My Favorites of 2012

Happy New Year's Eve!

I love looking through the end of the year posts, so I thought I'd do one too!

I'm going to be totally lazy and just do photos, no back-linking or explanation. ;) These start toward the beginning of 2012.























Can you tell I love purple and impression plates??

2012 was, in many ways, an amazing year for me, although there were some hard times too. I'm hoping that 2013 will be a good year!

Thanks for stopping by to visit and Happy New Year!
Melissa

Congratulations

Hope all that celebrate had a Merry Christmas yesterday!

I found a few minutes to play along with the December PTI blog hop.



I used the new Man and Wife Dies to cut this bride. I impressed her dress with the Linen Impression plate, and impressed the base cardstock with the Quatrefoil Cover Plate. The sentiment is from Delightful Dahlia.



Thanks for taking a look!
Melissa

Believe in the Magic of Christmas

There's a fun card using Mama Elephant's set "Believe" and PTI's Tremendous Treats. To create the background, I stamped it using PTI's Super Stripes.



I also added my new favorite embellishment, Enamel Dots!

Have a great day!
Melissa

Happy Hanukkah

I just love Suzanne's sketch this week for the latest Retrosketch challenge!



I used PTI's wine bottle tag die to cut my shape, and then cut again with the menorah die.
The background white cardstock is impressed with the Woodgrain IP, and a strip of Aqua Mist polka dot paper is peeking from under the white ribbon. I opted to stamp the sentiment inside the card and leave the front very clean.



Thanks for looking!
Melissa

Warm Holiday Wishes

Happy Thursday! I had some time to stamp yesterday and made this card based off of Renee's wonderful sketch!



All the lantern parts are from Bright Season by Waltzingmouse Stamps and the sentiment is from Mama Elephant. The papers come from a patterned paper by PTI.

Hope you have a great day!
Melissa

Chocolate-inspired card

Almost forgot to post this! Our last challenge for The Card Caravan was to create a card in honor of "National Chocolate Day". (I know that many of you missed this important holiday, so feel free to indulge now to make up for it ;) )



I used some digital papers and elements from eNKay Designs Sweet Summer kit, and then added buttons, resin flowers and twine. That brown paper just screamed "chocolate bar" to me.

Hope you have a great day!
Melissa

The Compliments of the Season to You

It's November!!!

Just a quick post to add my entry to this week's WMS Sketch Challenge. Here's the sketch:


And my card using Bright Season and the sentiment is from the set Compliments of the Season.



Have a great day!
Melissa

Holiday cards: PTI Blog Hop

Welcome! I went a little crazy with all the beautiful color inspiration photos and created four cards! I had so much fun using new goodies and the great colors!





For this card, I used the Menorah Medley die to cut the Menorah into my cardfront. I stamped the sentiment and then impressed it with the Linen IP. I then also cut two more menorahs from Hawaiian Shores and Simply Chartreuse to use for the candles and flames.





I stamped the background of this card using BB:Super Stripes with Hawaiian Shores ink onto HS cardstock. I cute the square with the Limitless Layers: Square die and used Peace, Love and Joy to stamp the greeting in Hibiscus Burst ink.





This card has a background impression using Herringbone onto Ocean Tides cardstock. I cut the Star of David (from Menorah Medley dies) with Aqua Mist cardstock and adhered the matching circle behind, cut from Soft Stone.





The last card uses two impression plates: Herringbone for the Ripe Avocado cardstock and Peace Be Still for the Scarlet jewel portion. The image and sentiment, from In the Meadow, were stamped with A Muse ink onto Sweet Blush cardstock. A Sweet Blush satin ribbon was added.

Phew! Thanks for taking a look at my cards!
Melissa

Merry Little Christmas

These are just the cutest new stamps! I got two new sets from Mama Elephant, and I love them!



I just Polar Pals to stamp the little penguin, which I colored with Copics. The snowglobe and sentiment come from Believe in the Magic. The background was impressed with a PTI plate.

Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks for coming by!
Melissa

Happy Halloween

I'm playing along with the Waltzingmouse Stamps' Blog Party for October. This month is a color challenge: to use purple, orange and black.



I stamped the plaid background using Faux Fun and the sentiment is from Say it Loud Winter.

Thanks for stopping by!
Melissa

Season's Greetings

A Christmas card!



It uses WMS's Festive Foliage and the sentiment comes from Compliments of the Season.

Thanks for looking!
Melissa

Hello

Hope you're having a great week! I made two cards recently with the same layout and elements. I just switched out the papers, colors and sentiments.





Those gorgeous buttons are from Neat and Tangled .

Thanks for taking a look!
Melissa

You're a good catch

Happy World Cardmaking Day!

I snuck a few minutes to make a card today, and used a new-to me set called "Fanfare" from Avery Elle. I also played along with the latest Retro Sketch .



I stamped the waves using an A Muse ink, and the little fish and sentiment are from PTI's Tiny Treats: Valentine.



Hope you're having a great weekend!
Melissa

Happy birthday

I'm back with another card! On this one, I cut out the "Sofia" using my Cameo. I heat embossed the "happy birthday" (from Women of Life- PTI) before adhering the name.



I mixed and matched some papers on this one, and I'm not really sure which collections they are from! (Can you tell how organized my paper must be!?)

Thanks for looking!
Melissa

Peace Love Joy

I got a Cameo!! I've been busy watching videos and playing around with all the possibilities!

Here's a card I made using it:



I cut out the white portion and then stamped the "peace" and "joy" using Waltzingmouse Stamps' Say it Loud- Winter set. It was then run through my cuttlebug with the PTI snowflake impression plate.

Thanks for stopping by!
Melissa

Card Caravan and WMSC

Running in very quickly to post my card for the latest WMSC sketch challenge !!



My card this week also was made to play along with the latest Card Caravan challenge on The Hybrid Chick , which starts on Sunday.



Our theme at the Card Caravan is to use 7 things, so I used 5 different digital papers and two stamps from WMS's Spring Baskets.

Thanks for taking a look!
Melissa

Felt gift bag

Today I'm taking part in PTI's September blog hop, which is focusing on fabric and felt packaging ideas.



I made a gift bag out of PTI's Hawaiian Shores felt using Favor It Box 3 Die and one of the Damask Snowflake dies.



Here is the side view. I used a liquid glue to adhere it together, and needed to use some pressure on the side in order for it to glue closed.



I think these might be cute for a little teacher gift for the winter holidays!

Thanks for looking!
Melissa

Merry Christmas

Hope you're having a great week! With all the Christmas crafting goodies starting to make an appearance, I was in the mood to make a Christmas card.



I used Bells and Boughs for this, stamping the background with the poinsettia and leaves, and the bells and bows were die cut and stamped. Just realized that part of the sentiment is covered up, oops!

Thanks for looking!
Melissa

Thank you

I decided to play around with color combos, and came up with a set of thank you notes. I also wanted to try out my Bloom Builder die, since I have a metal shim now, and I was hoping that it would cut much more easily, which it did!



All the inks used are Amuse Inks. This card uses Winter Wisteria cardstock for the flower, and a strip of Royal Velvet patterned paper. The stamp for the background comes from First Fruits (PTI).



Orange Zest patterned paper, and A Muse ink and cardstock for the maroon-ish color.



Aqua mist patterned paper and Dark Chocolate cardstock for the bloom.



Lastly, Blueberry Sky patterned paper and Enchanted Evening cardstock.

Have a great weekend!
Melissa