The 12 Kits of Christmas - July Edition

Merry Christmas everyone! Now be honest, how many of you celebrated Christmas in July??? I love this holiday and my summer school munchkins think I am nuts but we did the same thing last year...hot cocoa with marshmallows, Rice Krispie Treats decorated with Christmas Disney sprinkles and a few Christmas movies to top off the day, we had a blast and they loved every minute of it!  Well as you most likely know this post is the monthly installment of fabulous Christmas cards, one person puts together kits that are all the same, mails them out and then each of us put our spin on the supplies.  I was lucky enough to get a kit whit two self assembling cards, you know how I love those.  This months hostess is Christina and she put together an amazing kit.  She used the traditional holiday colors and her patterned paper from Authenique is just so beautiful that it made working with this kit so much fun. I have to say that my favorite piece is this sweet little song bird, as soon as I saw it I was in love and knew I would be using both on different cards.  Thanks for taking a peek at my cards!

Kit Photo Courtesy of Kara

Now that you have had a peek at my cards be sure to check out the other 11 blogs and see what this wonderful group of talented ladies came up with!

Christina - Sea Glass & Sentiments (this month's hostess)

Amy - Stamp-n-Paradise 

Cathy - Empty Nest Crafter

Joyce - Cards-by-the-Sea

Renee - It's A Patchwork Life

Marybeth - Marybeth's Time For Paper

Sharron - On Papillon Wings

Jeanne - A Kept Life

Kara - K and R Designs

Suzanne - The Card Yard

Jessica - Paper Parade 

Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge #108

It has been a very busy week and I am so happy that Saturday is finally here! Time for some fun and card making. First for a bit of fun...my mom and I have been on the quest for the perfect grilled cheese sandwich so we headed over to Stanford Mall to a new little place called The Melt. All they serve is grilled cheese and soup.  It was well worth the drive, both the soup and the sandwich were over the top and we will go back.  Next on to some card making and I spent way too much time on this card and it was just so simple...have you ever had one of those stamps that no matter how careful you are you just don't seem to be able to stamp all of the images right where you want them??? I won't tell you have many tries it took me to get it right but once I did I was doing the happy dance.  I have been wanting to play with this set from WMS since I arrived home from San Diego and thought today's sketch challenge from Waltzingmouse would be the perfect chance.  The patterned paper is from Paper Source, I purchased it last summer and knew one day I would have the perfect stamp set for it...the images are of splashes and it really blends well with several of the PTI card stock colors, so a match made in heaven if you ask me.  Have a great weekend and enjoy the Olympics too! Thanks for taking a peek.

Grilled Pepper Jack Cheese with Jalapenos, Tomato and Bacon with Tomato Soup

Card Ingredients

Stamps: WMS - My Island

Solid Card Stock: PTI - Ocean Tides, Summer Sunrise, Lemon Tart and Pure Poppy

Patterned Paper: Cosmo Cricket - Just Keep Swimming

Ribbon: SU

Pearls: Kaiser

Button: PTI - Ocean Tides

Twine: The Container Store

Ink: Memento - London Fog and Cantaloupe

Papertrey Ink's Stamp-A-Faire 2012

Wow....this was just way too much fun!  I had a blast this past Saturday hanging out with some PTI forum friends or as one of Joyce's daughter would say and real live friends and not imaginary ones.  I was able to spend the day with Joyce Mehrberg and Cathy Weber and we spent as much time chatting and laughing as we did crafting.  I flew to San Diego and Joyce was sweet enough to pick me up from the airport and let me stay with her wonderful family. Joyce is just the sweetest hostess, her husband prepared a fabulous meal for us on Friday night and she even made the best cinnamon scones for a little tea party Saturday afternoon.  Everything about the day was perfect, except I wish Cathy could have stayed longer.  Joyce took us on a tour of her wonderful and scenic town, to live so close to the Pacific Ocean...wow, just so beautiful and breath taking.

