Merry Christmas to You

While working with my Simply Scrappin' kit I just couldn't resist making a card.

This is a quick 3" x 6" card. The card base is made with Real Red Textured cardstock. I then added a strip of the designer paper from the kit along with a piece of this adorable Christmas tree die cut border sticker.

I then used two more die cut stickers from the kit, layered over one another. The sentiment sticker is popped up with dimensionals to add a bit more depth to the card.

I'm off and running now - lots to do.

Margaret :)

Mommy and Me class projects

Good morning and happy Wednesday.

I don't know about you but this weeks seems to be flying by. I have photography class tomorrow already and think I'm a bit more prepared for this class. I certainly took nicer pictures this week than I did two weeks ago.

I got my car back yesterday afternoon. One of my 3 coil packs was pooched (my car has these instead of a distributor) and it was arcing all over the place causing my car to stammer and miss. Now she runs like a dream again and I am very thankful.

Today I am sharing with you the items that I have created for my Mommy and Me class on Sunday. I wanted a bit of variety for the kids so I have created a card, a 3-D item and a bag.

I used the Occasions Mini stamp set Beary Best Friends for the card, the Just Buzzin' By stamp set from the Idea Book & Catalogue, and for the Holiday ornament, I used designer paper and the new Ornament punch along with the pretties kit.

I have one young boy coming to the class so the card for him is slightly different so it is more suited for him.

Remember, today is the last day to sign up for this class and there is only one more spot available, so if you haven't already signed up, now would be a great time to do so.

Cheers,
Margaret :)

Christmas Jingle 6 x 6 Scrapbook

This morning I had to drop my car off at the mechanics shop which I am so not happy about but I need to ensure that my car is reliable to get me to and from work so I shouldn't complain. I am hoping that the issue is just the ignition leads and not something more costly. My poor girl is missing, especially when she's cold and just warming up on my drive. So I will have to patiently wait and see what the mechanic says.

For the past week I have been taking my Christmas Jingle Simply Scrappin' Kit with me to work and putting together some pages over my lunch break. These pages are all works in progress and will not be complete until I add pics at Christmas and more embellishments. I'm not sure how some people put together amazing pages with all kinds of embellishments and no picture on it. I like to add embellishments on top of my pictures or just off the edge of my pictures.

These are just a few of the pages I have put together. I have made created 5 double page layouts and two single page layouts already and have only used half the cardstock in the kit and I have more than half of the die cut stickers still. This kit is really great and I am thrilled that I have had time to work on putting it together.

This kit is being used in my Christmas Jingle 6 x 6 Scrapbook class on November 11th. Today is the last day to sign up for this class as I require time to order the kits in for the class. For those who live in my area, if you are interested in registering for the class please let me know by this evening.

Class details are as follows:

November 11th 7pm - 9:30pm

Margaret's home

Class Fee - $50.00 (includes cost of Christmas Jingle Simply Scrappin' Kit)

Class Size - Max. 6 people

Pre-Registration required by October 27th

Payment required at time of reservation.

Margaret :)

Final Week - DEALS OF THE WEEK #4

We are rounding October off with one final Deals of the Week.

Be sure to note that this deal of the week is only valid until October 31st 11:50 PM (MT)

116214 Princess Party Kit REG price - $21.95 SALE PRICE $13.99













116213 Pirate Party Kit - REG price - $21.95 SALE PRICE $13.99







If you wish to purchase these items, you may contact me at - margaret@stamphaven.ca or you may click on the Deals of the Week link at the right of my blog and then click on Shop Now at the top right of my demo web page.


Margaret :)

A Baby's Gift

Here I am enjoying a nice cup of coffee and jumping into my day. As I have been mentioning for a few weeks now, I am re-organizing my stamping room and on the weekend I planned to complete it. Needless to say, it is not done. I worked hard and long, with a few interruptions here and there but I did get a LOT done. I have a few more things to tidy up and I need Chris to clear out some of his antiques or at least hang them on the wall so I can make good use of them LOL and then I think I'm there.

I mentioned to Chris that I am not fond of my ribbon holders and would like a different way to store them. He spent some time with me last week looking at the way the ribbon spools are made and he came up with an absolutely wicked design. I am so stoked and can't wait to share with you what it looks like. First though we have to find the perfect materials to use. For those who are familiar with our home, you know it's all Canadiana Pine Furniture 1890's and older, so let's just say that we would like my ribbon holder to suit. :)

I managed to get my cardstock in my new rack and this has provided me additional room in my filing cabinets for my paperwork. I still have a few empty boxes from Ikea which is great, that means I can buy more goodies to fill them, right? Okay maybe I'm dreaming a little.

