stick with me, kid!

does this ever happen to you? you have a complete card-making plan in your head, you know EXACTLY what supplies you're going to use and all you need to do is sit down and assemble the fully-planned out, perfect card. so you do sit down, and the next thing you know a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT card, one that does not even use a single thing you've chosen, starts to emerge. i can never decide if this is awesome or inconvenient. it definitely takes longer, i can tell you that! on the other hand, i nearly always "go with" the new, spontaneous, idea... so clearly on some level i must kind of like the phenomenon. :)

this week, the original card had bright primary colors, lots of distressed edges, a zillion basic grey patterned papers, and the big giant "merry" from SRM's awesome We've Got Your Stick-Merry sheet. so obviously the card i'm going to show you looks like this, lol:

(awesome SRM products: Labels By the Dozen, We've Got Your Border stickers (as hangers) and We've Got Your Stickers-Merry sentiment; patterned paper: basic grey, crate, glitz; brads: mme; ribbon: michaels; other: square doily (pieced to fit); adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

ok, admittedly, there *IS* some basic grey paper in there! so, what happened was, when i sat down to work on the original "merry" card, i kept seeing, out of the corner of my eye, the sheets of SRM Labels By the Dozen sitting on my work table, and they kept screaming, "ORNAMENTS! make us into ORNAMENTS!" so eventually i did, and i think they look pretty fab, actually. i loaded the three pink scalloppy circle shapes with snowflake diecuts, punches, and brads to fancy them up, cut little "necks" out of scrap paper for the tops, and then placed a couple of "We've Got Your Border" stickers on the background paper to act as hangers. some gorgeous square doily as a mat, a little scrap-paper pennant + sticker sentiment, and a teeny bit of machine stitching later... shabby chic xmas card... in pink, obviously!!! 

i've been remiss, so far this year, in joining MANY of my favorite challenges, mostly because of the serious time-crunch involved in buying a home and getting ready to move! but luckily miss patrice has reminded me that one can link up ANY card with her 52-pick-up feature, so i'm planning to get back into that habit on fridays!

no matter what you might have planned for today, it couldn't help but be even better if you started out with a stop over at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ for a little holiday inspiration. for one thing, miss stephanie is also rockin' the stickers with her fab card, for another the fine folks from SRM have provided a lovely and generous prize packet for one lucky cardmaker who links up a holiday card made with at least one sticker this week. and you KNOW you want a shot at that! ♥♥♥

let's *STICK* together!

friday is always my favorite day of the week, especially when we have a new ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ prompt, and even more especially when we have an awesome sponsor; since both of those happen to be true today, i'm one happy card-makin' girl! the sponsor in question is SRM stickers, so i bet you can guess the prompt, can't you? (hint: if you think it might just be to make a holiday card which includes one or more stickers, you're red hot!) :) :) :) of course, the stickers *you* use do not need to be made by SRM; but on the other hand, they make such lovely, useful, clear designs, i bet you have a couple laying around! since that fine company gave stephanie and myself a most generous packet of their latest products, i had lots to choose from... and thus i may have gone slightly into "sticker shock"... but in a GOOD way... see?!

yeah! once i got going, i just could not seem to stop, so i made a whole gift set! for one thing, SRM makes these totally awesome glassine bags, in a variety of sizes (this is the largest); i love the way i can put the card and pillow box inside and you can sort of see them... but it's still a little mysterious:

(glassine bag, labels by the dozen, sticker stitches, and we've got your border stickers all by SRM;  deco tape: freckled fawn; xmas tree die: sizzix)

the pillow boxes (this is a medium one) are rather fab, as well, and since SRM stickers really are totally and completely *CLEAR*, you can get away with layering them to your heart's content!

(pillow box, we've got your sticker-xmas, we've got your border stickers and sticker stitches all by SRM; deco tape: freckled fawn; ribbon:making memories; patterned paper: crate paper; twine: doodlebug; tissue: michaels)

finally, here's my card, which i think you'll agree is merry and BRIGHT... by anyone's standards!

(we've got your sticker-xmas, we've got your border stickers, labels by the dozen and sticker stitches all by SRM; patterned paper: crate paper; ribbon:making memories; glossy white cardstock: ranger; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

i owe the very cool layout of the card to the nice folks at unscripted sketches, who, as usual, are full of inspiration!

speaking of inspiration, we have melanie, one of the lovely designers from the SRM blog along with us at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ this week, and of course miss stephanie has rocked the sticker-usage too, for that matter. if none of that interests you... did i happen to mention... the *PRIZE*??!?! check it out, darlings! ♥