Fa La La La....Arggghhh!

I've been hosting an all day Christmas card making event for quite a few years now.  It's a full day of holiday spirit, creativity, food and friends.  I  love doing this class!  It's not about making money or teaching technique or getting "my name out there".  It's more about giving something back to those who I work and play with all year.  This year I have fifteen ladies joining me next Sunday and that day is going to be amazing!  However...the downside of fifteen people and a twenty card creative day is the prep...for three hundred cards! Sheesh!  My living room has been overtaken by paper, ribbon, buttons and ink, ink, ink!  It has the distinct look of Santa's workshop with only one slightly exhausted, over worked elf ha ha!  I always end up making a few more difficult to prep cards while I'm designing this class.  I always convince myself that the prep won't be all that bad..."they're just snowflakes, right?"  Until I have to punch out, die cut, paper trim eight million of them!!!  I never learn and I honestly wouldn't do it any other way. The biggest problem I have during prep time for this class is the inspiration I get!  Problem?  How can that be a problem you say...?  I get inspired and have to drop everything to create something else!  It makes for a very long prepping process to say the least.  I may sound like I'm complaining but really I'm not...I just shake my head at myself sometimes. Oh the holidays for a creative person....
I thought I would share with you a creative distraction that I did yesterday...perhaps as centerpieces for our tables on Sunday.  Tim Holtz....I love you and your lantern die!

Thanks for taking a peek!

Miss.C

Daylight Savings Early Morning Creations...

4:30 a.m...that's what time I was up today...4:30 A.M.!  Ridiculous I know, especially on a Sunday but it is what it is.  The house was quiet, I had access to the T.V. and Netflix (anyone who lives with teenager's appreciates this sentence) and I had a double double fueling the fire.  I finally organized my craft room so I found so, so, so many goodies I had completely forgotten about and projects that were half finished or packages of things that needed using up. At Memories and More we went through a long spell of bringing in paper tole supplies, especially around Christmas.  I thought it would be a perfect time to finish up those leftover images to add to my holiday card stash.  So here are this mornings results compliments of a Tim Horton's double double and the time change...

Thanks for stopping by...

Miss C.

Ready for the Witching hour....

Normally my holidays don't really overlap where one overtakes the other...except this year.  Halloween is my number two holiday after Christmas but it has never taken a back seat...ever.  Normally my costume is ready to go, decorations are up and already gathering dust.  This year my decorations went up yesterday...sigh.  Christmas actually usurped tonnes of my time this year and it's not even November yet!  Anyways...the decorations are up and I have to say I love the way the house looks!  I left the cobwebs off this year so I can actually light some candles and not catch the house on fire.  I love bonfires...don't get me wrong but the thought of my craft room burning up gives me heart palpitations!  Take a peek..

So as you can see...we have no shortage of skulls...so if you ever lose your head....eh-hem...never mind.  I also made some treats for my youngest son Shae's dance studio.  What a committed group of dancers to be going to work so hard on a day where every other teenager is out having fun.  I wanted to dress up Kit Kat bars more appropriate for the occasion.  I think I did a pretty good job disguising them don't ya think? I played with Tim Holtz's Retro Halloween stamp and die set, the Tim Holtz Tattered Banner strip die along with My Mind's Eye Wicked paper line. Touched everything with some distress ink and Voila...Halloweenified!

 
Have a frightfully great day and I'll post some costume pictures soon!

Miss. C

Copics...you colour my world...

I need a theme song for my Copic markers.  I'm thinking something inspirational. Uplifting...even romantic.  I have such a love affair with them you see and I feel I need to express my love of my grown up crayons. Anyone relate?

 I come from a family that has a fairly strong history of artists and musicians. I however cannot even draw a stick man.  I discovered paper crafting and found out that I am artistic after all. And to be able to colour and not have to buy colouring books and crayons is amazing! I 'watch' all my TV shows while I colour and quite often don't even look up at the screen.  I can tell you what happened but not necessarily what anyone looked like ha ha ha.  Copics...sheesh!

 I thought I would post what my favourite kind of cards that I create look like.  Take a peek...

 Thanks for dropping by...

Miss.C

the 20/20 Christmas Card Experience Update!

Here they all are ladies...book your spots soon!  I've only got a few left!

The 20/20 Christmas Card Experience

* 20 cards & envelopes

* 10 different designs

* your own roll of Be Creative tape

* tonnes of space to stretch out

 Sunday, November 17, 2013

10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Holiday Park Resort (over Ricardo's Restaurant)

Cost:  $40

This event is also a potluck!

Please call to arrange payment to reserve your spot!

250-712-0502

(Please be aware that although I do my best to use all the exact products in my samples, some cards may not be exactly as shown)

The 20/20 Christmas Card Experience with Charmagne

It's that time of year when we pull out our holiday stashes and drool, drool, drool! Every year I do an epic Christmas card making day with lots of food, friends and creativity!  Here's a sneak peak of a few of the cards we will be making...

The 20/20 Christmas Card Experience

* 20 cards & envelopes

* 10 different designs

* your own roll of Be Creative tape

* tonnes of space to stretch out

 Sunday, November 17, 2013

10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Holiday Park Resort (over Ricardo's Restaurant)

Cost:  $40

This event is also a potluck!

Please call to arrange payment to reserve your spot!

250-712-0502

Halloween Treat Bag Sweat Shop...

