Midnight Madness Challenge #31 Blog Hop

Midnight Madness Christmas Blog Hop

Welcome to our Midnight madness Christmas Blog Hop. We know this is a busy time of year for everyone so we are including our blog hop with our regular weekly Challenge MMSC #31. We invite you to participate in our challenge by making a card from our fabulous sketch and to be inspired by the projects on our blogs and make a matching ornament or small project. You are not required to do the project, but it would be a treat for us to see what you come up with and we would love it !!! You also do not have to do the sketch to participate in the blog hop. As an added bonus, we are going to do something a little different this time around. Each of our Design Team is offering up their card and project as a prize. WOW, a chance to own a Midnight Madness Card and design!!!

1 Blog Hop GRAND Prize Drawing
12 Design Team Featured Card with Ornament Small Project Random Drawing
1 PRETTY PAPER Christmas Card drawing from the 12 Highlighted on Each DT Blog from the MMSC #28

You have until Tuesday, December 15, 2009 12 p.m. Midnight EST to enter your MMSC#31 in Mr. Linky at Priscilla's Midnight Madness Blog as always to be eligible for the Regular Weekly Bonus Prize.

If you would like your name entered in for the MIDNIGHT MADNESS BLOG HOP PRIZES, you will have to follow the directions below.....

1. To be eligible for the Blog Hop Grand Prize, 12 Design Team Card/Project Drawing, and Pretty Paper drawing; you must leave a comment on each of the Designer's Blogs during your journey through the Hop. once your name has been chosen, we will check to make sure you have commented on each blog before you are notified.

2. Enter your name and the words BLOG HOP in Mr. Linky, to be eligible for the Blog Hop prizes. As an added bonus, if you do the sketch you can enter your link to your card/project and have tow entry chances for the prizes.

3. In order to have a chance at winning any of the prizes, except for the Regular Weekly Bonus, you must gather a secret phrase along the Blog hop. Each Design Team Member will have a particular word or words listed on their blog and as long as you visit them in order, you will have the secret phrase at the end. If you are picked as a Prize winner you will be contacted by email and you must email back the secret phrase WITHIN 48 HOURS to claim your prize. If there is not response within the 48 hours time frame, another winner will be chosen until all prizes are awarded. To start off, you must being at Priscilla's Midnight Madness Blog! If you have not started there, I suggest you go back and begin again..l.you don't want to miss out on the Prizes! if you have arrived from Jane-The Paper Affair then you are on the correct course.
If you want a chance to win you will have to follow the instructions listed above. Thank you and have fun on the Hop.

If you would like to be considered for the Christmas Blog Hop Prizes, and you DO NOT have a blog, you still can participate. You will have to follow the directions below.....

1. Leave a comment on the Midnight Madness Blog Hop comment section with your email address, first name and last name initial.
2. lLink up to Mr. Linky with first name, last name initial, the words BLOG HOP and in the URL space enter this address http://priscillastyles.blogspot.com/

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Pretty Paper Christmas Card Picks

Pretty Paper, Pretty Ribbon of Blue,
Wrap your presents to your darling from you,
Pretty pencils to write I love you,
Pretty Paper, Pretty Ribbons of Blue.


My Pretty Paper pick is Kerri Michaud's Rockin" Christmas. This is just the sweetest image for Christmas. To me Christmas is all about Children and their wide eyed wonderment in all the lights and festivities, the excitement of Santa, and the innocence of hopes and dreams. When my boys were younger my husband and I did some very creative things to keep the magic in Christmas for them. Thank you Kerri for participating and good luck in the drawing!!!

For something Festive for the Season we want to feature our favorite cards from MMSC#28 to honor our Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge Players who played along with us that week. Our Pretty Paper card choices will need to do the blog hop, leave a comment at each of the Design Team Blogs, and collect a word from each of the blogs visited for the winning phrase and place their name in Mr. Linky with "BLOG HOP" after their name at Priscilla's Midnight Madness Blog! We will enter your name in a drawing for one winner form our 12 entries. We will email you when we verify that you have entered your name in Mr. Linky and have left a comment on each of the Design Team Blogs, you will need to email back the phrase in order to qualify for your prize. Even if your card has been chosen for the "Pretty Paper" you are still eligible for the other prizes.