I will be so thrilled when I have everything completed and be able to show you pictures. It is coming together so nicely.

I did finish a craft project on the weekend which I will give you a sneak peek of but won't share a pic of the whole project as it is for a faithful follower of my blog and I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise when she gets it. LOL (I'm sure she will figure out that it's for her but at least she won't get to see the whole thing... yet) So here is your little sneak peek.

I'll be back soon with more great projects to share.

Margaret :)

Self Portrait

This week has been quite busy and needless to say I did very little stamping. I hope to finish getting my room organized over the weekend so that I will be better able to focus and work. I purchased a wire paper rack for my 8 1/2 x 11 paper and can't wait to get that all organized. I could do with another rack but I guess I have to start somewhere.

Last night I was off to my photography class and the focus was portraits. I'm more of a landscape/ nature picture person but I have to say I was thrilled when the teacher said we had to pair up and take pictures of each other. I never seem to have nice pictures of myself and knew that this was my chance to get some good pics. I set up my camera, hit the 10 second timer, ran in front of the muslin cloth background and posed. This got some chuckles but what they haywagon, right? If you can take a picture of yourself, why not? I didn't want to wait a week for just one picture of myself from my class partner. So once set up, I got my partner to pose and I took pictures with both hers and my camera. Then she did the same for me. It was great because I had the camera all set up and all she had to do was click the button, zoom in or zoom out. It seemed I was the only one in the class who actually wanted to have my photo taken and I'd say half the class was snapping pics of me against the portrait backdrop. I was thinking, what the heck happened to working in pairs.

The teacher had also recommended that we try to take pictures against other backgrounds in the school. I couldn't help myself and just had to take a quirky photo. I set the timer, went in front of the lockers and splayed myself up against them. LOL It's not the greatest but it was a quick fun shot. The next spot we selected was a corner between wall between a classroom and the lockers. Some of those shots were quite good as well. I need to work on my lighting more as I noticed that some pictures seemed grainy. This is probably my biggest problem when taking indoor photos.

When I got home I just couldn't resist pulling the pictures up right away. I have to say some turned out quite nice.

Well that's enough about me today. I hope to be back Monday with some projects to share.

Have a great weekend all.

Margaret :)

Stop Horsing Around

I find that horse cards are a great male card. Simply by selecting a few deeper colours and a horse image you can create a quick masculine card.

I selected Chocolate Chip for my card base and stamped the star image from the Wanted stamp set in Chocolate Chip ink. Next I used some retired western paper for my layer. I love using patterned paper for my cards. I find it adds great visual appeal when used well. I don't always use it well and come to think of it, I don't always use solid colours well either. I was thinking last night how colours go great together but I have made some cards where in the end I think to myself - yuck, what was I thinking. I have clued in that it's all about balance but balance is something I struggle with. Anyway, now that I sidetracked myself, let's get back to the card.

I used the scallop edge punch along one side of the designer paper and adhered it to my card base. I love embellishments and although I tend to keep my masculine cards simple I just had to add a few silver brads to the card.

Next I stamped my horse image from the wanted set in Chocolate Chip ink on Very Vanilla cardstock. I distressed the edges a bit and layered on Night of Navy cardstock. With a small piece of hemp twine I added a little lasso to the bottom right of the image. I stamped a birthday greeting in the Chocolate Chip ink and punched it out with the super duper Modern Label punch. I seem to be using it a lot lately. I adhered the sentiment to the top left of my image and added pop dots to both my main image and my sentiment and attached to my card base.

I hope this gives you some ideas for masculine cards and don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Margaret :)

October Deal of the Week # 3

It's pretty bad when you have these great deals of the week but they remind you that time is passing by quickly.

We are already into the third week of October and that means Halloween is next week. Wow.

So here are the current Deals of the Week, valid until Monday October 26 at 9:50am MT.

114348 Basic Jumbo Grommets - REG price - $ 9.50 SALE price $6.49

109857 Mini Library Clips - REG price - $18.95 SALE price $12.99

112571 Circle Designer Brads - REG price - $8.50 SALE price $5.49

112581 1/2" Library Clips - REG price - $9.75 SALE price $5.49

Please let me know if you would like to place an order or click on the link to the right and you can order on-line via my site.

