Coffee Lovers Blog Hop

I recently got some goodies from My Favorite Things and I just had to break them in.   Amy is hosting another Coffee Lovers blog hop, this time a holiday one, so I thought I'd go for a holiday coffee (aka red cup!).    I stuck with red and kraft since they are so awesome together.  :)

Stamps:  Stampin' Up! Endless Wishes

Ink:  Stampin' Up! Real Red

Paper:  Stampin' Up! Real Red, Crumb Cake, Pebbles Home for Christmas 

Dies/Accessories: Lil' Inker Stitched Rectangles, MFT Coffee Cup Die-namics, sequins

Chef in training?  :o) 

Santa 'Stache for FMS

It's time for a new sketch at Freshly Made Sketches! Yay!   Karren is our hostess this week and she gave us a fun sketch with endless possibilities.  I feel like I say that every week, but we just have such a great team.   I love these girls so much.   (Smooches!)  

I was SO not going to get this set from the holiday catalog...  then Amy used it so awesomely (is that a word?) that I caved.   Laila loves looking at it too, so it will eventually make its way into her bin of stamps I'm sure.   We worked together on a card with it today for my parents in fact.  Anyway...  I used a stencil from Winnie & Walter with some embossing paste for my background and then colored the Santa with Copics.  

Have a great week and I'll be back tomorrow with a fun coffee card!  

Welcome Baby

Here's my last card with all the cute little Mama Elephant images that I recently colored.  I just love this one!   Someone have a baby so I can send it already! lol

I am so happy as I finally got some sleep last night!   The cats have been waking me up at 4:30 the past few nights and I was so tired.   They were nice and I didn't wake up until Laila was singing to me through the monitor this morning.  I feel so much better.   Whew!

We ventured out to Target yesterday and took our usual tour of the holiday department.  Laila just loves all the Christmas stuff so much.   She likes to hold all these critters.  We've went over being gentle with them and she is so careful.   She thought this one had a cat hair on it and you can see by her face how she felt about that.  Ha!

Monday Prickley Pear Inspiration

It's Monday and time for some new Prickley Pear inspiration!    The weather has been so dreary here this week and I think that reflected itsself in the blues and grays of my card.   This snowman is just so gorgeous.  I love all the details of the trees, candles, snowflakes, etc.   On my original image I colored all those in with their normal colors, but after looking at the sentiment "Winter is an etching" I decided to go with gray so that he looked more like a drawing.   Hopefully that makes sense.  It did to my tired brain.  lol  The background is a watercolor wash with some bokeh effects added, but I don't think those showed up very well.   It gives the sky more of a winter feel for sure.

Stamps:  JJ0029 Snow Globe Snowman, GG0090 Winter is an Etching

Be sure to go check out what all the other designers made this week over on the blog!

Laila has been so into Little People and trains lately so I had to pick up this toy for her.  She has had so much fun with it over the past few days.   I can't get over how into Christmas stuff she is this year! It's so much fun!

Clearly Christmas

I feel like I haven't posted in ages! I have been stamping, but I have a pile on my desk that I need to share. I loved the current challenge at Curtain Call and combined it here with the Simon Says Stamp challenge on Flikr.

Isn't that a lovely inspiration picture?   I went back to my new favorite, the SSS November card kit for my card.  I added in some fun snow in the background using a creative screening from Winnie & Walter.   I think that thing is my new favorite item in my craft room.  It adds so much fun to Christmas cards!  

I just love this picture that I snapped of my two loves today.   :)  

Some Exciting News!

I haven't shared my news with you guys!  I'm so excited to join the awesome team at Two Paper Divas .  I just love their mix of fun stamps, so be sure you go check them out.   They are a new company and the "two" are Melissa and Gayla and they super nice!  It's always good to support small businesses and I am happy to do that with this new position.   I can't wait to pair my clean and somewhat simple style with their images.

They just released some gorgeous new stamps today that I can't wait to get!   If you like candy jars, postcards, and tea, you're going to LOVE them.

I'll be back tomorrow with a fun new card to share, so stay tuned!

Jason hooked up the toy train today and the "kids" were so excited!   I don't know which one of them had more fun watching it go around the track and knocking it off.  

Freshly Made Coffee

It's Freshly Made Sketches Day!   Yay!   Our sketch this week comes from the amazing Cindy L. and she had a fun one.   I had a million (okay, maybe a few really) ideas of what to do with the splatters but ultimately went with my favorite thing, coffee and coffee stains.   Embossing paste and stencils would have been fabulous as well.  I do see now that I forgot to stamp the steam on my cup so that it matched up with the steam image on my card.  It's been a long week already!  lol

See all the possibilities?   I am just loving this sketch so much.  My cup is from Simon Says Stamp, the sentiment from My Favorite Things, and the coffee stains from Bo Bunny.   

I had a horrible headache yesterday so we stayed in and had a pajama day.  It was nice.   We snuggled and watched a few shows, colored, and read books.   

Balloons for Baby

Another little baby card using the cute Mama Elephant set.   I have one more little monkey colored and ready for a card, so I promise I'll move on a to different set soon.  :)   I wanted to enter this one in the Wednesday Simon Says Stamp challenge since it's anything goes this week.

That face!   Now she keeps asking to go talk to Santa and go see him, but we aren't up for another round this year.   She loves the idea of him and is so into Christmas!