fixation adventure

I hope you have followed one (hopefully more) of our llama hops - we also swap!  We make a card for each participant and mail them to each other.  In most swaps, I think all the cards (or whatever is being swapped) are mailed to one person, who divides them so everyone gets one of each and sends them back to the participants.  Llamas don't tend to be herd-followers, though, or at least not the llamas (and one alpaca) that I know.  We've been swapping ideas from the new Stampin' Up!® annual catalog this month.  Here's the one I sent:

stamp set - Blessings from Heaven; ink - Basic Black; card stock - Island Indigo, Basic Black, Daffodil Delight; designer series paper - Summer Smooches; Big Shot with Chevron textured impressions folder; Stampin' Dimensionals

I've been a little fixated on rainbows for a couple of months, now, as you can see on my Pinterest board.  I loved how the papers in the Summer Smooches package fed right into my fixation!  I take the swaps I receive to work  and show them to my coworkers.  I include the one I've made but don't identify it (unless they ask) - it's fun to see if they guess which one is mine.  Last week one of them asked what this style would be called.  She knew it wasn't vintage, or whimsical, or one of those descriptions, but couldn't think of what described this - I suggested bold graphic. 

Another fixation I admit to is Christmas. Although I did better last year at early card-making, I'm starting to feel the pull again now, and found another challenge blog to stimulate my imagination in Nicole Derendorf's Festive Friday.  This week she's offered a sketch, and I did this with it:

stamp sets - Netting, Word Play; Stampin' Around wheel - Music Notes; ink - Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip, Versamark; Stampin' Around marker - Riding Hood Red; card stock - Very Vanilla, textured Chocolate Chip (retired), Riding Hood Red; punches - 1-1/4" circle, 1-3/4" scallop circle; Stampin' Dimensionals, sponge dauber

Oh, and there's my fixation on music, too...  I'd also like to thank Paper Players for encouraging those of us with Christmas fixations by posting a Christmas in July challenge this week!