Good news and a bit of a Blog Break

Whew, I am glad that I didn't have to keep that a secret for a long time, I would have burst! Yes I am one of the newest members of the Sketch~n~Scrap design team. I am looking forward to working with all of the ladies over there! Stop by the Sketch~n~Scrap blog to meet the rest of the team.

I have to take a small blog break over the next five days but I hope everyone has a joyous and wonderful week with your family and friends. I will be back in a few days to share my latest projects.

Happy Holidays from Philly!

How Could I Resist.........................

Entering Sketch~n~Scrap's design team call? They have quickly become one of my top sketch sites and even though I have had a lot on my plate I am super excited to be able to submit this layout for a chance to be on the design team.  I want to wish everyone who entered the best of luck and thank the ladies of Sketch~n~Scrap for this opportunity. There is not much time left to enter so if you are like me and have had a WIP on your desk for over a week you still have time to finish it up and submit it.



My Nephew Kevin - Simple Stories Awesome and Pink Paislee Starlight



Saturday Stamping trick

I just wanted to share one of my favorite tips when rubber stamping. Sometimes I have a stamp and I don't want to use the entire image, painter's tape to the rescue! For this card I only wanted to use the sentiment Happy Holidays and not the snowflake images on the side.

So I covered the snowflakes with painter's tape -

Pressed the stamp onto my white ink pad -

 Removed the painter's tape before stamping my image -

And waahlah! Here is my finished card!  



Burlesque Party Favors

     Sometimes having a long weekend works in reverse for me. Instead of me enjoying the extra time off it makes me long for the days when I won't have to work (I hope my hubby is reading this, lol). I did get some crafting relief over the weekend. One of my bonus nieces turned 32 and wanted "Aunt Tamika" to help with her favors. She had a burlesque themed party with corsets and boas as mandatory wear for all of the guests (I can't wait to see pictures).

      So at first I found the cut file for the cute corset favor bags (purchased here at  Cre8ive Cutz). The only drawback was that my niece asked for help about five days before the party and putting together 30 bags would have just been too time consuming. So she settled on altering some shot glasses. I purchased a wonderful corset image from the Silhouette store  and on the back of the glasses it say "30 Sexy2" to represent her age. I learned some lessons with this project like -

1. Never answer the phone when it is my niece calling and I know that she is about to ask me to do something last minute, lol. (just kidding).
2. Crafting may look easy to "outsiders" but when it is time to work on a project it is clearly not. She and my oldest niece came over to put them together and let's just say it took a little energy to show them how to apply the vinyl.
3. The housing that encases the Silhouette blade can get "gunked" up with small particles. After a total of over 100 small cuts my blade called it quits.
4. So from point 2 lesson learned - always keep extra blades on hand.
5. And another lesson from point 2, keep extra vinyl on hand too - just to leave a little room for error.Not that I made any, I am just saying..................

Overall I love the results and can't wait to add this to my porfolio of successful projects.

Getting Sketchy

I really enjoy using sketches to kick start my creativity. There are a lot of great sketch blogs in cyberspace and I would love to participate in them all but recently after a conversation with Mika reality set in. We were discussing how unrealistic it is to participate in all of the challenges that we see and how trying to do everything stops us from achieving anything. So from now on I plan on trying to limit myself to a few favorite challenge blogs each month. So for November my goal is to participate in the following -

• One or two here - http://www.creativescrappers.blogspot.com/
• I LOVE the sketches here http://sketchnscrap.blogspot.com/, they fit my style very well
• I like the sketches here too - http://www.papersecrets.net/2012/11/nov-1st-sketch-challenge-gdt-and-dt.html
• I like a couple here - http://pagedrafts.blogspot.com/
• Grand Diva and Rochelle Spears inspire me so much so I try to participate in anything they are sponsoring - http://granddivasscrappyplace.blogspot.com/2012/11/november-sketch-challenge-and-winner.html

I still have sketches that I wanted to do in October even though I missed the deadlines so I will be busy for a while! I hope everyone has a great weekend and I will leave you with my take on this sketch from the Creative Scrappers blog.

November Holidays

After a brief hiatus it is back! Time for the not-so-usual list of Holidays for November. Hmmm I see a couple that would be great inspiration for card making!

• November 1 - All Saints day
• November 2 - Look for Circles day
• November 3 - Housewife's day/also Sandwich day
• November 5 - Guy Fawkes day
• November 10 - Forget-Me-Not day
• November 11 - Veterans day
• November 12 - Chicken soup for the Soul day
• November 13 - World Kindness day
• November 15 - Clean Your Refrigerator day
• November 16 - Button day
• November 17 - World Peace day
• November 21 - World Hello day
• November 22 - Thanksgiving
• November 23 - You're welcome day
• November 30 - Stay at Home because you are Well day

Catching Up!

Sorry blog-buddies, my mojo has been waaaaaaaaay off! I am finally getting back into the groove of things and as soon as the sun returns to Philly tomorrow I will be able to share my latest layouts. So what has been going on? Welll...............I celebrated my birthday in October and I decided that I need to show I still  have it, lol. 

My niece and I hung out one Friday night sampling as many Margaritas as we could and still drive, lol. (BTW I am not tipsy in this picture- I didn't even have my first drink yet, her flash is blinding!) 

My grandson came over for a visit and Jada and I took him to the park. He couldn't decide whether he should laugh or cry, too funny.

And then Hurricane Sandy. I actually heeded the warning and shopped early, checked the flashlights and secured anything that needed to be secured. Our public transportation system shut down for two days and I do not drive in bad weather - period! so we were stuck in the house. Cabin fever set in so quickly, my husband was on the porch yelling "storm party over here!" just for some excitement. I finally got to venture out late Tuesday and this is what the bread shelves looked like at my local market.  

Glad Sandy is gone and may she never come back to the East Coast!