Bringing in 2012

We are all about traditions – though some may call it routine, or some negative ones might call it a rut. Whether it's Friday night movie night, or our daily bath time/bedtime routine, when something works – we stick with it. Which is why we are having a repeat performance of last year's New Years Eve. Gone are the days of my sparkly dresses and oodles of champagne, fancy parties and late nights out. I am most content with our new tradition: The 5:00 pm dinner at a fancy restaurant (Michael Anthony's on Hilton Head, to be exact) with Molly and a movie at home with Mike. Susan will call me a house cat but I can't help it – I just love being home with my family.



Here's a great card by Jeanne Streiff to celebrate the New Year. She's used the toasting champagne glasses from PSA Mr. & Mrs. and lightly colored them in with blue to give them that glass look. The whimsical "Happy New Year" writing coordinates perfectly with the twine, the tied ribbon on the stamp, and the color scheme of the card. Adorable!

Whatever you tradition – be it staying at home, an early dinner out, or partying into the wee-hours of the night – enjoy your New Years Eve. Have a Happy New year!

Merry Christmas!

It's here!  Christmas Eve is upon us - millions of children are preparing themselves for Santa's big arrival, millions of families are gathering for a feast tonight, and millions are off to Church to honor the day.   What are you doing?   Whatever it is - Merry Christmas!  Here's a wonderful card by Melissa Phillips to celebrate the holiday.  

Merry Christmas stamp from PSA North Pole

Enjoy Christmas!

Last minute packaging

Christmas is just a few days away, and if you're like most people who celebrate the holiday – you are running around doing those last minute things. You're busy picking up stocking stuffers and scrounging for gifts for those hard to buy for people. If you can take a breather and get into your craft room, here are some ideas for inventive gift wrap by Melyssa Connolly. She's decorating parchment paper bags to make gift wrapping extra special.



What about a coaster made out of scrabble letters? Melyssa thinks it's a good idea and has decorated this parchment paper bag with Fancy Flake Peel & Stick stamps by PSA Essentials, and "Merry Christmas" sentiment from PSA North Pole. She's stamped the snowflakes in white ink on the white parchment paper, they fade into the background and create a subtle extra touch. 

These bags are perfect for jewelry, small handmade gifts, or delicious treats. I love all the layers here, between the twine, the lace, ribbon, patterned papers, and stamping – there's a lot of texture here!

Which one is your favorite? It's hard to choose. I would have a hard time throwing these away if someone gave them to me, that's for sure!

Holiday Decorating

What best describes the way the exterior of your home is decorated this holiday season?

• A) Completely dark – it's the holidays?
  
• B) A single wreath on the door
  
• C) A wreath on every window, lit reindeer in the yard, a blow up Santa, and lights all across roofline
  

If you've answered "B", I have a holiday decoration for you. It's understated and simple, yet still festive. Just like the exterior of your house. 

To recreate, find your favorite basket and add winter flowers or plants. Our designer Heidi Ferguson chose this adorable log basket (perfect for the holidays) and added holly. Stamp "NOEL" from PSA Archive Peel & Stick stamps in red ink on white paper, then punch and adhere to larger punched red cardstock. Glue onto bamboo sticks and stick into the basket of flowers or plant.



Voila! You've created a centerpiece for your table or a decoration for your home that looks great but isn't over the top. My kind of decoration! (I answered B.)

Gift idea & handmade packaging

Our design team member Mae Armstrong places a lot of emphasis on the way a gift is wrapped. To her, the packaging and wrapping is equally a part of the gift as the gift itself. After all, it does set the tone. Her friends and family know her for giving wonderful gifts, wrapped in beautiful, handmade designs. And with her innovative, reusable ideas, the packaging truly is a gift within itself. Check out this wonderful idea to try out. It's a draw string bag, perfect for jewelry!

