Holiday Card Tip

These days, most of the holiday cards we receive are lovely family photo cards, I love them. About 10 years ago, my friend Michelle shared a clever idea with me, she keeps her cards in an album! Perfect! No more guilt about throwing gorgeous photos away and no cluttery build up.

I have been saving the photo cards for 10 years now. I keep them in an old fashioned scrapbook and I use a glue runner and permanently adhere them to the pages. I sometimes overlap the cards to fit the maximum per page. After 10 years, I have filled two books. After Christmas we pack the albums away with the Christmas decorations. Each year we lay the albums out to enjoy and I revisit them every single year. It's fun to see how our friends' families have grown.

That one right there, it was my Christmas card 10 years ago. Look at all that stamping! Way too much work for me now! See the hand cut holly leaves? My newlywed husband cut those out for me!

If I don't get back here before Christmas, I want to wish all of you a beautiful Merry Christmas. A day filled with joy and laughter and best of all love. I can't wait to see the girls play with all of their Littlest Pet Shop goodies, I can't wait for the squeals of delight!

Have a wonderful holiday friends.

xoxo

Samantha

Put it on Your List!

Did you ask for one of these for Christmas?
Thanks for joining us on the Epiphany Crafts Blog Hop! If you would like to start from the beginning please begin HERE. I hope you will stick around until the end...
for PRIZES!!

I used our Christmas card photo and turned it into a tree ornament. I try to do this every year. The epoxies made perfect little ornaments with the October Afternoon paper.

Next up is Kelly, just click HERE!

In the Mail?

Are you finished? Did you get all your cards sent out? I hand delivered...one and I am mailing one to England today. I need to get motivated! I have a photo card over at the Pebbles blog today, would love for you to check it out....
There is also a generous giveaway, comments close tonight and details can be found HERE. There is a fun blog hop going on right now with Donna Salazar Designs. Lots of prizes to give away and I will have a couple of projects to share with you as well! The more comments you leave on the blogs, the more chances to win!
Dec 12th - Day 1
Donna Salazar -- http://donnasalazar.typepad.com
Nan Paturzo -- http://scrappynan.blogspot.com

Dec 13th - Day 2
Nan Paturzo -- http://scrappynan.blogspot.com
Jennifer Priest -- http://hydrangeahippo.blogspot.com

Dec 14th - Day 3
Donna Salazar -- http://donnasalazar.typepad.com

Dec 15th - Day 4
Tammy Inman -- http://tammyi.com

Dec 16th - Day 5
Jennifer Priest -- http://hydrangeahippo.blogspot.com
Samantha Sibbet -- http://morepaperplease.blogspot.com/

Dec 17th - Day 6
Nan Paturzo -- http://scrappynan.blogspot.com

Dec 18th - Day 7
Donna Salazar -- http://donnasalazar.typepad.com
Jennifer Priest -- http://hydrangeahippo.blogspot.com

Dec 19th - Day 8
Samantha Sibbet -- http://morepaperplease.blogspot.com/

Dec 20th - Day 9
Cheryl Waters -- http://fiskateers.com/blog

Dec 21st - Day 10
Donna Salazar -- http://donnasalazar.typepad.com
Jennifer Priest -- http://hydrangeahippo.blogspot.com

Dec 22nd - Day 11
Donna Salazar -- http://donnasalazar.typepad.com
Cheryl Waters -- http://fiskateers.com/blog

Dec 23rd - Day 12
Jennifer Priest -- http://hydrangeahippo.blogspot.com
Tammy Inman -- http://tammyi.com

Dec 24th - Winners
Donna Salazar -- http://donnasalazar.typepad.com

Around this House

Copied this deco idea straight from Jenni Bowlin herself. I loved her truck with trees, so I had to make one up myself. I got the silhouettes 2 years ago for Christmas and they are one my most favorite possessions ever.

I made this silly ornament last Christmas with Emma. I traced her hands and foot on cheapo craft felt, cut it out and hand stitched it together.

This little sign is a bit too big to consider it a tree ornament. I used a repro photo of my dad and his baby brother playig in the snow. It is hard to see, but my dad has a sneaky look on his face, as if a snowball was about to be thrown.

