Simon Says Stamp- Stamptember 2014

I love fall with all of the beautiful colors and crisp cool breezes. When you add daily creative inspiration, like Stamptember, into my favorite season I am over the moon excited!

Today's project started as a card using the smaller snowflake images of the Lots of Snowflakes set. 

I wanted to use the smaller flakes as the base for the card & then add larger, fussy-cut flakes for the accents on the finished card.

I randomly stamped the smaller flakes with Versamark & then heat embossed with a white & silver glitter embossing powder that I have had in my stash for years. 

Once I completed the base, I stamped, silver embossed, then fussy cut a few of the larger flakes. As I started to lay out the design I decided that it just seemed to busy, so I scrapped the card idea altogether. 

Instead of wasting the card base, I decided to cut it into two pieces and use them for inserts in my Project Life or December Daily album.

The resulting 3x4 cards are fun and I look forward to using them in my album.

The cards were not quite 4 inches wide, so I decided to cut them & add elements that made it look more intentional, rather than just a fix. 

On the first card I used a ribbon to cover where I cut the card in half. The glitter flakes and star came from the dollar spot at Target a few years ago. The snowman is one of my favorite older small stamps from Hero Arts & was stamped then watercolored with Twinkling H2O's. 

For the second card I removed a larger section of the stamped piece so I could stamp "Wintertime", which is from an older Hero Arts stamp set. The small blue flake is from the SSS Lots of Snowflakes stamp set. I then added washi tape to the white background card. To finish this card I added iridescent sequins and flicked the whole thing with Perfect Pearl Mist. 

Both cards were edged with Broken China Distress Ink before they were mounted to the background pieces. 

The Wintertime card will definitely end up in my PL album, but the more I look at the other card, I think I might end up making additional cards and using them on the boys Christmas presents this year. 

I have one more small project to share tomorrow using the Lots of Snowflakes stamp set. Here is a small peek. 

For the Love of CHA- Post # 2

Good Morning! Today I ordered about 75 prints from Wal-Mart and picked them up as I flew through town on the way to the boys swimming lessons. The pictures I printed are from October of last year and include our trip to a corn maze, pumpkin carving, and costume photos. I don't scrap chronologically so it really doesn't bother me that I am just now putting together my Halloween mini in July. If anything it makes me dream of cooler temperatures, which is a very good thing in the middle of July in the South! :)

Of all the pictures I had printed this one is my absolute favorite.

I am not sure how I will top this year's costumes.The boys loved them, they were relatively easy to make, and looked so good on them. I rarely sew, except at Halloween. There is just something special to me about hand making the boys costumes each year. 

Besides a Halloween mini for each year (the past few years I have bought a Halloween mini kit from Cocoa Daisy, here is last years that I am working on now), I also keep a Halloween through the years mini that has an individual picture of each boy in costume and then one of them together. I then make additional, very simple, mini's for both sets of grandparents. 

Besides Halloween, the only other holiday I buy scrapbook products specifically for is Christmas. I would love to say I have accomplished a December Daily in prior years, but it has yet to happen. I do manage to hand make Christmas cards each year and I have a huge stash of Christmas supplies waiting to be used. 

So today because I am feeling the holiday spirit, I thought I would share the products I have spotted in this years CHA debuts. I do tend to be a traditionalist when it comes to the holiday lines I pick up. I like the reds and greens of Christmas and the greens, oranges, and blacks of Halloween. So that is what you will see here as well. 

Let's get started!

Let's talk Halloween first. There are two companies that I think do an amazing job with traditional Halloween lines each year. First is My Mind's Eye. This year's line is a continuation of their Lost and Found line. There is nothing about this collection that I do not like. I think I will end up with lots of these pieces. Here is a picture of the entire line.

The other company is Echo Park. Their Halloween line is called Chillingsworth Manor. 

This is the Collection Pack. All the papers are wonderful, both the a & b sides have very nice designs.

The following two papers really caught my eye. 

I can see myself using these two pages in a variety of different ways. I like the versatility they offer to projects, cards, even some home decor banners. I will have to own them both!

Ok, let's move right onto Christmas. 

The first line that really caught my eye was Simple Stories. Since I have already bought a few of their Mix and Match 6x8 Albums, I was interested to see what their Christmas line would look like this year, in hopes of putting together a December Daily. I do like Handmade Holiday line a lot. Lots of things I can definitely use to document the upcoming holiday season and possibly help me catch up on years past. 

The Collection Kit has a number of great papers in it along with sticker sheets. I tend to buy Simple Stories lines as kits because I end up loving everything in the whole kit. 

These are the pages for the 6x8 Album. These would make great foundations for a December Daily

Love these pockets. These would be great on layouts, cards, Project Life, or in a December Daily.

I also spotted these 4x6 cards. These would be great journaling spots for layouts, PL, or DD, as well as recipe cards for a Christmas recipe album.

Another Christmas line I spotted was from Fancy Pants. It is called Home for Christmas.  Here again it is a nice traditional red and green with some kraft thrown in to give it a vintage-y feel. 

Here are the paper/sticker elements available in the line. I need to look more closely at the papers to determine which ones I really want to purchase. The tape stickers look interesting to me as well. 

These are more embellishments that go along with the line. I particularly like the Mixed Buttons and Mingled Brads. 

The final collection is not as traditional as I like (too much blue in my opinion), but because of the "b" sides of the paper I was pretty excited about the whole line. This line is Lily Bee's Christmas Cheer. I kept looking through the papers trying to determine which one's I could live without, especially because of the blue, but the "b" sides kept jumping out at me. 

I see lots of blue here, but I am telling you the "b" sides on each paper are nice and traditional. I especially love the numbered patterned paper, the dots, and the chevrons. 

These index cards are nice as well. I see lots of different uses for these.

These are some of my absolute favorite alpha stickers ever. I own almost every set since they began making these and I reach for them often. 

I am a stamp junkie, but a very picky stamp junkie. These show a lot of possibilities even after the holidays are over. I really like the vertical list of numbers and the vertical row of dots. 

So it is about 90 degrees Fahrenheit today, which is not completely unbearable, but I think I will wait just a bit longer before tackling some of the outdoor chores around here. I think I will spend the heat of the day working downstairs on some wonderful holiday scrappiness until it cools off outside

Hope you find time to scrap as well! :)

Olivia