Monday, December 28, 2015

Cute little forgotten boxes...

I'm just stopping in for quick late night post. As I was going through my pictures I realized that I never shared the cute little gift boxes that I made for my clients and coworkers. Each box was filled with an assortment of Ghiradelli chocolates. I love giving gifts and I try not to leave anyone out! I wish I'd gotten even just one more picture of these boxes because they were really cute... But this is it. Hope you like them!

WWYS #44: Sprinkles on Top

It's another awesome What Will You Stamp Monday on my blog today! This week we are featuring Sprinkles on Top! It's a fun little set with doughnuts, candles and a candy but the sweet sentiments are what I was after in this set. 


I used the "Happy Birthday,"and, "Hope it's sweet" from the Sprinkles on Top set and thought the cute little animals from the Made with Love set went perfectly with the sentiment. 

Here's what the whole set looks like.

Don't forget to join us this week over at the What Will You Stamp Challenge Blog! Check out what the rest of the design team has made and submit your own contribution. I can't wait to see What Will You Stamp with this set!
See you all again soon!
-Maria

Monday, December 21, 2015

WWYS #43: Cup of Cheer

Wow, it's Monday again and Mondays are great days because I get to play along with the Design Team over at What Will You Stamp?! The Holidays are upon us and this week we are celebrating by featuring Cup of Cheer! I went for lots of layers with this card and I dare say that it is much prettier in person. My photography skills are non-existent and couldn't quite capture how pretty this card is... so please use your imagination-lol!


Here's a close up of the image and some of my layers. I colored the image by hand and added some fanciness by layering some of the Winter Wonderland Designer Vellum Stack with gold thread and gold cording. I like the color combo of the gold with the Cucumber Crush and Real Red. It's very traditional but also really pops with color.


The Cup of Cheer set has four fairly large stamps. I think my favorite is probably the "Santa's on His Way" stamp but for some reason I was drawn to use the Christmas wreath this time. 

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you will check out what the rest of the Design Team has made over at the WWYS Challenge Blog. If you have this stamp set please join us! We would love to see What Will You Stamp! 
Happy Monday Y'all. Enjoy your day!
-Maria

Thursday, December 17, 2015

December Stamping Friends Blog Hop





Welcome to the Stampin Friends Christmas Blog Hop! If you just arrived from Raquelle Clifton’s Blog, thank you for continuing with the hop! Don’t forget to click the Previous button to check out Raquelle's amazing creations.This month we are excited to have three Awesome Guest Hoppers that you should definitely check out!

Maria Willis: You're Here!

I used Christmas Cuties for both my card and project this month. It's such a fun set and I really didn't use it enough this holiday season. This little Christmas elf is pretty adorable and I had a lot of fun coloring and watercoloring him (Real Red and Cucumber Crush). 


Here's a close up of this little Christmas Cutie and the million layers of this card-Lol! Seriously, this card is THICK but I love the depth it has. 


Here's what the inside of my card looks like. With so much going on on the outside of the card I had to fancy up the inside too!


My Christmas project is a bag I made to give my niece a gift in. I'm starting a fun tradition with my nieces where I give them charm bracelets! My Godmother did this for me and it was so special to me. I still have my bracelet and all of the thoughtfully gifted charms and I thought it would be a wonderful way to celebrate life's special moments with my nieces. Well, what better way to give a special gift to someone you love than in a beautiful handmade gift bag. I made this cute little gift bag for my niece using another stamp from Stampin' Ups! Christmas Cuties set. It's hard to tell from my photos but this bag has a soft and sparkly feel to it.

Here's a close up of the angel. In this picture you can see that the angel's wings, sash and halo are sparkly. I used Wink of Stella in gold on her halo and Wink of Stella in clear on her wings and sash. I'm so happy to say that SU will be carrying Wink of Stella in these two colors starting in January. It's a pen with a brush-like tip that allows you to add just the right amount of sparkle to your projects without the mess of glitter. I absolutely love it!


I used a doily from the Tag Bag kit (they're a bit smaller than the regular doilies) and lined the top of my bag with Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper. I topped the bag off with a beautiful bow, a mini silver paper clip, and, a pretty tag also lined with glimmer paper. 