We spent the day watching video's, crafting and even burning ribbon for one of the techniques.  It was just too funny and Joyce came up with a back up plan after the ribbon burning did not turn out anything other than burnt ribbon! It was just too funny...I know Joyce has a picture of that little experiment to share on her blog.  I made 6 cards by the end of the day and that was 6 more cards than I thought I would get made.  Joyce was sweet enough to set up her daughters lap top so that we would be able to Skype Tracey McNeely from Canada what a doll, I have to say that was one of the days highlights.  

Here are few pictures from our day.....

Cardiff by the Sea - This is their town statue and depending on what is happening it gets a new look. Friday when I arrived it was dressed like a baby boy, complete with diaper and blue and white balloons. 

Surfers

 Cathy Weber, Joyce Mehrberg and me.  We found a sweet guy that took our picture and made sure to get the ocean and palm trees in the background.

We all made goodie bags of some sort for each other but since I was flying, I had to take mine apart for packing.  Cathy had a strawberry theme going complete with the most adorable strawberry basket (it holds my bling on my craft desk) and Joyce gave us a sampling of her favorite supplies...fabulous pens, paper pad with matching brads and glow in the dark embossing powder.  I had the time of my life, it was so much fun hanging out with these 2 incredibly talented ladies.  Joyce, thank you again for being so sweet and kind, I loved every minute of our SAF event.

Papertrey Ink July Blog Hop

It really seems to me that months keep slipping by faster and faster each month...it's the 25th again and time for PTI's July Blog Hop.  I have to say that thanks to my friend Joyce, I have really come to like stamping with flowers.  I used stamped images for them for this months Four of a Kind challenge that Joyce was the hostess of the then again this past weekend for PTI"s Stamp-A-Faire. Joyce must have the largest selection of flower stamps I have ever seen, so it was fun testing out a few of them (more Stamp-A-Faire news towards the end of this post). So when I saw Nichole's inspiration photo I knew what stamps I wanted to use but that was about it.  I had to use Rosie Posie (this is the only flower set I own so far) to make my card, I really love this set.  I decided to make my card for one of my summer school mom's...she has been looking for a job for over a year and finally out of the blue got a call, went on the interview and started the next day! I am just so excited for her and wanted to make the perfect card for her.
Before I post my card I have to share a little story about the color Melon Berry...We used it this past Saturday for SAF and I have to say it is one of my least favorite colors as far as the ink is concerned, Joyce used it on a card that started off so beautiful but that ink is a funky melon/brown color once stamped so when I saw that was one of the colors for this month's challenge I decided to go with Melon Berry paper.  Thanks for taking a peek and let me know what you think...thanks a bunch!

Inspiration Photo

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - White

Patterned Paper: PTI - Melon Berry and Simply Chartreuse

Ink: PTI - Summer Sunrise, Simply Chartreuse, Berry Sorbet and Harvest Gold

Ribbon: Joann's

Stamps: PTI - Rosie Posie and Script Sentiments

Dies: Rosie Posie and Filigree Border

Waltzingmouse July 2012 Blog Party

Wow, the 17th of the month is here once again, boy does time fly.  I not had a chance to do too many challenge cards this week, I've been so busy with summer camp that I barely have time to check out all of the fabulous blogs I follow.  Since this is a monthly challenge I decided to go ahead and get my card made, this card is for Waltzingmouse's Monthly Blog Party, it was a quick and easy one to put together.  The theme this month is The Great Outdoors, now I have to be honest, I don't have any stamps from WMS that feature the outdoors great or otherwise....I did order a few but they are waiting for me in San Diego so I had to get creative (not much of that left after planning 7 weeks of summer camp) so I had to dig deep, real deep! You will see what I mean when you get a peek of my card that I call "Paris in the Spring Time" So please let me know what you think...thanks a bunch for taking a peek!

