This, That and The Other ....

Happy Sunday!

Long time no post!  I'm JUST about ready to come up for air.  November has been an EPIC busy month for my little family!  Of course I have my stamping empire to run and Oct/Nov are always my busiest time but add in my FIL going back into the hospital for some throat surgery and a dog who has been diagnosed with diabetes and it's busier than usual!  With a lot of support from my friends I'm MUCH more stable emotionally than I was earlier this week - not gunna lie I was a whole lotta hot mess!  Lack of sleep certainly didn't help and there were a few tears shed at not being able to get a blood sample from my fuzzy buddy's ear.  However!  Every day is a new day and our new routine is starting to settle in so life can calm down ... if even just a little bit!

Suffice it to say I haven't been able to create much these last few weeks.  My classes have been almost exclusively our awesome Countdown Calendar kit.  I have had 83 of these little cuties pass through my door this season.  They are SO quick to stamp and super easy to assemble.  I love seeing the variations from those who want to go "rogue" and do their own thing!

I also love how half the stampers numbered the boxes 1 through 25 sequentially whilst the other half put the numbers randomly, like we see on the calendars we find at the store.  So fun!

Hmmm - what else has gone on this month?  Oh!  I know!  I had my annual Christmas Stamp-a-Stack a few weeks ago!  These are the five designs we made ...

Quick and easy and ready for giving!  This one is one I haven't shared here before.  I had to tweak my original design because I didn't have enough of the designer paper for everyone to make as many as they wanted.  This layout allowed for that:

Punches make cards so much faster than die cuts!

Funny story from my Stamp-a-Stack and that card ... I could find the "Merry Christmas" stamp that's used.  It WAS on my desk but, when I was setting up around midnight the night before, I couldn't find it ANYWHERE!  I tore my craft cave apart, determined to find it.  I looked in every drawer, thinking it fell in.  I looked through all the stamp sets that had been on my desk ... every designer paper pack, every tool (thinking it got stuck to SOMETHING!) .. alas, no luck.  I had to call one of my downline who was coming to the event, and ask to borrow HER stamp.  About 10 minutes after the class ended I felt something under my shoe.  Low and behold ...

Hee hee.  Too funny!  It had been there the WHOLE time!  I hadn't felt it because I had been standing on carpet all day.  I only felt the bulge when I stood on the tile floor to clean up!  Poor little stamp.  It was mutilated pretty badly but I did manage to clean it up to be used another day. lol.

Here is a cute little project we made at my team Stampin' Social.  Our little pillow boxes decorated all pretty ... and CASEd right out of the holiday catalogue!

Our puff paint that is in the holiday catalogue makes this project lots of fun and adds some great interest and texture to the final project.

This week I also had my monthly volunteer night at the Robin Hood Association.  I needed some really quick, easy cards for my nine stampers.  Apparently soul crushing time pressure is just what I need to whip up quick and easy notecards because these three came together in less than an hour total!

The Merry & Bright card was CASEd from a fellow demonstrator over at www.paperdaisycrafting.co.uk.  I just LOVED the colours she used.  I took her idea and cut it down to work on our notecards.


That brings us to the BEST weekend of the month ... our On Stage event - Stampin' Up!'s local conference event.  As always we walked away with lots of smiles, hugs and free product!  It was an exhausting but AWESOME day :)

 I THINK that brings us up to date ... but don't quote me!  It HAS been a whirlwind of activity and I'm just hanging on by my fingertips!  I have a few more classes coming down the pipe but they are repeats of what I have already done so nothing TOO stressful.  I DO need to create for my bloghop that is this week and of course I need to start getting ready for Trixie and the gang coming to town Dec 1 (my Elf on the Shelf for those of you who are new to my blog) so LOTS of fun still to come this year.  Before ANY of that happens, though, I need to stroll my pup so off I go to start my day.  Whatever YOU get up to today I hope you have a stampy one!  Thanks for popping in :)


Tam