Have you ever bought a stamp set and die bundle thinking you would use it so much but then it sits there hardly used? I bought Stampin' Up!'s What's Cookin' bundle to spruce up my cook's organizer. Think only half a page was created <- click the link to see the page! lol 

To show off this Awesome Otter I went digging through my designer series paper looking for something that would inspire a card. I keep my DSP in big zipper bags in a drawer. Pretty sure I pulled out all the packs I have and didn't like any that I saw! Have you been that way? Went looking for something but then nothing works for what you imagined or wanted? No? Just me? Then I remembered the Stampin' Up! order that arrived last week with the Abstract Beauty 4" x 6" designer series paper. 

This week I'm sharing projects with a water theme. Today's card was created using inspiration from my upline, Lisa Henderson. Each month she gives her team a creative and business challenge with different themes or ideas. A great way to keep us crafting and maybe try something new! For this month's creative challenge we needed to create a project inspired by the beach using the colours Coastal Cabana, Night of Navy and Silver. For silver the Silver Foil Specialty pack was perfect to provide 3 different shades behind the image along with a strip of Night of Navy and Smoky Slate. I had a hard time figuring out where the Coastal Cabana would fit but I'm ok with it being the card base colour, I think. Sometimes its easier to roll with using a colour as the base even if you think it might be wrong. What do you think? Was Coastal Cabana the correct one to use as my card base or should I have used a different colour?

The designs in the New Horizon DSP are of gorgeous sunset or sunrise landscape scenes. But on the opposite side or back side of the landscape designs are watercolour wash designs that look like water or clouds or fog. It was perfect to use for this card to make it look like the background is water. The otter can float along holding the cute little fish.

I missed seeing the cute little dog curled up beside the book reading lady when I first saw the In The Moment stamp set! He's so cute. Going to call it a him since I have a chocolate brown boy Cocker Spaniel. This card makes me picture the two of us curled up on a cold winter's day. Although I might just have a blanket wrapped around Griffin too. 

Hello! In today's Pretty Cards & Paper November blog hop you will see projects made with the Peaceful Place designer series paper. 

The gorgeous metallic accents in the Peaceful Place specialty designer series paper will help your projects pop! Included in this 12" x 12" pack of paper are 12 sheets of patterned paper: 2 each of 6 double-sided designs. One side of each has some metallic accents such as falling snow or woodgrain. Although this paper is monochromatic including Basic Black, Basic Gray, Smoky Slate you could colour in the sheets to change the look or stamp on the white portions.

Welcome to November's Global Stamping Friends blog hop. Today we are sharing projects with a snowflake theme and the best snowflake item in the Jul-Dec Mini Catalogue is the Peaceful Place Specialty designer series paper. The gorgeous metallic accents in this pack of paper makes this card pop!

At this month's team meeting my friend Tanya showed us how to make this fun fancy fold card. Her card used the Cute Halloween designer series paper as I have with this card, but she used the skull and bat designs. The ghost and house from one of the DSP pack and the sentiment is from the Banner Year stamp set. Do you think "Happy Haunting" works with the ghosts? 

Stampin' Up!'s Whimsy & Wonder Specialty Designer Series Paper can be found in the Jul-Dec Mini Catalogue and it's a fun pack of paper to use for your wintery crafting. You could use the coordinating Whimsical Trees stamp set with this DSP but I've decided to pair the Christmas to Remember stamp set for my card today.

The weather here in Southeastern Ontario is currently not snowy or cold. It's the middle of October and I still have the A/C on! Not that it would be snowing but I'm hopeful that the weather stays warm that I might be able to harvest some more yellow beans from the garden before the frost kicks in. This was my reaction to uploading this picture to my blog today. What am I doing sharing Christmas cards when it's so nice outside? The main reason is to inspire you for what products you may want to craft with for the upcoming holidays as there are only 74 days to Christmas. Deep breath!