The 12 Kits of Holidays - January 2013

Happy New Year again...this is our first posting of our 12 Kits of Holidays for 2013. There are a few changes for this year and one of them is that about every other month our kits will be other holidays, like this month we are making cards for Valentine's Day. Next month we will be back to Christmas cards.  One of the other changes for this year is that we have 2 new ladies joining our little group but that also means saying goodbye to 2 others, Cathy and Suzanne...you will be missed.  So please help me in welcoming Kelly and Tracey to 12 Kits by leaving them comments. Like I mentioned before, we are doling Valentine's Day cards this month and our fabulous hostess is Joyce from Cards-by-the-Sea (thanks for sending me the kit with the self assembling cards). Joyce sent out an incredible kit filled with so many wonderful goodies.  I was able to make 8 cards from her kit and still have plenty of left overs to CASE a few of the cards that the other ladies have made.

Kit Photo Courtesy of Kara

Joyce of Cards-by-the-Sea - this month's hostess
Renee of It's a Patchwork Life
Marybeth of Marybeth's Time for Paper
Amy of Stamp-n-Paradise
Christina of Sea Glass and Sentiments
Kim of Cupcakes, Cards and Kim (that's me)
Kara of KandR Designs
Jessica of The Paper Parade 
Jeanne of A Kept Life 
Sharron of On Papillon Wings
Tracey of In My Creative Opinion
Kelly of Gingham Girl

Clean & Simple Card Making 2 - Day 3

So far today has been my favorite lesson...I fell in love with the first video of the day from Jennifer McGuire, it was easy to do and turns out just beautiful. Day 3 of class and I was on time again, in fact class was late today by 11 minutes, so no demerits for me.  I did not have everything for this card so I just made due with what I had on hand. I have a few stamps that you can use to make backgrounds but I have to be honest I rarely ever use them, that is until now. The possibilities are just endless! Thank you so much for stopping by and taking a peek of my card....it was so much fun to make!

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - White and Hawaiian Shores

Ink: PTI - Aqua Mist, Hawaiian Shores and New Leaf

Ribbon: PTI - Hawaiian Shores

Ink: VersaMark

Embossing Powder: Stampendous

Stamps: WMS - Off Beast Backgrounds and PTI - Think Big Favorites #13

Clean & Simple Card Making 2 - Day 2

Day 2 was just as much fun as day 1 and I was on time this time...up at 5am ready to go with a nice hot cup of coffee and ready to watch the new days videos by 6am.  By 6:30 I have watched all three videos and started thinking about what kind of card to make and what I would use. I only had supplies on have to make Debbie's card and we so happy that I learned a few new things today! I have never used a die to deboss and it was much easier than I thought it would be, it only took me 2 tries to get it right.  I was happy that the technique worked but did not like the look of the black butterfly trails, I just might redo this card tomorrow. Looking forward to tomorrow and learning more new techniques. Thank you so much for stopping by to take a peek at my card.

In addition to having a fabulous day 2 I also had a really nice Happy Mail day...my new Silhouette Cameo arrived (I had a Cricut and sold my machine and all the cartridges), now I just need the time to learn how to use this wonderful thing! I also received a late Christmas gift, a Donney Bourke handbag from one of my school moms...it really was a great day!

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - Lemon Tart and White

Ink: PTI - Spring Rain and Lemon Tart and VersaFine - Black

Stamps: PTI - Sweet Spring

Dies: PTI - Christmas Label

Clean & Simple Card Making 2 - Day 1

I took this class last year and loved every minute of it and learned so much. This time around I am taking the online class with 2 friends that I met online...we are having so much fun chatting about the class and everything else crafty via Facebook. This morning I was late to class and was given a demerit so my alarm is set for very early tomorrow morning so I will be ready to play, learn and sip on a nice hot cup of coffee. We even got homework today but like Joyce said, it is fun homework, card making.  Today's lesson we have 4 card samples to learn from and love the idea of getting printouts to save to refer back to at a later time.

I am ready for class tomorrow, homework completed, posted and alarm set. See you tomorrow with another lesson behind me and more completed homework. 

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - Ivory, New Leaf and Rustic Ivory

Stamps: PTI - Garden Variety and WMS - Chicken Wire

Ink: PTI -fine Linen and Adirondack - Espresso

Dies: PTI - Double Ended Banner and Limitless Layers Circles

Retro Sketches #48

Happy Sunday...hope everyone is have a fabulous day.  I finally had the chance to play with my new food processor and be crafty too and get my card made for this week's Retro Sketches challenge.  I love Tuscan Vegetable soup but there is so much cutting and chopping, but this time it was a breeze to get everything ready to toss into the pot. I was able to get one card made for today too, and that was in between getting the laundry done and cooking.  My card is a bit early but it is for St. Patrick's Day, I just love all of the green but it needed a little something in the corner with a bit more color and I found this pot of gold in my green embellishment bin. It was my lucky day!

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - New Leaf and White

Patterned Paper: PTI - New Leaf

Stamps: PTI - Luck of the Irish and School Time

Embellishment: Michael's - Reflections

Ink: PTI - New Leaf and VearsaFine - Black

Glitter: Martha Stewart - Peridot and Florentine Gold

One card...two challenges

     

Happy Saturday! Hope everyone is having a wonderful day...I spent the morning cleaning my room and getting things actually put away and where they belong too. I still have a bit of a mess on my desk but it's not so bad that I could not get a card put together. My first thought when making this card was for this week's CASology, their cue card this week is "drink" and then remembered the colors for this week's Dynamic Duos would be so perfect for my little coffee mugs from Paper Smooches Cyber Cafe. It is a wonderful set to have if you are a hot drink lover! Thank you so much for stopping by to take a peek at my card!

