Christmas Preview: Twinkling Trees

Hello, everyone! I hope your week is going well. Today, I'm super-excited to bring you a preview of one of the cards in our 2011 Christmas Collection - Twinkling Trees.

We were really late in introducing our 2010 line, so we felt that a few of our designs didn't get enough love. This lovely card is a perfect example. While the design is recognizable from last year, you may notice that we've spruced it up a bit to give it some more punch.

I love the simplicity of the design - a little sparkly embossing powder, the perfect stamps, and *voila* Sometimes you don't have to have a lot of bells and whistles to exact the perfect amount of holiday cheer! All of our designs are available for immediate order. Each set of 10 is $30 or you can purchase an individual card for $5 each (shipping not included). What a cheerful bargain!

We hope you like what you've seen so far. We have more exciting reveals on the way!

Congratulations

Good Monday to all! I hope you all enjoyed your weekend. We've been busy here at HNI. Our Holiday Sweat Shoppe is going full throttle and we couldn't be more excited.

Today, though, I have a different reason to celebrate. Recently, some dear friends of mine got married, and no gift would be complete without a handmade card to express best wishes, right?! In making this special card, I took this design a step further by incorporating the bride's colors and a portion of the wedding invitation. And I found this Viva la Verve challenge perfect for the layout - a perfect balance of all of the elements I wanted to include. I used some Glimmer Mist to mute the white flowers and to change the color of my eyelet ribbon so that both would better coordinate with the other papers I had selected.

When all was said and done, I really loved the look and I especially loved the personal touches that let the new couple know that this card was made especially for them on their special day.

Thanks for stopping in today. We have some VERY exciting holiday reveals coming up this week; so be sure you pop back in!

Sitting Next to You

Good Tuesday, everyone! I hope you enjoyed your Labor Day weekend as much as we did. The weather finally cooled off and it turned out to be the most wonderful weekend to be outside. And so I spent the majority of it out in my new outdoor kitchen/entertaining space!

Unfortunately, because I was so interested in lounging around outside, I wasn't paying very good attention to the challenge deadline calendar for this wonderful creation. But I shall give props to the inspiration challenges anyway.

Last week, Whitney told you about a client of ours who asked for pet sympathy cards. This particular client runs a boutique catering to pet owners and she hasn't been able to find "good" pet sympathy cards. In my own experience, I know exactly what she's talking about! So I've always made my own. And now we'll be providing some of our personal designs to others for those times when you need to express condolences to friends on the loss of their furry loved ones.

This card was made with cat owners in mind. I don't know if your sweet kitties are anything like mine, but they are definitely lap companions. And my furry felines always bring to mind the phrase "Sitting next to you is my favorite thing to do." I believe this sentiment goes both ways.

Our design was inspired by this Sweet Stop Sketch. It was perfect for creating our little living room scene. And what better to make the scene more realistic than a little felt! The gals over at Moxie Fab challenged us to use felt and we knew it would work perfectly in this design. We popped it up to give the scene a little more depth and dimension. The muted color scheme really draws your eye to the couch where the kitty sits.

When all finished, we really loved how this one turned out. Hope you do too!

Hellloo.

Howdy everyone!

Today I wanted to bring to you another card that is in a group of cards called Pet Sympathy cards. We had a special request to make these, and we have finally made out initial 5 designs. I don't know about y'all but I think my pup Hamlet is the best thing ever. He is about my favorite thing in the world, and I would be devastated if anything ever happened to him. I love that this set of cards we are making helps ease the sorrow that one feels when their 4 legged friend leaves them. In this process, we really had to think about what we would want to get in the mail after such a tragedy. You do not want to be too happy or too sad, you have to keep a general design that is pleasing and not too crowded, and I really think that today's design fits all of these, and it is one that I absolutely LOVE. The colors and layout mixed with the image and sentiments seems just perfect to me. I would love to get some support as sweet as this after losing the love of my life (don't tell my hunny that. lol). The layout of this card was inspired by Simon Says Stamp's Challenge here.

Since this card is all about dogs, I thought I would post a picture of my 4 legged child, Hamlet. He is almost 3 years old and is FULL of energy. He loves to run, play and go for walks. He is also the best snuggler. :) Well, I hope you have a great day and show some extra love to your pets if you have any. Have a good one! (Hamlet says "Ruff!")

Sending some sunshine

Good morning all,

We have officially broken our streak of +100 degree weather here in North Texas after 40 days with temperatures in the 100's. We definitely are not lacking any sunshine here, but for those who might be, we have a perfect card to send your way!
This cutie is an adaptation of one I made before, but we chose to make it a little cleaner and do White on White for the current Simon Says Stamp Challenge. We love this cute little scene, and thought that it was perfect for one of our Cards Of The Month for the lovely ladies who get one of our cards in the mail each month. We love using our new PTI dies and of course, my favorite, Lawn Fawn stamps!

Well, I hope you all enjoyed your short time with us! I am gonna enjoy this 90 degree weather! Such a cool front! :)

Hoppin' Good Birthday

Good morning, everyone! I hope your week has gotten off to a great start.

Today, I have a super cute card to share with you that is a part of our new Simply Birthday pack. The entire card is based around a sketch - the Week 1 Viva la Verve sketch for August, to be precise. After admiring our creation when finished, we also realized that it works for the current Wee Memories Dare to Color challenge - after all, there are certainly more than 4 colors going on here!

Knowing that we were designing a birthday card, we wanted the colors to be bright & cheerful so we began digging through our patterned paper stash. That's when we found this adorable fish paper, which got our wheels turning ... the sketch lent itself perfect to an ocean scene! And we just happened to have some really cute ocean-themed, glittery foam ... and, well, you can see what happened from there. We used some new PTI dies to make the sun and we pulled in a strip of cork to give illusions of the sand on the beach.

When all was said and done, Whitney and I were both over the moon with how c-u-t-e, CUTE this card turned out! I would love to get this in my mailbox. Wouldn't you??

Thanks for swimming by today!

Party Hats!

Good Thursday Mornin' Y'all!

It is HOT HOT HOT here in North Texas, so Susan and I are staying cool inside while working on some more fun projects. We have lots of orders, which is great, and just got our biggest one delivered the other day, so YAY! It is nice to check things off the list, and it seems like we are on a roll. We are almost done with our new Simply Birthday Pack and this is one of the cute cards we are adding to the mix. It is CAS which is my usual style, and bright and cheery which makes me happy. We thought we would pick a plethora of colors for this one-layer wonder, going right along with Wee Memories' current challenge #63 Dare to Color.  The initial inspiration came from Chupa's recent post here. The party hats worked great as solid colors, and the sentiment just "sang" to us! :) We thought the music notes from Lawn Fawn's 'Teeny Tiny Backdrops' really brought to sentiment to life. It just makes me wanna sing the whole song...which I did....while making this card!

Well ladies, I know Susan has an ADORABLE card to share tomorrow, so we hope to see you back! Thanks for stoppin' by, and stay cool!