Just Let it Happen...

OOO!  We’re just giddy to begin The Cat’s Pajamas Sneaky Peek Week today!  You’re in for a fantastic week of sets and dies that we’ve had SO much fun playing with.  We think you’ll really love what’s in store.

Today begins with Just Let it Happen.  We know how many of you love Poochie the pup and Sprinkles the cat, so this set is just for you!

Our sweet little poochie is excited to check out what little love notes and treats have come in the mail!  He’s delighted to jump up and find a bone just for him!  

I stamped Poochie on Neenah Natural White and coloured the scene up with Copics.  I just had to do a red mailbox somehow for fun.  I stamped the sentiment half on the creamy cardstock and half onto the designer paper (Echo Park from a Kit for Valentine’s last year).  Once the sentiment was on it just looked like it needed something to anchor it better, so I added a border with black pen.  

I finished off the front by adding a couple of hearts stitched on with our new Nested Hearts Die CutAbles (which I love so you’ll see them again this week), and then some stitching around the border and some red enamel dots.  

Of course, if I say there’s Love Inside....I needed to decorate the inside too! 

You open the card to find a sweet little mini-envelope created with our new Small Envie CutAbles Die releasing this week (oh so cute!) and another of the hearts.  

Here’s the Copics I used and also a peek at this sweet set.  It’s really fun.  

The Kitties from the  Cat Pack is bringing out all the stops today so you’ll want to be sure and visit them....

Brenda Nakandakari
Christine Okken (you are here)
Deborah Anton
Julie Elak
Lori Tecler
Nancy Thomas
Wendy McGaffey
our fabby Guest Designer this month Wanda Cullen
and Alma at the TCP Blog!


Here’s the Important Deets for the Release...

You could win a $10 TCP voucher just by commenting on The Cat Pack’s Blogs!  Alma will pick a random commenter each day and the winner’s will be announced on our TCP Facebook Page and the blog.  

We’re inviting you to our Pajama Party on January 18th on our TCP Facebook page where we’ll have games with chances to win, more sneak peeks and all around fun.    

See you here tomorrow for a set that’s a hoot!

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Just Let it Happen...

The Gratitude Project

I’ve been thinking for a while what I wanted to do this year to revive a photography project for me.  I find if I don’t have something I’m working on, I don’t consiously try and improve my photography.  Then an idea came to me.   A few years ago someone I respect and admire came to me one day and asked if he could take my picture.  He was working on a project where he would take a picture everyday of someone he was grateful for.  In my case it was out of our influence in his son’s life.  I was so touched by that!  To imagine that I was someone that inspired gratitude.  As I’ve been thinking about that moment I thought that it would be pretty cool to combine my love of photography, and my desire to get better at it, with a project something like what he was doing.

So, here is The Gratitude Project.  

\ˈgra-tə-ˌtüd, -ˌtyüd\

The quality of being thankful:  readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.  

Once a week on Sunday’s I’ll bring you a photo, or a few photos that represent something or someone I’m grateful for, and then tell you why.  I want it to be something encouraging and maybe stretching too.

Here’s this week’s photos.

This week I’m thankful for Winter.  In my part of western Canada we get 4 distinct seasons and we definitely get Winter.  This year with El Niño it’s been a lot more mild than in other years.  Some years in January we’re dealing with -30’s Celcius (-22 F or lower).  If you know me I don’t like to be cold.  At ALL.  We complain a lot about the cold, the length of the season, how much we wish it would warm up, how long our winters are.  And yet, the cold and the snow and the season brings with it such beauty, and honestly a lot of perspective.  I want to be more grateful for what’s in front of me.  

This week we had several days with softly falling snow.  All day long, snow was slowly drifting down.  It left lovely little clusters of snowflakes in the crevices of the hedge and looked beautiful.  If you look carefully enough, you can see some of the individual shapes of each unique snowflake.  That speaks to me about each person’s uniqueness and design too.  And, the purity of the white snow always strikes me from a spiritually symbolic perspective too.  Snow brings cleansing, snow brings stillness and silence.  I’m grateful for the snow.  

On Saturday morning the temperature dropped quite a bit, to the -20’s and because it had been moist and humid the last few days, that meant we had hoarfrost on the trees.  That is a spectacular sight.  All the trees are frozen with a white coating.  When the sun comes out it is an amazing contrast.  This part of my world is pretty special.  

I was thinking yesterday that maybe some of you might like to join me on this project.  You might like to take a picture (or pictures) of what you’re grateful for each week.  It means we have 50 weeks ahead of us.  I really think it will be a great encouragement to capture these people and things.  A significant and special focus for the year!  

There’s no real rules, you don’t have to be a great photographer (though I hope to improve over the year), it’s just pictures and the reason why you’re grateful each week. It can be one picture or more.  And it’s a great discipline to do it each week.  Maybe you want to do it 2x per month or something like that.  Regardless....  I’ll be posting on Sunday’s because I usually don’t have stamping posts on those days.  If you’d like to join me, just leave me a comment here on the blog, and I’ll stop by and visit!

