Starting early on Christmas, for once.

Yes, for once I'm going to have at least some of my Christmas cards done before Thanksgiving. That last minute scramble may mean cool things coming out of the craft room, but it also means the cards go out the week before Christmas. That in turn means they will spend less time on refrigerators and get trashed even sooner. I'm realistic enough to know they don't get saved like precious works of art, so there you have it.

These cards have very little coloring and no fussy cutting, so they go together quickly. I did several of each design.

The green card features the dog from Avery Elle's "Happy Howidays" set. 

The red card below features the snowman from The Alley Way Stamps' Melt Your Heart Out" set from a a couple of years ago.

Both also feature My Favorite Stamps' "Hand Lettered Christmas" greeting in gold embossing. 

Believe it or not, my new Halloween stamp is coming via FedEx later today, so I may even get a few of those done before the spooky holiday, too. Shh, don't tell anyone, I only bought it for the frog and the pumpkins. 

Yay for you! Here's a Hug!

Aren't these bears the cutest in their little Polaroid frames? These are almost the last of the My Favorite Things "Bitty Bears" that I had colored up a couple of weeks ago. Only one more left!

Both patterned papers are from My Favorite Things, and the Polaroid Frames are from Pretty Pink Posh.  The colored backgrounds behind the bears are inked with Twisted Citron and Tumbled Glass Distress Inks.

Small card, big thanks!

More of the Bitty Bears from My Favorite Things. When I stamped them, I did all of them, and colored them with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers, and cut them with my Brother Scan and Cut. Would you believe I still have a few of them to use?

I mounted them onto the white tags, then onto the patterned paper, which is also from MFT, called Roses All Over. I had no idea when I bought this paper that it would be so hard to use. I need more solid white panels to go over it, I suppose.

I put one of the little bears inside, too. 3 more bears to go to use all of them!

Thanks a Ton!

I love this little elephant from My Favorite Things' "Sweet Safari" set. Why they retired this set is beyond me, but I was happy to get it in the big retirement sale a few weeks back!

This guy was colored on heavy watercolor paper with Zig Real Brush Clean Color markers. The background was water colored over a stencil from The Crafter's Workshop Designs by Jaime, with watered down Distress Oxide ink.

I discovered, when I made the banner, that the heavy 110 lb cardstock from Michael's cuts fine with a die, but maybe doesn't emboss and fold so well. Yes, the greeting is crooked, and I don't care.

Unicorns or Pegasus?

I discovered, to my amazement, that I didn't have any unicorn stamps. None except the toy pony with a tied on horn and wings.

I went a little crazy and got several unicorn products, including this Avery Elle "Pegasus Pair".  Expect more unicorn cards from me in the future!

These cuties were colored with Spectrum Noir markers, coated with Spectrum Noir sparkle pen, and  cut with my Brother Scan and Cut. I took a white rectangle panel and smeared on some Distress Oxide Inks. Gosh, I love working with that stuff! I then put the whole thing on a plaid background paper from My Favorite Things and added a sentiment strip that is white embossed on black cardstock. I finished the whole thing off with some Nuvo Jewel drops in coordinating colors.

So, if it has wings that makes it a Pegasus? I'm still calling these guys unicorns though.

Aww nuts, how did that happen?

True story: my sister's birthday card was riding around in my purse from September 11th until September 18th. I was going to put it in my mailbox, but we had just had Hurricane Irma and the Post Office wasn't delivering or picking up that day. So I put it in my purse to put in the box near work the next day. And I totally forgot it was in there. It is a very big purse. Her birthday was on the 15th, by the way. Well, she didn't have the greatest day either since she didn't have power for a week at her house.

So, enter the belated birthday card I put together this morning. It is a near copy of one done by My Favorite Things' design team member Inge Groot and a Facebook user in a stamping group I'm in, Monique van Steenbergen.

I cut the three background papers from some old 12 x 12 papers in my stash. So old! I then die cut the white circle and many leaves. I tucked all the leaves behind the white circle, along with some twine, and as I was placing the little squirrel I decided something wasn't right and went back to look at the original. Yes, the leaves and twine should have been behind the squirrel, not the white circle. So I just cut a few more leaves and some more twine and built another layer.

I used Lawn Fawn dies for the background, and a few of the leaves, Paper Smooches Dies for the rest of the leaves, and Gina Marie Designs for the white double stitched circle. The squirrel is from My Favorite Things' "Wild Woodland". He's stamped onto craft card stock and fussy cut. It feels strange not to color the image.

Now this card is going into the mail for my sister, and I can save the purse riding card for next year. I'm super early for that!

Sticking your neck out, again?

Here's a little card I made for a sketch challenge that was completed the day after the challenge closed. Yay me, always behind!

These critters are from My Favorite Things' "Sweet Safari", and are colored with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers. The patterned paper is also from MFT, and it's on a kraft card base.

Bitty Bears, again

It went so well I decided to do it again. Once again I used the My Favorite Things Sketch 350. They are also drinking a hot beverage, which must be coffee. This will also go into the Fall Coffee Lover's Bloghop.

Yes, the bears were so cute I did it again! This time the My Favorite Things' "Bitty Bears" sit on leaves from the same paper pack as the plaid, from Lawn Fawn.  Again, the cups are from MFT's "Our Story", and the sentiment is from MFT's "Perk Up".

I have a lot of bears left, so expect to see them again, very soon!

So, how have YOU bean?

So, the last week and half around here has been all about Hurricane Irma. Since I live on the southeast coast of Florida, it looked like it was going to hit us, and hard. People usually don't start striping the stores of bread and water until 2 days before, but this time it was about 5 days ahead.

Anyway, we got a lot of tree damage, and many people lost power, for days. I was fortunate not to, thank God.

I made this card for the 2107 Fall Coffee Lover's Blog Hop. I also used the current sketch challenge at My Favorite Things. Whew!

I colored the "Bitty Bears" from My Favorite Things Stamps with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers, and put them with coffee mugs on die-cut leaves. The mug is from MFT's "Our Story", and the leaves are from some older Lawn Fawn dies. The coffee sentiment is from Pretty Cute Stamps' "Coffee Sentiments". The plaid paper is from Lawn Fawn. It is hard to see in the photo, but I used the tiny leaves and acorn stamp from MFT's "Wild Woodland" to stamp the brown borders with a tone on tone subtle pattern.

Thanks for stopping by. Have some coffee, OK?