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My Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge MMSC#31 and Ornament

Hi Y'all!!! That's how we say it here in Georgia....kinda different for me seeing how I am from Connecticut and say...Hey youse guys!!! LOL My boys catch me all the time slipping into my New England accent and I have to straighten myself out. Today's MMSC#31 is "Purple". Does anyone else besides me find that purple is hard to photograph? Yikes!

What I did was cut a piece of white paper 5-1/2 x 5-1/2 and I tore in diagonal sort of down the middle to create my hills. I took some liberties with the sketch because the half rounds and the wintry theme were speaking to me!!!!They overlap here and I covered the entire white paper with Martha Stewart Tinsel Glitter.Here is the inside of my card. I really like making cards that include something useful in them. So I made this pocket and these tags as part of my project to match.

Here is a close up of the tags that come with this lovely card. I silver embossed the snowflakes you see in the background.Here is a close up of the Christmas Ornament I made to match my card. If I didn't have all the tags in the pocket, I could have put this in the card as a gift as well. I hope you have enjoyed my card, tags, and ornament.
Each design team member is offering their cards and projects as blog candy. For a chance to win my card and ornament, please just leave a comment on this post as well as my other Design Team Sister's. If you do not have a blog, please leave your email address and name (first and last) in the comment as well. A winner will be randomly chosen after our Blog Hop is over on 12/15. The winner will be announced on Wednesday, 12/16.

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Our Monthly Sponsor for December is:

Fran from the Frantic Stamper Inc. is the sponsor of our Monthly Bonus Prize Winner. You can visit Fran at her store at the Frantic Stamper Inc, your #1 source for rubberstamping and scrapbooking supplies. Friendly one-on-one service since 1996!! You can read about their store upgrading to a 6000 square feet warehouse with many new products at Frantic Stamper Happenings. Fran is offering a MEGA package worth $250 to one of you lucky players this month! Frantic Stamper is also an official vendor for Martha Stewart products and has the Largest Selection of punches online. Please browse the tremendous selection of scrapbooking and card making supplies at her shop. Wow, here is the picture of the MEGA prize package!!! Some lucky winner will receive this. Thank you so much Fran!

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Revealing the Word for the Secret Phrase

My words for the secret phrase is "to play" and now you have reached the end of the Blog Hop. Be sure to return to Priscillastyles to leave your name in Mr. Linky after commenting o all the Design Team Members Blogs for your chance at the prizes. Thank you for playing in our weekly challenges and for all your support each week. Everyone at Midnight Madness would like to wish you and yours a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New year. We thank you for joining us in our special Christmas Blog Hop and invite you to participate in the sketch challenge this week with a small project of your own. Here at Midnight madness we are looking forward to 2010 with more exciting fun and prizes and meeting and making friends with all of our participants past, present, and future. Thank you and good luck winning the prizes!!!

Vintage Christmas Tree Card

Hi everyone!!! Today's card is a Vintage Christmas tree with lots of holly framing the image. Here, also, is one of my Boyds Bearstones.
A close up here to show the embossing and stitching and the little jingle bell on the bow.This is the inside of the card. I made a pocket to tuck in theater, movie, sport, or concert tickets....of course, CASH would always be nice too!!!! LOL

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Todays: CHRISTMAS AT CAROL's HOUSE

Well you know I love bears....so expect to see lots of them. The garland around the fireplace is filled with small little bears tucked in the branches. Mr. and Mrs. Clause are animated and lit up. The dolls are from the Boyds Bear collection and are probably 10 years old now. There are more things that light up on the mantel, but they don't show in the photograph. Hope you enjoyed the peek into my home. Let me know what you think!

Hugs,
Carol

Santa's Little Helper-Puppy

Well, lookie what we have here....Santa's Little Helper...and isn't he the cutest. I just couldn't resist this guy!!! My Midnight Madness Design Team Sister's Sue, Jeni, and Jessica have started their own digi stamp and rubber stamp company and this is one of their designs. You can purchase him by clicking on McMahon Five in my side bar and it will take you right to the store. You could say that my Midnight Madness Design Team Sister's did inspire this card as not only is this image from 3 of them, but I also used "Lovely Linda's Craft Central" tutorial on how to color your images with chalk for my puppy. I used the Fancy Tags die cut from Spellbinders and the flowers are called Christmas Blossoms from Making Memories.When I was looking for an appropriate Sentiment for this little guy, I came across this Santa Hat in my clear dollar stamp stash that fit my puppy perfect. The corner treatments are a sizzx die.
This is the inside of my card. This is the actual digi stamp without the hat. I made the ornament which is removable with last year's Spellbinders Snowflake dies.Here is a picture of my ornament. There is so much glitter on it I think it flashed back at me. I love making these snowflakes. Lots of fun with glitter everywhere.

