Headin' North

    Good morning, everyone! Today the hubby and I are heading to Duluth to spend the next week along Lake Superior! Ian loves planning trips (big or small), and this year he wanted to do something special for our 2 year anniversary! So we're going to Duluth, Gooseberry Falls, Two Harbors, and some other places all along the North Shore! He did all the planning and mapping, so I'm just along for the ride and the scenery!

    Before I go, though, I wanted to post a quick update and share with you my crazy creative week! Yesterday's Workshop Wednesday was a huge hit! Everyone loved all the cards that I had to choose from, and all the ladies were able to make quite a few cards to take home with them!

   I had 25 cards total with various papers, inks, stamps, and tools being used on each one! I also had some fun techniques to try, and some new products to show off (hello cute little #30yearsofhappy stamp set)! I think the ladies enjoyed it so much that I might have to offer this workshop again so that they can make some of the cards they didn't get to! If I do, I hope the rest of you can join us! It was a ton of fun! Check out some of the examples that I offered:

    To start my week, one of the directors on my team challenged us with a color challenge! It was really pretty and I felt inspired to participate in this one! Here is the color palette she gave us:

   The rules were that we had to create 3 projects using at least 3 of these colors on each one. You could choose whichever CTMH colors you felt correlated best with the palette, and you had 5 days to complete the challenge and post your pictures! Anyone that participated was then entered into a drawing for CTMH product!

   I had a blast playing with this color palette! I chose Whisper, Desert Sand, Smokey Plum, Juniper, Glacier, and Pacifica as my CTMH colors, and these were my 3 projects I came up with:

For this 3x3 card I used 2nd generation Pacifica, Smokey Plum, Whisper, and Juniper with a Desert Sand background. The stamped images are from the new #30yearsofhappy, Keyboard Uppercase Alphabet, and Typeface Alphabet stamp sets.

On this card I used Desert Sand, Smokey Plum, Whisper, Flaxen, New England Ivy, and Olive. The stamped images are from the WOTG Pathfinding Cardmaking kit, and Happy Autumn stamp sets.

For my last card I used Glacier, Smokey Plum, Whisper, Desert Sand, and Pacifica. The stamped images are from the WOTG Brushed Scrapbooking kit, and the #30yearsofhappy stamp sets!

   I was pretty pleased with how these turned out! I didn't win, but that's okay because it forced me to work on something different this week!

   The other projects I completed this week were a couple cards for the hubby and I to use in our Wedding Wine Box! For those of you that do not know, we did something different at our wedding ceremony. We had a wooden box that we put letters to each other and a bottle of wine in. We sealed it at our ceremony and vowed to only open it when we needed to reconnect (like after a big fight or rough patch) or on our Anniversary to celebrate and remember!

Our Wedding Wine Box

Our glasses from our Wedding, letters ready to read!

    We have been married 2 years this week, and we have never had to open the box before our Anniversary date! :) So we sat down the night of our Anniversary, opened the box and wine, read the letters to each other from our wedding day and our previous anniversary, and looked through the wedding ceremony transcript. We also have our wedding DVD in the box, too (all 12 hours of footage!!). It's really awesome to re-live our special day, and I love reading the letters Ian writes to me each year!

    So this year I made up a couple cards for us to use so we could write our letters to each other for next year's Anniversary! I had fun coming up with cards for each other because I had to make them fast, but still wanted them to be cute! Ian's card to me was one that was a pre-printed card that I added some extra details to. Here's what I came up with (Ian helped picked things out actually):

I added the "My Happy" stamp to the pre-printed center, and a thin strip of the silver washi tape around the center. On the envelope I stamped the "Love" stamp from the #30yearsofhappy stamp set, and added a strip of silver washi under the flap! I love how easy this was to make!

    For my card to Ian, I used a blue background card (very similar to Twilight), and added some fun details! Here's what I came up with:

I used Flaxen Fundamentals paper, the Happy Hexagons Hostess Rewards stamp set, and the January 2015 SOTM! I then added some Striped Ribbon, and a sorbet 3D heart! I love how this turned out! The hexagon I stamped 1st and 2nd generation. The 1st I used on the envelope and 2nd generation was used on the card! I am going to have to make a duplicate one of these to show off at my workshops because it's too cute to sit in a box for a whole year!

    I hope you enjoyed looking at my fun projects from this week! You can find all the supplies you need to make these projects and more on my online shop! Have a great weekend, everyone, and stay warm! Until next time:

Here's to life, love, and creativity!