May Arts Plaid contest ends soon, get your entries in!!

Have a delightful weekend.

On the 7th day, One More Ornament

Emma doesn't care for my homemade ornaments. While we were decorating the tree the other day, she mentioned that the scrapbooked ones (ornaments) are boring and she likes the shiny pretty ones.

Well, hopefully they grow on her, cause one she will own them!

I used a beautiful vintage looking paper ( Christmas Rose and Ribbons) and a super versatile music stamp from Donna Salazar Designs. I embossed the stamp with white embossing powder. The sweet little buttons were made with my Epiphany Crafts Button Studio and Donna Salazar Designs paper. I applied Glossy accents to the rose design on the paper to make it stand out a little more, I love that gorgeous rose.

Went to Toys R Us last night. In a few short weeks my house is going to have Littlest Pet Shop doodads all over the place... how do you store all that teeny tiny stuff?

I have loved reading your comments about puppies and labs, it's always interesting to learn what we have in common and that there are others sharing similar experiences.

Handmade Christmas

As promised, I wanted to share my cards that I made with Pink Persimmon's new Christmas stamp release designed by the talented Cathe Holden. This elegant set has a nice big tree and plenty of smaller stamps to deck it out. For the card above, I applied a thin layer of glitter glue and sprinkled pretty mica flakes all over for the sparkle. Yes, the mica is on my desk from now until Christmas, how about you? The amazing ribbon? You know it is May Arts!

For these 2 cards I dug out the heat embosser. On top, I used a white powder on kraft and layered over a piece of craft felt. Pink Ribbon from May Arts. Below, I sprayed the cardstock with Tattered Angels Mist "Honey Dew", it is a lovely color with gold highlights. I embossed in white powder and embellished with glitter brads and a Prima flower center.

More mica here. I only meant to use red glitter around the edge of the die cut, but it wasn't looking very neat, so I just went ahead and glittered the whole thing. I wrapped May Arts burlap string around the trunk.

It's time to get started on those Christmas cards if you haven't already! So far I have about 20 ready to go. I usually make them all identical, but I am thinking of switching it up every 20 cards or so this year. I also like to add a wallet size photo to the design. What are you making? Would love to hear about it...or see it!

xoxoxo

Samantha

It's on My Mind

Perhaps I am thinking about Christmas because my mall has already decorated for the holiday season, yep the halls are decked with boughs of holly. Being a mom makes the holidays a thousand times better....for me. I am already excited about wrapping up special gifts for the girls and this year I am starting a new tradition with them, an advent calendar! Of course I still need to figure out what to put in the 24 pockets x 2. I don't want to do candy....I am not a big fan of party favor knick knack toys ....so I need to think about this...any ideas? I thought charms for a charm bracelet would be fun, but they are still a few years too young I think. Let me know what you do with your advent. And how do I keep them out of the the other pockets when I am taking a shower? A few days ago I mentioned that Pink Persimmon has released a couple of new holiday stamp sets. I used one of the sets for these projects. Cathe Holden is their new stamp designer and I love Cathe's work. I have been following her blog Just Something I made for a while now. If you love the look of vintage graphic design, you will love her too.

I found this plain ceramic ornament at Michael's for $1.29. I used Staz on ink to stamp the image. I will be honest, it took me many many applications before I stamped an image that I was happy with. Nice thing about the ceramic-I just washed it again again until I liked my stamped design. I left it overnight to dry, and used a glue pen as my adhesive for the red glitter I sprinkled on as holly berries. The monogram M is an American Crafts Thicker.

The red stripe Ribbon? May Arts of course! If you NEED your own set of Cathe Holden stamps, you can find them right HERE along with the entire collection of Pink Persimmon stamps and goods. I will be back tomorrow with my creations form the other set from Cathe.

Have a wonderful day, raining here in SoCal, so wonderful.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

"For unto us a child is born. . .and his name should be called Wonderful Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince Of Peace. . "

I wish you peace and love.

xoxo,

Samantha

Purple Cows Blog Hoppin'

Thanks for hopping by on the Purple Cows Blog Hop! If this is your first time here, my name is Samantha Sibbet and I have been working with Purple Cows since April 2009. I threw away my crooked cutting slider trimmer that I had for years and fell in love with my Purple Cows guillotine. No more crooked cuts for me.

