Giving Thanks

I am thankful that I didn't have to get up and go to work at 5:30 this morning. Instead, I woke up at the regular time and then played with my toys. I made a set of Christmas cards for my daughter, Grace. "Peace" was stamped with jeans distress ink and then clear embossed on SU  shimmer paper. I wish the nice and quiet Ranger heat tool worked better for embossing, but it just doesn't seem to get hot enough; my dog hates the noise of the other tool and tries to attack it when I turn it on. The snowflakes were inked with distress stormy and then spritzed with pearl mist before stamping. The image was cut from decorative paper and cardstock using my cricut (I think it was the "Groovy" cartridge that I picked up at Walmart for $15). I spritzed this too and added a bit of bling before popping it off the card with dimensionals. The envelope was stamped and then spritzed with blue storm mist.

Kitty shared her pattern for making a very elegant "Tree" box. I will post a picture as soon as I finish. I can't believe that she cut out everything for us. Elaine also showed us her new "smash" book and it inspired me to challenge our group to make one only using supplies that we already have. We can't buy anything, but we can shop in a friend's stash. (Stop whining; I know it's time to get ready for the holidays, but it's my role to lead you on new adventures!)

I also worked on a new storage book for my Nestabilites die cuts. I have had them in CD cases, but these slide all over the drawer. For my new storage I used an idea from August when I created Anita's birthday book.  First, I covered one side of a piece of 5 x 5 1/2" cardboard with paper (one that I received on our cruise) and the other side was covered with an adhesive magnet sheet. Before gluing on the paper, I inked the edges of the cardboard with corduroy distress stain - it went on fast and covered it perfectly. I am using binder rings so I can add pages if (when) I buy more die cuts. The title letters are cardstock covered with glossy accents. Anita uses this technique all the time, but I haven't had much success until I used the tiny bottle of glossy accents - it is much easier to control the flow. Now I want to make another book for my other thin metal dies; but I am thinking that it will have to be larger.

Be sure to check out the Charms page; our November "Bird" swap finally came in and are so pretty. I love seeing the variety of materials that everyone uses to interpret the theme.