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The Gratitude Project

Hellebore

Welcome to a new challenge from Power Poppy to kick off 2016 with a bang!  In the theme of all that new fitness people are engaging in we thought we’d STRETCH you a little bit!  Tosha is our hostess this month and she’s challenging you DOUBLY.   We want you to stretch yourself by using a tall card format, along with a something new you've been wanting to try (like a technique), but haven't yet.

Today I’ve got a TALL card and a beautiful brand new digi set from Power Poppy to show off, Hellebores.  

How gorgeous Hellebore (or Lenten Rose) are!  I really love that a number of their varieties come in green which is one of my favourite colours.   Today I wanted to do something new and go for a totally unique colour palette that was a bit unexpected.  As Marcy said on her post about this new digi, there are a lot of colour varieties to choose from.  I found a hellebore that is a lovely shade of jade that has purple edges and veining.  

I went a little more aqua than jade in my colouring, but it was sure fun to put these colours together.  For the tall design, this card measures 3 1/2 x 5 1/5.  I like this size of tall card best because it still fits into a standard A2 envelope.  

To accent I added some shimmery white ribbon, seam binding and some enamel dots, with a slip of silver cording.  

(Source)

Isn’t that a neat colour combination?  The sentiment is from our Dynamic Duos:  Peonies and Tulips   set, I’m trying to have more all-occasion cards in my stash, BUT Marcy has a lovely quote that goes with this digi.  

Here are the Copics I used...

And here’s what this pretty digi looks like.  

Now pop on over to see the rest of the Bloom Brigade playing along with today in the STRETCH Yourself Challenge, we hope you join us!  The challenge runs all month long and you could win a Power Poppy set of your choice!

Allison Cope
Christine Okken (you are here)
Cindy Lawrence
Julie Koerber
Katie Sims
Leslie Miller
Stacy Morgan
Tosha Leyendekker

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Hellebore

Super Purple!

Hello again!  I hope you’re not getting sick of these super kids.  I just love them and am trying to build a stash of kid cards for my sister-in-law.  She really likes these super kids too, and even thought I’ll branch out to other stamps, I had to have at least one boy and one girl superkid.  I used MFT’s You’re Super and Superboy sets.    So, today it’s this snazzy supergirl in purple.  My little niece loves pink and purple, so I’ve gotta give her what she likes :)  

After colouring her up with Copics I fussy cut her out with a slim border and then did my background.  I wanted to have the purple/pink sky be in a background window so, on a piece of white cardstock I stamped the city scene in black, then sponged in the purple and pink inks over top.  After sponging I added some glitter pen to the city scene to give it a little nighttime sparkle.  

On the purple card base I sponged over a Simon Says Scrambled Letters stencil.  I like the soft effect, and it’s perfect for kids too.  

I embossed the sentiment in black and then added some pretty stars (TCP 3 x 3 Stars CutUps dies), and then a few black enamel dots.  

Sorry, I coloured this one up while I was away and didn’t have my camera to capture the Copics I used.  

Back with you tomorrow for a new challenge and new pretties from Power Poppy!  

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Super Purple!

The Puck Stops Here

We’re up with a new challenge for the next couple of weeks at The Cat’s Pajamas!  It’s an easy one that anyone can jump in on....Anything Goes.  That means you can just put your little imagination to work and create whatever piques your fancy!  

Our son had a birthday party for a friend to go to, so I pulled out this fun set from TCP - The Puck Stops Here.  I picked our NHL team colours and put some colour to the page with Copics.  

I chose a really clean layout, adding some of the Copic blues to the strips in the patterned paper to give it an ombre effect.  

So cute!  The twine and button finish it off, but still make it ok for a boy.  Here’s the Copics I used below.  

Here’s the details about the challenge....

Each project enters you for a chance to win some Cat Cash up to $15.   Cards and projects are not required to use a Cat’s Pajamas Stamp or CutUps die but if you do the Cat Cash amount increases.  We hope you can join us!  

Here’s the Kitties playing along today....

Brenda Nakandakari
Christine Okken (you are here)
Julie Elak
Lori Tecler
Wendy McGaffey
and Alma at the TCP Blog!

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The Puck Stops Here

Bringing You a Budgie Good Morning

How about a cheerful card to start your week?  Today I’m delivering the last of the cards that a co-worker ordered from me.  I haven’t shown you all of them, but today seemed like a good day for a sweet budgie on some teacups.  This was created with Power Poppy’s Short Stacks set.  Talk about pure sweetness!  

I kept the design quite simple so that it would be pretty mailable.  Sewing around the outside to match the stitched die, a couple of sparkly enamel dots and some little posies to match the cups cut with an old Spellbinders Die in my stash.  They do have raised embossed centers but it seems with the light in the photo it’s hard to show that.  

Budgies come in some great colours!  It was fun to give him some feathery flicks of the Copic marker.  The sentiment is from Power Poppy’s Poppies set, to keep it on that all occasion theme.  

Back with you tomorrow for a new round of challenges from The Cat’s Pajamas!  

Thanks for popping by!  

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Bringing You a Budgie Good Morning