I trimmed the roof of this wood cut gingerbread house with my 2 in 1 paper cutter and I used the rotary wave click blade. My friend Kim Hesson makes the little houses.

This fun paper is from our partner Cosmo Cricket, it's from Jolly By Golly.

I made this quick and easy card with my guillotine trimmer and a pretty little tag from
Elle's Studio.

How would you like to have some Elle's Studio in your stocking? My blog hop Rak for you are these sweet packages of tags, cutest tags you've ever seen, trust me. All you need to is become a blog follower and leave me a comment. I will pick a winner this Saturday night.
And don't forget, you still have time to enter the contest to win a ton of Purple Cow products, just by making a project with a Purple Cow tool! The details are HERE.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today, up next on the hop is the talented

Tanisha Long!

And if you just started the blog hop here, I have listed all of the participants and their links below. Many of the blogs have fun RAKs for you and there is a Purple Cows giveaway on one of the blogs...Go find it!

Lynn: http://www.lynniemarie.blogspot.com/
Pinky: http://www.blueyecicle.blogspot.com/
Jing-Jing: http://www.thislittleartofmine.blogspot.com/
Kryssi: http://www.sugarbuffet.com/
Elisa: http://www.perpetualstew.blogspot.com/
Samantha: http://www.morepaperplease.blogspot.com/
Tanisha: http://www.tanisharenee.blogspot.com/
Vicki: http://www.texasscrapaddict.blogspot.com/
Paula: http://www.hartofthemountain.blogspot.com/
Robin: http://www.ohscrapblog.blogspot.com/
Liana: http://www.maples-lianasuwandi.blogspot.com/
Michelle: http://www.mjm-thearttart.com/page34.htm
Vennita: http://www.shabbybling.blogspot.com/

Busy Elf Am I

Emma is not too happy that Lily has a pink bow on her ornament and she is stuck with a blue bow. I should have known better, but I couldn't find the sheer pink ribbon when I was working on hers. She has asked many times for me to change bows with Lily's. Kim Hesson cut the wood for these ornaments and for the stars below. They are for sale over in her etsy shop right now. if you want them buy them now...her wood cuts sell really fast so you might miss it if you wait. You can always leave her message is they sell out. Melissa Phillips and Jenny Morgan also made some beautiful Christmas crafts and you can check them out HERE. Both of my ornaments have paper from Pink Paislee and chipboard letters and mist from Maya Road.

Oh My Stars! I loved making these sweet stars. Kim sells them as a set of 3, they are heavy durable mdf and they are very easy to decorate. The paper and chipboard are from Collage Press "Joy Ride". I am in love with this collection. I have another big project in the works with this line, I just need some quiet time to finish it.

The cute chipboard from Collage Press made this an easy project to embellish. I added a few pearls and rhinestones to the snowflakes and that lovely ribbon is from May Arts. The ribbon is my most favorite ever. I actually glued all three of my stars together. Fun Fact: the text paper (Collage Press) is actually from Pride and Prejudice! Mr. Darcy's name is all over the place!

This Project is out for Publication, you will find it in Simply Handmade, October -November!

Thank you for visiting my blog!

So Far...

So, I decided to join the ranks and make a December journal for my family. Made the cover, yep. And pages up to ten. Oh, I skipped page seven, so I need to insert one there. The thing is, I don't know what I want to say pages 1-4. I know about tomorrow, easy, we are getting a tree. Sunday, easy peasy we are celebrating Emma's fourth birthday. Yeah, I have got nothing from the first - fourth. Any ideas you want to share?
The cover is from the Melissa Frances Bingo album, love that. The Thankful tag is a free download from Elle's Studio! You can get yours right HERE. I used die cut chip board from K and Co. and the snowflake is an ornament from Micheal's...6 for $1.99.

Here's What I Do...

Nine years ago, I began saving the photo Christmas cards that friends and family sent during the holidays. You see, the hoarder, saver/scrapbooker in me was filled with guilt when the Christmas decorations came down and the lovely cards were thrown in the trash.


