead of the cute little bottle they sell . . . there has to be a gallon jug for refills somewhere.

I painted the crackle on a piece of acetate and pasted it in the opening of my card for my 'window.' In the close up you can tell that you really can see the scene on the inside of my shadowbox card, except when the light is reflecting directly off the crackle.

I stamped SU's backgrounder Fine Lace in white craft on white and embossed with white detail powder. Then stamped the wreath in silver and added silver tinsel embossing powder. Loaded it up with gems and stickles for my wreath's baubles.

I stamped the house from Stampin' Up's To You & Yours inking it in Brilliant Blue and then overinking with Not Quite Navy to tone it down. Then I toned it 'up' by using the dazzling diamond dust technique over the image. For that you press a versamark pad on your image, sprinkle with Irridescent Ice embossing powder and emboss. The whole thing sparkles amazingly, hard to capture in a photo. Stamped and added the sentiment, added a ribbon to complement the bling and voila! My winter scene. You are inside with your white wallpaper looking through the frosty window, framed by the wreath at your neighbor's house nearby, at twilight, which is why their house is blue. :) Thanks for looking, hope you're able to play along this week.

Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge

Happy Sunday stampers! It is time for another challenge from Stampin' Sisters in Christ. This week's hostess is Ceal, who chose the verse from 2 Chronicles 7:14 "If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

The challenge this week is to make a card or project using images of people such as children, men or women, to let someone know you are praying for them.

This is the same image I used in my last post, so a bit of an explanation is in order. We are redoing our kitchen and that's where I usually stamp. We're installing new cabinets and my husband is doing all the work himself. We've had no countertops or cabinets for two months now and we're moving closer to that happy day, slowly, but this weekend he's working on replacing drywall that had to be torn out to work on the pipes. Then it has to be taped and sanded. Then we paint. Then we start to put up new cabinets.

So everything that was IN the kitchen is now somewhere else in the house. There are very few places you can walk downstairs without stepping over a box of dishes or food items. And with the drywall installation there is dust over everything. Let me emphasize that . . . everything. So I used the items I had pulled out for my last project for this card, because any time I stamp I have to dig things out of boxes in the garage. It just makes stamping (and cooking) a bit of a challenge, but one day we'll all be put together again.

Back to the important stuff, Ceal's passage is a great reminder to us to spend some time in prayer this week. Did you know the bible contains 500 passages that refer to prayer? An important topic and one of our most accessible means of building a relationship with God. You can pray any time, anywhere. "If my people . . . humble themselves . . . " -- humility is the attitude to seek as you approach God when you pray. You can pray while driving in the car, while taking a walk . . . any time during the day, it isn't your external but your internal posture that matters. It is a good idea to have a quiet place in your home to pray, to get down on your knees, but prayer isn't limited to a time, location or physical position, so try to find yourself in prayer more often than not this week.

When I'm stumped over how to use an image, I always find a good sketch will help clear the roadblocks. I had all these pieces of things that I wanted to use, so I went to Priscilla Styles blog to look up this week's sketch challenge. The sketch for this week helped me out tremendously. You'll find the challenge for sketch #30 here. I turned the sketch on its side and moved the position of the little 'circle' in the sketch to be my sentiment. The image is double layered. I stamped the angel twice and embossed the frame in the frame in the bottom layer with irridescent ice EP. The whole card sparkles quite a bit IRL. Thanks for looking!

Stamps: Magenta, Clear Dollar Stamps (sentiment)

Ink: Distress inks in Faded Jeans, Broken China, Concord Grape, Weathered Wood, black craft

Paper: PTI white, SU shimmer white, black, PTI Spring Rain

Other: Rock Candy crackle distress paint, pearls, snowflakes, irridescent ice EP, rhinestone, prismacolor pencils, snowflake cuttlebug embossing folder, dazzling diamonds glitter

Tim Holtz 12 Days of Tags -- Day one

I know I'm a bit behind the times with posting my first tag for Tim Holtz 12 Tags of Christmas. You can find his gorgeous creations here. I understand he is getting tens of thousands of hits every day. This is the third year he is presenting Christmas tags for twelve days. Today is day four I believe, but I just finished up my tags for day one.

I used distress inks in Faded Jeans, Broken China, Weathered Wood and Concord Grape. I use wax paper for the misting technique, it works just as well I think, as any other extremely smooth surface, when you're done, just crumple it up and toss it away. This is the first time I've used the distress crackle paint, kind of cool! I like it. However, I took his instructions too literally and really spread the stuff on thick for my first tag attempt and the paper could not hold that much moisture, it curled up and couldn't be salvaged. I wouldn't say spread it on like frosting, I'd say spread it on with a generous hand but don't make the layer too thick.

I didn't have a snowman image to use, as was illustrated in day one's example, but I like the Magnolia image with these color. I embossed it in black first, spread a bit of white over the entire image, then colored in lightly a shadow on the wings and the skin and face with prismacolor pencils. Then I overlaid frosted lace stickles on the wings. I also used the frosted lace stickles for the icicles at the top of the tag. Used grungeboard pieces painted with Stampin' Up's new platinum paint. The flourishes and snowflakes in the background on both tags were made using an Inkadinkado set.

Second tag I chose these Impression Obsession candy piece. Its a nice, large stamp and suits a tag pretty well I think. What I liked about making these tags is that you can think outside the boundaries of your paper, it expands your space, you're not mailing it like you would a card that has to squeeze into an envelope. For the candy, I also didn't choose to leave the images starkly black and white, but colored the candy pieces with two different shades of blue of Twinkling H20s, put on a fine layer of glue and then SU's dazzling diamond glitter. The snowflake embellishments are clear plastic, I think I bought the pack at Michael's two years ago. The 'joy' sentiment is from Papertrey Ink Believe, stamped in silver craft ink and embossed with silver tinsel EP. I notched the edges of the black paper and then brushed the edges with a silver gel pen. Thanks for looking.