Cheers all and I'll be back again soon.

Margaret :)

Monday and Nothing

Good morning, I hope everyone had a great weekend.


Here it is, Monday already and Friday I mentioned I would post another card for the Birthday Card Stamp-A-Stack and can you believe of all things I pull up the pics on my drive, only to find out, I didn't take a picture of the card I planned to post today. So now I have no cards to share today.


I can however share a fall pic being as I am back in photography class again and that is what my homework assignment is.


Last year, I took some great fall pics, they were stunning. This year, mnuh... not so much. One day the trees are gorgeous and I'm in heaven and the next, I wonder what the heck happened. I wanted to get out and take some stunning pics again but I think I'm too late now.


I took this picture from my living room window. I cropped the photo so that I am only looking through one pane of glass. You know how sometimes you see something and you think, WOW, that's a great picture and you grab your camera. Once you take your photo and look at it, you wonder how you could stand in the same spot to take the pic but it looks nothing like what your naked eye saw? Yeah, I've been having that problem a lot lately. It is sooo not easy to capture the essence and emotions that are evoked when seeing with your naked eye.

Well, it's still a nice pic but I need to keep working on taking a great pic.

Thanks for looking and I hope you have a great day.

Cheers,
Margaret :)

Birthday Card Stamp-A-Stack Sneak Peek

Guess who actually managed to get a little more stamping done last night? Yep, me. I didn't even spend hours working either. I have to say it felt great. I would have loved to have done more but a voice from below me kept calling out saying, it's 1/4 after nine, then.... it's 9:30,..... it's 1/4" to ten,..... it's almost 10 o'clock. Okay I got the drift. Someone wanted me to come down and climb in bed on time. LOL

Well today I am sharing a sneak peek of two of the 5 designs that I am making for next weeks Birthday Card Stamp-A-Stack. Normally I create my own designs but with my room a mess and time running short I decided that it was okay to use some SCS inspiration. For the first card I used an idea by Lisa Somerville off of SCS. I have done this fold in the past but on 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 cards but for this one I went with a 5 x 5.

My second card for today's sneak peek is a child's birthday card and once again I CASE'd a card from SCS and I would love to say who by but for some reason I didn't write their name down. I do apologize for the poor lighting while taking these pics. Since I was being hurried along, I took the pictures in my stamp room where the lighting, quite honestly, sucks. Normally I take pics of my work in the kitchen where there is much better lighting. I really need to start saving and buy myself the softbox kit from Henrys. I took this card one step further and I also stamped an image on the inside. It has been years since I have done this and I really am happy with the result.

So there are some sneak peeks for today. I'll be back Monday with another sneak peek but don't forget that Tuesday is the last day to reserve your spot for next week Saturday's class.

I hope to see some of you there.

Cheers and have a great weekend.

Margaret :)

A Little Bit Fall

So I promised myself that last night I would get some stamping done. I had a very difficult time as my room is still a mess and I couldn't find my Mojo (even though every night I lay in bed with amazing ideas of which I don't think I have ever completed one of those ideas because by morning time....they are gone. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I have a great memory but it is very, very short) LOL

So for all the things I wanted to do last night, I only got around to making one card. I have been wanting to do a fall themed card for a while now, so I pulled out 2 new In-Colours and starting working away.

I went with a 5 x5 card using Soft Suede cardstock as my base. Next I cut out a Large Scallop of Dusty Durango cardstock using my Big Shot and then ran it through again using my Texture Plate so that it had some dimension. I then used my Mat Pack and pierced holes in the center of each scallop.

My image is from the Autumn Harvest set and stamped in Black Staz-On ink onto watercolour paper. I let it sit for a bit and then coloured in with my Aquapainter using the same inks as my paper. I cut the image out using my smaller Scallop Circle # 2 die and I hand cut the leaf and popped it up on the edge of the scallop. I layered on my card and then stamped my Just for You sentiment in Soft Suede ink on Soft Suede cardstock, punched out using the Modern Label punch and popped up with Dimensionals.

Thank you for popping in and have a great day.

Cheers,

Margaret :)

Thanksgiving Weekend

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend. It was a bit chilly but the sun was out for a good portion so we cannot complain.

