Xmas with Michelle Perkett Studio

It's time for this week's For Fun Challenge and, of course, my featured Design Team assignment. Whoo hooo! Or perhaps "Ho ho ho" this time?

(This card is being entered into the Craft Your Passion "red" challenge, and Top Tip Tuesday, "T is for..." (Tea!) challenge. :))

Can't you just see the snow sparkling already? I love the silence of snow and the cozy feeling of a cup of hot tea while reading under a blanket, wearing my fuzzy slippers. I put on my favorite video firelog and hum along to the Christmas carols...and then I open the front door and I'm blasted with hot air and dank humidity. Oh yeah, it's June. Oh well. I can still enjoy the festive fairies cavorting in this digi stamp by Michelle Perkett.

Here's a tip: while this stamp came with a sweet friendship sentiment, don't feel like you're caged in thematically when choosing holiday themed stamps. In this case I chose to use a holiday cling stamp by Stampin' Up as the sentiment matched with the Perkett image, and a lot of red, green and icy blue to take an everyday image and make it appropriate for a special occasion. When you look at your stamp collection this way, you can likely find ones that will work for all sorts of holidays and occasions that you'd never thought of using them for before. It's like having loads of new stamps! (Well, sort of. It's an exaggeration, but it's still pretty cool.)

This week, For Fun Challenges takes us back to December for winter fun cards with help from one of my favorite digital stamp shops, and fellow Etsy shop, Michelle Perkett Studio. She has some adorable images, like the ones I'm interspersing here. These are all available for purchase at her shop, and most are darn cheap at around $3 each.

Cute, aren't they? Take a look, then enter our challenge this week. You can get a head start on your holiday cards and win free digi stamps from her shop!

Scrap Room Pics and A Couple of Challenge Entries

Well, I'm not done figuring out exactly where I want all my scrap supplies to live, but Scott's finished the majority of the build! I'm so psyched to get to play in there for real, with comfy places to sit and other creature-comforts, but I have to say, it's pretty great to use in the mean time.

Scott surprised me with this tree he pained using magnetic paint so I can hang things on it or just admire its swirlyness.

I love seeing pics of other people's work spaces, so I'm really excited to finally have some pics to share of my own. Once it gets a bit more settled, I can take more detailed photos. It always seems like every time you move something in the house, everything else has to shift to accommodate it, so it takes time for everything to find its proper location. Maybe it's some kind of larger truth I've stumbled upon, or maybe it's my OCD. Duno.

And now, for some card challenges I made. First, here's one from Whimsie Doodles' site. The challenge? To include fruits or veggies. So, here's a tipsy sheep (the inside says "Wishing ewe a happy new year!") and of course, those are olives from the martini she's just consumed. Olives, my friends, are a fruit!

 Next, the challenge below is a sketch challenge via Card Patterns. The image here is also from Whimsie Doodles. I've been needing more get well cards and this cat and mouse are perfect! Aww!

Yes, actually I was abducted by aliens.

But look at the cute cards they had me make while enslaved!

A cute little birthday moose! I'm in love with Doodlebug's paper colors. So vibrant and happy. Look at that cute cupcake button, too. Anyone know a good source for cute buttons like these? I picked them up at Archivers, but their selection has shrunk quite a bit lately.

I love this stamp by Outlines. *Both* cats and mice? It's so like my house! (Okay, I don't have any mice right now, but colored in brown, they look a little like my degus. :)) I made this for the Outlines challenge this week. It was an easy one since I love working in aqua and brown anyway.

Now look at this cute little bunny fairy I made for the  SCACD sketch challenge. It's super shimmery (oh so appropriate for a little bunny pixie) since I used both copics and Sakura shimmery Star pens. I love these pens! I happened upon a little trick when using them, too. If the pen is not being generous with its ink, hold it at a 45 degree angle to your surface. It's simple physics when dealing with a gel like these, but for some reason it never occurred to me till now.

I love these stamps by Pink Cat Studio. It's impossible to look at them without saying," Aww!" Since the challenge requires that you use a stamp set available in SCACD's shop, you know where you can get them if you decide you need them too!

I managed to escape my captors when the sentry fell asleep. I apologize to anyone who has been wondering where I went. I seem to have popped a new disk this week, so that's been slowing me down. My foster hamsters find my fingers delicious all of the sudden (ow), I'm trying to get my scrap room in order, sorting through my stuff to decide what's going to the Cary Scrappers yard sale in July and what needs to be labeled and put away, prepping for my Creative Memories party (local readers, let me know if you want an invite! :)), sorting through writing grants and whatnot,  and, of course, there was the alien thing.

She may be my evil overlord, but she sure is cute!