TIS THE SEASON TO GIVEAWAY STUFF

TIS THE SEASON TO GIVEAWAY STUFF. I think that says it all!

I am very fortunate and want to share the love today and give away four items. There will be four winners.  You just have to answer one question..

What one goal you have for 2019?

My goal is that I want to get back to scrapbooking. It seems like in two seconds, my kids have grown RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES. My oldest son just turned 21 and my youngest is 18 1/2.

I want to get the awesome stories that go WITH the pictures down so that they can share them for years to come. THAT is my goal.

I am not putting a number on it or pressuring myself completely. I just want to add more to their books next year. Anything has to be better than nothing, right? Now for the GOOD STUFF!

We will not have any tutorials or posts until January 7th so have a wonderful holiday and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

For the TIS THE SEASON TO GIVEAWAY STUFF giveaway,  we are giving away three dies and one stamp set. Here are the dies we are giving away above.

The first die I am giving away for the TIS THE SEASON TO GIVEAWAY STUFF giveaway is this beautiful cross.

 There are so many uses for this beautiful cross. You could use it for a Christening, Wedding, Sympathy, Easter, Confirmation, and the list is really endless. I love the detail!

This adorable die set is so cute with the candy cane, leaves and berries. I can’t wait to play with it and use different colors of paper!

This is a great holiday die set but also is a great masculine die set.

I create the card above using this die and I really liked it for a masculine card. What do you think?

Last but certainly not least, we are giving away the Coffee is my Liquid Therapy stamp set. It is one of our best sellers and I know you will be able to create some amazing things with it! I will have four winners for this giveaway. Please be sure that you  send me a message letting me know which post you won on and your contact info and I can get your prize out to you!

For last weeks prize, we will be giving away a $15.00 store credit! That way you can decide exactly what you want!

The winner is JUNE B!

Winner, please send me an message HERE and I will get your prize out to you!

For all of our giveaways including this one, in order for you to qualify for an entry to win, you would need to be a follower on YouTube, subscribe to our mailing list/blog posts (found on our blog page) and you may also comment on this blog post for an additional entry to win! When you subscribe, you will receive an e-mail on Mondays with our latest blog post. BE SURE TO READ IT to check to see if you are a winner EVERY WEEK. If you do not contact me within two weeks of the announcement of winning, you will forfeit your prize. NO EXCEPTIONS. Thank you for your understanding.

NOTE: If you are subscribed with two different names and I am unable to match you with your subscription to the blog and the YouTube Channel, you will be ineligible to win as I can’t decipher if you are a matching subscriber to both. Thank you for your understanding.

We hope you will subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Blog/Newsletter updates and check out our website!

As always, we appreciate your visit and we hope you enjoyed going on A Creative Journey with Melissa. Have a wonderful holiday!

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Carpe Diem Planner Goodies Giveaway

Create School Planner Calendar Sheets – Free Printables

Six Giveaways Chase My Blues Away

Six Giveaways Chase My Blues Away is what we have today. No tutorial today just giveaways… Sounds good right? You know when you get kind of in a funk and on top of it have a lot of stuff going on? It can get overwhelming, right? Yes! For me too! What better way for me to cheer myself up than cheer up someone else?! You got it!

We have 6 giveaways today! Be sure you check back to claim your prize otherwise it will go back into the prize bin for another giveaway.

Some of the prizes for the Six Giveaways Chase My Blues Away are prizes that haven’t been claimed. I have giveaways every week so be sure to check back next week to see if you are a winner!

Our first giveaway is the A Creative Journey with Melissa Sign Language Sentiments 2 Stamp Set.

For my second giveaway for the Six Giveaways Chase My Blues Away is the A Creative Journey with Melissa Sign Language Sentiments Stamp Set

The third giveaway for the Six Giveaways Chase My Blues Away is this awesome textured embossing folder by Tim Holtz. Definitely one of my go to embossing folders!

This giveaway is for the planners. You are going to LOVE this set! It is not only filled with goodies, it is quite lovely too!

This awesome embossing folder is so much fun to work with! You can ink, stain, paint, sand and water color the paper before or after giving your paper an awesome and beautiful look! You can even use it plain with paper and it looks very elegant.


The sixth and last giveaway for the Six Giveaways Chase My Blues Away is this lovely wood grain embossing folder. This folder would work great for a masculine background, behind a bird image, an outdoor scene and really just about anything! Seriously the possibilities are endless!