That's all I've got for today. Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you'll keep hopping along to see what the rest of these amazing stampers have created. Before you go...

DO YOU LIKE FREE STUFF?!
If so, then join the fun and play along with our Scavenger Hunt Mystery Giveaway! All you have to do is visit every blog on this blog hop and leave each of us a comment. Then send a list of everybody's favorite holidays to happystamper508@gmail.com by midnight this Sunday, December 20th. If you are the lucky winner you will receive a gift from every single hopper... That's 13 gifts! What are you waiting for? Good Luck! My favorite holiday is... My birthday week (Yes, really. Somehow it always gets dragged out over a week and it is so awesome!!)! 




Next up on our hop is the talented Elizabeth Jeanne Thatcher

Monday, December 14, 2015

WWYS #42: Snow Place

Woohoo! It's Snow Place week over at What Will You Stamp this week! I love this set! I decided to use the fun little penguin and dress him up all fancy. I embossed him in black then embossed some silver buttons and a red bow tie for him. I like the pop of silver, rhinestones and fancy vellum on the Basic Gray and Pool Party background. It's pretty but not too over the top.
I used a lot of dimensional on the different layers of this card. I love dimension! The background is embossed to give the card a little more texture.


This stamp set is so fun! Aside from the penguin I used you also get two snow men and so many different ways to dress them up! There is also a matching frame lit set so you never have to cut these images out if you don't want to!

Check out what the rest of our design team has made over at What Will You Stamp for this week's challenge. If you have this set I hope you'll join in the fun! Have a great week!
-Maria


Thursday, December 10, 2015

Thank you and a hug!

A quickie post this Saturday because I'm excited to start decorating our Christmas tree with my son. Woohoo! I've been meaning to send out a Thank You and a Hug to a lovely person. I had my son put this in the mail and as soon as he pushed it into the lockbox I realized there wasn't a stamp on it. Argh!! There's no way to get it out so I hope it comes back to me so that I can resend it.


I used some new DSP that will be coming out on January 3rd and punched the butterflies out of the Winter Wonderland DSP.  

I had fun making this and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that eventually it will make it to the person I tried to send it to today... Lol. I suppose I can always make another one!

Happy Saturday! Do something fun today!
-Maria

Monday, December 7, 2015

WWYS #41: Embellished Ornaments

Happy Monday! Here we are again with another challenge over at What Will You Stamp?! This week we are stamping with Embellished Ornaments! I've been wanting to watercolor with this stamp set for a while now and I got my chance this past weekend when I was camping. Unfortunately I forgot my heat tool and my Big Shot so I heat embossed this ornament using a toaster! Thank goodness it worked! I watercolored using my aqua painter and wasn't happy with how my paper turned out... but, I thought the ornament came out looking pretty so I decided to cut that out using my ornament framelits and go from there. I layered Island Indigo, Gold Foil and Fancy Vellum underneath my ornament. I tied a bow using the gold cording trim and heat embossed my sentiment in gold on vellum. 



It's hard to tell in the big photo but I also gave the whole ornament a bath in Wink of Stella (clear)! I'm so excited because I've just discovered that I love Wink of Stella (I can't believe I hadn't ever used it before!) and now that SU will be offering it in their upcoming catalog it will become one of my favorite "go-tos." In case you are new to Wink of Stella like I was, it's a pen with a brush-like tip that allows you to get just the right amount of shimmer and shine without the mess and hassle of glitter. It's seriously awesome!


This stamp set really is so pretty. I only used the one ornament on the front of my card and one of the sentiments on the inside. I'll have to ink this set up again soon. The framelits that come with this set are just beautiful too.

I hope you'll head on over to the What Will You Stamp Challenge Blog and check out what the rest of the design team has created this week. If you have this set I hope you will play along with us!
Have an amazing week everybody and I hope you are enjoying your holidays!
Bye for now!
-Maria

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Jacksonville Stars December Blog Hop

Happy first Saturday of December everybody! This means it's time for another Jacksonville Stars Blog Hop!

