Dear Santa

Happy Saturday! Time for another fantastic sketch challenge at Sketch Saturday!!!

I pulled out this adorable image that my dear friend Rachel gave to me and colored her up to coordinate with patterned paper from the Tinsel and Twigs collection by The Girls' Paperie. I think it might be my favorite Christmas paper this year... I just love the patterns and shades of color. And, of course, how can you go wrong when you have an image as adorable as this? It's called Royal Greeting by Penny Black. Love love love!

The greeting is by SRM. I punched the holly with my Martha Stewart Crafts punch. The pearls are by Kaisercraft. I added a bit of Stampendous white Fun Flock to her santa hat, and dotted all the snowflakes with my Signo white gel pen, just to give them a tiny bit of dimension. I inked the edges of the patterned paper with Tim Holtz Walnut Stain distress ink to give them more definition.  I hope you likey!

Why not come along and play with us this week? Take a wee break from the hustle bustle of the holiday season and make a card for someone special? We'd love to have you!

Be sure to nip over to the Sketch Saturday blog to see what the rest of the design team ladies have come up with. They are sure to delight! Plus, you'll have a chance to win a $25 Gift Certificate to spend at Simon Says Stamp!

Note, this is my second post for today. For Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamps December Release... and a chance to win... please scroll down. Thanks!

Thank you...

A blessed day to you! Our challenge hostess this week at Stampin' Sisters in Christ is my dear friend Patti J Gilliam. Patti and I have been blog friends for a long time and she is very dear to me. I was so happy when she agreed to join us at SSIC. She's part of the family now; it's as if she's always been there!

Patti picked as her inspiration scripture 1 Timothy 4:4 "For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving..." The challenge is to create a thank you card. Easy peasy!

My card features an adorable image that I've had for awhile but hadn't inked up... it's called Thinking of You by Penny Black. I removed the tulips from her pitcher and replaced them with a sunflower button I dug out of my stash, along with the sunflowers which I clipped off of an inexpensive bunch I picked up at Michael's ages ago. (*wink*) I followed the sketch from Challenge #4 at 7Kids College Fund. It's too late to enter the challenge, but I still love the sketch! The DP is from the Autumn Spice collection by Stampin' Up, and the greeting is by SRM.

In today's scripture, Paul is advising Timothy, who he had instructed to care for the church at Ephesus while he (Paul) went on to Macedonia. Paul wrote this letter to develop the charge he had given to his young assistant. A major problem in the Ephesian church was heresy that included false asceticism (self-denial and self-mortification for religious reasons). This was addressed in 1 Timothy 4:1-5. Paul is exhorting Timothy to remember that all things created by God are good and should not be rejected but received with thanksgiving, as opposed to strict denial by "hypocritical liars"; i.e., the false ascetics.

Our design team recently had a discussion about what Rebekka called "the fine lines" of religious belief... the do's and don'ts. There are many schools of thought and interpretation of what is okay and not okay to do as a Christian. And a fine line it is. Who's to say except God? And even His word is construed differently by various religious denominations. But it's the zealot that Paul is addressing in this verse... the ones whose intent is evil and not for the glory of God. We must always remember that all good things come from God, like the food we eat, and should not be rejected but received with thanksgiving.

So what was the consensus of our discussion? Generally, it was that we should not talk about the do's and don'ts when witnessing as Christians to others. That is very off-putting and often the reason cited by others as to why they don't go to church. They view Christians as hypocrites and religious belief as a huge guilt trip and denial of the fun in life. Little do they know that it is quite the opposite! But to reach them we must, as Rebekka said, love people right where they are at and let God take care of the rest.

Have a wonderful day my friends!

Sweet Thing

Happy Monday!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had the pleasure of getting together with Jami Sibley, Rachel Sztonyk and Jen Visser on the 18th at Jami's house to spend an afternoon crafting and chatting. We had such a great time! Jami came up with the idea that we should pick an image and each make a card and post it at the same time to commemorate our day together. This is the image we picked: Sweet Thing by Penny Black. Isn't she adorable? I paired her with paper from the Just Add Butter collection by My Little Shoebox.