Here's what you will need:

1. PSA Essentials "Treeo" Peel and Stick Stamp Set
   
2. PSA Essentials Stamper
   
3. PSA Essentials Alignment Tool
   
4. PSA Essentials Black and Pink Ink
   
5. 1-3/8 " Circle Puncher
   
6. 2" Scalloped Circle Puncher
   
7. Spellbinders Nestabilities Dies - Labels 2
   
8. Crystal Sticker Pearls - Natural Pearl - 3mm
   
9. Pink Yarn
   
10. Retro Fabric (from Fabric.com)
    

Pre-punch all your shapes, stamp the tree design from PSA Tree-O Peel & Stick on the white card stock (inner layer) and embellish with pearl stickers. Place inner circle on top of the scalloped circle tag and glue on top of the base label. There are a total of three layers for this project.


Cut the fabric according to the size of your present. On the front side of your fabric sew the Christmas label. Turn over hem, start sewing all sides for your draw string bag. Add the pink yarn at the end and thread through the bag. Mae found a cute pink tin container with a clear top. Perfect little storage for the bracelet. You can also fill the bag with shredded pink paper.

And voila! You have a cute drawstring bag to give!


 

 

Winner

Last week all week long, we featured holiday cards by our designers.  We had hundreds of comments as entries to win, but there could only be one winner.  Congratulations to Jessica!  You are the winner of any Peel & Stick pack of your choice.   Email loregan@psaessentials.com with your address & choice of Peel & Stick pack.  Congrats! 

 

O’Regan Holiday Cards – 2011

I ordered my photo holiday cards this season from Shutterfly. I was impressed with the quality – the matte finish and heavy weight card stock is luxe and the design is colorful and whimsical. Take a look! Molly is singing Jingle Bells on the beach in Cabo. (This would have been a great video!) She's such a happy child with abundant personality, I think that shows through in this card.

I spent some time decorating the outside of the envelopes with various Peel & Stick stamps from PSA Essentials, and my own personalized stamper. For the return address, I used four different middles with my outer personalized address ring - the "north pole" sign and ornament from PSA Vintage Snowman, and the holiday letter and the decorated palm tree from PSA Tree-O. I used my hunter & red ink to make it stand out. I had 125 cards to send out, so I changed things up with my middles every so often. Just because it's easy to do so and because I couldn't choose just one! Take a peak here - sorry I have to blur out my address!

Which is your favorite? The ornament surprised me as mine – I love how crisp and clear the cross-hatching is in the illustration, it looks like an etching.



I also ordered vintage holiday postage stamps from The Paper Nickel Stamp Company. Each stamp is real postage from 1963 and to 1981. It's a hoot to see how the designs have evolved over the years! Adding vintage postage stamps gives each card an extra special touch and really makes them stand out in a sea of bills and cards this season. You can order them too at: http://thepapernickel.com/

With my PSA Essentials stamp and vintage postage stamps, these cards just sparkle! And even more so when the addresses are prominently displayed!

What do your family cards look like this year? 

Christmas Magic Blog Hop

Looking for the Winter Wonderland Blog Hop?  Click here: 

For the Christmas Magic Blog Hop, you should be joining us from Mindy.   Today we are showing three cards by PSA Essentials design team member Carly Robertson that appeared in Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine.  Aren't familiar with PSA Essentials?  We manufacture self-inking personalized stamps with switchable technology and thousands of designs.  We have ones for each holiday, sentiment, occasion, great licensed ones too.   Aren't these cards amazing? 

See them all together here - they're such a fantastic trio. 

BLOG CANDY ALERT!  In addition to our sponsorship prize, you can also win 1 Peel & Stick pack of your choice.   Which is your favorite? Leave a comment and let us know.  To win, you must be a follower! 


Up next is Robin! 


Here's the entire line-up (just in case you are lost!) 

