May you have a day filled with love, laughter and lots of smiles.
I liked the result so much that I turned it into a set.
These cards are just a little bit smaller than standard so that the CB embossing goes from edge to edge. Super sticky tape covered with glitter crosses the seam between the embossing and plain paper. A little bit of glue on the trees creates glitter berries. I left out sentiments inside the cards because the recipient is a stamper and also because the sentiments (from Everyday Button Bits) on the front can be used for lots of occasions.
I modified the stocking template just a little to vary the depth of the box. The original template holds quite a bit and since I plan on filling these with a gift card and candy I made mine a little smaller.
Toothpicks are actually perfect for cards because they are light and I like the bit of dimension that is created for this border.
My blog may have been quiet this past week, but I have not been. I am busy working on my Christmas cards - the never ending 80 that I need to make LOL!!! Along with getting ready for my daughter's 6th Birthday.
The other challenge I finished is #5, a gift card holder. I went with this little boxy purse/bag. I found the directions here. Be sure to check out the link - the template samples have the sides scored with a clasp at the top and definitely look more like a purse. I wanted to fit a little more in mine so I kept the sides straight.
I am hoping that maybe I find time to squeeze in another project now that the deadline is extended. Tomorrow I have jury duty and I am leaving my crafting at home. I have plenty of fussy cutting to do, but doubt that I will be allowed to bring my Cutterbee scissors in!
I have 2 tools that I am thankful for, my sewing machine and my Cuttlebug. I decided to go with my Cuttlebug because I received it as a gift and it helped reinvigorate my love for paper crafting. I received it for my Birthday last year (thanks again Jen) and at the time I was not buying anything new, I was stuck in a crafting rut. Once I had my Cuttlebug, I started browsing SCS again and then found blogs of a couple wonderfully talented people. The rest is history...the on-line crafting community is so incredibly supportive and I am having so much fun. I hope you are all having fun too!
That is it for right now. I am working away at more of the Verve release challenges.
With all the color inside, I kept the purse super simple and utilized the preprinted border on the SU Sweet Slumber paper that I used. This is really heavy textured PP that is strong enough to turn into a "box". The closure is embroidery floss.
This past summer I joined in the fun with a "UStamp with Dawn and Friends". This is one of the many projects shown that I really liked, but did not get to make during the month. I saved all the tutorials for the projects and now have a great reference library. This purse was designed by Tracey Old and she offers a kit to make the purse on her blog. I modified the directions to make my purse big enough to hold standard cards and envelopes.
This card was so easy to make and I like that the inside has a surprise. There are directions how to make it located here.
Now I figured I better take a break from Verve before you decide to take a break from me! I recently received a blog award from Jennie - she is just so sweet :>)
This award comes with a quiz (which is why it has taken me awhile to find time to post it!):
The sketch has a large circle in the center, so hopefully my rectangle with 2 circle shaped buttons qualifies. Regardless, I like the idea of the grid, but could not make a circle work in the center.
Then we have Card Patterns:.jpg)
And finally this week's MOJO Monday Sketch.
Warning, this is not the last time you will be seeing cards using this set and paper...I need at least 2 more:>). Plus, I will be sharing the perfect way to store these cards that is beyond cute!
The flowers are layered circles that I distressed, with french knots made out of embroidery floss in the center. My embroidery floss was a little brighter than I wanted, so after all the flowers were put together, I used a blender pen with an ink pad and colored my knots and also created shading at the flower center. (This was so much easier than trying to ink up my floss before I made the knots - that was a little messy!) I dressed up the sides by adding stripes to form a plaid PP.
Here are a couple with patterned paper...
This candy paper comes across as a tweedy fabric to me :>)
And finally another with the Baroque Motif stamp set from SU which was at the start of my idea to make purses back on this post.
I can not tell you enough how easy these go together. So fast and yet so cute! Head over to PTI to check out all the fun templates, including Ready, Set, Wrap. I will have more templates for you this week, so stay tuned.
I stayed pretty true to the sketch. 
It took me awhile before I pulled out my CB for the polka dot stripes. I first tried stamping rose red polka dots on rose red paper, but it was too much. Then I tried stamping directly on the ivory, but still did not like it. Finally the CB. The funny thing is, I realized when I went to take a pic of this card, that I have the rose red polka dots stamped on the back...ooops, I meant to grab a new card base :>)!
I am thinking about doing my Christmas cards with Ocean Tides CS, which is why I have been reaching for it so much lately!
All the PP on this card is Cosmo Cricket Early Bird, which I love, love, love! It took me awhile to find one on-line store that had all the pads that I wanted. I plan on convincing my LSS that they need to carry Cosmo 6" pads!
Today's card keeps is clean and simple - buttons are ok on a CAS, right? I need to feed my button addiction after all.
I love this stamp set from PTI that created the sentiment and "trees" aka leaves on this card, Holiday Tree. I need to play some more and decide what I am going to do for my mass produced assembly line Christmas cards.
Why don't you check out all the other Sketch Girls creations for inspiration and play along?!?!
Just Us Girls has a tutorial to make a beautiful flower out of tissue paper, but since I do not own any nesties (I know, shocking), I decided to go with a layered circle flower.
Smiles,
One of the benefits of a digi stamp is that you can make it any size you want and I made this one into the actual card itself. I took the owl image and made it as big as my PP, 6", in MS Paint. I printed him out 2 times, one time on the PP and again on white CS. I glued the PP to scrap CS to give it more weight and then cut out the image outline and belly. The ruffles were machine sewn onto a scrap piece of paper and I used super sticky tape to adhere to the PP owl's open belly area. I cut out the nose, eyes, and feet from the printed piece of white CS and colored with a brown copic. 
I then folded a piece of white CS in 1/2 and lined up the owl so that the fold was about an inch from the top of his head. I traced the rest of his body onto the CS and cut it out to create the card base. I used more sticky tape to attach the PP owl to the base.
Well, that is it for me for tonight. Enjoy your weekend!
Making this card made me realize that I need to buy more ribbon. I do not use it a lot on my cards because it create lots of bulk, but it is oh so pretty (esp. the stuff I was eyeing from PTI!). Speaking of PTI...I got in my order this week from their latest release - YUMMY!! Needless to say there were some buttons in there and I bought their white paper for the first time - so nice and heavy, I think it will be perfect for embossing (SU's white is great for layering, but has not worked as well as I would have liked for embossing).
Each card has a slightly different style and technique, but the colors and papers are all the same. Once I started I kept rolling and now plan to put a group of these together as a gift set.
This one is in the style of Verve's guest designer this month, Jessie Rone, lots of layers and her signature - a spiral clip!!
I will be back to share more Verve - I finished all 5 sketches!