Come Bearing Gifts

Happy Sunday stampers! Its time for another challenge from Stampin' Sisters in Christ. This week's hostess is Randi, and she selected this verse from Matthew 2:11 "After coming into the house they saw the Child with Mary His mother and they fell to the ground and worshipped Him. Then, opening their treasures, they presented to Him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh." and a companion set of verses from Matthew 7:7-11 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you shall find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in Heaven give what is good to those who ask it."

The challenge is to make a project or card that includes an image of gifts or giving gifts somewhere in it.

Coincidentally, it also happens to be Lisa's birthday!!! Happy birthday Lisa! For my card then, I chose the only set I own that has birthday gift style images, an old Stampin' Up set called Something to Celebrate. I hope Lisa gets some nice gifts today on her special day.

Our sponsor at Stampin' Sisters in Christ this week is La La Land Crafts, they have some cute images to give away, check out the home page of the blog and take a look.

Another of Lisa's loves, besides paper crafting, is quilting. We consider all of the paper crafters who join us every week in our challenge part of our circle of friends and I searched the web to find a friendship quilt to post in honor of Lisa's birthday.

I found the quilt at the top of the post on a web site called www.scarlettrose.com/heartcircle.html. I believe it was a quilt stitched with blocks exchanged internationally between Japanese and American quilters. Isn't it gorgeous? I think the image might be under copyright, so after today I'm taking it down, but I liked the hearts used to create floral type circles . . . hearts, flowers, friendship, color . . . what can beat that? For the next 'gift' for Lisa on this combination challenge/birthday blog hop, visit Randi's blog here.

As far as the verse selected . . . I can remember as a kid at Christmas being much more excited about the large boxes that sometimes accompanied the gifts than the gift itself. Anyone remember Cuddly Duddly? The large dog? I received one when I was small that came in a cardboard car that was . . .ta dah! Large enough for me or my brother to sit in! We destroyed that car three or four days I believe, pushing each other around the living room. The stuffed dog is also long gone.

While nothing diminishes the pleasurable memories of those gifts, they were not permanent. Well-loved stuffed animals don't have a long lifespan. There is one gift, though, with an eternal promise, the gift of salvation offered through faith in and acceptance of Jesus Christ. The baby in the manger didn't come to this world so we could arrange family gatherings, fill our tables with special meals or give each other gifts, however nice those traditions might be. The entirety of the Old Testament is leading up to that special moment when heaven opened up and God sent down his only son to be our savior.

There is a lovely song by one of my favorite artists, Chris Rice, that blends our world's need for a savior with a welcome to this precious baby in the manger. This Christmas season, or any time of year, welcoming Jesus into your heart is the best gift you can give to yourself.

Here is a link to a site on the Chris Rice web site where you can listen to a clip from this song, Welcome to Our World:

http://www.chrisrice.com/music.php?id=6

A fun blog questionnaire

Don't you love making new friends through stamping and the internet? One of my new friends is Lisa Hjulberg, one of the senior design team members at Stampin' Sisters in Christ. She passed along this fun blog award today. The idea behind it is there is a questionnaire that you have to answer using only one word. Then you pass it along to a few other friends. So we'll take a shot at this using only one word . . .

1. Where is your mobile? Pocket

2. Your hair? darker

3. Your Mother? hampshire

4. Your Father? missed

5. Your favorite food? chocolate

6. Your Dream last night? forgot

7. Your Favorite Drink? pepsi (diet)

8. Your Dream? stamping

9. What room are you in? living

10. Your Hobby? stamping

11. Fear? snakes

12. Where do you want to be in 5 years? mountains

13. Where were you last night? home

14. Something that you aren't? finished

15. Muffins? can't

16. Wish List Item? patience

17. Where did you grow up? DesPlaines, IL

18. Last thing you did? dinner

19. What are you wearing? jeans

20. Your TV? off

21. Pets? yes

22. Friends? smooches!!!!

23. Mood? relaxed

24. Life? content

25. Missing someone? Dad

26. Vehicle? varies

27. Something you're not wearing? coat

28. Favorite store? online

29. Favorite Color? pink

30. When was last time you laughed? today

31. Last time you cried? today (yes, I know the answers to those last two questions are the same, can we all say 'hormones?')

32. Best Friend? hubby

33. One place that I go to over n' over? computer

34. Facebook? no

35. Favorite place to eat? home

Okay, now to pass along this award. I choose Traci Major, Beth Hartley, Belinda, Cheryl and Schirmy! It is always hard to choose just a few friends, but with the circles of friends that develop online, I think it will be passed along in no time at all to many others.

Papertrey Ink Blog Hop for November

Happy November blog hopping! This has got to be one of the world's worst photos, but it is rainy and gray outside and I cannot get a good picture to save my life.

A very small contribution to the blog hop, this is from the set 'Believe.' For this hop we were to show altered wrapping paper, packages or tags. I chose tags as the simplest item during a very busy week.

I embossed the tree in gold and in silver. One gold tree uses green highlights with some randomly scattered rhinestones. The red tree has one cluster of red rhinestones in the center flower. The silver tree also uses red as a foil and I kept the star at the top gold for a bit of metallic contrast. These are pretty simple tags that you could add to a package. Thanks for looking. Happy hopping.

Stamps: Papertrey Ink Believe

Ink: Gold and silver pigment inks

Other: copic markers in red and green, red and green rhinestones, gold and silver twinkle embossing powder.