Just a quick post here to add a card I made up for the SSS challenge this week. Let Us See Your Distress was the theme. I use distress inks on nearly everything I create so this was easy just didn't have time for anything elaborate. Happy Thanksgiving to all. Just going to get ready to head out the door to go gather with family for dinner and then get together for football, visiting, and game playing, along with food, of course. Got my meatballs simmering in the crock-pot and my grape salad chilling.

I had time last night to finish up my CCC- Week #23 called Double Distressing found on page #40 of Tim's book. This one was really fun and so simple. Makes me wonder why I hadn't ever tried it before. For my background, I used a pearl paint dabber to make the snow drifts. After I painted it, I tore a sheet of paper and ran along the edges for the drifts and then used Cloudy Blue for the sky and lightly ran it along the torn paper edges again to slightly highlight the drifts. Can't see it very well in the photo, but in real life, it looks just like the snow looks on a cold winter morn, which is exactly what we woke to yesterday. Snowing and wind howling. Windchill made temps at zero yesterday! We have had such a warm fall this year, that noone is ready for reality to hit now.

I finished up my 20 pages for the Christmas 6 x 6's we are swapping on All Things Tim yahoo group. Stephen hosted the swap and I mailed them off to him today. We had to make 20 pages and at least cover the backs with patterned paper. Well, I couldn't leave mine that plain so I had to ink up the paper a little to warm it up and die cut some of Tim's reindeer and punch a few snowflakes at least. Added a little stickles in the centers of them and Enamel accents for the eyes. The main pages were fun to do and may make my Christmas cards like this only smaller. Lots of distress inks and die-cut some chipboard scraps for the numbers and then painted with the black dabber. Die-cut the ticket strips and stamped with Barn Door red and used the tiny attacher to attach. Used my Distress-It-All for the edges. Wow, does that make it easier to do 20 pages on all four sides!!! Felt like I was cheating. I can't wait to see what the rest of the players come up with. I have to make my covers so they are ready for binding when I get the pages back.

I am going for A "TWO-FOR" this week on my challenges I have been playing. SSS and the CCC. SSS challenge this week is to make something that makes you happy. I adore snowmen even though i am not fond of the cold. You can never have too many snowmen stamps! On the CCC, we are in week #22 and it is found on page #52, called alcohol ink splatter. I have done this one a number of times and love it. I decided to go monochromatic with my inks because I wanted a snow scene and wanted to use my new On The Edge Snowflake die. I have been waiting for this baby to arrive! Can't believe I have them, both done on the first day! Good thing because I need to get my pages done for a swap in the All Things Tim group. The theme is Christmas and I need to get 20 pages made and shipped to Stephen within the next 20 days. I did a lot today on them but need to wait now for my main image stamp to arrive in the mail. It has shipped as I got notice by email on Saturday that it is on it's way.

Got my card made for the SSS challenge this week over at Simon Says Stamps blog. This week it was use your favorite Tim Holtz stamp. Just one favorite! how can I possible choose which favorite to use, but since Christmas is right around the corner, I went with this one and made a Christmas card. Lots of distress inks, some Stickles, flower soft, etc. You can't go wrong with Tim style!

Right on top of things on week #21 of Linda's challenge over at StudioL3 blog. This week we are on page #38 called Perfect Distress. I wanted to do something wintery for my page so I used the reindeer and snowflakes stamps. There is so much sparkle in real life but very hard to photograph it without a huge glare. I had not tried this technique before but will definately be using it again.

Here is the card I made for my crafting friend Diana who's birthday is the 26th, but we are getting together tomorrow to go to a Christmas card/layout/project make and take mini-convention in Wausau. It's the first time it's being held and we are heading there at 7 a.m. to check it out. Hoping to get the Christmas dies of Tim's there instead of having to order online and wait. It's about 2-2 1/2 hours to get there but there is hardly ever anything scheduled on Sundays and that is the only day I get off of work, so I am so there! It's a little hard to see in the picture, but the Happy Birthday is embossed and sanded on Coredinations Cardstock to show the white underneath. And of course. my new Rosette die. Lovin' that one!

I finally had enough time to finish my project for Simon Says Stamps challenge this week. This week the theme was to make something "Shabby." Well, Lord knows, that's my style but I wanted to do something new. I bought a paper mache bird from Julia Andrus arts quite a while ago and decided to play with it for this challenge. I was trying to do the peeled paint technique using Vaseline after two colors of paint were applied, yadda, yadda, yadda, but when I did, nothing came off to reveal the under layer. All it did was get all shiny and oily looking! So I grabbed my Tim Holtz sanding block and went at it. After that, I added some dry-brushed paints over it all. Added some Tissue Tape, again from Tim. All paints were the paint dabbers, too. (I am a ranger queen!) i used one of the Rosettes I have been making for the tuft on his head and then just cut some strips and curled them for the tail feathers; added a chain and one of Tim's metal letters; K, for Kathy around his neck. His eyes are the new Enamel Accents, first a circle of white, and then a dot of black. I couldn't even wait for it to dry first, just carefully added the black to the wet white. He can now sit proudly over my crafting area and watch guard. What a fun project!

Week #20's challenge over at Linda's blog was found on page #54 and is called Industrial Grunge. I die-cut plain grunge to make the deer from Tim's new die and then used a pre-cut grunge-board snowflake for the technique itself. Background was of course, wrinkle-free distress. I had to tear some card-stock to make snow-drifts around my sign post and behind my deer because I got my messy inky hands on the background! I sprayed it with the new Perfect Pearls mist and then rubbed on some Pearl paint dabber to look like glistening snow. The signpost is a sizzix die I have jad for years. Crackle accents on it after embossing it with tim's folder and direct to paper with tea dye ink and handwriting North Pole on it. Enamel accents for the eye, hooves, tail, and belly areas.