monstas... they're not JUST for xmas anymore! :)

i know, i know, i'm THE ONLY PERSON in the world who thinks that monstas and christmas go together. well, ok, tim burton does, too. but he tends to make more movies than cards. i make cards, and as you know, i especially like making 'em for the shopping our stash challenge. this week, the brief is to make a funny, sassy, snarky, or in some way LOL-worthy card. for someone who spends as much time being silly as i do, my humorous card repertoire is sadly lacking. i only have about three card jokes, and i rotate them seasonally whilst trying to devise different ways to make them visual. i should think up some new material, but at the moment i am knee-deep in lawyers, real estate agents, and mortgage guys. so not only did i re-use a joke, i re-used a whole entire design, and i am PROUD of the fact! it saved me (non-existent) time AND i think i made this one different enough to be unique. but you tell me:

(monstas cut from (sadly retired) paperchase giftwrap; patterned paper: sassafras, basic grey; foam thickers: american crafts; labels: dymo; ink: colorbox; adhesives: scotch brand gluestick; 3m foam tape; plus one magnetic closure--so that the cupcake stays together-- by basic grey)

the "original" card was made with some gorgeous EAD stickers, last year, for my honorary nephew carlos. this one is for my young neighbor, john. (only the monstas have been changed, to protect the innocent, as jack webb so cleverly never said!) in any case, i always think kids like stuff to be interactive, so i made sure the inside was fun, too:

but wait, there's an inside INSIDE the inside, as well!!! :)

yeah. ok. this may only be funny to me and a six-year-old. and hopefully his mom. but maybe you, too?  in the meantime, why not hop over to SOS where i am POSITIVE that my fellow DT members will make you, in the words of mr. monk, "LOL... out loud!!!" :) :) :)

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! ♥♥♥

SOS92: let's get punchy!

specifically, at shopping our stash this week, we're challenging you to use your *BORDER* punches. because i bet you have at least a few; and maybe even a couple you haven't used in a bit? you miiiiiiiight even have one that's still in the box. well, why not go and get those babies out, dust 'em off, and use one or more on a card, a layout, a tag, a journal page or... well... whatever you feel like making today. i made a card. because that's what i do! :)

(bird, frame and speech bubble: bam pop; patterned paper: creative imaginations, glitz designs, crate paper, american crafts, dcwv, basic grey; chipboard alphas: american crafts; alphabet rub-ons: scrapworks; border punches: ek success, fiskars, recollections, martha stewart; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

you can see i chose the "OR MORE" part of the "one or more" option. that's because i have lots of lovely border punches, they are actually one of my favorite tools! since i was making a card for my uncle, i eschewed all the flowery and lacey ones, but i still had enough to make a super-stacked border, using up loads of scraps! something else i had sort of forgotten about was my beloved bam pop birdie paper, a sheet of which i found while looking for something else, so i decided to put those feathered friends to good use. since just ONE birdie might get lonely, i brought along a couple of friends for him, they live on the INSIDE of the card!

speaking of friends, i hope you will go and see the amazing work of my fellow DT-mates over at shopping our stash! off you go, darlings, and be sure to tell them all how AWESOME they are! ♥

so what have you been up to, lauren?

traveling
very briefly and rapidly, in and out of new york city last sunday, for (amongst other things) the gutai: splendid playground exhibit at the guggenheim. (also loved "no country" and "paper like skin")

the shuji mukai-decorated bathroom at the guggenheim, complete with impressively color-coordinated model!

assembling 
...and copying and faxing and signing and amending and emailing and delivering and comparing and negotiating and reviewing and rewriting and having notarized... more paperwork than i have ever encountered in my entire life!!! as part of the on-going, very exciting, all-consuming, totally tiring, home-buying process! (and yes, we do have a tentative settlement date now; if all goes well, i will be posting photos and blogging from OUR NEW HOME within the next month or so!) :) :) :)

watching
pretty much every night of february-- a james bond film on reelz; as well as the excellent bond documentary everything or nothing (via streaming netflix).

