The BIG 3-0!

A couple of months ago my friend Shelly posted on her blog saying that according to her kids she is now officially old because she had just turned the BIG 3-0! I told her that must mean I wasn't old yet because I hadn't turned 30 yet. hehehe

Well, I can no longer brag that I am not old, because today I turned the BIG 3-0! That's right, at 12:12 this morning I officially turned 3o! And you know what? So far I love being 30!

I spent the morning shopping. I had to find a new tree topper for our Christmas tree because the one we had is broken. I also bought some cute ornaments. I was tempted to buy a bunch of Green and Purple ornaments because they had some gorgeous ones there. Purple with gold swirly patterns on them. Gorgeous! And of course if I get Purple I have to get Green too. So I almost ended up with a Purple and Green Tree. But I opted not to go completely off my rocker and just bought some other cute ones to add to our already large ornament collection.

I then went to Hobby Lobby to look around and would you beleive, I didn't find a thing! O.k. so I did buy some Gum Paste for cake decorating, but other then that I didn't get anything. *shock*

I went to the mall too to try to find a wrap for my dress that I am wearing to the ball on Friday night but I couldn't find anything that wasn't gaudy and horrible, or would have made me look like I was way older them I am. (Explain to me why retailers think that plus size women want to look like they are 60 years old?)

I then came home after getting Subway for lunch and after a couple of hours of resting (cause I was worn out after all the mall walking, seriously, I walked everywhere in that dang mall, some of the stores I searched twice)

When I was rested I decided to try to break this stampers block I have had. After all, it's Dec. and I haven't done my Christmas cards yet. Can you say, procrastination?

I figure if you are still with me I should treat you to some cards right? So, here are the fruits of my labors today. I got the Snow Swirled set when I got my large order of goodies a couple of months ago. I haven't been able to figure this set out. I keep running into road blocks where the cards that I make look o.k. but not good enough. I think.... I think I broke through that road block today. What do you think?

This first one I did for the Color Challenge on SCS today. The colors are Sahara Sand, Basic Black and Very Vanilla. I looked through the gallery of samples of cards that had already been done and noticed that some of the ladies did Christmas cards. I was really struck by how elegant these were using this color combo. So I decided to give it a try. First I stamped the different snowflakes randomly onto the Sahara Sand using Black ink. Then I punched the bottom of the peice using the Scallop Edge Punch. I mounted it onto a Basic Black card base. Then it was onto the main image. I stamped the tree using black ink onto the Very Vanilla cardstock and then mounted it to more Basic Black. It needed something so I paper pierced around the edge using my crafter's tool kit. Sadly I don't have any black ribbon so I needed to improvise. I used a peice of black cardstock and paper pierced the edges and mounted that. Then before placing the main image I stamped the sentiment on a peice of Very Vanilla and mounted that. I added the main image with dimensionals. I am so pleased with how this one turned out. I am going to create more and this will be one of my cards for this year.

The other design I came up with was a headache and a half. I have been wanting to do a white and gold card with an embossed gold tree. After 4 dismal attempts I came up with this one. My hubby doesn't like it. He thinks it's too busy. I like it. I embossed part of the card base using my cuttlebug. The main image is embossed with gold powder on Shimmery white cardstock and mounted on gold. Gold ribbon was added. The colors are off in this picture. The gold embossed tree and the gold cardstock don't look as gray in real life.

I will share my daughters stocking tomorrow. It's not done, but coming along nicely. For now it's time to go to the store with my hubby who is going to make me a nice dinner tonight. We are going to eat and decorate the tree while we watch a Christmas movie. *grin*