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! 

Hostess Gifts for the Holidays

If you are lucky enough not to be hosting the holidays at your home, you're saved the time of cooking, cleaning your house, setting the table, and decorating. Keep that in mind when you go to someone else's house – that host has been to the grocery store 4 times to get everything she needs, she's slaved over the stove, stressed about her baseboards being clean, and kept dog hair off the sofa. All for you and her company. At least you can do is bring a little something to thank her (or him) for all the hard work. Show that you appreciate your host even more with this great hostess gift idea by Mae Armstrong – they're burlap wine bags with wooden gift tags. Handmade gifts show extra time and thought – and this one is reusable. It's a gift that keeps on giving! 

Here's what you will need: 

1. PSA Essentials "Treeo" Peel and Stick Stamp Set
2. Acrylic Block
3. Black Stamp Pad
4. 2 " Scalloped Circle Puncher
5. Cuttlebug Circle Decorative Embossing Folder 
6. 1 1/8" Wooden Discs
7. Drill  
8. Red Card Stock Pape 
9. Modge Podge Glue & Brush
10. Natural Twine
11. Burlap
12. Accent Canvas Fabric 

Stamp the tree design from PSA Whimsy Tree Peel & Stick stamps in the middle of the wooden discs. Glue it on top of the embossed scalloped circle tag. 

Drill a hole through the wooden discs and use a natural twine to tie around the bag.

For the bag, Mae used an old wine bag as her pattern. She wanted to add a pop of color to match the tags so she selected a polka dot red and white canvas fabric for the top portion of the wine bag. Sew all sides and turn inside out and insert favorite wine and tie the wooden tags around. They turned out great!