Sweet Treats!

Doesn't this little fella look good enough to eat? I made this wee gift bag for The Cats Pajama's Tuesday Challenge.


This pretty Gingerbread Picture was the inspiration for this weeks Challenge. Focusing on the Gingerbread and the icing, I came up with this little creation. I have SO many die cuts and rarely pull them out of their cases. I also LOVE liquid Applique and saw this as a perfect opportunity to use a dab or two on my project.

I sponged the Gingerbread die cut with Creamy Caramel Ink to give it some dimension and then I chalked in the rosy cheeks with some Pink Passion Stamping pastel, adding a dot of white gel pen for highlights.

Using the Gingerbread House and candy image and sentiment from Candyland Christmas, I made some embellishments for the little guy! I coloured the house with Copics and added a little Chunky Glitter to the roof for effect! I iced the little man with liquid applique, as well as added more to the chocolate fondant border! A Sweet Treat indeed!

Hop on over to the Cat's Pajama's site to play the Tuesday Challenges, they're a blast!

I Dream of a Release Party tonight.

Come join us for fun chatter, challenges and prizes over on Splitcoaststampers tonight in the member forum. I predict that it will be so much fun!

This little gift box was made with some prepunched box templates from K& Co. I used Nesties to make the circle and coloured Jeannie Hanna in with Copic Markers. Adding a Key Punch tag and a Prima, this project worked up very quickly.

Hope to see you all tonight. The DT has some more beautiful sneak peeks to share with you.

Until then,

Vicki

Va va va VOOOOOOM

She's a Hottie, isn't she???? I hate to admit, but I am old enough to remotely remember some of the beautiful Pinups Girls of the 50's, Veronica Lake, Jane Russell and of course my favourite, Marilyn Monroe! Classic Beauty! I am a bit of a sucker for classic Movies. Wizard of Oz being my favourite of all time, seconded by Gentlemen prefer blondes. Hmmmmm maybe that's why I stayed Blonde for years and years........ I am kind of liking the feisty redheaded look though!!!

This was the first card I created with the new Hanna release sets. There's lots to look at here and I can imagine that this would be a sweet card for your Spencer Tracey on Valentines Day.

One more sleep and we'll be partying it up in the Hanna Forum! See you there!

MEOW!

I'm Lovin' my Pink Cat Studio Stamps! When I saw this sweet Santa Kitty, I thought that she would be Purrfect for a Kitty Treat Basket! The little bucket was one of my dollar store finds!

I had some different ideas about how to decorate the bucket, but settled on keeping it simple and embossing pawprints on the bucket. I was a little concerned that the heat gun might effect the paint, but all was good.

I stamped the paws in SU White Craft ink. I must tell you that this is a bit of a tedious process. You need to rock the stamp just enough to capture the full image, but not enough to make it blurry. On a slippery surface like this, you may have to wipe off a few times and start over, but with patience you can do it! I embossed the paws in silver, but then found it to be a little bland, so in stages, I sprinkled embossing powder here and there around the prints and heat embossed until I got the splattered effect that was pleasing to my eye.




To complete the tag, I used a Sizzix Tag Set die cut. I stamped the pretty kitty right onto confettie white paper, coloured with copic markers and used a little SU old olive pastel to add the green around the eyes. I took a black Gel pen to darken the pupils and a white gel pen to add highligts to the eyes and pastelled cheeks. I then applied liquid glue pen to the "fur" areas and added SU! Chunky Glitter.

I then curled some red wire around a Q-tip, of which I cut off one end and used it to attach the tag to the pail handle.

I really like how this project turned out. Although the embossing was a little difficult, basically the project worked up quickly. Now just to find a pretty Kitty who would appreciate my gift!

****Vicki****

Camping Anyone?

Well, no camping here!!! Brrrrrrr too Cold!!!! Although we have been in the "pluses" the last few days..........3 celcius to be exact!!!! With lots of RAIN..............ewwwwww. Oh bother! At least it's not freezing rain!

I must say, that I am a happy camper though! I am really excited about the new stamps that Kristi is releasing on Thursday night over in the Hanna Member Forum on Splitcoast.

Did I ever tell you my Moose Camping Story?

When I first graduated from College, I worked in Toronto with at risk youths. A very challenging occupation indeed! Anyway, in the summer we would plan a lot of activities, one being camping and canoeing. We decided to take our group of nine to Algonquin Park. It's really interesting to observe how environment impacts on individuals. By day, our charges enjoyed the swimming, hiking and of course roasting Marshmallows was one of the highlights.

When night fell however, that was a completely different story. Some of these teenagers were terrified! They had no issue with roaming the worst parts of Toronto after dark, which frankly would make me pretty nervous, but being in the pitch black of the woods was rather intimidating. I spent the most part of the evenings escorting the teens back and forth to the outhouse, which was a little stroll down the road.

