Crafter's Companion ROCKS!

Hello everyone! It is now November and I am going to try to ease you into that Christmas holiday spirit! I can't help myself because I just LOVE this time of year. Ask any of my friends and they will tell you how much I love all things Christmas. So you can just imagine my excitement when I opened up my goodies from Crafter's Companion and found this yummy Sheena Douglas Paint Fusion Holly set! I think I might have even squealed a little bit!! LOL (seriously!!)

These Paint Fusion Sets from Sheena are so versatile you can paint the stamped images or color with your markers or pencils. You can use them on cards, layouts or altered items. Your only limit is your imagination. And they are so easy to paint too. To make my 1st project I got out my acrylic paints and I really only used 4 colors, green, cream, red and brown. I stamped out the images on paper and then painted the holly leaves. I added the berries with a little red paint on the tip of my pencil eraser and then highlighted them with a little white paint. After the paint dried, I fussy cut them out and I used them to decorate this basket that I will have sitting out next to my fireplace this Christmas. The pine cones are from my yard and I added a little cinnamon oil to them. It makes them have such a great scent!

You could easily paint several of these stamped Holly images up to decorate your own baskets and fill them with treats to give to your friends or co-workers this coming holiday season. I think something like my famous (in my mind) Pumpkin Bread would be a wonderful addition to any gift basket you make. And wait for it....I'm going to share my recipe with you today! Aren't you excited!! LOL

Stacy's Famous (In her mind) Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients & Directions

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. allspice
3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups pumpkin
2/3 cup water
1 1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, spices and sugar. Add oil, eggs, pumpkin and water, beating until well blended. Stir in pecans.

Pour batter into 2 lightly greased 9x5x3 pans.

Bake for one hour or until a toothpick inserted in center of loaf comes out clean. Remove from pans and cool on wire racks. Wrap in plastic wrap and insert into your Sheena Douglas Paint Fusion Holly decorated baskets!!

Since I had already done like I suggested above and painted out several bits of holly I decided to make a fun Pulley Slider Card. I found the directions on how to make this style of card on the Crafter's Companion Ultimate Pro Christmas DVD. But I did type up a tutorial on how to make this card without using the Ultimate Tool. You can find the tutorial here.

Anyway, I received a bundle of Holiday papers and embellies free with a magazine I purchased last fall. They just happened to be from Crafter's Companion. I had only used a few of them last year so I pulled them out and found this cool vintage looking decoupage Santa. I attached the bits to card stock and then fussy cut them out. Next I layered them using pop dots between the layers for dimension. I cut up some of my painted holly to add to the inside slider bits. Of course I inked the edges of pretty much everything and added a bit of sparkle with some bling and Stickles. I color matched my clear bling by coloring it with a Copic Marker (still loving that I can do this!!). I added a little bit of ribbon from my stash and voila the card was finished!!

I used this as my DT example for the November Holiday Challenge at Crafter's Companion Challenge Blog. There is an awesome prize this month so you will probably want to go see what you can come up with so you can enter. You only need to use a Crafter's Companion Stamp and the Holiday theme.

I actually just finished up a second Pulley Slider Card and used some more of my painted holly. Since I haven't photographed it yet I will wait to share it until next time.

I went to my older daughter's school this morning. Her 4th grade class put on a play about how Nevada became a state. She was "Shotgun Stagecoach Driver". She had one whole line but she rocked it and I was proud. They really did a great job.

I hope you are having a wonderful week. Can you believe it is already Thursday??!! This week has just zipped by so fast. Do you feel like this year is rushing by?? Enjoy the rest of your week. Thanks for stopping by and checking out my stuff.