This month we've got a fun challenge: Black, White and One Color! Otherwise anything goes! I chose to use Mint Macaron as my pop of color and I finally got to use this new stamp set for the first time! It's called, Sky is the Limit, and it is coming out in the 2016 Sale-a-Bration Catalog. I hope you like getting a little sneak peak of what's to come especially since you can earn this set for FREE with any $50 purchase (once Sale-a-Bration starts)!

As soon as I saw this set I thought of my Grandpa. He loved airplanes! One of my favorite memories of him is of him drinking coffee out of his biplane coffee mug in the mornings. My Grandpa passed a few years ago but every time I use this stamp set I know I will think of him.


I can't wait to see what the rest of the Jacksonville Stars have cooked up for us this morning! Hop on over to Rose Ann Marr's blog to check out her amazing project!

Maria Willis: You Are Here!

Monday, November 30, 2015

WWYS #40: White Christmas

It's What Will You Stamp Monday again and this week we've got a White Christmas challenge for you! This week I decided to go small and make a couple of 3"x3" cards. These are so great when you want to write someone a quick note and a tag is just not quite enough. I always make sure I have a stash of Stampin' Up! 3"x3" envelopes as they make it easy to complete these cute little cards. 


For this card I used quite a few of the stamps from this set. I love that this set allows you create different scenes by piecing them together the way that you like. 


I followed up my stamping by adding a little color with my Real Red Stampin' Write marker and... DRUM ROLL please!! Wink of Stella in clear! Never heard of Wink of Stella? I hadn't either until just recently but check out my amazing little snowman-See all of that beautiful shimmer? That's the magic of Wink of Stella and it's coming soon in Stampin' Ups! 2016 Occasions Catalog. I've used Clear here and it will also be available in gold! 


I stamped the inside of card and topped if off with a cute little bird. Here's the whole White Christmas set. So many fun little stamps to use!

If you're interested in seeing some more amazing projects using this set be sure to head on over to What Will You Stamp to see what the rest of our design team has made. While you're there I hope you'll decide to join us and enter one of your own amazing projects for a chance to be our guest designer in an upcoming challenge. I can't wait to see what you will make! Until then have an amazing week and I will see you soon!
-Maria 


Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Bear Hugs: I Love You This Much!

Here's another sneak peak card from a stamp set called Bear Hugs. This set will be available in January with the release of the 2016 Occasions Catalog. This is the baby bear from the set and it's pretty darned adorable. I heat embossed this cute little bear in Early Espresso and then watercolored him. I love that he looks like he just can't wait to hug you as he shows you how big he loves you! Too cute!

This is a perfect card for me today because my poor son has the stomach flu. He is such a trooper! He has been sick all night and he just doesn't complain. I keep looking at him laying so sick in his bed and I just feel, "I love you this much (SO MUCH!)!" I wish I could take all the yuck away for him. I'm sure I'll have my turn soon enough since the stomach flu is pretty contagious but that's ok. I think he's finally heading in the right direction and I am so glad about that! He deserves lots of bear hugs right now!


What do you think? Is this set on your "must have" list yet? What are some of your favorites? Anything you would like to see more of? If so, let me know! 
Have an awesome day everybody and I hope you are all staying healthy!
-Maria

Monday, November 16, 2015

New Stamp Sets! Bear Hugs and Sunburst Sayings!

Woohoo! The hour has finally come when the gag order is lifted and we can share some of the info we learned at OnStage with you! I didn't have much time to stamp today...only enough time to quickly make this card. I used two new stamp sets called, Bear Hugs, and Sunburst Sayings! I used the big bear from Bear Hugs in this set...just wait until you see baby bear!

Here's a close up of the bear hug! Guess what?! There are framelits that go with this set too! I had to fussy cut the bear and heart but soon I won't have to (as soon as I can order those framelits!)!

The background stamp (little x's) and the wavy line that I used to ground the bear are both from Sunburst Sayings.

I'll be back soon with more sneak peeks. Since I attended OnStage I am lucky to have the opportunity to order very early-like I placed my preorder today! Yippee! Can't wait to share the goods with you all! 
Let me know what you think of this new set and feel free to ask me any questions!
Bye for now!
-Maria

WWYS#38: Happy Scenes

Hi! Welcome back to another fun week of What Will You Stamp?! This week's challenge is to use the Happy Scenes stamp set. I made a shaker card this week!


