Christmas card marathon

I know it isn't even Halloween yet, and quite honestly it's against everything that I believe in to start celebrating one holiday before others have even arrived, BUT I knew that the holiday season will be a busy one, so I invited my downline members over to my house this past Saturday for a Christmas card marathon. Although I ended up being the only one making Christmas cards--they made other projects. :) I goal was to complete 40 Christmas cards, which is half of what I need. I just did batches of 10 which made assembling them much quicker.

The first one I created focused on the ornament from the "Tags til Christmas" stamp set in the Holiday Mini Catalog. I also used the XL Decorative Label punch to bring the ornament front and center on the card. A little bit of "Jolly Holiday" DSP to tie it altogether and viola! A clean and simple Christmas card!

Trick-or-Treat Candy Jars

I hope you aren't too tired of Halloween projects yet, I told you I had a bunch! :) One final project inspired by Brent Steele's presentation at convention with the Halloween products from the Holiday Mini: Trick or treat jars!

When Brent created a project using the "trick-or-treat" portion of the Spooky Things Decor Elements, he adhered the words and Designer Jewels onto white pumpkins. When I went to our local craft store and saw that they wanted $22 for an artificial pumpkin (!!!) I nearly had a heart attack and decided there must be something less expensive that I could use that would still have the same cute, creative effect...then I thought, "what better project to represent Halloween than candy jars?" so I went back to the glass jar section and picked up 3 glass jars (which were half-off, for a total of $2.50!!).

I went home and adhered the "trick-or-treat" words onto the glass and then transferred portions of the Black Flourish Designer Jewels onto the jars. Putting some colorful Halloween candy into the jars will give them the perfect finish, although our store didn't have Halloween candy out on the shelves yet, when these pictures were taken, but you get the idea. ;)

Oct 31 Luminary

Another project inspired by Brent Steele at convention: Halloween luminaries using the Spooky Things Decor Elements from the Holiday Mini. The decor element images are so versatile and there are so many creative projects that you can make with them! These luminaries took a little bit of time, so I decided that instead of making 6 of them (like he did), I'd make one for the inside of my house and save the other pieces of decor elements for a couple of other projects I have in mind, which I will share with you after I complete them. Hubby frowns upon decorating my house too early for any one holiday so I'll have to wait until I decorate to share those project ideas with you. ;)

Treat Tubes

Shelli (co-founder and CEO of Stampin' Up!) often inspires me to create projects and the project that I'm sharing today is a CASE of a Halloween project she did recently. I loved the simplicity of the treat tube and how easy it was to replicate.

Halloween Design-a-House

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays to decorate for, after Christmas. Stampin' Up! has made decorating much easier with all of the wonderful, crafty products they have in the Holiday Mini Catalog.

At convention, Brent Steele challenged us with a unique twist on the Design-a-House decor accents from the Holiday Mini and transformed the solid white cardboard house into a spooky haunted house. Honestly, I wouldn't have given this house a second thought as the traditional gingerbread house, but seeing a project taken to another level was just inspiring. So I took Brent's project and CASEd it changing up a couple of things.

NOTE: Learn from my mistake and choose a non-windy day to spray paint your house outside. Mine rolled in the grass twice, so I had to cover up a few "boo-boos" with bats and embellishments. No mistakes, only opportunities, right? :)

Halloween Frame

This project was inspired by a project in the Holiday mini catalog featuring the Spooky Things Decor Elements. I simply applied the "Happy Halloween 31" decor element onto the glass portion of the frame, and then decorated a piece of Whisper White card stock to place behind the glass. I applied a few punches bats to the front of the glass and tied a piece of retired Rich Razzleberry ribbon around the glass before inserting it back into the frame.

Spooky door post

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays to decorate for! Get ready because the next few posts are going to revolve around just that--Halloween home decor. Most of the ideas are CASEs (Copy And Share Everything) but I have tweaked them some.

Today's project was inspired by my friend Nikki. I used some extra chipboard to cut down the door hangar to the right size and then used some of the "Wicked Fun Specialty DSP" to spruce it up. The chipboard letters that spell out "SPOOKY" are retired, but you can always use our current chipboard letters for the same project. The "Wicked Cool" stamp set is easily one of my new favorite holiday stamp sets and is my Go-To stamp set for all things Halloween! The new luscious raven 1/2" lace from the Holiday Mini Catalog adds a nice touch to my trim and is also used to hang the door post onto the door.

Open House Projects

A couple of weeks after I came back from convention I had an Open House and I completely forgot to show you the projects that I did for those, so I'm taking a moment to do that now.

The card that everyone made was inspired by a photo that I had seen in "Stampin' Success," the monthly magazine that Stampin' Up! sends to Demonstrators. I used the Polka-dot embossing folder to bring a little texture to the card and kept the layout simple since we had a few first time stampers.

I made bookmarks and little note card gift boxes for everyone that came. For those that RSVP'd, I had their names on their note card boxes and had some extras for anyone who came that did not RSVP.

We played STAMP "bingo," gave away some door prizes and had a great time together.

Hawaii Vacation Pics

Here's a slide show of pictures from our trip to Oahu and Maui. It was a blast!

Yikes

Forgive me, please! I have not intended to go this long without posting, but I spent a bit of time getting caught up from our Hawaii trip and working on a few class projects. I will have Hawaii pics to share with you tomorrow, then I promise some project posts the rest of the week! :)

Thanks for your patience and for visiting my blog today.

Holiday Mini Catalog Starts

After much anticipation, the Holiday Mini catalog finally goes live today! For the past few days, I've shown you sneak peeks and idea samples using product from thew new Holiday Mini catalog.

See something you like? You can order from my website 24/7-it's so simple, and items can be shipped directly to you!