Anyway, we were at the farthest end of this campground. One evening, while sitting by the fire I noticed a Shadow walking onto the site, oh about 12 feet away........... as I was focusing, I was thinking what a sweet sweet deer..............the head was parallel with the top of the mini van. As I blinked and refocused, I realized that it wasn't a deer at all.........actually, it was a Moose Calf........with it's Mother right behind it! Yikes!!!!! I don't think they wanted to roast Marshmallows!



It was actually a little scary, because the group went ballistic, shrieking and screaming and starting to thrash about. I quickly tried to calm everyone because my fear was that mama would not be impressed and charge us all.....................luckily, she was calmer than the rest of us, and casually nudged her babe and strolled off the site.

The moose were definitely the highlight of our trip. It seemed that they liked to swim at the bottom of a steep incline at the south end of our lot. In the wee wee hours of the morning as the sun was just rising, you could here them breathing in the water as if they were right next to you, blowing puffs of air into your ear.......................must admit a bit frightening the first time we heard it. I think there was speculation that we had a Yeti running around out there!!!!

Must say that I am more partial to sweet Riley than to the real thing...........and our little Riley smells better for sure.


Card Recipe: Trailer Riley, Marshmallow Riley
Paper: Pomegranite, Chocolate Chip Dp, Serendipity
Accessories: Copics, Gel Pen, Twill Ribbon, Mini Clip, Chalk, Rose Ribbon

Happy Stamping!

**** VICKI****

Well Ain't that the Cat's Pajamas!!!!

I was SO excited to receive an email from Alma over at The Cat's Pajama's this morning!
I was chosen as December's SWANKY STAMPER. So, after picking myself up off the floor and rereading the email several times, I headed over to TCP website to see my card up in lights!!!!

Thanks SO much for choosing my card Alma. I am looking forward to making many more creations with this beautiful stamp set.

I rushed home to make a quick project to accompany my announcement on this post......... always exciting to share great news with you!!!

I purchased a 5 3/4 inch candle holder at the dollar store last week, with precisely this project in mind. I took two pieces of SU! Vellum Card stock and cut them to 8.5 x 9 inches. Then I took the EK success snowflake Border punch and punched the border on three sides of the vellum.

After my punching was complete, I cut the unpunched side down to 6 inches. Then using Versamark and Silver embossing powder, I stamped and embossed the images. Now, just a matter of attaching............... I thought about and tried sewing the sides, but when doing my test stitch, there appeared to be something wrong with my bobbin feeder .............so I had to think about how to attach the vellum together without making marks. AHA!!! I had an IDEA!
I took mini glue dots and place them in the centre of each snowflake on the side panels. Once I stuck the two pieces together, I used some dazzling diamonds glitter to mask the glue dots and make the snowflakes sparkle.

This is what it looks like in the dark. Because of the depth of the candle holder, I used a short Votive Candle as well as a 5 inch pillar inside. Doesn't it look like the Reindeer is dancing in front of the moon???

Punched along the bottom edge of My Minds Eye Christmas Paper with a Martha Stewart Border Punch and then cut my Cardstock to 1 1/4". To finish it off, I rimmed the top edge with Dazzling Diamonds Glitter! This is a very quick project that looks very elegant as a centrepiece on your dining or coffee table!

Today was a very exciting day for me..............it was the Cat's Pajamas!

Ready for some Sneak Peeks?

I am going to tell you that it's the BEST month ever at Hanna Stamps.........hmmm sound familiar??? Well fib, I not..........it's just that I get more and more excited with each month that passes as a Designer for Hanna Stamps. As I work with the stamps sets, I think WOW! This is the best release ever! The upside to that is that I can really get into creating with the new sets!

Hanna Stamps is releasing three sizzlin' sets for you this month, along with two Riley images for the fans of our furry antlered friend. The release party with take place in the HANNA MEMBER FORUM this Thursday evening at 9 p.m. EST.

If you've been before, you'll know what's in store! If not, please join us, newcomers are always welcome!

Introducing Slumber Party! This set is just the sweetest. The first thing I thought of was making invitations for a Slumber Party and well, the rest just fell into place. With Three Girls in the Set and lots of sweet accessories, the options are endless!



I knicked this DP from Kristi, when we all met up at Jactopia in November. It was from Basic Grey Stack, but I am not sure which one, to be precise. I used the paper as a starting point for my ensemble, matching SU Eggplant Paper and Prism Iced Pink. I really wanted to emphasize this gorgeous DP, so I used a top not die as a base to ground my images. I coloured the two sweet girls with Copics and used a sentiment block to groun the girls.




This is the Place Card, the skinny on this is pretty much the same as the Card, but I popped the Popcorn bowl off the card with a dimensional.




Finally, we have our Party Favour! A popcorn slider. I search high and low for the instructions to make these, but didn't have much luck this morning. If I can find a link, I'll include it with tomorrow's Sneak Peek. Methods and supplies for this project mirror the rest of the ensemble, with the exception of some White Gel Pen, Eggplant Ribbon and Daisies from CTMH!

Can you imagine all the possibilities that you would have with this set?

Stay tuned for more sneak peeks this week!

Happy Monday!

Vicki