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!
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