Sites of the week

TGIF and Happy Verve Release Day! Yep, today Verve is bringing a bunch of FAB-U-LOUS holiday stamps that are great additions to your Verve collection. I just fell in love with this cutie patootie reindeer right when I saw him…

I made this tag using the new Santa’s Helper set, along with Glad Tidings {previously released} and the new coordinating snowflake die, Snowflake Tidings.

Detail shot…

I love that this die make a beautiful snowflake, but I think that I may try it out as a layered flower on a future card or two.

Looking for more peeks for this release? Check out the Verve blog, which is where you can see all the details about the release and release party.

Happy first Saturday of the month, Sketch for You to Try {SFYTT} friends! Only two more sketches for the year! I am so excited for everyone that has been playing along each month for their chance at winning an AWESOME prize on Christmas Day! Will it be you?

I’m already working on the sketches for next year and lining up some great sponsors! There will be a few things changing, but for the most part you can expect another year of fun sketches to play along with!

I appreciate all of the SFYTT sponsors…THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! I had a lot of fun playing Waltzing Mouse Stamps last month! This month brings another awesome sponsor, VERVE STAMPS, who is offering up a set of choice to a random participant playing along with their Verve…

Here’s what I came up with using the new-soon-to-be-released {11-11-11} set, Bright Spirits…

Detail shot {are you swooning over the sentiment font, like me?!?}…

Last month we were sans a Designer of the Month, but this month I was a *little* more on top of things…thank goodness! Please welcome BRONI HOLCOMBE as the November Designer of the Month!…

A little about Broni in her own words…

I’m so honored to be Jen’s Guest Designer for November!
I’m a mother to 2 beautiful daughters, and a Nana to 3 young grandsons and an adorable granddaughter. I live in beautiful South Carolina where I’m an accountant by day for a major beverage distributor. I spend as much of my non-working time as possible in the paper-crafting world…either creating, or sharing and learning online.
I started stamping 6 years ago and was honored by being chosen as a member of the Splitcoaststampers Dirty Dozen design team a short 2 years later. Coloring is my passion, and Copic markers are my “weapon” of choice.
When I’m not crafting (or online), you can find me playing with the grandchildren, kayaking, swimming or planning my next trip to the beach!

Isn’t her card A-DOR-ABLE using the To the Moon set…

More inspiration for you to take a peek at…

Amber Hight
Amy Sheffer
Becky Carafa
Carole Burrage
Iwona Palamountain
Jen Tapler
Jodi Collins
Kerry Johnson
Megan Lock
Susan Liles
Terri Moore

Some of the Verve Divas are playing along, too…

Charmaine Ikach
Betty Wright
Andrea Ewen
Maureen Plut
Dawn Easton
Teresa Kline
Lynda Benden

Wanna play along? I hope you will!

1. The SKETCH FOR YOU TO TRY {SFYTT} will be posted on the first Saturday of each month on www.iheart2stamp.com at 8am EST and will stay open to participants until the last day of the month, unless otherwise noted.
2. This is for fun! Interpret the sketch as you wish and embellish as desired. There are no vendor restrictions, but we would love to see you use the sponsor’s stamps!
3. Each month we will have a Designer of the Month that will be chosen from past month’s participants.
4. Come and play with us on each and every sketch! On Christmas Day 2011 a prize package worth over $200 will be given away to one very lucky and loyal SFYTT stamper that participates in EVERY sketch for the year.
5. To be eligible for the prize package, you must complete ALL of the sketches by each of the deadlines AND link your creation to the link system on that month’s sketch post (the first Saturday of the month). Everyone except for SFYTT Sisters are eligible for the prize package, including Designer of the Month and international players.
6. When posting your sketch creation on your blog, please post the sketch and link back to the sketch post on www.iheart2stamp.com. When posting to online galleries, please use the keyword “SFYTT.”

Ok, it’s your turn! Happy stamping!

Happy November friends! Oh my goodness…NOVEMBER?? I swear I was **just** at the lake {in June!}. Does that mean that I need to start thinking about Christmas seriously now?…eek! I’m going to spend the day in my stamp room stamping and trying not to think about that it’s already November!