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - White, Fine Linen and Classic Kraft

Patterned Paper: PTI - Fine Linen

Stamps: Paper Smooches - Cyber Cafe

Ink: PTI - Fine Linen and Classic Kraft

January 2013 Papertrey Ink Blog Hop

It seems like it has been forever since I posted a card or even left comments on any of the blogs I follow. Last weekend we had an extra day off and I was a bit under the weather and then back to work and I have been subbing all week.  By the time I get home I am beat, too tired to spend much time on the computer other than answer a few emails. Today is Friday and my last sub day this week and then the weekend!!! Two days of time to play with paper and ink, I can't wait. Ok, it's the 25th of the month again and that means another Papertrey Ink Blog Hop.  I set aside a few minutes to get my card together and this month's theme is to have a "black" background, not a background color I use that often, but I am very happy with how my cards looks. Thank you so much for stopping by and taking a peek!

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - Black, White and Spring Rain

Stamps: PTI - Hands of Time

Dies: PTI - Hands of Time

Silver Paper: Stash

Embossing Powder: Ranger - Silver

Bling and Brad: SU

January 2013 Waltzingmouse Blog Party

This month's theme for the Waltzingmouse Blog Party is "love" and I panicked because I knew I did not have a single Valentine's Day stamp from Waltzingmouse. I started going through my WM sets and them it hit me...I have Wanda's Pantry and when I ordered it I thought I could use the Love Potion #9 for a Valentine's Day card.  Problem solved. I used red ink and made a little frilly so it would work for this holiday. It was a pretty quick card to make too other then the fussy cutting around the my stamped image.

Ingredients

Solid Card Stock: PTI - Pure Poppy and White

Patterned Paper: Bo Bunny - Crush

Stamps: WM - Wanda's Pantry

Dies: PTI - Filigree Border

Roses: Prima

Pearls: Stampin Up

Happy Anniversary to Mister and Darnell

This is a fun post today...it is in celebration of Mister and Darnell's wedding anniversary.  If you have not had a chance to check out Darnell's blog, djkardkreations, you must take a few minutes and head on over, she is very talented and  extremely funny! Thanks to Ardyth for organizing this too (be sure to head over to Ardyth's blog as well and post you own wedding photo).  We were asked to make a card and add one of our own wedding photos....this will be so fun to see all the other cards and photos.  I heard that Darnell will be posting one of their wedding photos too.  Be sure to use the link above and leave her and Mister some love on their special day.

I got my inspiration for this card from Stephanie...you can find her card here. When I saw her card some months back I knew one day I would have the opportunity to make one too. Since Darnell refers to her husband on her blog as "Mister" I thought it would be so fun to add the Mr & Mrs on the vellum.

Here is my wedding photo. Dwight and I have been married for almost 22 years, but after looking for a photo to post, it really feels like just yesterday. 

Ingredients

Solids Card Stock: PTI - Pure Poppy and White

Vellum: Stampin Up

Stamps: PTI - Love and Marriage

Ribbon: PTI - Pure Poppy

Ink: SU - Real Red and VersaFine - Black

Four of a Kind - A La Carte January 2013

Happy New Year! This is our first challenge for the new year...along with a few changes too. I guess the best time for change is at the beginning of the new year, they are never easy but things happen and make it necessary.  The first change for our monthly challenge is that Renee from It's A Patchwork Life decided that she needs to bow out. She will be really be missed, she is an incredibly talented lady and a fabulous friend.  The next change is that Marybeth from Marybeth's Time for Paper, another wonderful lady who is so creative. The final change is that we will be changing our posting time from one a month to once a quarter, so our next post will be in April. It's amazing that this all started with Joyce and Cathy using the same supplies and made one card each. Then they invited Renee and me to join in the fun and decided to call it Four of a Kind. Again, we each only made one card using at least 4 of the different elements that were sent. It has been so much fun from the very beginning and I look forward to each and every challenge.

So here we are, a new year with a few changes. For our first month's challenge we decided to pull out the leftovers from past kits and put together a few cards. I thought it would be fun to take the leftovers from one of Renee, Joyce and Cathy's kits and make 2 cards each.  It was so much fun to pull these out and remember how much fun each and every kit was...so many wonderful goodies and many times using supplies and stamps that I did not have, a fun way to "test drive" new goodies without having to spend any money!

These are both from one of Renee's kits - It's A Patchwork Life

 These are both from Cathy's kit - Empty Nest Crafter

These are both from Joyce's kit - Cards-by-the-Sea

Thank you so much for stopping by and taking a peek at all of these fabulous cards.

My Favorite Waltzingmouse Cards from 2012

I loved this idea when Joyce from Cards-by-the-Sea told me about it. Since I have been to several blogs how had done the same, so many wonderful cards using Waltzingmouse Stamps.  I love using these stamps and the look that they give cards...a wonderful vintage look.  So here are my favorite from the past year....thank you so much again for stopping by and taking a peek!

January

February

 

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

This was so much fun going back and finding my favorite Waltzingmouse cards...before I forget I would like to thank Renee from It's A Patchwork Life for getting me hooked on these stamps.  Thank you so much Renee, you are just the sweetest!