• Ashley - http://theglamoroussideofscrapping.blogspot.com
• Nicolette - http://beyondscrapin.blogspot.com
• Lisa- http://honeybearzdesigns2011.blogspot.com/
• Jamie -http://myamusinglife.blogspot.com
• Tami - http://tamboscreations.blogspot.com
• Gina - http://californiascrappin-gcinderella21.blogspot.com/
• Angela - http://creativecraftin.blogspot.com/
• Janet R -http://janetscreativeworld.blogspot.com/
• Zenita - http://scrappinwithz.blogspot.com
• Janet S - http://ladyluvbug.blogspot.com/
• Mindy - http://papercreationsbymindyblog.blogspot.com/
• Libby - http://psastampcamp.blogspot.com/
• Robin - http://scrapandchat.blogspot.com/
• Tanya - http://little-scrapper.blogspot.com/
• Vicki - http://scrapbookingcreationsbyvicki.blogspot.com/
• Liz - http://tryin2craft.blogspot.com
• Kristy - http://scraptasticalkreations.blogspot.com 

Holiday Card Week – Day 5 (&Winter Wonderland Blog Hop)

Greetings!  Welcome to the Winter Wonderland Blog Hop & Day 5 of our Holiday Card Week.   You're joining us from Jamie probably, but if not - just start from the beginning at the Queen.  


I bet you knew that we carried some really popular and really adorable characters like Hello Kitty, Peanuts & Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Today we are showcasing holiday card designs using our licensed Peel & Stick stamps – all of them have sets devoted to the winter holidays. 


This card is an old favorite by Carly Robertson. She's stamped "joy, peace, love" from PSA Tree-O but the adorable little Rudolph comes to us from Rudolph & Friends Peel & Stick stamps. My friend Bari Adler collects snow globes from all around the world, and this one reminded me of her. The card is so simple, but completely adorable.

Vera Yates created a "Seasons Greetings" with Snoopy from Peanuts Wishes. She too colored up the present to make it stand out.

Enjoy great inspiration all day long on this Winter Wonderland Blog Hop! 


BLOG CANDY ALERT!   Leave one comment per day all week long to be entered to win your favorite Peel & Stick pack!  What's your favorite licensed Peel & Stick holiday pack of ours? Let us know today! Here's the whole line-up:  


 1. Theresa H.~www.thescrapbookingqueen.com
2.  Lisa ~ http://handmadewithlove-lisa.blogspot.com/
4.  Amber J. ~ http://pixiperfectcreations.blogspot.com
5. Colleen H. ~ www.cbcscrapbooking.blogspot.com
6. April N. ~ http://www.curlsandgrins.blogspot.com
Blog is Down... adjust accordingly please...
8. Michelle H. ~http://www.craftychelle.blogspot.com/
9. Brenda B~ http://createbyburffrau.blogspot.com/
10. Jamie ~ http://myamusinglife.blogspot.com/
11. PSA~ http://www.psastampcamp.blogspot.com/
 
 

Holiday Card Week – Day 4 (BLOG CANDY!)

Are you tired of red and green yet? Let's take a break today and enjoy some inspirational holiday cards that use different color schemes. As a designer it's a challenge to use different materials, unexpected colors, fabrics and papers in your work. Jennifer Holmes took that challenge by creating a holiday card using cardboard and felt ribbon in this "Merry Christmas" ornament card. She's stamped both "Merry Christmas" and the holly image from PSA North Pole Peel & Stick stamps. Her use of card board and ribbon to create the ornament is very inventive!

Look how beautiful this turned out.

Melyssa Connolly was feeling jolly without green and red with this joy, peace and love card. She's stamped joy, peace and love from PSA Tree-O Peel & Stick, and the blue snowflake from PSA Fancy Flakes. I love her use of materials in this card, including the cork. It's amazing she has taken the time to sew the blue cross-hatched pattern paper onto the beige cardstock base. Sewing your cards IS one extra step but produces really beautiful results.

Melyssa Connolly also created this adorable "let it snow" card using a limited color palate of beige, white and an accent of red. She stamped various snowflakes from PSA Fancy Flakes using her acrylic block and beige ink. By stamping with a slightly darker shade of ink onto similar color paper, Melyssa was able to achieve a subtle, background effect. She's made the snowflake adorned with a red gem the star in the bottom of the card.