 Now for this weeks GIVEAWAY we are giving away all of the AWESOME products above. There will be SIX WINNERS!

To qualify to win, you must be BOTH:

A public follower on YouTube, subscribe to our mailing list/blog posts and you may also comment on this blog post for an additional entry to win! Winners will be announced next week on our Mondays with Melissa blog post!

If you do not contact me within two weeks of the announcement of winning, you will forfeit your prize. Thank you for your understanding.

Subscribe to BOTH with MATCHING NAMES to be eligible. If I am unable to match you with your subscription to both the email list and the YouTube Channel, you will miss your chance to win a prize. If I can’t decipher if you are a matching subscriber (if your profile doesn’t show publicly who you subscribe to) and I can’t confirm you have subscribed to both, I won’t be able to enter you in for the prize. **DO NOT COMMENT WITH YOUR ENTIRE EMAIL ADDY. Only give me the first 6 NOT INCLUDING YOUR HOST. Just enough for me to match your name will work perfectly.

Now for last weeks GIVEAWAY we are giving away the amazingly versatile A Creative Journey with Melissa Outside and In Stamp Set!

The winner is Lisa Maxner!

Lisa,  please send me your contact information via contact page on our website, which post you are a winner from and I will get your prize out to you! Thank you so much for being a YouTube follower and subscribing to our mailing list/blog posts!

Thank you for joining us for the Six Giveaways Chase My Blues Away. I already am cheered up and am thrilled there will be six winners next week! I hope I cheered you up too!

Have a wonderful week and thank you for going on A Creative Journey with Melissa.

How Cancer Inspired A Creative Journey with Melissa

How Cancer Inspired A Creative Journey with Melissa is the story we have today. We do have a giveaway but no tutorials. I have had a few people ask me why and how I got started doing stamps and thought others may want to know too so I decided to share this with all of you. Just about everyone has had to deal with Cancer in way or another whether it be oneself, a loved one, a friend a friend of a friend, etc. There really isn’t anything that is inspiring about it however Cancer Inspired A Creative Journey with Melissa.

First, I should give you a little background on me. I grew up in Chicago and met my husband on a blind date in Chicago. We were introduced by my co-worker and Jon’s childhood friend that were dating. When we got married on June 18, 1994, I moved from Chicago to the St. Louis area where my hubby was from and living. We then ended up moving to California for my hubby’s work so that is how we landed here in LA.

Now.. back to Cancer Inspired A Creative Journey with Melissa … and YES THIS IS REALLY HOW I TALK LOL More than likely it is my ADHD (Seriously, I am diagnosed and on meds and SOMETIMES they help. LOL) ANYHOW, my Uncle Herb AKA UH lived in San Diego, CA since before I was born. Even though he lived quite a ways away, UH would always come out for large events like my prom (pictured above is my Dad on the left and UH on the right. Yes that is me in the middle) wedding, graduation, etc. He visited me when I was pregnant and after I had my kids too.

UH didn’t have children of his own but he was quite the cool Uncle. Once we moved to California, we grew closer in proximity and our relationship grew as well. My kids really admired him and had a great bond with him too.

I am VERY blessed to have a number of amazing people in my life that support me. Of course “My Boys” are my top three (my hubby and my two sons) and had a lot to do with the actual name of the business. Their first names are Austin, Christian and Jon, and with that A Creative Journey with Melissa was born in February 2011.

I was also fortunate to have the support of a number of others as well. I am ever so grateful for the support, love and encouragement. For a long time I had wanted to start my own stamp line but was too scared of failure, putting myself out there and really causing a financial burden on my family. I was not going to take a loan, (I never did either) or use money that I didn’t have on hand so I decided to scrap the idea. (A little paper crafting humor! LOL)

Unfortunately, in August of 2012 UH was diagnosed with cancer. Needless to say we were heart broken and it wasn’t looking very good.

UH had a wonderful group of friends and support system. I would also come out to visit and stay with him for a few days or even a few weeks when he was having a procedure or when he needed me.

One day while I was sitting with UH chatting after he had been recently been going though chemo in passing I said, “Someday, I am going to start my own stamp line…” and UH said, “If not now, when?”

