Better late than never

Hello there! :) How was your Valentiine's Day? Mine was pretty quiet and uneventful, but still, a wonderful day nonetheless. With a hubby as wonderful as mine, every day is Valentine's Day. :)

I never got around to posting my Christmas cards but since it was already Valentine's Day, I figured it was about time. ;) I haven't gotten word that everyone has indeed received theirs, but I'm going to post it anyway and add that if I have your mailing address, then I definitely sent you one and if you didn't receive it, that you need to have a word or two with your postal worker! LOL

All images © Stampin' Up!
Sets are: Mini Messages, Snow Flurries, and Just vine (envie). Ink is Bashful Blue Classic. Cards and envies are prepackaged, but comparable to SU's Whisper White. Westrim rhinstone.

I'm sorry the pic is so lousy. I was really pressed for time when photographing it and just wasn't able to get the best pic possible. I even tried to clean it up a bit in my Digital Image Pro program, but I'm not sure how much good that did. LOL But hopefully you get the idea. You can click on it to see it slightly larger, if you like.

I was inspired by this card made by Meg Shumaker over at SplitCoast. Meg is probably one of my all-time favorite stampers. Her style just speaks to me. Lots of great detail, but never overdone. Perfectly executed techniques and design. She's amazing! Here's her gallery in case you'd like to see more of her work.

Anyway, I was having a difficult time coming up with a design for my own cards because I needed to do something that was simple, yet effective... something without a lot of layers (to help cut down on cutting and assembly time as well as postage) or that was too technique heavy (also to save on time), but yet looked nice. When I came across her card, I just LOVED her design knew that I wanted to CASE it eventually. But then I realized that could easily adapt it to fit the simple, easy look I was going for with MY cards - the idea to overlay the snowflake image on top of the sentiment pure genious and exactly the look and simplicity of assmebly that I was trying to achieve! So, a few packages of premade cards & envies, a little Bashful Blue ink, my stamps, and a little tiny bling (that doesn't show up too well in the photograph unfortunately) all resulted in some simple yet nice Christmas cards that came together very quickly and easily. :) I was quite happy with the results. (I must add that Meg's card uses the sentiment block from the Glad Tidings set. Since I didn't have that set, I used the sentiment block from my Mini Messages set - a SAB set from a couple years ago. Although the actual typeface and wording is a bit different it was identical in style and almost the exact same size as the Glad Tidings block and worked beautifully.)

I used my new favorite adhesive (Tombow Mono Multi) and added a little 2.5 mm rhinestone to the center of each snowflake for sparkle and put the snowflake up on a popdot. Because of this, I apologize if anyone's card arrived to them bling-less! LOL I was afraid that with the height of the snowflake and its little jewel on top of that, that the design might not survive the trip. However, I did receive word that a couple of the jewels did tear through the envie a little bit, but that everything remained in tact upon arrival. *Whew!* That's some great adhesive! :) I stamped the "asterisk"-looking design from the Just Vine set on the outside of the envies as an extra festive touch. They looked like little drifting snowflakes to me and seemed to match well with the snowflake inside. Anyway, I hope the recipients enjoyed them. :)

On a personal note, I appreciate everyone who offered to send up a prayer regarding the big decision my DH and I had to make. I'm excited and finally at liberty to tell you that it was a phenominal promotion my husband was offered which invloves us all relocating to Colorado, and that he's accepted the offer! So Colorado, here we come! :) I'm excited of course, as this is a one in a million opportunity for hubster - something he has wanted and SO deserved for a very long time. But I would by lying if I didn't say that I'm terrified as well. LOL Trying to sell our house (in a floundering market), cleaning and packing, and moving four kids to a climate unlike any we have ever experienced... yeah, I'm a little stressed out. LOL Anyway, that's the news. This is also the reason behind my postponing signing up with SU. Needless to say, I'm going to be quite busy in the next few months (like I'm not already!) So once again, I appreciate those who continue to check in with me from time to time and don't mind that I take forever to update. ;) I still plan to try to stamp as much as possible through all of this, as stamping is my "therapy" and keeps me somewhat sane. Not to mention, I have all of this brand new rubber, just screaming at me to be inked up! But who knows what type of time constraints this whole adventure may put on my hobby. So many other things are of much more importance now... however, I try to remain optimistic. LOL

I'll be checking in on as many blogs as I can in the next few days or so. Hubby has to make another trek to Colorado here pretty soon (which will become the norm, I suspect), and that usually leaves me with a little extra free time. ;) I'm anxious to see what you've been up to!