It's so hard to tell in these photos but the trees are stamped in Mossy Meadow to match the paper frame.


Here's the whole Happy Scenes stamp set. There's something in there for Halloween, Fall, Thanksgiving, Winter, Christmas... What an awesome set!

Make sure to go check out the other WWYS Design Team members to see what they've created this week. If you've got a fun idea on how to use this set we'd sure love to see. Submit your entries to the WWYS Challenge Blog!

Sunday, November 15, 2015

On Stage 3D Card Swap with my new Friends!!

At the time I am writing this blog post I am anxiously awaiting my very first Stamping' Up! event...the first ever On Stage!! I am so lucky to be meeting up with some amazing ladies, who up until now, I've only communicated with in our on-line stamping group. Most of them live in San Diego and will be heading to On Stage together. Zarogina is my stampin' great grandma and will be flying down from Northern California. I myself will be flying down too. One of the ladies from the San Diego group has organized a 3D project and treat swap for us all to participate in. I found some fun, wildly colored lip glosses and tic-tacs to give as my treat and I had a lot of fun making a custom package to gift them in. 

I made a box with a top flap closure and made a belly band to keep it closed. I am so excited to be meeting and making new friends so I used the "Friend" sentiment from the awesomely artistic stamp set. 

Here's a closer up, side view of my box... is it a box? I don't even know but it's 3D and that's what we had to do! I can't wait to take some pictures on Saturday night to add to this blog! I should have six more projects to show you from this swap and I'm sure I'll have some pics of big smiling faces too! 

FAST FORWARD TO SATURDAY NIGHT!!
....or, Sunday morning, haha!
Well, all I have to say is that my Stampin' family is rad! I will post more about my amazing day yesterday over this coming week. For now, I'll post this so I'm not holding out on you.
Happy Sunday!
-Maria

Friday, November 13, 2015

On Stage Snowflake Card-Yippee!

I am so, so, SO Excited!! that I'm totally yelling! Today is Saturday and that means today is On Stage day! I've never been to any Stampin' Up! event before so today is a big, exciting day for me! 

And now for a little secret that I've been keeping... a while back I applied to be on the Artisan Design Team. A few weeks ago I got an email from SU saying that they were still going over the applications and making their decisions but that I was invited to share one example of my very best work on one of their big display boards at On Stage! I'm so excited to have this opportunity and consider it a huge honor. Here is the card I made and will be displaying today at On Stage San Diego. Thank you so much Stampin' Up! I am thrilled!

I wanted to make a card that wasn't easy to just whip up in five minutes. I wanted to combine some different, fun techniques and somehow mesh them together. I chose to do a ton of heat embossing with watercoloring and I am happy with how it turned out. I sure hope you like it too!


I started out by heat embossing in clear on white Shimmer paper. I used the fun snowflakes from Seasonal Snapshot 2015 and the smaller stars and dots stamp from Holly Jolly Greetings. After embossing I started adding color! Lots of color! I used my aqua painter, a spritzer and many colors of ink to add layers of color. I dried with my heat tool when it was necessary. Somewhere in the middle of all that watercoloring, I added more clear heat embossing to preserve some of the lighter colors under my snowflakes. Then I added more color to show the contrast. I also added a couple of stamped images with regular ink just to add more depth. Floating up the top right of my card is a sprinkling of stars cut out with the star confetti punch.  The stars were cut from silver foil and some of my embossed dazzling diamond scraps. They were adhered with glue dots and the fine tip glue pen.

When I was done creating the background piece I built a snowflake for the front of my card. The bottom layer of the snowflake is from the Holly Jolly Greetings set. I heat embossed the large snowflake on a window sheet using Heat & Stick and Dazzling Diamonds. Then I cut the snow flake out by hand. The second layer of the snowflake is from the Snowflake Card Thinlits. It's still available on the clearance rack so I hoped it was cool to use it. I cut that snowflake out of Dazzling Diamonds glimmer paper. Finally, I topped my snowflake off with one of the snowflake wooden elements that I had embossed with Dazzling Diamonds. I finished the card off with silver cording and a "peace" cut from the Holiday Greetings Thinlits. 