Well, needless to say that lit a fire under me.  Can’t really argue with someone that has stage 4 cancer throughout his body including his brain. He really encouraged me to be the best I can be and supported me regardless. The questions of if I am going to fail and being scared turned into CAN I REALLY DO THIS? With the support of “My Boys” and of course UH and numerous others, the adventure began. I had been creating handmade items for a few years as a business but wanted to expand it to stamps.

UH and Cancer Inspired A Creative Journey with Melissa started with my first two set of stamps that I released. Specifically the second one. After he completed radiation, he was given a radiation diploma. He and I both thought it was cool how they tried to make a negative into a positive and with that the concept of Awareness Ribbon Stamp Sets were born. Awareness Ribbon #1 and Awareness Ribbon #2 were my first two stamp sets released and have since added Awareness Ribbon Stamp Set #3 – Ready for a Fight. UH lived in San Diego as I said and we live in LA. We would visit a few times a year but when he was diagnosed with Cancer, it was at least monthly if not weekly as time went on. My first stamp release was September 18, 2013. UH enjoyed watching me package my stamps and sending them out to my first set of customers! I was so excited and UH was too!

Sadly, the next day UH passed. I really think he waited to see the release and the success of the first day.

I have been inspired by numerous people in my Creative Journey in addition to UH.

Two friends of mine that have inspired me are Julie Gonzalez and Cristal (Pinky) Hobbs. They are amazing Moms that I have met. They are amazing, strong, intelligent women and they also have sons that have Autism. Julie’s son was diagnosed with Autism and she was participating in an Autism walk to raise awareness. This inspired me to create the above stamp set Awareness Ribbon Set #4 – Autism Awareness. A portion of this set supports the walk that Julie does every year in honor of her son Anthony.

I was inspired to create these two stamp sets Awareness Ribbon Set #5 – See Autism with your Heart and Awareness Ribbon Set #6 – Angels with Autism to raise awareness by Pinky. A portion of Angels with Autism is donated to a wonderful school program near and dear to Pinky’s heart. What amazing women they both are! I feel very blessed.


These cards were created using them!

Sign Language was spoken fluently in our home as my brother is deaf. My Dad and UH were brothers and both of their parents were deaf. It truly is a beautiful language and I thought what better way to inspire people to learn sign language then create stamps showcasing its beauty! I used the Sign Language Alphabet Stamp Set to create the above sentiment “Remember” for the scrapbook page I made with UH’s picture above.

We also have Sign Language Sentiments and Sign Language Sentiments 2

as well as Sign Language Alphabet Numbers and a closer pic of the Sign Language Alphabet stamp set.

We also have some amazing alphabet stamp sets that work perfectly with planners, cards, scrapbooks, project life and just about everything!

I love to create clean and simple cards and what I use are the Spring and Summer Holiday Celebrations and our Fall and Winter Holiday Sentiments stamp sets. Awesome for those creations needing a holiday sentiment.

Who doesn’t love coffee? I know I sure do and these stamp sets are perfect for your creations! We have the Coffee is my Liquid Therapy and the Coffee, Tea and Wine – OH MY! Stamp sets. They are so much fun to create with!

Here are close ups of two creations I made with them. I used recycled packaging for the left one and a penny for the slider on the right one! Be sure to check out my blog or YouTube channel to see how they were made!

Now for this weeks GIVEAWAY! We are giving away a $25.00 store credit to our store!!

I have had a number of people say how much they love these stamp sets for organizing, their planners, lists and just about everything else under the moon so I thought this would be the perfect prize for this week. You can pick out what YOU want!

To qualify to win, you must be BOTH:

A public follower on YouTube, subscribe to our mailing list/blog posts and you may also comment on this blog post for an additional entry to win! Winners will be announced next week on our Mondays with Melissa blog post!

If you do not contact me within two weeks of the announcement of winning, you will forfeit your prize. Thank you for your understanding.

NOTE: You must be subscribed to BOTH with MATCHING NAMES. If I am unable to match you with your subscription to both the email list and the YouTube Channel, you will miss your chance to win a prize. If I can’t decipher if you are a matching subscriber (if your profile doesn’t show publicly who you subscribe to) and I can’t confirm you have subscribed to both, I won’t be able to enter you in for the prize. **DO NOT COMMENT WITH YOUR ENTIRE EMAIL ADDY. Only give me the first 6 NOT INCLUDING YOUR HOST. Just enough for me to match your name will work perfectly.

