Christmas wrap up

Yes, I realize that we're a little past Christmas!! I apologize...with trying to make so many things for Christmas and then hitting a few birthdays and year end at work, I haven't had a chance to post! I figured I'd just post the last of my Christmas things in one post :)

My girlfriends and I always do an exchange and I made a few cute little photo holders for them. Because there are 11 of them, I had to do something simple for packaging. I got a stack of paper bags, Ripe Avocado and Scarlet Jewel ink, my Peace, Be Still stamp set and went to work!

I love the finished product and it took no time to complete!

And here's the rest of the cards I sent out this year.

The first one I tried flipping over the die to just make an impression instead of cut...it didn't turn out perfect, but I like it :) I did find that it was better to stamp the snowflakes and THEN impress the die. The ink/stamp didn't like when I did the impression first!

I was in love with that little snowman this year!

You can't see it too well in this picture, but there are raised scor lines above and below the snowflakes. Love!

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and were able to spend a lot of time with family! Thanks for checking in! :)

simple christmas

I decided it was high time for me to show some cards on here again! I actually took some photos of a few of them I made and will be sharing them as I get a chance to blog. I have to make at least 65 Christmas cards to send out from our family. Because of that, I wanted to try and come up with something easy that I could replicate fairly easily. Joyce had posted a link to her blog of a few CAS cards she had done and I thought, BINGO! Exactly what I was looking for! :)

I started with a base of Rustic Cream cardstock. Both snowflakes are from Peace, Be Still (love that set!) stamped in Scarlet Jewel and Ripe Avocado. I also used my Photo Finishers Die and cut out the straight lines in Ripe Avocado and then stamped using the Photo Finishers: holiday set. I am so in love with that stamp and die set! I think most all of my cards used one or the other in some form or another!

Thanks for the inspiration, Joyce!!

happy november!

Since October and Halloween is over and done with, and I don't do much for Thanksgiving (at least craft-wise), that means it's time for CHRISTMAS!!!! Back in September, when I saw this card that Heather made, I knew I had to get Tag It's #8 and Holiday Photo Finishers and try and do some sort of take on it!

I wanted to make quite a few of them to start knocking out my Christmas card list, so I went a little easier and used patterned paper and no snowflake dies.

I'm in love with it! I used both Tag It's #8 and Peace Be Still snowflakes for the background. The polka dots are from Jillibean Soup and the crackle paper is just some scrap I had laying around. I did a bunch of the photo finishers in all 4 designs and was able to put different sentiments inside.

Minus the stitching, I was able to knock out about 15 of these in about 45 minutes including cutting! Unfortunately, the stitching went much slower because my machine wasn't having all of it!

Pallenge #12

I'm on a roll tonight! LOL! Pallenge #12 was issued by Tammy and was to make a Christmas in (almost) July card. I realized the other day that Christmas is only 6 months away, so this challenge is perfect since I need to begin thinking what I'm making this year! I think a few new Christmas stamps will be in order, too :)

The base is Ripe Avocado. I cut the frame out using a free svg file on my cricut and used Vintage Cream with tea dye duo on the edges. I don't have a candy cane stamp, so I improvised. I used a red marker and drew lines and then cut out the shape of a candy cane.

I tried to make my Pure Poppy Bitty Dots ribbon a little vintage, but it didn't work :( Tea dye duo doesn't stick to the white spots and Dark Chocolate makes the pure poppy to dark. Oh well!

Let It Snow

Here's a glimpse at a few more of the Christmas cards I sent out this year. I think I did 6 of these basically all the same, just changed up a few things like layout and flipping the colors.

Supplies (all PTI unless noted):

Paper - Rustic Cream, Pure Poppy, Ripe Avocado

Ink - Pure Poppy, Fresh Snow

Stamps - 2009 Holiday Tags, Merry and Bright

Other - Ripe Avocado and Pure Poppy Vintage Buttons, Pure Poppy Ribbon, sewing machine, rustic twine

Another Christmas Peek

Last weekend I finished up all of my Christmas cards. Granted, I still need to sign and address them, but at least they're made!! I figured I'd show another one I've done. I don't want to show too many as I want some of my readers to be surprised when they get one of them in the mail!

I'm pretty proud of myself on this one. Not only did I do all the stamping on each piece using different sets, I tried out a zig-zag stitch on my sewing machine. I had a bit of trouble with it, and it shows, but I think it adds to the character of the card. I'm sending this one to my mom because I know she'd be impressed that I'm actually using my sewing machine! (those of you who read my blog and sew, don't look too closely and don't critique! LOL)

I stamped Polka Dot Basics on Scarlet Jewel, Merry and Bright on Ripe Avocado, and 2009 Holiday Tags on Spring Moss. The bottom sentiment is from Signature Christmas which I've absolutely LOVED using! The santa stamps are from a Seasons DCWV pad of dp.

Supplies (all PTI unless noted):

Paper - Scarlet Jewel, Ripe Avocado, Spring Moss, Kraft, DCWV Seasons dp

Ink - Scarlet Jewel, Ripe Avocado

Stamps - Polka Dot Basics, merry and Bright, 2009 Holiday Tags, Signature Christmas

Other - sewing machine

Christmas Blog Hop

Whoo hoo! It's that time again! PTI blog hop! This month's challenge was to do anything and everything Christmas. Since I'm already in that frame of mind, this wasn't too difficult! :) I went back to Nichole's blog and found the Holiday Cards 101 from 2008 as my inspiration. I love Heather Nichols Jingle all the way card! I let that serve as my inspiration and came up with this...

