Santa Bella

I like to make a special Christmas Card every year for my DD. So today I sat down to make her card. I went through my sets and didn't want to use any of them. I came across some Bella images that I was sent by a dear friend about a year ago. (I have used some, she just sent alot so I still had some left). I decided to see what I could do with the bellas. One of the images she sent was the imeldabella. I decided to see if I could turn her into a Santa. So I colored her outfit red, the belt black with a gold buckle and I used liquid applique on the cuffs of the pants to create a white puffy look, just like Santa's suit. Then I colored her hair yellow (DD is a blonde), made her bow red, and colored the presents various colors. I used my white gel pen (SU) to add shapes and patterns to the presents and then I colored the boots brown. I mounted my newly decorated santa bella to Real Red CS (SU) and then added faux stitching to it using the white gel pen again. I used a small snowflake stamp that I got for my birthday in red on the top of the white card base and added some red velvet ribbon. I then used stampin dimensional (SU) to the back of the image to set it off the card base a little. Then I stamped Merry Christmas from the same set I got the snowflake in (Michaels dollar clear sets, love them!) in Staz On black and I colored the holly leaves and berries on the sentiment using red and green. That simple. I absolutely love the way this turned out. And there you have it, a Santa Bella Christmas Card, made ecspecially for my DD!

Tribute to the once lovely trees

So I ventured out yesterday. My neighbors came over and asked if I needed anything at Walmart because they were going. I answered "Anything I need.... no. But! Harry Potter # 5 came out and I want to get that." LOL So I went with them to Walmart realizing I did need to get another case of water so my trip wouldn't be totally insane like. So anyhow, as we were driving through our lovely Army post with it's once tall and gorgeous trees, we saw the destruction of the ice storm. Trees are everywhere. There is actually a few that I saw where the ice brought down entire trees, and we aren't talking smaller trees like the ones in my front yard, we are talking tall majestic 100 year old trees, lying on the ground, completely uprooted. It's crazy! Our place will never be the same. *sad* So last night I got to thinking, I wanted to create a card that would be a tribute to our once stunning landscape. Here's hoping that when the ice melts and the destruction is cleared away, that we will still have plenty of gorgeous trees.

I used the Lovely as a Tree stamp set (SU), along with the Snowflakes set (retired SU), I stamped the snowflakes on the Brocade Blue CS using versamark, then I stamped the trees on the Whisper White CS using StazOn. After that I mounted the WW peice to Brushed Silver CS and added stickles to the trees and ground to give the icey effect (used a brush to apply it so it was a soft brushed look.) I used Crystal stickles on the ground for snow, then I used Waterfall stickles in the trees to create the icey effect. I added some ribbon to the card base (ribbon bought from HL) and mounted the image peice after it dryed.

**On a side note, my neighbor decided to lift the tree off my roof (yes it was still there, there have been so many downed trees that housing hadn't been able to get to it yet). Several of the branches are broken and who knows what will happen to the tree when the ice melts. But I thought I would take a picture of it this morning:

It looks so sad.....

Brrrr Cold!

I just had to share this with you all. If you haven't been following the news then you probably havent heard about the grand ole' ice storm we here in KS are currently in the middle of. I happen to live in one of the few areas that hasn't lost power. Although my power has flickered out several times but no long term lose yet. *knock on wood* Anyhow, I hope to get some good stamping done because I can't go anywhere for a while. The roads aren't too bad right now, but they are supposed to get pretty bad tonight. So it will be a bit before I go anywhere, and what better to spend my time doing then stamping. *grin* Anyhow, just thought I would show you the pics of my house. This is my house back in August. Note the tree in my front yard. It goes past my roof.

This is my house taken this morning:

My gutter is all that holding up part of the tree. This particular part of the tree hangs down so that it almost blocks my walkway, I have to go around to the neighbors porch to get out my house.

This was taken first thing this morning, the tree now hangs lower.

Another view of the tree.

Everything is completely covered in ice. The bushes you see in the background by my porch are covered in almost an inch of ice. My mailbox was covered in an inch of ice as well. I went out and chipped away at that so that doesn't have ice on it anymore though. It is supposed to continue until possibly tomorrow morning and then snow and sleet on Thursday. Oh the joys of winter. *rolling eyes*

Christmas Cards, at least one of the designs.

Here is another one of the cards I did for the craft sale. These will actually be some of my Christmas Cards this year. I don't like to do all the same. I tend to get really bored when it comes to mass production type products. So I always do about 5-6 different designs for my Christmas cards. This is one of my favorites that I created this year. I used Always Artichoke, Brushed Gold, and Whisper White. First I took the Swirling leaves Jumbo wheel (retired SU) and I inked it up using Always Artichoke ink. (when you don't have the cartridge color you need for your wheel, just use your ink pad, works like a charm) Then I wheeled it onto my Always Artichoke CS. I then stamped the Leaves from the Holiday Happiness set (retired SU) onto my WW CS and mounted it onto Brushed Gold CS. I added gold ribbon and added my image. I wanted it to pop a little more so I took the Merry Christmas from Holidays & Wishes (SU) and stamped in on the right bottom corner using versamark, sprinkled it with Gold Glory EP and heat embossed it using my SU heat gun. I love LOVE the finished product!

Wedding cake

So I got a call a couple of weeks ago asking me if I could make a wedding cake. They wanted a very simple cake, nothing fancy, 3 layers. Colors of the wedding, black and silver, flowers red. So, I came up with this: I didn't do the flowers on the cake. Those gorgeous creations I have to give credit to a lady from my church. Not bad for my first wedding cake. And the bride loved it so that is all that matters right?

And now that this is done, I can get back to stamping! Yay!!! I hope to have some stamping related posts for you soon.