A Winter Snowglobe

Happy Monday Sweet 'n Sassy Digi stampers! Normally I would be posting on Tuesdays, but Nicole and I have switched spots this week, so make sure to come back tomorrow to see what she's been busy creating!


Most of the time I make square cards, but thought I'd break the mold this week and try something new. I'm sure you've seen some of these fabulous snowglobe cards around blogland. I've been wanting to make one, and when I saw the new Poinsettia Princess image I knew she'd be perfect for this layout!



There are many great tutorials online for making these cards, but I found it quite easy to figure out. The acetate, and background circles were cut with Spellbinders Circles. I made sure to sandwich the cardstock for the base, so as not to show any messy adhesive through the acetate. (Actually, the snowflakes on the acetate are sandwiched too, for the same reason.) Now, I will say that photographing a card with multiple reflective surfaces is tricky! My husband always does the photography for my cards (Thanks Dean!!), and this one presented a bit of a challenge! The acetate kept reflecting the light sources we were using, and the white areas picked up yellow hues from the gold cardstock on the base of the globe (that snowy cap on top is actually white Bazzil Bling with some Star Dust Stickles). We also had to use a black backdrop for the first image, so that this "snow cap" on top of the globe would show up. Let's have a look at the inside:


I printed Poinsettia Princess on Neenah cardstock and coloured her with Copic markers. She reminds me a bit of a winter bride...so pretty! I figured she needed lots of bling, so I coated her white robe with Frosted Lace Stickles. I also used a clear Copic Spica pen on the ribbon and poinsettias, for a subtle shimmer (you'll see this a bit better in the next picture). Now, you can't have a snowglobe without snow right? Perfect chance to break out some Polar White Flower Soft! The base of the globe was cut from metallic cardstock in black and gold. The sentiment was printed out from my computer and mounted on a Fancy Tag from Spellbinders. All edges were inked up with Black Soot Distress Ink, for an antiqued look.




Christmas is sneaking up on us so fast, and I'm sure you all have more cards to make! This card came together fairly quick, probably because it's not a fussy layout. Hop on over the the Sweet 'n Sassy store to snag some of the fabulous digis and you can be making your own snowglobe card in no time!

Have a wonderful Monday!

Blessings,

Melanie

Gloooooorooroooroor-ria in excelsis Deo

Angels we have heard on high

Sweetly singing ore the plains

And the mountains in reply

Echoing their joyous strains

That is exactly what I was singing when I made this card. This sweet Poinsettia Princess was another image released on Thursday. Isn't she the sweetest? When I saw this image it reminded me of the children in a Christmas pagent at church with their little face beeming as they waved to mom and dad in the audience. Now what got me to singing this particular song was the shawl on the girl's shoulders reminded me of angel wings.

For my card I used last year's Basic Grey Christmas designer paper and matted that on some red, kraft, and white cardstock. I used my EK success punch to create the side border in the image and then attached a prima poinsettia flower with a Basic Grey brad center. The image was colored up with copics and her dress, shawl, and collar have diamond stickles on it.

I hope you all have a great weekend and enjoy all the festivities with friends and family that this month normally brings.

Hugs,

Mary

New Digis & Digi Day Challenge #2 on SNR!

Hooray, hooray -- it's Digi Day!! :-) This week we have two fantastic new seasonal cuties at the store to share with you. My card today uses one of them -- "Winter Love." Aren't these owls adorable?!? I fell in love with them right away!! This sweet feathered couple is also very versatile -- they would make terrific Christmas cards, as well as winter, friendship, or Valentine's Day cards. I colored them up with Prismacolor markers, adding small accents with a white gel pen, and paired the image with one of the sweet greetings from the Mittens Sentiments digi set that was released last week. You can see and purchase both of this week's new digis HERE at our online store.

