Merry Christmas and Happy 2011!

i'm sending each one of you a huge choco-thank-you for taking the time to stop by my little blog this year

(and attached is a big hug for being so supportive!)!

wishing you a most blessed Christmas,

and a fabulously creative New Year!!

xox

i'll be spending some time with my family next week.....

see you in 2011!!

inspiration monday

i was at the craft store the other day (or maybe i'll just start calling it my "vacation home".....) and as i was making a bee-line towards the back of the store, a bag of these fun little marshmallow-shaped pieces of foam caught my eye.......

and then i started thinking about this little doodle i created last year......and realized that those yummy little foam pieces reminded me of my sweet friend and provider-of-non-stop-inspiration elf-in-chief, lenny!

so i couldn't resist the challenge of bringing that doodle from paper to reality!   i took one of those foamies and added a few embellishments to it.........some red polka-dot felt plus a little gold jingle bell for a hat, some wire for the arms and legs, green felt and gold beads to make a pair of cute little elfie shoes, a poinsettia and leaves cut from some decorative paper, and a micron pen to draw a sweet little face! but no elf-in-chief is complete without a little sign to carry.....a fun reminder of that ever so famous elf-motto to always add some "play, play, play" to your day!!!

lenny was created using the materials listed above.....and his sign was created using this stamp, decorative paper, and a toothpick.

the best intentions

this year i was all set to wrap my presents in brown craft paper that had been stamped with fun hand-carved Christmas images (if i only had the time to carve the stamp and stamp the paper!).....and then finish them off with some of that adorable twisted kitchen twine. but i've noticed that the calendar days keep ticking off, and i don't seem to be crossing things off my "to do list" very quickly.  and now i'm realizing that my brown-craft-paper idea will have to wait until next year......when i'm hopefully more organized......and maybe decide to start in august (since i had this brown-craft-paper idea last year, too!).

but for now, it's back to my store-bought-wrapping party.....

hope you have a fabulous weekend!!!

xox

inspiration monday

every once in a while i come up with what i think is a really great idea......and i've decided that instead of trying to keep it stored in the archives of my memory banks, i'm going to start writing it down!  (seems like the perfect excuse to sit down and create a fun journal page......what could be more inspiring than to get out the microns, watercolor pencils.....and chocolate?!)

 here's a better look at a cute little tag i made using 

of my new rubber stamps!

hope your day is filled with great and inspiring ideas!!

journal page finished using micron pens, watercolor pencil, 4B graphite pencil, pan pastel, decorative paper, ribbon, great idea stamp

red rubber results!

a huge thank you to everyone who joined in my red rubber giveaway!!  i SO appreciate all of your  heartfelt comments and sweet interest in my new rubber stamps......consider yourself bear-hugged!!!

and here are the giveaway results:

shortly after midnight, the random integer chose the number 9......

and that means that milkcan a.k.a. julie over at balzer designs has a package filled with three new art stamps coming her way!  woo hoo!!

(p.s.  if you don't know julie yet, check out her blog......it's busting at the seams with fabulous ideas and tutorials!)

thanks again for playing along.......i hope you have a fantastic sunday!!