Well, today is the day that we've all been waiting and working for in Ashley.  The first run of the North Pole Express.  Hopefully everything will go wonderful and everyone will have a great time.  And hopefully next week I'll get back to a somewhat normal life.  And maybe do some stamping.  In the meantime I hope you'll all have a great weekend and if you're looking for something to do please come to Ashley and look around. 
And I want to invite you all to a workshop at the Paper Palace next Thursday.  We'll be making a mini photo album and a box (holder, envelope??) to put it in.  So if you're just looking for a girls night out just come and join us Thurs. at 7:00.  I'll have everything ready for you to just assemble the project.

I'm still going 90 miles an hour working on the Village of Ashley Country Christmas.  So here is a beautiful card by Mary Brown using the Joyful Christmas stamp set.  And the good news for you is that this stamp set is on sale right now in the Holiday Sale.  Check your email for a flyer that shows everything that is on sale. 

 

I think that this card is beautiful and I love the Winter Frost DSP. 

I'm still super busy.  Worked three days this week at Ashley getting ready for the Village of Ashley Country Christmas.  It's beginning to look like Christmas there.  And a week from yesterday there will be a dress rehearsal complete with the steam engine 1225.  So we have to have everything in place by then.  Hope you can all come sometime and see what we've done.

 

 

So I took one of Tami Ackerson's ideas.  When she doesn't have time to stamp she goes to Stampin Conncetion and finds a card that she likes.  And believe me, there's lots to choose from.  So this card is one that I found there.  I totally forgot to look and see who made this card but I think it's beautiful.  Sorry that's it's blurry.  It's a little bit of work to cut out the flower but it's worth the effort. 

Look at this cute wreath I made with Designer Series Paper.  I used some retired paper but I've seen these done with the current Winter Frost paper and they're beautiful. 

 

 

Here's a close up.  You just cut your DSP in 1/2" strips and then curl it with your bone folder.  And don't ask me how many strips I used.  I just kept adding until it looked the way that I wanted it.  All I can say is to only cut so many at a time and when you're getting close to having it full then don't cut to many more strips.  I just attached my strips with straight pins.  I didn't use any glue but you could and it would last longer.

 

For this wreath I used a green foam base but if you use the Winter Frost DSP then I would definitely use a white base.  Because it does show through some what.

Thursday was my Christmas tag class.  Thanks to Jill March for taking the picture.  The red tag in the upper right corner and the snowman tag were designed by Ronda Wade.  The other three I did. 

 

It doesn't show up very well in this picture but the snowflake was embossed with a mixture of silver embossing powder and silver glitter.  It give the embossing powder a lot of glimmer.  You can mix any embossing powder and glitter and see what you get.  It's 1/3 glitter and 2/3 embossing powder.  I'm going to be doing some experimenting with glitter. 

I know that it's been to long since I've posted but here's another Christmas card for you to look at.  This card was made by Helen Owens and I got it at a swap at Creative Convention.  She used the peek-a-boo die to cut out the red frame.

 

 

And look what happens when you pull the tab on the right.  Isn't that cleaver.  How come I never think of things like this. 

 

If you want to get some stamping done this week just plan on coming to my Christmas tag class on Thurs.  We'll be making 20 tags, 4 each of 5 different designs.  And there's a few that didn't make the cut that are on display for you to look at.  This year it seems like there's a lot of stamps that would make really cute tags.  I had a hard time picking just 5 designs.