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - White

Patterned Paper: Echo Park - Summer Days

Stamps: WMS - Paris Nouveau

Dies: Spellbinders - Labels 25

Ribbon: PTI - Aqua Mist and Michael's - White

Charm: Michael's

Ink: VersaFine - Black

Four of a Kind

It's that time again! Our Four of a Kind monthly challenge and this month Joyce is our fabulous hostess. What an incredible kit she sent...so many wonderful ingredients, enough for me to make 6 cards and still have leftovers for another day.  For those how have not checked out our monthly challenge, each month one of us is hostess and send out kits with all of the same supplies inside them make and post cards, it is fun to see how different or similar our cards can be. I love it when I get ingredients that I have never used before and this kit is so exception! Joyce sent stamped images of  the most beautiful flowers (I love flowers in real life, not in stamp sets), so this one really made me think outside the flower box.  I did what we all seem to be doing, spread out the kit ingredients and let them sit and see what happens, but then I find out that Cathy was sent my kit, the one with all of the self assembling cards in it. So I picked up all of my goodies and started playing around and before I knew it I had 6 cards completed, so here they are! Thanks for taking a peek and be sure to check out the cards made by Joyce (our hostess), Cathy and Renee (links to their blogs are after the pictures of my cards).

Joyce (this month's hostess) - Cards-by-the-Sea

Cathy - Empty Nest Crafter

Renee - It's A Patchwork Life

CASology - Sun

I could not wait to get a card made for this new challenge blog CASology...be sure to check out their blog, they have an incredibly talented group of ladies on their design team.  This week's "cue card" is sun, so that needs to be the main focus and cards also need to have that "clean and simple" feel too.  I have to say that my card was pretty quick to put together too, I used mostly die cuts and one stamped sentiment.  Thanks for taking a peek!

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI Spring Rain, White, Summer Sunrise and Dark Chocolate

Patterned Paper: Summer Sunrise

Stamps: PTI - Hello Sunshine and Little bitty Bird Additions

Dies: PTI - Little Bitty Bird, Little Bitty Bird Additions, Limitless Layers and Clouds

Ink: Memento - Dandelion  and VersaFine - Black

Pearls: SU

Grass: Jolee's 

Dynamic Duo's Challenge #10 and Retro Sketch's Challenge #19

Happy Sunday...hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!  This weekend was a nice and quiet one, got lots of dolly domestic stuff done, even made a big pot of homemade chicken noodle!  I also had plenty of time to get caught up on a few card challenges too.  I have one card for for two challenges today, Retro Sketches and Dynamic Duo's...I really love both of these challenges, they are so fun and and really make for some beautiful cards.  You must check out all of the entry's for both of them, I promise you will love everything you see.  For this card I wanted to pull out some supplies that have not see much love.  I was reaching for my Half & Half die and grabbed the tea time border instead, completely forgot I had this.  I could not wait to run it through my big shot, so amazed at how nice it came out.  I did have to cut one of the tea cups off the end to make it fit my card, but it is a fabulous die.  You have to check out Cottage Cutz, so many wonderful dies and an entire line of "Tea" themed ones...all so wonderful. Here is my card and thanks for taking a peek!

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - Simply Chartreuse, Winter Wisteria and White

Patterned Paper: PTI - Simply Chartreuse

Ink: PTI - Winter Wisteria

Dies: PTI - Half & Half and Cottage Cutz - Tea Time Border

Pearls: SU

Stamps: SU - Tea Shoppe

Bakers Twine: The Twinery

Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge #105

I know I have mentioned this before on my blog...am I am going to do it again, going to Paris is on my bucket list to visit some day before I am too old and gray.  That being said I made another card to post today using the Paris Nouveau set from Waltzingmouse stamps...I just love this set, it is so classy and elegant and really makes for some wonderful cards.  This week's sketch was created by Teresa Kline, a Mischief Maker with WMS and she did an amazing job.  Once I decided which stamps to use I went through my patterned paper and found Be Mine by Echo Park, so many wonderful old world Paris looks.  Thanks for taking a peek!

