The second half of 2012

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I have such a good time designing these calendar pages.  It’s sort of like designing inchies, except you have a little more space to work with – but not much!  Here’s July done in Buttons:

July 2012 Easel Calendar

For the August calendar, I pulled out an old set that I keep for special occasions – Classic Pickups:

August 2012 Easel Calendar

And to round out the quarter, I did September without stamps – instead, I made pennants with the Pennant Builder Punch:

September 2012 Easel Calendar

I just love that Spice Cake Designer Series paper, and if you love it too you’d better hustle yourself off to my Online Store  and order # 124003 because it will turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of 11:50pm Mountain Standard Time on January 3, 2012!

 

2012 Calendar: Second quarter

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Well, you could have guessed what would be here today, now, couldn’t you have?

April features the Young Vermillion single stamp:

April 2012 Easel Calendar

May uses the one of the beautiful images from the hostess set Simply Soft:

May 2012 Easel Calendar

And June is ready to start the day with Morning Cup:

June 2012 Easel Calendar

Remember, the template for these calendar pages is the work of Tracy Harp at Inky Doodles!

…and 2012 is just around the corner

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I made these little calendars last year using a template from Tracy Harp at Inky Doodles and they were so popular that I brought them back for an encore this year:

January 2012 Easel Calendar

January uses the Awash with Flowers stamp set

February 2012 Easel Calendar

February uses the Ain’t Love Grand Hostess set

March 2012 Easel Calendar

March uses Fabulous Florets, one of my personal favorites

These little calendars are just the right size to sit on a cute little easel in my kitchen.

And in the heavens there rose a star…

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Joy to the World

  • The Sounding Joy stamp set
  • Soft Suede and Cherry Cobbler Classic Ink Pads
  • Whisper White, Cherry Cobbler and Brushed Gold card stock
  • Cherry Cobbler seam binding
  • Cherry Cobbler Stampin’ Write marker
  • Color Spritzer tool

 

 

 

 

I believe

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This little fellow is a case of a case of a case, but he’s so charming that I can’t resist sharing him with you on this Christmas morning:

Petal Cone Santa

I believe in Santa. I believe in his goodness and generosity, his sense of fairness and kindness. I believe there have been men – and women – whose lives defined his tradition, and I believe that there are men and women all over the world who continue his work every day.

However you celebrate in December, I wish you goodness and generosity, fairness and forgiveness. And if it pleases you, I wish you a very Merry Christmas.

A little forest of pennant trees

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You can hardly see the forest for the trees:

Cheryl's Pennant Tree bag

These little pennants make such cheerful little trees.  I may or may not have indulged myself in a rant about triangles and my inability to make them look right.  It always seems like one side is a little off – so I trim it – and then the other side is off!  It’s geometry.  Some have it, some don’t.  I know a triangle when I see one, I’m just not very good at cutting one.

But honey, I can punch ’em out like nobody’s business!  (The more I blog, the more I realize that I posess a ridiculous number of inane and somewhat meaningless expressions.  I make no excuses.)  I love punching these pennants and finding fun things to do with them.

And check out that little spotty dotty tag:

Polka dot gift bag tag

As a matter of fact, I need a few more tags and I am going to go punch out a bunch of these.  Right after I finish my pie.  Because I must admit, I make a fabulous pumpkin pie.

Merry Christmas.

Cheryl and the pink stocking

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One of the many things that I really enjoy about attending someone else’s class is that other people use colors I would never dream of putting together:

Cheryl's pink stocking bag

This is a color combination I would never have used for Christmas, but look how pretty it is!  Not one, but two shades of pink…well worth the trip out to Haiku.

If you live on the mainland and have a 75 mile commute every day – one way, uphill both ways – then you might as well go on to the next blog post, because you are not going to get this.  You see, Cheryl used to live 5 minutes from me.  She was just up the hill.  The year she became an empty nester, she and her husband decided to do the Green Acres thing (if you are younger than dirt, ask an old person about Green Acres) and they moved out to Haiku.  They have two gorgeous acres and a horse (maybe two, we aren’t sure) in the pasture – more about that another time – but the word you need to pay attention to is “OUT”.  Haiku is a 45 minute drive.  There is no more “Hey Cheryl, come down here and look at this and tell me what it needs.”  I don’t call her to see if I can run up and borrow a few sheets of Riding Hood Red.  We have to make DATES for coffee, for Pete’s sake. (Don’t ask me who Pete is.  He’s older than dirt too.)

Anyway, if I want to see Cheryl I have to pack my overnight bag and load up some provisions and feed and water the horses (I mean put gas in the car) and then DRIVE.  And I don’t really like to drive.  Matter of fact, as each of my children have gotten their respective driver’s licenses I have made they my chauffeur.  Turn-around is fair play.  But I love Cheryl, and spending time with her is like being in the sunshine – you just have to do it, and you feel so wonderful when you do.  So I drive out to the hinterlands in Haiku where everyone wears sweaters and shoes and we stamp.  And it is totally worth the drive.

The cutest little penguin

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Thanksgiving weekend I went to stamp camp at Cheryl’s:

Cheryl's penguin bag

 

Just look at this bag – the colors, the snowflake, and as Cheryl would say, that dang penguin!  Just LOOK at him!

The penguin tag

There.  Now you can really see him.  I had my contact in when I was coloring his scarf – looking at it this closely, I realize I should have put my glasses on.  I wear a single contact in one eye for reading – my left eye is my “reader” eye and my right eye is my “distance” eye.  It took a week or so, but amazingly enough my brain sorted it out and it works well – except for fine detail like coloring a little penguin scarf.  Then my brain says “whoa whoa whoa” and starts making the lines jump around like little drops of water in a hot frying pan.  Just in case you were wondering…

But what I really wanted to tell you was that it was absolutely luscious going someplace else and doing someone else’s projects.  I didn’t have to come up with ideas, order the supplies, and prep all the paper – I just showed up and stamped.  What a wonderful treat that was!

Test pattern combinations

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I got a couple of swaps at convention that used this fun layout:

Gift box card

This idea is easy to customize to any holiday or occasion.  I had a blast putting patterns together – kind of reminded me of the way my grandmother used to put outfits together as she got older.  We called her “test pattern Grandma”.  (You readers who are younger than dirt will have to ask an old person what a test pattern is.  Since I’m older than dirt, I already know.)

The best part is that this card opens up:

Gift box card opened

Don’t you love it?  And it is SO easy.  The bottom half of the card is a pocket, the top half a sliding panel.  I think you could put some Dotto on the card and attach a gift card.  I started pulling out all of my holiday Designer Series Paper scraps to see what else I could come up with:

Another gift box card!

This is just the size for all those pieces you saved because they were too big to throw away!  (I know – we’ve covered this before.  I’m not trying to make you feel badly, you know – I’m congratulating you for your frugality and helping you find a way to use those crazy pieces!!)

Now go make some test pattern cards of your own – and have fun with it!

Sizzix Edgelits Sneak Peak

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How about another little look at some new Occasions Mini goodies?

Sizzix Edgelits

Actually, this card uses both an Edgelit and an Embosslit – do  you see how perfectly they mirror each other?  The Edgelit cuts a perfect edge every time – I cut both the Garden Green and Whisper White cardstock and offset them.  The Embosslit created that raised line on the Garden Green cardstock, and a new stamp set provided the little dots – they match perfectly too!

Crafting in January is going to be a LOT of fun!