New digis aren't all that we have to share with you today, though! Today we are also hosting our second Digi Day event on our group forum HERE at SNR Card Universe. The party starts this morning at 10am Eastern time. We'll be posting a fun challenge and sharing samples made with our digis as well as sneak peeks of future digis! We'll be offering a free digi to anyone who plays along with today's challenge and posts their project to the challenge thread by Monday morning. You can also win a second "early bird" digi for playing along and sharing your card with the group before 10pm Eastern time (7pm Pacific time) TONIGHT! AND...if our SNR group membership reaches 200 today, Korin will post a third free digi. WOW! This is sure to be a fun event, and we hope you'll join us!

Cocoa's Mittens Gift Set

Good morning Sweet 'N Sassy Digi Stampers! I am just thrilled to be a part of this talented group of ladies! I'd like to start off by saying thank you to Korin and Sandy for inviting me to be a guest designer. I feel so blessed by this opportunity, and look forward to sharing these fabulous images with all of you!

For my first project as a guest designer, I have used Cocoa's Mittens. How adorable is this little mouse? I just love him! I decided to make a little gift set including a regular 6x6 card, and a tall card with interior pockets to hold a set of hand-warmers! My hands are always so cold, and I love sticking these warmers into my mittens when we plan to be outside in the winter.

One of the reasons I love these digital stamps is the option to print them off in different sizes. This creates so many possibilities for coordinating gift sets! Sometimes, an actual stamp (be it clear or rubber) is just too big, and I've often found myself wishing I had a smaller version. Enter Digi Stamps! I was able to print Cocoa's Mittens just a bit smaller for the gift holder. For the larger image on the card, I printed off a few copies of Cocoa so I could pop up his head and the top mitten for dimension. Those sentiments are part of the Digi Set Mitten Sentiments...just perfect for this stamp! There are three different sentiments in this set.

Here's a closeup of Cocoa. I printed all the images off on Neenah cardstock and coloured them with Copic markers. I used a variety of Spellbinders on this project. Although it is difficult to see in the pictures, the cuffs of the mittens and the star are quite sparkly, as they received a coat of Frosted Lace Stickles.


I hope you all have a terrific day! (and stay warm!!)

Blessings,

Melanie

Welcome our December Guest DT

Can you believe that it's December 1st already? Once Thanksgiving hits it's a snowball effect until the New Years. Everyone is busy with baking, shopping, parties, and lots of family fun.

We have something exciting for you this month, we have two Guest Designers that will have lots of wonderful cards and projects to share with you and keep those creative juices going through the next few weeks.

Our First Guest Designer is Melanie Holtz and you will love her style. Be sure to pop by her blog and look around. She's so crafty and talented and I loved browsing through her blog. You can find her blog (HERE)!

Hello! My name is Melanie Holtz and I live in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. I am very happily married to my husband Dean. We have two wonderful children named Nathan and Ainsleigh.

We are all active members of a local church family, and are very passionate about our faith in Jesus Christ! I was completely thrilled to be given the opportunity to be a guest designer for Sweet 'N Sassy Digis. I love that right under the name of Sweet 'N Sassy Stamps, is the phrase "sharing the love of Christ through paper crafting". Giving a card that you have poured your time and effort into is such a great way to show somebody you care...that they "matter". Cards can be uplifting, encouraging, comforting...or just plain funny! We all need to giggle sometimes! Stamping has become a creative outlet for me, and I try to find a little time each day to work on something.

I am honored to be part of this team, and to be working with such talented ladies. I look forward to sharing some Sweet 'N Sassy projects with you all!

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Our Second Guest Designer is Mary Giles and again we have an UBER talented designer. I scrolled through her blog back several months just looking at all the wonderful cards she's done. Be sure to stop by her blog and take a peek yourself (HERE)!!!

Hello to all you wonderful crafters out there! My name Mary Giles (OhioMary on SCS) and I absolutely love making cards. I especially enjoy images that are fun to color. I just recently started to get into digi stamps more...and I LOVE them! I thought I would miss the actually stamping part, but digi stamps have offered me a way to get a perfect image everytime, I can resize them to my needs, and I love to print out images for my 3 yo daughter to color along with me. I do enjoy both forms of stamps though. I have been stamping seriously for about 2 years now and it all started from a swap I joined on SCS with many of whom I have formed everlasting friendships. I would not be where I am today if it wasn't for their support and encouragement.

