Have a Holly Jolly Christmas

First off I want to apologize for not posting anything the last while. We were insane trying to get everything ready for our Christmas Vacation, and then we were on the road for 2 days, then spent 5 days and we were on the road again for 18 hours. We finally arrived in Logan Utah this morning and have had a great day with family here. We will be leaving again tomorrow around noon for another 14 hours of driving before we end up in Mesa.

Before we left I made a card (a huge card) for Sevastian's Kindergarten class to sign. It ended up being 6x9, and the focal point on the card was 4x5.5. I took it into class for the class party and had all the kids sign it before we tucked the gift card for the teacher and gave it to her at the end of the party.

I love this set, and think it is a great kids set. I also decided to go a little over the top with it, and put shimmer everywhere. There is Dazzlin' Diamonds Glitter pretty much everywhere on the card. I also used Vanilla Smooch Spray to spray the background Bashful Blue piece after I embossed it with the Petals a Plenty embossing folder, and then I used Frost White Shimmer Paint to emboss the top of the petals and topped it off with 3 small Basic Pearls. I also added Rhinestones to the top of several trees.





It's late here, and I am working on almost no sleep, so I'll come back and post the recipes later.

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, and an even better time with family.

Oh Christmas Tree....

I love Christmas trees, they look so pretty, and the real ones smell so nice too. I have tons of Christmas stamps that have trees in them too. I actually cased myself with this card. Last year I stamped Dasher where I stamped this tree. I think the Snow Swirled Tree looks amazing with the retired Bride Specialty paper. I used my brayer to ink over the paper with Elegant Eggplant ink, and then took a tissue and wiped the ink off to reveal the white swirls. The rhinestones are the perfect touch to finish this card off.



Stamps: Many Merry Messages, Snow Swirled
Inks: Elegant Eggplant
Papers: Brushed Silver, Elegant Eggplant, Whisper White, Bride DSP (retired)
Misc: Large Oval Punch, Scallop Oval Punch, Elegant Eggplant Rick Rack (retired), Brayer, Rhinestones

Scenic Season

Every time I look at this stamp I think how beautiful it is, and think winter is just magical.... then I look outside and see real winter and the moment passes. I am definitely needing a break from old man winter, thankfully we leave for Az in less than a week. I got the idea for this card from the fabulous Jan Tink. If you've never been to her blog you need to check her out, she is amazing. I love the colors here, again they are not your traditional Christmas colors, but they look amazing on this card.


Stamps: Scenic Season, Many Merry Messages
Inks: Night of Navy, Whisper White, Pacific Point
Papers: Rich Razzleberry, Night of Navy, Old Olive, Whisper White
Misc: 1/4" Old Olive Grosgrain Ribbon, 1 3/4" Circle Punch, Sponges, Jumbo Eyelets, Brads,

I've been making Christmas cards, cookies, and cupcakes this week and listening to Christmas music the whole time and finally getting more into the Christmas spirit. Our tree has been up for a while now, and the lights were up on the house forever ago, but it still hasn't felt like Christmas around here. I think part of it is going back and forth to the hospital daily and not visiting with Grams at her place. Her place is always decorated so well, and we usually go over in mid to late November and add a few more to the walls outside her door, and several window clings inside too. Grams and Sevastian usually take walks around the whole place to see who else has their doors decorated and then they vote on who has the best door. Sevastian always votes for Grams door since he helped decorate it. I'm hoping it will feel a lot more like Christmas after we watch the school play on Tuesday. There really isn't anything cuter than young kids singing and dancing for their parents.

Holiday Greetings

This is another card we did at one of the Stamp-A-Stack events this year. I really like using non traditional colors for Christmas cards. I will always do at least one set of cards in traditional red and green, but then I like to pick a wide variety of colors and see what I can come up with. This one uses Baja Breeze and Basic Gray.

Stamps: Season of Joy, Sincere Salutations, Snow Swirled
Inks: Basic Gray, Whisper White
Papers: Basic Gray, Baja Breeze, Whisper White
Misc: 1" Circle Punch, 1 1/4" Circle Punch, 5/8" Basic Gray Satin Ribbon, Dimensionals

Vintage Snowflake take 2

I told you the other day that I'd post the other version of the snowflake card I did, so here it is. I wanted to see what it would look like with less white and more blue. What do you guys think of it? Which is your favorite and why?


Stamps: Christmas Punch
Inks: Sahara Sand
Papers: Whisper White, Sahara Sand, Bashful Blue
Misc: Snowflake #2 Die, Vintage Wallpaper Embossing Folder, Dazzlin Diamonds Glitter, Sponges, Wide Oval Punch, Antique Brads, Snowflake Punch, Dimensionals

Again I used a slightly different Antique Brad for the middle and for this one I put some Dazzlin' Diamonds glitter in the middle of it too. To get the depth between the two snowflakes I placed a dimensional between them and another under the last one so the whole thing would pop up from the card base.

Vintage Snowflake

I'm not the biggest fan of Vintage Style, but it's growing on me. I was over at my Grams place a while back and saw one of her doilies, and it totally reminded me of a snowflake. I wanted to do something with a very vintage feel to it that looked like a snowflake, so I started with the Vintage Wallpaper Embossing Folder from Stampin' Up! I went to SCS and I searched for it, and found a beautiful card by Lee Conroy that used it and the Snowflake #2 die. I fell in love with it and had to CASE it. I changed very little, only the sentiment and the blue snowflake shape. I did a few of these up for my SAS in October, and used several different Antique Brads. Depending on the brad you pick, it totally changes the mood of the card which is wonderful.





Stamps: Christmas Punch
Inks: Sahara Sand
Papers: Whisper White, Sahara Sand, Bashful Blue
Misc: Snowflake #2 Die, Vintage Wallpaper Embossing Folder, Dazzlin Diamonds Glitter, Sponges, Wide Oval Punch, Antique Brads, Snowflake Punch, Dimensionals

I also did another slightly different version of this card which I'll show you next time. And a quick tip for you, when you care deciding which way to cut your cardstock for a particular card keep in mind what you will be making. This card is quite front and top heavy, so it would have a tendency to fall over if I cut it to 8.5x5.5 and scored it at 4.25, so I cut it to 4.25x11 and scored it at 5.5, that way it folds at the top of the card and is less likely to fall over.