I hope you have enjoyed these alternative color schemes today! Be sure to check out Melyssa Connolly's blog – she's another one of our long standing, highly published and talented design team members on the PSA Stamp Camp team. We love her work and appreciate all that she's done for us over the last year. http://www.fantastink.blogspot.com/


BLOG CANDY ALERT!   Leave one comment per day all week long to be entered to win your favorite Peel & Stick pack!

Holiday Card Week – Day 3 (BLOG CANDY!)

On this third day of Holiday Card week, I have two great whimsical cards by our talented Jennifer Holmes. The first card uses a lot of dies, punches, and cardstock layers to frame the tree stamp from PSA Tree-O Peel & Stick stamps. The cute trio of trees is really enhanced by this. This technique creates also a lot of depth within the card. "You make the season bright" sentiment stamp is such a wonderful message to send a friend or loved one.

I just love Jennifer's work. If you have a chance, pop on over to her adorable blog. It's full of great designs and tons of inspiration. http://www.simpleflourishes.com/ Jennifer's one of our longest standing design team members and also one of our most published. You'll see a lot of her work featuring PSA Essentials this coming spring in Paper Creations, CardMaker, Paper Crafts & more. We're appreciative of Jennifer and all that she has done for us at PSA Essentials.


BLOG CANDY ALERT!   Leave one comment per day all week long to be entered to win your favorite Peel & Stick pack!   What do you like about Jennifer's work?

Holiday Card Week – Day 2 (BLOG CANDY!)

We are continuing our holiday card week with some of my favorite cards of all time. You'll notice a common thread with these designs. They pick a focal point, don't use patterned papers, don't shy away from white spaces, and use minimal layers. These are traits of one of my favorite card design styles: clean and simple! Often times, a simple card packs the most punch.



Kelley Eubanks created this "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" card from Peanuts Christmas Wishes Peel & Stick stamps. She stamped Snoopy and the sentiment using her PSA Essentials Stamper onto white paper. Then she colored the lights up to make them pop. She's used a 1.75" circle punch to cut out the stamp, then adhered that with a 3D foam to red cardstock cut with a 2" inch punch. This also pops off the page (even more so in person.) I love how Kelley has rounded the corners of the card. This really adds a professional touch.

Jennifer Holmes also used her Corner Rounder for this Winter Wonderland card. She's stamped the snowman from Smirk Happy Holidays Peel & Stick stamps. She's colored up his nose and tie to bring him to life. I love the shades of blues. This time of year, I get sick of red and green really fast.

Jennifer also colored up the reindeer, stamped from Smirk Happy Holidays Peel & Stick stamps, in this "Oh, deer" card. Wouldn't this be perfect to give to your spouse? She's done just a touch of layering here with the ribbon, the button and the twine. But it's all simple enough to be classified as clean and simple.

This next card appeared on Good Morning America! Jennifer's design is striking. I love the three trees stamped from PSA Whimsy Trees. She's colored them in a bit with red marker, which matches the red in the twine. She chose white as her cardstock base which serves as good reminder to us not to shy away from white. The card itself is also a good reminder that you can have a strong card without a lot of "stuff."

BLOG CANDY ALERT!   Leave one comment per day all week long to be entered to win your favorite Peel & Stick pack!  Which of these will you try to incorporate into your 2011 holiday cards? Is this your type of card making style?

Holiday Card Week – Day 1 (BLOG CANDY!)

We've devoted an entire week to great ideas for handmade holiday cards. Even if you don't have time to make cards for everyone on your list, maybe you'll find time to create a few for special occasions or special people. Melissa Phillips who was on our design team last year designed these three shabby chic cards for us this season. Melissa's style tends to be layered, she uses multiple papers, colors, and patterns, often uses ribbons, embellishments, and layers of stamps. Check these out.