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Well, you have heard me talk about my Christmas decorations. From now until the end of the year, I will post some of the vignettes I have throughout my home for the holiday season. This picture is one of my favorites. It is a Boyds Bear Doll created by Danbury Mint. The doll is kissing the Santa Bear under the mistletoe.

The mouse to the left is the only Boyds that did not come with this doll, but I thought he looked cute so included him in the scene.How can you resist this sweetness, huh??? Brings me right back to when I was 5 years old. I received from Santa a doll just this size which is about 18 inches that I carried around in it's own case. The case was one that fit the doll on one side and had a closet on the other side for the dresses and a draw for the shoes and comb and brush.

Can you remember the magic of Christmas when you were younger? Wow, my parents didn't have much, but my Dad worked Saturday's and Sunday's in the bitter cold outside in a shipyard sand-blasting tanks to give us a fantastic Christmas. He ended up having pneumonia twice at different times right on Christmas day not even able to get out of bed when I was a child.

So what was your most treasured Christmas gift as a child?

MMSC30 Wings and Things

This is my entry for this weeks MMSC30 Sketch Challenge at Midnight Madness. This is an image from one of my favorite stamp companies "Darcie's". Isn't she cute!!!

I hand embroidered the eyelash yarn around the scallop spellbinders die cut. All of the panels are stitched and stickled...my favorite embellishment!!! This paper is so pretty. I actually found this the other day when looking for something else. Many years ago I used to belong to the "Boyds Collector's Forum" on the Internet. We used to have Secret Sister's and Swap's and this paper I received from one of my fellow Boyd's lover.I love this sweet Angel so much, I could not resist putting her inside the card. I used a verse from the Bible for my sentiment.

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The CHRISTMAS BLOG HOP is coming December 8th-15th. The Design Team has a few little surprises up their sleeves to get you in the festive holiday mode. So do your MMSC#30 card and link it up here, put on some Christmas music, put up your decorations and get ready to join us in a festive celebration.

We have appreciate you helping us spread the news these past few weeks. Please continue for this one last week until the launch of the blog hop as our prize patrol has been out viewing the Logo in your side bar. We have lots of stuff going on here, so be sure to check out the “General Rules” for all the details. Please check back Weds for our MMSC29 Bonus winner and our Holiday Logo winner this week. You have till Midnight EST 12-1-09 to get your MMSC29 entries in to qualify. One winner will be drawn for our Bonus giveaway on Wednesday, so be sure to check back for that. If you miss the deadline, you are still welcome to link up to Mr Linky, but any entries after the "LAST CALL" will not be in the drawing.

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Our Gold Star Winner this week is:
#23 Super Nan

Our Remarkables this week go to:
#2 Karen Wallace
#17 Connie
Thank you for playing this week everyone and we would be honored if our award winners would pick up their badges on the side bar and please display them proudly.
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Our Weekly Bonus Sponsor is
SUNSHINE’S STAMPS

They are being very generous with their give away this week with a prize valued at $45. Please check it out here.

Our Monthly Bonus Sponsor is:

Fran from the Frantic Stamper Inc. is the sponsor of our Monthly Bonus Prize Winner. You can visit Fran at her store at the Frantic Stamper Inc, your #1 source for rubberstamping and scrapbooking supplies. Fran is offering a MEGA package worth $250 to one of you lucky players this month! You can check it out here.