By day I'm an engineer and I test software on helicopters. By night I'm a mommy to best thing to ever happen to me...my 3 yo daughter. I'm a wife to a wonderful and supportive husband who was my highschool sweetheart. Once the kiddo is in bed I let my creativity loose. Making cards has really been a stress reliever for me and has opened up the world to new friends and inspiration. I'm always looking to others for inspiration as I tend to be an inside the box type of person. I've always been drawn to handmade crafts and have learned to crochet, knit, and quilt. Quilting was my 1st serious hobby and while I still love quilting, I really like being able to finish a project in a few hours instead of a few months.

I'm really honored to be December's Guest Designer and many thanks to Korin for giving me this opportunity. I'm really looking forward to working with the Sweet N Sassy images along with the design team.

It's my clothes....

Good MONDAY Morning!!!!  WOW, the Thanksgiving Holiday has past and Christmas is JUST around the corner!  You know what that means, don't you?  YEP, Christmas DECOR!!!  And there's nothing like hanging a wreath on the ol' BUM, like Paulie the Bear above! HAHAHA!

Isn't he cute??  I would love to think that my butt looks big because of my clothes or something else that I put on my body!  Yeahhhhh, that's it.... it's not me, it's my clothes! LOL!!!!!!!! 

This image by Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps can be found HERE at their store, for a mere $2.81, INCLUDING the sentiment!  Gotta love those digi images, versatile and storage free, except for a few megabytes on the ol' computer harddrive! 

Well, I hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving holiday!  My family and I did, too, with my sister and her family and our parents in Tennessee.  The actual driving leaves something to be desired, but really, it was worth it to let my kiddos see their extended family and my Josh (college-kid!) was there, too, so it was great!  God blessed us with safe travels, great food that my sister prepared for all 12 of us and fun times playing some new card games!!  GOD is GOOD!

{OH, I nearly forgot!  My card: Basic Grey papers (Dasher); Copics for coloring, variety of buttons with metallic elastic SUP cording, and Nestibilities for scalloped and regular circles!}

Have a great Monday!

Happy Thanksgiving & New Digis!

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you are enjoying a beautiful day with your family and loved ones, and counting the many blessings in your life. One of the many things for which I am thankful this year is that we have this special day on which to give thanks and praise to our heavenly father -- isn't He fantastic?!?

In addition to being Thanksgiving, today is also Digi Day at Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps. We have four fun new sets designed by Korin Sutherland for you, and all are available to purchase in the online store today. I've put together a couple of projects for you today to show off these sweet new digis.

Our first two new digis this week are Feel Better Paulie and Get Well Wishes. Although I hate it when a loved one is sick, I love being able to send them some get well cheer, so I'm really excited about these sets. I used them to make a combination get well card/gift. On the outside is a get well wish, and on the inside...

...there is room to write a special note, along with a fresh packet of tissues to help with a speedy recovery. Because I really wanted a design to add to the note space, I used the border from Paulie's sweet little bed. I isolated the border by cropping it from the main image, and then printing out just that element. (For more information on how to crop and use just part of an image in this way, see the Cropping Digis tutorial here.)

This second card features the adorable new Cocoa's Mittens and Mitten Sentiments digis. One of the things that I love about these sets is how adaptable they are. Although I made my card Christmas-y, these digis could also be used for winter, Valentine's, and friendship cards, or even to decorate a winter, Christmas, or Valentines Day scrapbook page.


I hope you will take some time to stop by the store to check out these fun new additions, and I thank you very much for visiting here today. I know I speak for the whole Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps team when I tell you that we are all thankful for you, our loyal readers and customers. You are a blessing to all of us! Happy Thanksgiving!!!