In this card, she's stamped the bells from PSA Vintage Snowman and Merry Christmas sentiment from PSA North Pole. She stamped "2" and "5" from PSA Archive Peel & Stick sets. 


There's so much going on in the next card – I'll just point out a few things. She's layered a doily, ribbon (both pink and white lattice), red gingham paper, a snowman embellishment, scalloped paper, star embellishment and button onto cardstock. She's stitched around the edge of the card, right into the cardstock, which is a beautiful detail and extra step. Melissa has stamped the candy cane from PSA North Pole in holiday red ink with her PSA Essentials stamper. There is so much going on in this card, so it's impressive that it's not busy.


More layers on this card. Melissa has stamped "JOY" from PSA Archive Peel & Stick, she's also stamped the holly around the "O" (a beautiful effect) from PSA Vintage Snowman. I love the Santa embellishment, it really brings such character to the card. This seems to be a new trend in card making – making a card look like a post card. She's added a postage stamp to the upper right corner. 

It's fun to see different styles of cards on our blog. Up tomorrow, you will see some clean and simple cards and later in the week, some whimsical ones!



BLOG CANDY ALERT!  Comment once per day all week long to win the Peel & Stick pack of your choice!   Each comment (5 entries maximum) will enter you to win!  Must be a follower or email subscriber to win.   Good Luck! Of all three, what's your favorite?

Holiday Gifts for Kids

For my goddaughter Ella's 4^th birthday, I gave her a CD with music sung by Disney Princesses that included her name. Ella's Tea-Party, Ella's Fairy Wonderland, Ella's Dream World -- all the songs were personalized with her name. It was such a big hit! One of our PSA Essentials dealers, Cyber Savvy Shop carries this personalized Disney Princess CD and other great personalized children's music CD's. Molly would just flip to hear Elmo sing her name. 


Another great find at their store is their personalized DVD/Videos. You can choose from Care Bears, A Christmas Adventure, Dora the Explorer and many more! Upload an image of your child and it's inserted into the video so your child becomes part of the cast! Molly would double flip for this.

Cyber Savvy Shop is running holiday special sale prices on these CD's & DVD's between 24% - 35% off MSRP.  They currently have FREE 1st Class USPS Shipping on all our kid's music CDs, DVDs & Photo DVDS, and customers can upgrade their shipping to USPS Priority Shipping for $3.00. Purchase 3 or more CDs,DVDs or Photo DVDs and receive FREE USPS Priority Shipping. I think this is a super cool gift for kids!



We tend to think PSA Essentials as an adult product for our stationery and crafting needs, but it's also a great way for kids to personalize their books, artwork, school work and more – so it makes a good gifts gift, too. I like Nicolas, Princess, and Daisy style personalized stamps and all of our Hello Kitty Peel & Stick stamps for kids in particular.

Cyber Savvy Shop has one of the best deals on PSA Essentials personalized stamps. They are selling them for just $26.50. And all other PSA Essentials products are 25% off. They are also offering flat $7.95 Ground shipping on orders no matter how many items they buy; $5.00 Ground shipping on orders $50.00 & more, and Free Ground Shipping on all orders $100.00 or more. This is all within the US.



Molly uses any of my PSA Essentials stamps often – she loves it! Head to Cyber Savvy Shop now to check out all their great products and take advantage of their PSA Essentials deals.

Paper Crafts Winner

Thanks to all of our new fans and followers!  We had a lot of comments/entries for the Paper Crafts magazine giveaway but there can only be one winner.  Congrats to Rene'e Berger - you are the winner of: 

• 1 custom stamp 

• 2 Peel & Stick stamp sets (20 stamps) 

• 1 black ink 

• 1 2-color ink 

• 1 alignment tool 

• MSRP: $75

A blue banana seat bike! How lovely. Please claim your prize at loregan@psaessentials.com! 

We hope to see you on our Facebook page and here at the blog where share creative ideas for stamping, card making, scrapbooking, home decorating & more!