Ahoy summer

Ramping up for summer and my first ever cruise. It's a Disney cruise and for those of you in the know, these are my fish extender gifts. Outside every cabin there is a decorative knob that looks like a fish or sea shell or the like. Many people hang decorated pouches from their fish and participate in gift exchanges with fellow passengers.  I thought it would be nice to have little bottles to take home a tiny bit of sand from the ports where we will dock. I found the bottles on amazon and wrapped them with washi tape. The labels are made using the Curvey keepsake framelet die from Stampin UP!
Surprise surprise, made the boxes using a Stampin'UP punchboard and Stampin'UP paper as well. You are more than welcome to follow my shopping link and get supplies to copy the idea.

Not quite spring

It's not spring yet but I'm really wishing it were. That bleh time if year between new years and spring gets me in a rut almost every year. Staying busy helps. These are a couple of cards I made with Carolyn, my Stampin'UP mentor. It's all from current catalogs. Leave a comment or send an email if you want a product list.

Crafting road trip

Just finished a three hour trek to Nashville for the spring catalog launch. In my seat and ready to see what's new

crafting Christmas spirit

This year I have such a head start on gift shopping there is time for extra crafting.  These are my favorite thing from the Stampin'UP! Holiday catalog.  The curvey keepsake framelet die.
You can fit three bite size chocolates in each.
I've been handing them out to helpful retail workers this weekend to hopefully make their black Friday a bit less miserable.

I love my big shot. My all time favorite thing in card making is embossed paper and the Big Shot does that perfectly. I also like adding fabric to cards and cutting out fabric elements for home decor projects. Again the Big Shot is great for that. Just go over to Pinterest and search for Big Shot for a information overload of what you can do with it.  Then come back here and click the picture to go get your own.

Order your very own Big Shot in August and get a free stamp set  plus a free framelit set.   Really. For free. 

Trite but true

It's trite but true. Christmas in July. If you plan on being an over-achiever and making your own Christmas cards you might as well get started now.  This is the newest holiday set available from Stampin'UP!.  Click the photo to get purchase details. and might I suggest this set of markers to really make the little bird look his best. Below is a very similar stamp I colored using these markers and you can see the shading is well done, I assure you it's much all due to the markers and not at all to my skill. if you can color inside the lines your will look just as good if not better.

Long time no craft

Well then, rather than make a long shame filled apology for my lack of posts, I'll just dive back in with some pictures of recent cards.  After all no one really scrolls through craft blogs for the witty commentary. We all just want to look at the pretties and be inspired to make something.

This little lovely was created using MDS digital design software and Blendabilities markers.  Blendabilities are my new great favorite. It puts the joy back in coloring. Its just like being 8 years old again and using a new box of crayons for the very first time.