The first of every month brings a fun lil’ hop your way…the Verve November Diva Inspirations Hop. This hop starts at Julee’s blog and you should have come here from Dawn’s blog. Hopefully you’ve been hopping right along without missing a thing.

Today I am sharing another sympathy card. Unfortunately, last month I had to make two sympathy cards for people who lost their loved ones. Fortunately, Verve has great stamps to make elegant sympathy cards. This time I used the set, FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS…

Detail shot…

I’ll keep you moving right along on this hop. Off you go to Jen Tapler’s blog for some more Verve-y goodness!

PSST…don’t forget to leave a little love {a comment} on each stop along the way {before Nov. 7} for a chance to win a $30 gift certificate to the Verve store!

Oh, and one more VERY important thing…NEW stamps are coming your way! Yep, on November 11, new Verve stamps will be released! We’ll be having a party to celebrate from 9-11 EST in our forum on SCS. Sneak peeks begin on Nov. 9, but you might just get a super early sneak peek this weekend {wink!}.

Happy Halloween crafty friends! Pumpkins…check; candy…check; costumes…check; kid who still refuses to wear hat that goes with Yoda costume…check. Nic is now going to be Anakin. The cloak is the same and we are just adding a light saber to the whole get up and hoping he won’t whack too many kids over the head with it!

Friday’s playdate was lots of fun! Here are a couple pictures…

Gotta love ideas snagged from Pinterest!

Nic and friend having cupcakes…or at least some frosting!

Ellie helping a friend make her spider hat {Ellie has hers on}.

All in all, it was a lot of fun! I’m already getting the itch to do another at Christmas {shhh…don’t tell Tony!}.

What’s a Halloween blog post without a Halloween project? Today I am sharing a card that was inspired by THESE TAGS that I made a couple of weeks ago. I knew that I wanted to use the 3D pumpkin on a card and I love the way that it paired with the “Trick -or- Treat” sentiment from the new Verve set, Boo to You…

Yep, I said **new** set. It wasn’t part of the last release because of some manufacturing hiccups, but it is now available. I love the images and fonts…so elegant and cute at the same time! I used them in combination here on the sentiment panel…

The black panel behind the sentiment panel is a die cut of the Vintage Oval die that I cut it half to make larger. I love the curves of this die!

Detail shot of the 3D pumpkin with leaves from the Bloom and Grow set {cut with the Elegant Leaves die from Verve}, tulle and a button tied off with linen thread…

That’s all for me today, friends! I hope you have a great Halloween and your kids have a blast trick -or- treating tonight!

Are you all ready for Halloween? I think we are over here! I finally have all the peices to Ellie’s costume. She is going to be Mary Poppins and we went on a hunt to about 5 or 6 stores all over town to get all the bits and pieces to the ensemble. All I have left to do is hot glue some daisies and red berries to the hat. We got a Yoda costume for Nic, but at this point in time he refuses to wear it, so it looks like he will be attending the trick or treat festivities in his Elmo jammies…some things are just not worth the battle!

Other than that, candy and pumpkins are purchased and all craft kits for my “Cupcakes and Crafties for Kiddos” are complete. As for my crafties, I have a Verve-y Halloween card to share today…

Detail shot…

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I used a combination of 2 Verve sets for this card. The sentiment comes from the HAPPY FALL set, which has the perfect sentiment set for all things fall. Then, I used the frame from LOVE NOTES and cut it with the coordination CLASSY LABEL die from Verve. You’ll notice that I used the dotted lines from that frame behind the bats, too! I love the kraft pattern paper that I found at my LSS recently. It’s from Canvas Corp. When I was all done with the card, I kept looking at it and thinking that it needed “something.” That “something” was the black rhinestones that I added to the pattern on the left. That really made a difference…at least to my eye!

ETA to answer a question…The bats are punched out and then covered with black Stickles. The Stickles are still a little wet this pic, so they are not quite so slick looking.

I want to share some pics from the trip to the pumpkin patch this past weekend. It was a lot of fun, until we realized that Ellie was probably allergic to all the hay that we were playing around in!

I used {the free version of} Picnik online photo editing software on this one…

Nic picking up his pumpkin {you’ll have to click on it for full size}…

In case you missed the expression on Nic’s face in that last frame…