My little sister Dez and I have been making treat bags for various holidays for my nephew Connor since he started Kindergarten  five years ago.  It's so much fun to be creative and play with all the kiddie stuff now that my own kids are pretty well grown up.  Now...when we started this whole thing, classes were smaller and Connor was the only one in school.  Queue up to October 2013. My niece Alexis has now started Kindergarten and has been brought up seeing all these gorgeous treat bags made and delivered to Connor's classmates.  Of course...we have to make them for her class too!  Something we didn't think of when we started way back when...sheesh! Not only are we furiously creating for two classrooms but for a heck of a lot more kids!  Kudo's to all you teacher's out there, the classrooms are packed to the rafters!  We have 52 treat bags to make and stuff but we managed to sweat through 22 of them yesterday...almost half way there? We mainly went with Bella Boulevard's "Trick or Treat" paper line this year...we love that stuff!




Have a great day

Miss.C

Put your best foot forward...

If only we could always wake up each morning and follow this sentiment.  Some days just putting one foot in front of the other is difficult ha ha!  This card is my entry for the "As You See It Challenge #4."  

I had so much fun colouring these witches boots! I tried a bit of a different colouring technique to push myself to colour out of the box.  I always tend to blend with my Copics and sometimes I lose the contrast of the image. I really wanted these images to have a painters feel to the colours...not sure if I achieved quite what I wanted but its a start.  This challenge was a bit difficult for me because my cards tend to be pretty busy and this layout was nice and simple. I dug deep into my Halloween stash to find some We R Memory Keepers papers to co ordinate nicely with this Stampendous stamp I borrowed from a friend.  I love friends who love to shop and enjoy the holidays like I do.  The sentiment is from the Close to my Heart "Wicked" stamp set.  I am making some more cards with that set pronto! Short and sweet today... thanks for stopping by.

Miss. C

Miss.Cherry bakes?

So I love everything about the 1940's and the 1950's. The fashion, the music, the starlets, the dancing...everything.  Except cooking.  Women back in that time were always in the kitchen cooking meals, baking and preserving...feeding their families.  That is not me...at all.  The kitchen is the absolute last place I like to be in my house unless its going to refill my coffee cup.  I'm a person that is multi-tasking with whatever I do so I always end up forgetting about what I'm cooking because I'm doing something else while I wait.  I don't do well with "watching the pot boil".  That kinda thing drives me crazy!  However, every one in awhile I will bake and since we have been trying to make a bit of a diet change now that our youngest son Shae has gluten and dairy issues...Miss. Cherry is becoming a bit of a baker.  Now when I use the word 'baker' it is in the loosest of terms.  More like an "I Love Lucy" episode than a Gordon Ramsay experience.  However, my new best friend Pinterest gave me a couple recipes the other day and I thought I would try them.  Here are the results...

This is a regular cookie recipe with Malcolm's gluten free mix as the flour substitute.  Did I forget to mention that my husband is a chef and bread maker?  Hmmmm...musta slipped my mind...tee hee.

Here is Malcolm's gluten free flour substitute recipe.  Add an extra teaspoon of Xanthan Gum for every cup of this flourless mixture when baking breads or cakes.

510 g  Brown Rice Flour
615 g White Rice Flour
360 g Tapioca Starch
495 g Potato Starch
6 tsp Xanthan Gum

This is the flourless peanut butter cookie recipe.  I would recommend natural unsweetened peanut butter to counter the sugar in them but they are delicious!  We will never buy a gluten free cardboard cookie again!

1 C         Peanut Butter
1/3 C      Brown Sugar
1/3 C      White Sugar
1             Egg
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla
1 tsp       Baking Soda
1/2 C     Chopped Salted Peanuts (the salty sweet thing that tastes sooo good)
1/2 C     Semi Sweet or Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chips

Method:

Mix peanut butter,sugars and egg until well blended.  Add baking soda and vanilla.  Stir in by hand chopped peanuts and chocolate chips.  The mixture will be chunky so hand rolling cookies into balls needs added pressure.  These cookies spread while cooking so make sure you have enough room.  I baked at 350  for about 8 minutes on an ungreased cookie sheet. Let cool before removing from baking sheet.

Good luck and happy cookie eating!

First post....? Really?

So here's the thing about this blog...it's been a long time coming. I mean years of thinking about it, planning it and then never following through with it. I've been juggling alot of jobs for the past few years and honestly, exhaustion has been a constant companion for me.  Recently I decided that a lifestyle change was in order including cutting the number of jobs I had in half and really focusing on some small goals that have been on the back burner for a long time.  This blog is one of them.

So for my first post I thought entering a challenge was a great way to motivate me and have something legitimate to post about.  This challenge blog is brand new and perfect for my first blog post...

http://www.playingwithpapercrafting.com/2013/09/asyi-challenge-003-etcetera-etcetera.html?spref=fb

So for those of you who don't know me, from about August to the end of December my life revolves around Halloween and Christmas. SERIOUSLY. Shopping for/creating for/baking for/decorating for/spending far too much money on these two holidays. They are my favourite!  So of course my card entry is all about Halloween! I love this little guy so much that I've coloured him a bunch of times in various colour combo's and even monochromatic grey. Thanks for stopping by...

Miss. C

http://www.liliofthevalley.co.uk/acatalog/Stamp_-_Boys_-_Abracadbra.html