The inside of my card is watercolored as well. You can tell that I didn't do as many layers of color as it doesn't have the same depth as the front of the card does. My sentiment is from the Holly Jolly Greetings set. My card is layered on base of Basic Gray and a mat of Pacific Point. 

I hope you liked my card! I'm sure excited to be able to share it with you. I will be back later with pictures of a most amazing day I am sure! Until then, you have an amazing day! I hope you may be lucky enough to be attending On Stage somewhere too. If not, I promise to share everything that I am allowed too!
Huge smiles!
Maria

CARD SUPPLIES:

Thursday, November 12, 2015

OSAT Holiday Blog Hop


Hi Everybody! It's the second Thursday of the month and that means OSAT Blog Hop time! Yippee! This month we have 17 stampers and a Holiday theme for you! I can't wait to go through and see what everybody has made! If you've hopped along with us before you already know that each of us make both a card and a project so there will be lots of fun on this hop!

For my card I almost went with Winter Solstice (you can see that card on Saturday!) but opted for a glitzy Holiday card with a cute, little penguin instead. I hope you like it!


To create my snowflake background I used the fun snowflakes from Seasonal Snapshot from Project Life and embossed them in white on black paper. I added Red Glimmer Paper and a vellum banner (backed with white so that it would pop) to my card front and topped it off with a silver doily and an adorable little penguin from the Snow Place set.

Here's a close-up of the penguin. He is so fancy with his sparkly red bow tie! I embossed his buttons in silver and colored his beak and feet with my Pumpkin Pie marker.




For my Holiday project I made a tag. I've been dying to get to use these fantastic reindeer clips on a project and hadn't had a chance until now. I don't make tags very often but a set of these could be a great gift for someone special! I'm thinking I'll be making more of these soon.
Here's a close up. Do you recognize that DSP? It's from the Sweel L'il Things DSP pack and trust me-there are lots of sweet l'il designs in this pack! It's a total bonus pack because many of the designs can be used for occasions other than for baby cards. I created my own background using the star stamp from Holly Jolly Greetings on Pear Pizzazz. Then I added a layer of Basic Gray and sponged it all. My sentiment is from Holly Jolly Greetings-I really love that set! Of course to get those perfectly flagged banners I used my Triple Banner Punch. It just makes it so easy. 

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my projects today! I hope you will keep on hopping along with us and hit all 17 fabulous stampers! Next up on the hop is the talented Martie Hillyer!


TAG SUPPLIES:

Monday, November 9, 2015

WWYS #37: Thankful Forest Friends

Hi Everybody! Thanks for joining me for another terrific week of What Will You Stamp?! This week our challenge is to use Thankful Forest Friends. Upon first look it seems like it's a Thanksgiving set but I think these cute little animals can be used for just about anything. I decided to use the bear and emboss him in white on basic gray paper to make him a polar bear. I hope you like my winter scene!


Here's a little close up of my polar bear and the sign. Do you recognize those trees in the background? They're cut using the Sleigh Ride edgelits and I used a sponge dauber to give them a little color. My sign was cut using the Hand Picked Framelits, stamped with the "Peace" from the  Holly Jolly Greetings set and finished off with some sponging and a gold cording bow. My Pacific Point background piece was dry embossed with the Softly Falling Textured Impressions Embossing Folder and dusted with Dazzling Diamonds glitter powder. 

Here's the whole Thankful Forest Friends stamp set. Which stamp is your favorite? 
Want to see more cards made with this set? Come back and visit me on Saturday! I'm participating in a blog hop and this is the set I will be using. Want even more cards? Go check out the other WWYS Designers at What Will You Stamp?! We've got such a talented design team. I hope you'll go check them out! If you have a fabulous idea for this stamp set we would love to see it! Please submit your cards or projects the WWYS Blog Page. I can't wait to see what will you stamp!

Have a great day and Happy Stamping! Thanks for visiting me and I'll be back soon with more projects!

-Maria


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