 Here’s the GIVEAWAY from last weeks post which is

 the A Creative Journey with Melissa Everyday Alphabet Upper Case and Emoticon stamp set  and the winner is Andrea G!

We are also giving away the A Creative Journey with Melissa Awareness Ribbon #3 – Ready for a Fight Stamp Set  and the winner is Melissa M!

Andrea & Melissa,  please send me your contact information via contact page on our website, which post you are a winner from and I will get your prize out to you! Thank you so much for being a YouTube follower and subscribing to our mailing list/blog posts!

 We hope you enjoyed our How Cancer Inspired A Creative Journey with Melissa post and we hope you are inspired to do something you may not have the courage for. In the words of UH…. if not now, WHEN?

Have a wonderful week and thank you for going on A Creative Journey with Melissa.

 

 

Quick and Easy: Gift Bag Set with Stamped Tissue

Quick and Easy: Gift Bag Set with Stamped Tissue is today’s project! I have focused this project for the holidays but this simple and cute concept can be used for any gift giving need. It’s so simple in fact, you may have all of the supplies in your home already! This project is not meant to take a lot of time and supplies. This project is meant for you to be able to dress up a gift with love and thought with little cost and time. The love will show through and your friend and loved one will be so grateful! Sooooo, let’s get started!

The supplies you will need:

Snowflake Beauty Stamp Set

Adhesive

Stamp block

Brilliance Ink

Plain gift bag

Tissue paper

Decorative card stock for bag

Directions and the free printable download for the tags can be found on this tutorial here.

supplies

Get your gift bag, adhesive and decorative paper out. measure two pieces of paper to fit on the front of bag

Apply adhesive to the back side of the decorative paper. Adhere to both the front and the back of the gift bag.

Be sure to line them up so they match on both sides. Set aside.

bag w paper

Take out your tissue paper, ink and Snowflake Beauty stamp set. Fold your tissue paper at an angle in half to make a triangle.

Stamp the corner area of this tissue paper. You will stamp all four corners of your tissue paper.

stamp paper

One you have stamped all four corners, take your tissue paper in the center of the paper and grab it as if to make a bouquet like shown.

take the stamped tissue paper in a bouquet

Open up your bag and place your tissue paper inside of the bag ensuring some of it is sticking out to show your stamped design.

bag completed

To add a little flair, create a matching gift tag for your gift packaging like shown below. For information and directions on the gift tag, please go to this post here for your free download and information.

final w tag

Thank you for joining us! Please be sure to subscribe to our blog and YouTube channel for more projects and ideas.

We hope you enjoyed going on A Creative Journey with Melissa.

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Free Printables-Fast Gift Tags on a Budget!

Yes, I really mean Free Printables! Free Printables-Fast Gift Tags on a Budget! The holidays are here and no matter how hard you try, how much you plan, there is ALWAYS something that happens that makes you a little behind on the holidays. Well, why not get yourself ahead of the game and make some gift tags you can keep on hand? One less thing you need to do, right? These tags aren’t JUST for the holidays either! You can use them for birthday gift tags, wedding, baby shower, Hanukkah or any other celebration you would need them for! Below are the step by step instructions however if you prefer to follow along with a video, check out our video above! Let’s get started, shall we?

What you will need:

Your Free Printables

Adhesive

Printer

Card Stock

Trimmer or scissors

Twine or ribbon

Stapler

Decorative card stock

supplies

First, you will need to print out your printables. You have three colors to choose from; red, sky blue or black.

Tag template

Once you have printed them out, you will want to cut out your tags.

trim tags

After you have cut your tags, you will want to place your tag on paper you will use to mat it with, adhere and then trim to your liking.

trim matted tagYou can leave your tags like this or you can apply adhesive and mat them again on a decorative card stock.

matted tag w red

Here I have matted them again on decorative card stock.

tag for Lori

Once you have finished placing the mat on  your tags, cut some twine and adhere it to your tag with a stapler. Here is another way you can add twine with a stapler to a tag.

tag

Add the name an signature to your tag for personalization.

finished lori tag

Your project is complete! Here are just three ways I made tags using the free printables. There are a number of other ways you can and I hope you will share with us how you decided to create with them!

tags completed

Thank you so much for joining us today! We hope you enjoyed this cute project and going on A Creative Journey with Melissa.

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