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Here is the sketch for MMSC#30. We are adding the theme "WINGS and THINGS" to the challenge. What are WINGS and THINGS you ask. It is any image you can find--- Reindeer, Angels, Birds, Butterflies, Sleighs, Stars, Snowflakes....anything that can fly in the air!!!!! I hope you have lots of fun with this sketch and theme and are inspired by the design team! Now lets see your creativity fly!!!! LOL

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Now put your favorite Christmas Music on, get out your Christmas crafting supplies and join us in the fun. I will be around visiting your blogs to see what you have created.
Carol

Vintage Blue Background Santa with Gift Tags

Oooo, isn't this one yummy??? I love these colors and they were dictated to me by the background color behind this Santa. I couldn't resist more Snowflakes.....I love these Snowflakes. I promise I have made some from my other Spellbinders die...but these are still my favorite.This dp is from the Holiday K & Company Stack. I love each and every piece of paper and that stack too! Such pretty paper this year don't you thingk? Lots of stitching on this and I justed the Lattice Borderablities from Spellbinders too!I used Rangers Brick Red to distress ink around the edges on this. I told you i was getting into the inking didn't I!!! LOL Here is the inside of my card. I silver embossed this time. The trim around the red ribbon I used for the bow was the inspiration for that! I make this pocket to hold my tags.Here is a look at the back of my tag....notice my $1 stamp again. I think you will be seeing more of it....I love it.I had to tie some bows on these to make them frilly.....these are also glittered even if you can't see them too well in the picture.
This envelope was made to match the card. I even stickled the snowflakes on the envelope. Did I ever tell you I don't think there is a day I don't have glitter on me. I love glitter and find it everywhere. I don't think I am alone in this obsession as there used to stamping store down in St Marys I frequented that the owner purposely had glittered on the floor. I love it!!!I hope you have enjoyed visiting today. You know, I am really getting into "Vintage"....I think Priscilla over at Priscillastyles has rubbed off on me. I admired vintage for a long time before I tried it.....an now I think I am addicted. I plan on doing more. Thanks for stopping by and let me know what you think, I sure would appreciate it.

Carol

Stampin Up Snowman Christmas Card with Ornament

Let me just say that I love the colors in this card. I was in Michael's a week or so ago and came across Sweet Dreams Holiday Avenue by My Mind's Eye and I love every sheet in that pad. I inked the edges of this with Perfect Plumeria and glittered everything.You can see some close up's here of all the details...don't you just love that little snowman on the bow. I was so happy to see Martha Stewart put that heart border punch on her regular line. I had been admiring everyone who had and used that punch forever....one of my favorites. This stampin up guy is so cute. I am sure he came with other stamps, but I don't have them. I bought this second hand before I knew to much about Stampin Up products, but I pretty much do my own thing anyway.Here in the inside of my card, I have made a Christmas ornament for the recipient to use on their tree. I used the Spellbinders snowflake die to make the snowflake and attached it to a store bought plain white snowflake. So pretty!!! I want to make thousands of these!!! LOL I just love them!Just a close up to show how pretty this snowflake is. It will just "pop" right off the card easily.The envelope was made to match this card and stamped with one of my favorite snowflake stamps.Hope you have enjoyed viewing this creation. Are you done putting up your Christmas decorations yet??? I am loving the Christmas lights, playing Christmas music while I craft, and burning my Christmas scent candles. It has turned cool here, so I am sneaking out at night by myself and going in the jacuzzi before going to bed. It is wonderful looking up at the stars at night and seeing all God's beautiful handiwork. Since I live out in the country, it is pitch black at night and I love being outside gazing at the stars and watching the planes fly over my house on the way to the Jacksonville airport. It's so relaxing. Have a great day!

Carol

Vintage Santa with Matching Gift Tags

Hi everyone. I thought I would treat you to one of my Santa's from my Boyds Folkstone Santa Collection. This one is called Electronick...LOL You may be seeing more of these in the future as I take pictures of my Christmas Cards. Isn't he cute. He is testing out the Christmas lights to see if they are working....can you relate to this? Sometimes I get frustrated and just go buy new ones!!!!I love vintage Santa's!!! Today's card is a wonderful right jolly ole elf! i did this with black accents which really brings out the red.Here is one of those feathers that I have found I love to use on my holiday cards. The corners are a sizzx die. I did stitching on this and the center die under Santa is the Spellbinders Pendant Die Lattice.Here's another closeup view of all the details. The Merry Christmas is actually a sticker.
The inside of the card has matching detail. I sewed this pocket to hold the matching tags I made.
I got this To/From stamp from the $1 bin at Michael's. I just love that stamp and have been using it a lot.The three tags fit nicely in the pocket and it doesn't make the card too bulky.This is the envelope I made and gold embossed with the same stamp that I gold embossed on the tags.

Hope you are having a great day. I would appreciate know what you think about this. I value your comments and suggestions!

Carol