I did a set of six cards, a notepad and envelopes to match. They'll be an early Christmas gift so the recipient has time to use the cards! I used Merry and Bright and stamped the snowflakes in Fresh Snow and Ripe Avocado on Kraft. Each piece has Fresh Snow adding a little extra detail on the edges. Then, I stamped a tree in Scarlet Jewel and cut it out and adhered it overtop a Scarlet Jewel ribbon. The sentiment is stamped in Dark Chocolate from Dawn's Signature Christmas set.

I used the same idea on my notepad, just a different layout. I made sure to attach the ribbon on the back with some tape so it'll stay when it gets opened.

The inside, I used Nichole's template to make. Such an easy thing to do and it's a great place to put those Christmas receipts in one spot! I did a little snowflake around the edge just to add a little touch.

The envelope I stamped a few snowflakes in Ripe Avocado just to tie everything together. I really like how this all turned out! Helps when you have good inspiration :)

Supplies (all PTI):

Paper - Ripe Avocado, Kraft, Stampers Select White

Ink - Fresh Snow, Ripe Avocado, Dark Chocolate, Scarlet Jewel

Stamps - Merry and Bright, Signature Christmas

Other - Scarlet Jewel Ribbon, notepad

Color Challenge #18

I had a bit of time tonight to play in Dawn's Color Challenge. The colors weren't too hard, but right now, the only thing I need to make (besides some baby shower invites! yay!) are Christmas cards. So...how to turn these colors and this inspiration picture into Christmas? Here's what I came up with!

I used the card on the front of Paper Crafts Christmas publication as my inspiration. I stamped two of the trees from Merry and Bright onto some random scraps I had in my stash to get the Dark Chocolate and Green and then cut them out. I like the different sizes and on two of them, I only used the top two portions of the tree.

Underneath, I had a base of Rustic Cream, Raspberry Fizz and then Kraft. I tied the Rustic Twine around my paper and then threaded the Raspberry Fizz and Dark Chocolate Buttons onto it, tied it and trimmed it off. What do you think of the heart button? Isn't it cute? I also used the tea dye duo to ink up all my edges to give it a little bit of warmth.

Supplies used (All PTI unless noted):

Paper - Rustic Cream, Raspberry Fizz, Kraft, unknown dp

Stamps - Merry and Bright

Ink - Dark Chocolate, Tea Dye Duo

Other - Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Fizz Vintage Buttons, Rustic Jute Twine

O Christmas Tree

I bought a Christmas stamp set that Papertrey Ink put out last holiday season, Merry and Bright. There are so many different options with this set and I can't wait to play with it more! I used FTL #55 on this one. I love the twine and scarlet jewel button! I'm still loving my buttons and will have more in my next PTI order! :) eee!



Hopefully my next Christmas post will have even more new stamps. I received my stamps I won over the weekend, so I need to get some time to sit down and play with them!

Supplies (All PTI unless noted):

Paper - Rustic Cream, Scarlet Jewel, Kraft

Ink - Ripe Avocado, Dark Chocolate, Scarlet Jewel

Stamps - Merry and Bright

Other - Rustic Jute twine, Scarlet Jewel Button, Marvy Corner rounder

Christmas Wishes

Two more Christmas cards done! Yay! I had already cut the base paper in half and had everything accessible, so I figured I'd just make two :)



If you recall, I mentioned I used TECC#80 again, and these were the cards that resulted! I made these a bit different from each other. If you look, the one on the left is distressed (with my fingernail as I STILL cannot find a distressing tool!). I also crumpled up the Santa dp and then sewed it on. I actually like how both of them turned out.

Supplies (all PTI unless noted):

Paper - Scarlet Jewel, Kraft, Rustic Cream, DCWV seasons dp

Ink - Scarlet Jewel, Ripe Avocado, Creative Living Toasted Almond Dauber

Stamps - Polka Dot Basics I, Merry and Bright

Other - 1 3/4" EK Success Punch, 2" Fiskars Circle punch, sewing machine

Merry Christmas!

Yes, I realize it's only August! I am wanting to handmake all my cards this year, so I need to get a head start on them! This is the first one down :) I have some PTI christmas stamps from last year coming to me this week, so I'll be getting busy once those are prepped and ready!

I used FTL #56 for this. I really liked how it turned out. Once I had the idea of what I was going to do, it went pretty quickly! So much easier sometimes when you have a layout (and a few examples) to get one done yourself.

After doing this, I realized that I need more PTI supplies than what are coming in my shipment this week....uh oh! :) The tree stamp is one that I picked up from the Flower Factory for like 89 cents. Can't beat that! Of course, I have no clue who made it.

Supplies (all PTI unless noted):

Paper - Dark Chocolate, Pure Poppy, Stampers Select White

Ink - Ripe Avocado, Pure Poppy, Dark Chocolate, Studio G Orange

Stamps - Christmas Trees ??, Polka Dot Basics, Mega Mixed Messages

Other - Ribbon Scrap Pack Red Ribbon, Marvy Corner Rounder, FTL#56