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - Ivory

Patterned Paper: Echo Park - Be Mine

Stamps: WMS - Paris Nouveau

Ribbon: My Stash

Roses: Michael's

Dies: Spellbinders - Labels #25

Ink: VersaFine - Black

Papertrey Ink - Make It Monday #73 - Stamping on Patterned Paper and CAS-ual Fridays Challenge #60 - Text Me

I know my card is a bit late for this weeks MIM challenge,but not too late to play along . With doing all the planning and organizing for summer school my brain has run dry on creativity.  I was really looking forward to this weekend to play check up on a bunch of challenges...so happy I have no other plans.  On this card the paper I used to stamp is PTI's Fall Prints and Patterns, I decided to use a piece of paper that was lighter in color and stamped with PTI's Linen Ink and I was very happy with the way it turned out. I used the Background Basics Newsprint for the first time and was so amazed at how each paper section just lined up so perfectly, note to self, use this set more often. After finishing up my card I realized that it worked for this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge too, love it when this happens! So here is my card...thanks for taking a peek!

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - Rustic White

Patterned Paper: PTI - Fall Prints and Patterns

Stamps: PTI - Warm Happiness & Additions and Background Basics Newsprint

Dies: PTI - Warm Happiness

Ink: VersaFine - Vintage Sepia and PTI - Fine Linen

Twine: The Container Store

ColourQ Challange #144

ColourQ has selected another grouping of colors for this weeks challenge, a very Patriotic set of colors...perfect for this past week's 4th of July holiday.  I have to say it took me awhile to get moving on this card just could not get inspired.  I decided to go through all of my stamps and find something that I have not used before.  I pulled out Waltzingmouse's Off Beat Backgrounds and used the chevron stamp, just too much fun.  I was kind of afraid to use it, afraid that I would not be able to get it lined up when I switched colors and to my surprise, it worked out and was lots of fun to play with. I used Blueberry Sky, Enchanted Evening, Pure Poppy and Berry Sorbet from PTI for my interpretation of the colors.  I love it when the challenges make you think outside the box as far as color combinations are concerned, I have found some new favorites.  Here is my card and thanks for taking a peek!

While working on this card I decided to play around with some dies I cut with my Cricut.  I borrowed the Hello Kitty cartridge from a friend and so playing around with it.  I made the card for one of the little girls in my summer school class, she has been an amazing help to me so far and I needed the perfect card to send her.  I did find out though that Hello Kitty's nose is not black but yellow, I am sure she will call me on that but there was no way I was going to pull the card apart to put on a yellow nose, in fact I think the black nose looks better.  

Ingredients

Peanut Butter & Jelly

Solid Card Stock: PTI - White, Enchanted Evening and Berry Sorbet

Stamps: WMS - Off Beat Backgrounds and PTI - We Go Together

Buttons: PTI - Blueberry Sky

Ink: PTI - Blueberry Sky and Berry Sorbet, SU - Real Red

Dies: Spellbinders - Labels #18

Flower: my stash

Hello Kitty

Solid Card Stock: PTI - White 

Patterned Paper: PTI 2008 Bitty Dots Basics

Stamps: PTI -Think Big Favorites #3

Ink: VersaFine - Black

Bling: Martha Stewart

Retro Sketches # 18 - Just Ducky

Happy Sunday...hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend.  I have one more card to share with you and this one is for the challenge blog, Retro Sketches.  Their design team always manages to come up with some fabulous sketches and even more fabulous cards.  This week is no exception...you have to take a look at all of the cards that have been submitted too, just so much fun. This sketch has so many possibilities, so I decided to use my little ducks from PTI's On The Farm and I am so happy with the way it turned out. Thanks for taking a peek!

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - White and Summer Sunrise

Patterned Paper: PTI - Summer Sunrise

Stamps: PTI - On The Farm

Ink: PTI - New Leaf and Memento - Cantaloupe

Button: PTI - New Leaf

Bakers Twine: Unknown source

Die: PTI - On The Farm