As one who loves a good sketch to get me going, I checked in at Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge. The challenge this week is to pick any past sketch... and it's so easy since Fans of SSSC on Facebook can access the entire library on line! I picked Sketch 33. 

Please be sure to hop around and see what Jami, Rachel and Jen created with this little cutie!

Hi girls! I can't wait until we get together again!!!

Have a great day, my friends! It's supposed to be around 110 F (I believe that's 40 C) here in So Cal today, so I'm staying in. I sure hope this heat wave breaks soon because it's ruining my autumn season!

Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men

A blessed Fourth Sunday in Advent to you! This is a very special week indeed, one during which we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior... the most awesome gift from our Heavenly Father. I pray each one of you will be richly blessed this Christmas.

Today's scripture at Stampin' Sisters in Christ is the beginning of the Christmas story, Luke 1:26-32 "In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, 'Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.' Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.'" (NIV)

Our hostess for this week's challenge, the sweet Kathy Winter (co-founder with me and Kristine of Stampin' Sisters in Christ), worked up a sketch challenge for us. We can use this sketch to create anything that delights us during this holy week.

Since the scripture talks about the angel's visit to Mary, I decided to pull out this adorable stamp Celestial Heart by Penny Black. Isn't she precious? I added lots of sparkly with my atYou Spica glitter pens, although it's hard to see in the photo. The greeting is from Signature Christmas by Papertrey Ink. The DP is from SEI.

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you have a wonderful day... and week...as we turn our hearts and minds to the celebration of the birth of our precious Lord. Blessings to you!

Edited to add: I just noticed that The Pink Elephant Challenge #45 is to make a Winter or Christmas card, so I'm entering my card!

Belated Dare To Get Dirty Challenge Cards

Yay, hurray, my computer is fixed! And I must say, it works better than ever. I think there was more junk creeping around in my computer than I thought. And, guess what. They said that I get the award for the dirtiest computer they have ever seen! Yes, I'm so proud. What an honor! The guy asked me if I'd ever watched the old TV version of Star Trek. Of course, I have (which dates me). He said that when they opened up my computer, it looked like it had been attacked by Trebbles!

Really, I'm totally ashamed of myself. I knew that I needed to get down on my hands and knees and clean it, vacuum around the cords and such, but I kept putting it off. I'm lucky that the virus got me... if it hadn't, and I hadn't taken my computer in, it's quite likely I would have burned up my hard drive. The good Lord is definitely looking out for me! I'm turning over a new leaf when it comes to computer care and maintenance.

Anyhoo, I can finally post the rest of the cards I managed to finish for the Dare to Get Dirty 08 Challenge. I don't have time to post all of them tonight... I'll post more tomorrow.

This first card is one of my favorites. This was in response to Christine's challenge to use a watercoloring technique. I chose reinkers and my paint brush. I hadn't watercolored in awhile and was reminded how much I enjoy it. The key is to use watercolor paper... and don't get your brush too wet. I always dab off on a papertowel before going to the paper, but I still get "bleeds" every now and then.

Recipe:

Stamps: image is by PennyBlack; greeting is by Inkadinkado

Paper: SU Certainly Celery and Baja Breeze cardstock, watercolor paper, Certainly Celery DSP

Ink: SU reinkers... I mainly used the new colors, plus Going Grey and Blush Blossom. I forgot to write them all down... sorry!

Accessories: Prima flowers; SU brad

This card was in response to Jenn's inspiration challenge... a black and white cake tied with a green and yellow bow. It's hard to see in this photo, but I brayered a piece of glossy white cardstock with Certainly Celery and So Saffron inks... sort of a gradual fade from green to yellow...and then embossed the image over it using Versamark and black embossing powder. The greeting was stamped and then punched out with the large oval punch, and then mounted with Dimensionals. This was one of my projects for July's stamp club, to give the ladies a chance to try a brayering technique.

Recipe:

Stamps: Stampin Up Fresh Cuts

Paper: SU Basic Black, So Saffron, Certainly Celery, and Glossy White cardstock

Ink: So Saffron and Certainly Celery, Versamark

Accessories: large oval punch, black embossing powder

Thanks for stopping by! Check again tomorrow for more belated challenge cards. And stay tuned for Blog Candy. I promise you won't be disappointed!