knitting
this gorgeous sweater for my honorary niece's baby-to-be, who is due in june. (it's very slightly freaking me out, however, since it seems like allison herself was a baby, like... fifteen minutes ago! seriously. how can this be?)

don't worry, babies LOVE bright colors! or they're color-blind. i'm not sure which. either way, this totally works!
 

wondering
how it can actually be MORE work to assemble all of the documents needed for an accountant to do one's taxes (which, b/c of an odd real estate situation, we have to do this year) than to just do the taxes oneself??!?!


reading 
denise gigante's fascinating biography of the keats brothers (did you know that george emigrated to america in the early 19th century? no, nor did i!) 

obsessing 
over home decor in a big, biiiiiiiiig way. mostly via this highly addictive website.

don't judge me.

eating
red velvet pop tarts. ok yeah. not proud of this, but my bff bought me a box and holy wow, they are yummy, in a totally junk food sort of way! luckily they are limited edition, and as with last summer's tastycakes, there is a strict "one box per household" policy. (well, there is in THIS household, anyway, lol!)

welcoming
lovely husband jeff home, after a very long and very lonely two-week work absence. hooooooraaay!

♥♥♥

so what have ♥YOU♥ been up to, darlings?! 

i do hope the month of march is treating you well so far! 

♥♥♥

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! ♥

TAG! you're it!!!

it's no secret that i go through "phases" in which i become totally obsessed; with a color, a set of products, a technique... whatever... i discover something i love and then that's ALL i want to do. case in point, having not done anything involving pocket cards for at least the last two years, i made one for niece riley a couple weeks ago. and BLAMMO, i was hooked! so imagine how thrilled i was when this week's challenge at shopping our stash was issued, and the brief was to decorate a tag, or incorporate a pre-made one into our project. so i did. and i put my tag... wait for iiiiiiiiiiiit... IN A POCKET! wahey! :) :) :)

(patterned paper and tag: pink paislee; banner and card-base paper: basic grey; dimensional cake sticker: crate paper; floral: prima; pocket element: teresa collins; ribbon: heidi swapp; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine) 

of course, the fun part about pocket cards is that you can also take the tag OUT of the pocket:

conversely, you can also put additional things INTO the pocket, like giftcards or little candies or secret notes. which i think i will probably do before i mail this one to my cousin, kerrie! :)

but first i'd like to invite you to go and see how the rest of the SOS gang used tags in their awesome projects, and then of course, we can't wait to see what ♥YOU♥ will do with this fun challenge!!!

a sketch so good... i needed to make TWO cards!

i mean, of course, the gorgeous card sketch by brenda barton which we've been using as our inspiration for the current ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ prompt! there were so many awesome ways to take it, i couldn't stop at just one! let me show you my card first, though, because i'm pretty excited about it:

(scanned and resized page from a 1953 copy of  "the night before christmas" illustrated by zillah lesko, printed on kodak premium glossy photo paper; patterned paper: dcwv, reminisce; deco tape and sparkly snowflake stickers: martha stewart; tag and brad: my mind's eye; acrylic snowflakes and red gems: recollections; lace: from my stash; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape)

i scanned and re-sized an illustration from one of the two lovely vintage copies of "the night before christmas" that miss gina gave me for xmas, printed it on glossy photo paper, then cut it out and mounted the whole thing on foam tape for extra dimension. i had remembered this particular picture as having a big yellow full moon, against which santa and his sleigh were shown... turns out... i remembered it wrong, there was no moon at all! so then i thought, maybe it wasn't in this particular book, and i checked out ALL of my different versions of the story. nope. could not find ANY full moon in any of them! i still do not know what illustration i am remembering so vividly, but i can tell you definitively that i do not OWN it, lol! so i just cut a big half-circle out of some glimmery white snow-flake patterned paper, and i think it works pretty well.

and now here's the sketch again, you can see i've been quite faithful to it; turns out, the plus side of fabricating a custom moon element was that i could make it fit precisely where it belonged!

someplace i think EVERYONE belongs this (and every!) friday is over at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ if only to see the beautiful cards created by brenda and stephanie; not to mention the magnificent takes already linked up in the sketch gallery by our awesome fellow belles! so off you go, darlings! ♥