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Festive Flurry for The Paper Players

Woo hoo! It’s Sunday and time to play with The Paper Players! This week, the awesome Anne Marie has a fabulous sketch for us! Banners, embellies and layers…oh my! It is definitely my kind of sketch.  Since I really needed to get going on holiday cards, I pulled out the Festive Flurry set and the gorgeous Winter Frost Specialty Designer Series Paper.  With Silver Foil banners and Frosted Finishes Embellishments, this card has the sparkle factor for sure! Enjoy!

The Stampin’ Schach Design Tips: Sparkle and Elegance
This finished card measures 5-1/2″ wide by 4-1/4″ long.

  • Poppin’ flakes! The small Festive Flurry Flake was stamped twice in Coastal Cabana, and twice in Smoky Slate. I then snipped and layered them as illustrated.  To add dimension, the bottom flakes were popped up on Stampin’ Dimensionals.

  • Pearlicious! Pearls enhance the Winter Frost panel for a touch of elegance. Larger pearls were also added to the centers of the Frosted Finishes Embellishments.

  • Power of three! Three banners and three embellishments are a testament to the power of three in design.

With three Frosted Finishes Embellishments on it, this is one card that I won’t be mailing. However, I know exactly to whom it will be hand-delivered this holiday season.  I love Coastal Cabana and Smoky Slate together.  Paired up with sparklies, foil and pearls, I think it makes a great combination for winter cards.  What is your favorite combination for winter cards?  Won’t you let me know in your comment today? Your comments are important to me, and I do read each and every one of them.  And remember, if you ever have a question about the cards I create or the techniques I use, I am an only an email away! I leave you today with a picture of Brody…checking the trees for squirrels! Until next time…

The Paper Players Design Team
Sandy Mathis

Stamp Set:  Festive Flurries, Remembering Christmas; Inks:  Coastal Cabana, Smoky Slate, Basic Gray;  Designer Series Paper: Winter Frost; Card Stock:  Smoky Slate, Whisper White, Coastal Cabana, Silver Foil; Tools:  Big Shot, Festive Flurry Framelits Dies, Hexagon Punch; Glitz and Glam:  Frosted Finishes Embellishments, Pearls Basic Jewels

Home at Last! A Boxer Update

At the end of March,  I embarked on a journey right off my Bucket List.  Out of the past 30 weekends, I have spent 25 of them…yep, 25 of them…on the road.  

Out of those 25, one was at Convention.  The rest have been at dog shows.  I have braved Motel 6, (where they left the light on for me), Super 8, La Quinta, Red Roof Inn, and a variety of mom and pop motels…any place where pets were accepted. I have slept with Muffy, on her weekends to show…

and Lexi, on her weekends to show…

and Muffy and Lexi when they were both showing.  

I’ve been to Gray Summit, Auburn, Louisville, Dewitt, Dekalb, Crown Pointe, Wheaton, Waterloo, Decatur, Jefferson, Scott County…and the list goes on.  As Johnny Cash sang, “I’ve been everywhere, man!”

For someone who refuses to drive on highways with more lanes than I can count on two fingers…I have braved Milwaukee, the suburbs of Chicago, Indianapolis and St. Louis, and a score of other “larger than West Burlington” cities.  Oh, yes…four score and seven…let’s not forget Gettysburg. But at least I didn’t have to drive there.


I burned my candle at both ends. I attempted to answer business emails on my iPhone. I struggled with questionable wi-fi connections to keep up with my design team duties.

I relied upon the support of all of my dear friends at The Paper Players (I love you, Players), and my bestie, Brian, at Pals Paper Arts, to get me through these months. I launched my Lesson of the Month program… never dreaming it would be so successful and that I would be faced with hundreds of cards to produce. I am sitting here with 323 unopened emails, needing bunion surgery on both feet, and a tendon sheath tumor removed from the palm of my left hand.  

And what motivated me to embark on the Summer of Insanity?  A childhood dream of owning a show dog.  Well, make that three show dogs.

Lexi started out her show career in Minneapolis in January, winning the Minnesota Boxer Club’s Best Puppy and Grand Sweeps awards!  What an honor!

And she garnered even greater honors at the American Boxer Club Regionals in Gettysburg October 9 -11th, winning her very competitive 12 – 18 Month Class, not once, but twice.  Of course, there were wins in-between.

She has one more show scheduled this year.  It is next weekend in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.  She needs three more wins before she earns her champion title.  It’s hard to believe that she was once this little:


As for Muffy, the state of Wisconsin was good to her!  On day five of the Waukesha cluster, Muffy showed beautifully, winning her first major.

Six weeks later, she won her second major in Wilmot, Wisconsin, becoming Champion Cimarron’s Do You Know the Muffin Man. 

Muffy will be returning to the ring after the first of the year.  She will be campaigned to earn her Grand Champion title, before heading to Arizona in late spring where she will finally get the chance to be the mother she wants to be.  

No more “squeaky toy” babies for her.  She deserves a litter of her own.

And finally, that brings us to Brody.  Brody is on the list to start showing after the first of the year, when our handler gets an opening.  Will he become Champion What Were You Thinking? Time will tell.  He started out with a promising career, winning Best of Breed as a puppy.
Hopefully, the judges will be able to over-look his scars.

But at age three, he is looking gorgeous…in my eyes.  

His sisters have had their time to sparkle, now it is Brody’s time to shine.

As for me…I am ready to stay home and take care of my Stampin’ Up! business.  At almost 60 years of age, life on the road takes its toll.  I have emails to answer.  Cards to make.  Blogs to visit, comments to leave, and surgeries to schedule.  Plus, I have missed you all.  I feel as if I have lost some connections with you, and that makes me sad.
Yes…there will still be dog shows in my future.  After all, we need to get the champion titles on Lexi and Brody.  But, the Summer of Insanity is over.  Some of the shows, I will indeed attend.  But some of them, I will send my kids.  They love their handlers.  After traveling with them, and after spending time with them, I know firsthand how they love and care for the babies who are entrusted to them.  In fact, little Lexi is in the suburbs of Chicago right now, staying in her handler’s house…and probably sleeping in bed with her.  They leave for Ft. Wayne on Tuesday.  I will leave Saturday, catching Lexi in the ring just one day of this five day circuit. 

So friends…the Schach is back.  I can’t wait to get caught up and back in the stamping game.  Until next time…