My sweet friend Michelle keeps her cards in an album and that gave me the idea to save my cards in a scrapbook. Shown here is my second album. The first album is full of cards from 2000-2005. I begin each new year of cards with the card that we sent. Last year's card is below. I used Maya Road Scalloped Circle chipboard coaster books, painted them sanded them and added a bow. They double as Ornaments and yes I have another saved for our tree. I make between 80 and 100 each year, now that I am spending a lot of time scrapping and crafting I will be making a simpler card to send out that doesn't require extra postage.
I keep the card albums stored with our decorations and we really enjoy looking at them each year, fun to see how quickly our friends' children grow over a year. If there is not a note of who the family is on the front of the card, I just jot it down right into the album. It is an old school scrapbook with thick paper pages.

I want to be able to use each album for many years so sometimes I layer the cards. Emma loves looking through the books. She enjoys seeing her little friends when they were wee babes. This year I will let Emma glue the cards into the album, one day it will be her job!

I am curious, do you save your cards?

Anyone entering the Purple Cows contest? You really should. The prize is unlike any I have ever seen from a manufacturer. You have until the end of December to submit photos of your project. Come on, have a go at it! Details can be found on the PC blog.

Need a fantastic trimmer to create your project with? Great prices at Joann.com and scrapbookingalley.com

A Merry Pink Persimmon Countdown to Christmas Tree

I loved making this tree. We don't have an advent calendar, so this will be a fun addition to our Christmas decorations. Christmas is very exciting this year, Emma is just a couple of weeks away from turning 4 and this year I think she gets it...well at least more than last year. Of course that also means that every single commercial that comes on is something she wants for Christmas. And my little monkey Lily mimics her big sister so she also points and ooohs and aaahs at all the Barbie, vanity, Arial, Fur real, Fisher Price Castle commercials.

I know that you know that my favorite part of this tree are the Small Banners from Pink Persimmon.

The tree is from the Kaiser Craft Off the Page series. There are a few pointers on how I made this tree over on the Pink Persimmon blog. I need to add that I mocked up a set of numbers before I committed them with glue-I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss any number combinations. You get 6 date tags with the tree and you use both sides of each tag. I used all My Mind's Eye paper. The super cute alpha stamps are Large Soda Pop from Pink Persimmon.

I added the glassine envelope to the back to store the numbers not in use, otherwise they would surely get lost in my home! Let me know if you have any questions!

For a chance to win a set of Pink Paislee stamps, please check out this post.

~Make it Merry, Adornit Blog Party~

Thanks for hopping over to my blog! My name is Samantha Sibbet and just like you, I love pretty paper. This is my very first Adornit blog party and I can't wait to check out all the "merry" crafts on everyone's blogs. I have a couple of projects to share with you, first up is an ornament that I made with chipboard and the ellison die cutter at my lss and some fun My Mind's Eye. The snowflake is from Bazzill-super easy and makes a nice tag for a gift or a little something for a friendly neighbor.

I also want to share this little album that I made with Maya Road kraft envelopes and my favorite Bo Bunny papers. Each of the pages is also an envelope to hold my family's "Christmas Wishes."
I bound the album together with my handy Bind it All. I used rub ons for the title and the snowflakes are Maya Road topped with my fave glitter, Martha Stewart "White Silver".

Emma sat down and sketched her wishes on little cards that I cut down to fit inside her envelope. I think she will enjoy seeing this 15 years from now. Can you tell that the one in the middle is a rocking horse? I thought that was cute.

Thank you for visiting me today! I would love to share some extra goodies with you...all you need to do is become a follower of this blog and leave me a comment letting me know that you joined...I will choose a winner from the list of blog readers/followers on Tuesday. The RAK will include...Maya Road kraft envelopes, sweet little jingle bells, Maya Road sheers, holiday ribbon, mica flakes, glass glitter, Maya Road Pins, crepe and a few more vintage treasures.

Are you ready for some more holiday fun? Your next stop in the blog party is Lauri, click HERE to visit Lauri!!

If you would like to start at the beginning of the Adornit Blog Party, click HERE!