Chris and I took Taygan and a friend of hers to the Rockton World Fair on Saturday. It was an absolutely perfect day for it. There are always great entertainers there to watch and I'd say the best one this year was the trampoline act. It was a group of three called Springaction and they are all Canadian and/or Olympic champions. They really were incredible. Once I download my photos, if I can find a great shot, I'll share with you. One of the things I didn't take a picture of and now wish I did but I was so in awe and transfixed by the move I was frozen in place. I can't even begin to explain the move but it was incredible.

The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet and yesterday I managed to spend the afternoon working on my stamping room. I can't believe I haven't stamped in two weeks but if you saw the state of my room you would understand why. I am probably halfway done and I am already feeling better seeing some of my new white boxes from Ikea lined up on my bookshelves. I found out just how much adhesives I own too. I filled 3 boxes with adhesives. Wow. One for my tombow refills, one for my dollar store sticky strips and one for all my glues, tombow rollers, crystal effects, 2 way glue pens, glue sticks and so on and so on. I am enjoying tidying though. I am not labelling anything until I am done though as I have a tendency to rethink some things as I go and change locations for some items.

I have two more wooden drawer sets from Ikea to put together still and I must say that I really love them. They are soooo handy. If I find I still have some room, I plan to go and get the wooden ones with two full drawers and then three smaller ones in the top. I also picked up some magazine holders (but in white) to match my boxes and I also picked up a three tier paper tray. I can't wait to get my room tidied and organized. (I know me, so I know it likely won't stay neat for long, I tend to put bags and papers on the floor in stacks and then half a year or so later I go through it and put them in their proper places -tsk tsk LOL)

Once I get things together though I'll take some pics and post them. I really want to stamp as there are a few projects that I really need to get done but I need to get my work table organized first as the top is completely covered. Yikes. So there you have my progress and an explanation why you haven't seen any fresh new projects from my stamping room.

Keep checking back cause you never know, I may just put everything on the floor just so I can make something and be able to share with you.

PS - Scroll down for my post on the current Deals of the Week.

Cheers,
Margaret

DEALS OF THE WEEK # 2

It's a big week and a big deal -yep that's right - the deals this week are all Big Shot die products.

First up is..... drumroll please......

Perfect Setting Big XL die - REG price $57.95 ON SALE FOR $34.99

Next is a little guy,

Flower Burst Embosslits Die - REG price $15.95 ON SALE FOR $7.49

Last but not least, if you're up for a party is,

Pop Up Three Tier Cake Bigz XL die - REG price $57.95 ON SALE FOR $34.99

These deals are wicked but they are only valid until Monday October 19 - 9:50am MT.

Contact me as soon as possible or place your order online now by clicking on the Deals of the Week link on the right which will take you to my site, and then click on the Shop Now button at the top right.

Margaret :)

DEALS OF THE WEEK

I hope that everyone had a good weekend. It was another busy one. Saturday we cleaned in the morning - yeahhh (not really) LOL and then we went out to run some errands in the afternoon. This was the first day that we left Madden to roam the house for a long period of time. (He has his own room which is so much better than crating him which some people do when they are not home but we just can't do that.) So he roamed free in the house for several hours and we came back and....... everything was good - whew. We were so thankful he didn't chew anything. So we will slowly work with him until he is at the point where we trust him to have free range of the house all the time. He is such a character and really is fantastic with kids and other dogs. We are slowly working on his social skills with adults and have confidence that in time he will be much better. We already see a huge change in him.

We also gave him a bath this weekend and he did really well with that. He ended up laying in Aris and Taygan's bedroom with blankets on to keep him warm while he dried.

I did manage to get some organizing done in my stamp room. About a whole half an hours worth LOL You should see the disaster it is right now - WOW and to think I have some shows coming up that I have to prepare for.

Well, since I didn't stamp in my room this weekend, I thought I would share the DEALS of the Week with you.

This weeks deals are valid until Monday October 12th at 9:50am MT. So this week Stampin' UP! is offering 3 punches at a discounted price. They are:

Trio Flower Punch - REG - 22.95 ON SALE FOR $15.99
5 Petal Flower Punch - REG - 22.95 ON SALE FOR $15.99
My Way Punch - REG - 22.95 ON SALE FOR $16.99
(s/h and taxes extra)

If you live in Canada and are interested in ordering this from me, please feel free to contact me or click on the deals of the week link posted on the right side of my blog and click on the shop now button at the top right of my Demonstrator site.

I hope you all have a great day.

Margaret :)

I hope everyone has a great day and I'll talk to you soon.