How do you feel about New Years resolutions? Personally, I love new years, new seasons, new weeks... and I love setting new goals and resetting them. In a good way, haha... I love making ideas of plans and I love thinking of ways to improve myself and do better. And so, every year I set paper crafting goals too! I set a goal for how many scrapbook pages I hope to complete, and I make a plan for what cards I will need in the upcoming month or year, and base my card making plans off that. (Altho I absolutely sometimes just make cards to play with the products!! That's important too!) So this month, I am hoping to scrap 10 pages (more is always a good thing!) and I am hoping to mail out five cards, and I need to make one to send out early February. Some of these are birthday cards, but some are thinking of you, or other reasons to send a card.
And this brings me to today's topic- why Paper Pumpkin? (Because I also have a 2022 goal to make up all my PP kits and mail the cards out instead of storing... lets see... I'm at 17 boxes. ahem.)
For myself, I stay subscribed, and skip months for a lot of reasons. Sometimes I spent all my money on catalog orders and can't afford it, lol. Sometimes I just don't think that kit is something I will use. It just depends. This last kit, sent in December, I meant to skip. It just didn't appeal to me and that is okay! We all like different things! But, in the crazy of December I completely forgot to skip it! And it just showed up! Whoops! But now that it's here, I may as well make the best of it, right? And I realized that even tho the kit itself doesn't focus on anything birthday at all, it has a birthday greeting and *I can make it be a birthday card! And this one has already gone out! Hooray!
Paper Pumpkin is fun because it comes with everything you need to make their design, but you can use it for whatever YOU want, however YOU want!!
Here's the unboxing video so you can see how it was intended:
But the other thing I wanted to share with you today was this. You can see from my blog that I did very, very little paper crafting in December. I made three cards that I shared, and that was it. But that week between Christmas and New Years, when things were a little too chaotic for me, I hoped that creating might calm me. So I pulled out the Christmas card PP kit from Oct 2020 and I put these together!
and then, on New Year's Eve, while my teenagers were having a loud party in my living room, haha, I went into my craft-room-in-progress and pulled out the Christmas card kit from 2016. In 2016 I worked part time out of the home from Jan-Aug, I moved twice, and I had a baby. I opened this box to stamp "Merry Christmas" on some neighbor treats we delivered, but that was as far as it ever went. So on New Years eve 2021, I put half the kit together, finally!
So for me, even if I'm not going to use the kit as soon as it arrives, Paper Pumpkin is still such a nice thing because I can quickly whip up some cards, any time I have a spare minute to "make" but not necessarily "create". It doesn't' take up a lot of space, even as those 17 boxes. The boxes can often hold two kits, sometimes more, and the boxes are a handy place to keep the stamp sets and ink spots you are left with! I have one box full to bursting of a few years worth of stamp sets!
Anyway, this is the sneak peek to the next kit! It will make 8 cards, perfect for Valentines, and this month, subscribers can order a set of treat boxes if you wish! Starting Jan 25th, you can order 20 Mini Treat boxes, shown on the side of this flyer:
All you have to do to subscribe is sign up using the button on my side bar here. AND best of all, if you order a pre-paid subscription between now and Feb 28 (3m/6m/12m long subscription) you qualify for free Sale-A-Bration items!! And you also can skip months if you're not loving the sneak peek!
Happy New Year to you!! I hope you have had a lovely holiday season and are ready for the new year! Clearly, I have not been creating anything, and I have been busy, but we've had a lot of good family time too.
Today I'm really just hopping on with a reminder that it is the last day to order from the July - December mini catalog!
Click HERE to view everything that is still available.
There are still some really cute things on there! Five sets that were on my wish list, and one set I actually bought last year and used a lot!
And here we are, finished sharing the calendar pages! I hope you were at least a little bit inspired, haha! Today has some of my favorite pages this round, so here we go: November:
And December...
On this one below, I asked my 5yr old if it was too pink or still okay for Christmas. She told me "it needed a little bit of gold." I added the thin gold Glimmer strips behind the plaid DP and it worked out great!
Oh, and since I really love how the covers came out, here's that too. I did the exact same cover, just swapped out the photos.
We're almost to the end of this series, and that means Christmas is approaching! Are you ready? More importantly, are you enjoying the festivities? We finally got that much-prayed-for snow!! This is Thursday afternoon, when I quit after shoveling a full hour...!
Today I have September and October calendar pages to share with you!
lottts of back to school pictures for this page!
and October: This glimpse of our October covers ALL the fun we managed to have, between very cold temps, a ridiculous amount of sickness, and all the things that go with those. We did pumpkins twice because the first time was too early and wow, did those ones die... But it wasn't ALL terrible, hahaha, so I scrapped the good!
I usually do costume pictures for my family, but some costumes arrived late and some weren't photographed, but it worked out well anyway, didn't it?
Still no snow, but the rain that is supposed to turn to snow is finally falling! fingers crossed!
Today I have a card rather similar to Tuesday's but using a different color combo and sketch. This time I used the colors from Hand Stamped Sentiments, with the sketch from Inspire.Create.Challenge. And a whole lotta white space! And I used my other birthday words, lol! This one is also being mailed out very soon!
That's right, I got to make a Christmas card too! Today's card uses the color combo from Global Design Project, and it fits the theme for the latest SUO Challenge.
This is the first time I've gotten to use this cute little girl! And this set IS retiring, so if you love it, you'll want to place an order of $150 or more, or host a workshop so you can earn this one for free! You could decide to add this greeting set to your order to reach your $150 because it too is retiring! AND, today only, there is FREE SHIPPING available on orders over $50, so today is a great day to place your order!
This time I used blender pens and ink pads to color her. Not my favorite method, but it works okay, and that's where I have the colors for this challenge, haha. I did add two colors, but I think the yellow and brown were required here, don't you?
Supplies: Stamps: Seasons of Fun - Hostess Only, For Unto Us (both retiring) Ink: Memento Black, Cherry Cobbler, Mint Macaron, Garden Green, Soft Suede, Daffodil Delight Paper: Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green, Basic White card stocks Accessories: Cherry Cobbler/Gold Ribbon, Blender Pens
Is there snow at your house?? It's plenty cold and supposed to get a lot colder but there is no snow... only over Fall Break for a minute... Even my kid who doesn't like snow is ready for a good, solid blizzard! Come on winter!! They're saying maybe tomorrow and I am sure hoping!!
I. Got. To. Staaaaamp!!!!! Hooray!!! haha! I got three cards made in fact, and that is super exciting to me. So today I'll start with this fun card. This one uses the latest TGIF Color Challenge, along with the sketch from Just Add Ink. The cool colors say January to me, but it won't be around long enough for a January birthday. :) This bundled set is in the June-Dec mini, but it isn't actually retiring yet! I'm excited about that because it's such a pretty bundle! I did use one stamp from the coordinating set and you can barely tell- it's a distressing image, hidden behind the bouquet. And then, I am in serious need of some current birthday words...!
Supplies: Stamps: Inspired Thoughts, Nature's Harvest Ink: Pool Party, Misty Moonlight, Whisper White Paper: Pool Party, Basic White, Misty Moonlight, Just Jade Accessories: Flowers For Every Season ribbon, Harvest Dies, Circle Dies, Glue Dots, Dimensionals
And then I'll have something else new for tomorrow!
Another Saturday, another four pages to share! Today I have July and August! This was when I realized I have used stripes a TON in this first calendar... 6 times plus chevron... um....
And this might be my favorite calendar-page-for-my-side ever, hahaha, because every family member plus two extended made it on one page with only THREE photos! WAHOO!
And here is August! I did back to school in Aug for my inlaws, which is when school actually starts around here.
But still summer for my parents, haha!
I like that these are all simple but happy. What do you think?
And just like that, December has arrived! Can you even believe it?? I cannot.
A new month means a new blog hop, so here we are with some inspiration for quick projects! For mine, I did a few quick Christmas cards, because I am way behind in my Christmas card making... Also it works nicely with the current SUO Challenge.
The fastest way *I know to make a beautiful card is by featuring some beautiful DP and adding a quick something. This time I used roughly half a sheet of the stunning Peaceful Place DP and cut it into three equal sections, perfect for a card front. I used three colors for the ink and paper based on ribbons I had. They're flat, they're still pretty and they are perfectly mailable! I got these three cards cut, stamped, assembled and photographed in about 20 minutes.
Supplies:
Stamps: For Unto Us
Ink: Real Red
Paper: Real Red card stock, Peaceful Place DP
Accessories: Gingham Ribbon
Supplies:
Stamps: For Unto Us
Ink: Misty Moonlight
Paper: Misty Moonlight card stock, Peaceful Place DP
Accessories: Flowers For All Seasons Ribbon
Supplies:
Stamps: For Unto Us
Ink: Soft Succulent
Paper: Soft Succulent card stock, Peaceful Place DP
Accessories: Soft Succulent Open Weave Ribbon
Which one do you like best?
Now hop along over to Kimberly's blog and see what she's got for you. Then continue on through (we're a very small group this time) and let us know what you think!
I hope you get some time to create something pretty this week too!
Happy Saturday once again! I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving this past week! Today I have for you May and June pages. Allll about Mother's Day and Father's Day, just incase that isn't completely obvious.
So May...
and an even simpler May...
And June...which was actually time consuming! Each hexagon was added and lined up manually (a better idea in my head than in application...!)
And these images were 'recolored' to look more accurate, tho not very perfectly...
Today is Thanksgiving! We're off enjoying family time, but I finally got to stamp yesterday so I'm sharing that here too!
I needed two thank you cards, so I made them almost identical. I used the sketch from Sunday Stamps, along with this adorable little guy playing in the leaves. The colors were based on the Stampin' Blends I own to color him in with, haha... I wasn't sure on the ribbon, but I think it worked out really nicely.
Supplies: Stamps: Seasons of Fun (hostess!) Ink: Memento Black, Stampin' Blends Paper: Basic White, Night of Navy, Beauty Of the Earth DP Accessories: Pale Papaya ribbon, circle dies, Dimensionals, Big Shot (retired) annnd here is the list of Blends I used, haha...
I am thankful you visit this blog, see my work, and support my little business. I am thankful I have this little business to require me to have a creative outlet. And I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving day, whatever you do with it!
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Copyright
All photos, text and projects shared here are copyright me, Tanya Harvey. Please respect my creativity and use only for personal inspiration. Please do not use my designs for publication or profit. Thank you!
