FINAL CHRISTMAS CARD DESIGNS

I got inspired by a beginner Cricut class I took at the local scrapbook store to try my hand at using my Cricut to make the final batch of Christmas cards.  It was fun and it was easy to use.  The first card I made was actually an adaptation of a card shown in the manual that came with the Cricut cartridge Winter Woodlands.  I changed the size of the card and had to make a number of construction changes due to the card size change. It is the card on the left with the reindeer.  It was fun to do but too time consuming with all the detail gluing of the Seasons Greetings sentiment. The word "greetings" is in three pieces.  I tried using my Xyron but it left all sorts of little adhesive pieces in the narrow spaces.  So I only made a few of these and went on to try another design that would be simpler to produce.   The second card had more steps, but was actually easier. The only detailed gluing was the pine branch and it was all one piece.  I got to play with lots of toys making this card.  The Cricut cartridge used for it was Winter Frolic.  I used it for the ornament and the branch.  Then I also got to use my Cuttlebug and an embossing folder on the background of the card.  I use a folder that was made up of all different snowflakes.  I also used a Nestabilities label die to cut out the Merry Christmas sentiment. Lots of fun and the card went together quickly.  Oh...I also got to do some easy embossing. The ornament was to be cut in two pieces if you wanted a hanger of a different color than the ornament itself. I didn't want to do that becasue it meant more little detail gluing of the hanger cut over top of the ornament.  Instead I pressed the hanger portion of the ornament onto my silver ink pad and then embossed that with silver embossing powder.  They really look like metal hangers this way and it was very easy to do. 

Now I declare myself finished making Christmas cards.  I still have some writing and mailing to do but at least they are all made! 

QUICK AND EASY CHRISTMAS CARDS

As promised yesterday here is a photo of the quick and easy Christmas cards I made.  I used my Cuttlebug and my new Tim Holtz Christmas embossing folder.  The card stock I used was core'dinations.  It is a cardstock that is one color on the outside and a different color on the inside, or in the core.  By using this cardstock I could add interest to a very simple card through lightly sanding the embossing which reveals the lighter core color.
Two of the cards shown here have embroidered embellishments (the snowman and a snowflake) that I salvaged from a Christmas basket liner that was being thrown away.   A third card has a dove and olive branch punched out of card stock and then covered in Dazzel Versamark ink.  I used Frost.  The final card is simple the embossed words "Seasons Greetings" colored with a glittery Gelly Roll pen.
I made a bout a dozen of these simple cards and then boredom set in. So off to design some different quick and easy cards.  This time using my Cricut and some of the Christmas themed cartridges I have.  Those are to be shown in a later post so stay tuned.  Then I think I  am done with this years Christmas card making and it will be on to other things crafty.

ONE STAMP THREE CARDS!

It is less than three weeks to Christmas and I am deep into making, signing, and mailing out Christmas cards. I am having more fun doing it this year than I have had in a very long time.  Last year I mailed out very few.  This year...well...suffice it to say I think I am doing my part to keep the US Postal Service out of bankruptcy! 

I had some cards left that I made in past years, and I had the few Christmas cards I made at the stamp camp several weeks ago.  I've found a scrapbooking shop here in The Villages that carries some rubber stamps its called She Scrapbooks.  I found a really cute snowman stamp when I was in there the other day and I used it to make a lot of my Christmas cards.  Being that I get easily bored I can not bring myself to make all my cards the same.  So here are three different designs I came up with using the one stamp. 

I also found a package that had 4 different Christmas embossing folders from Tim Holtz.  I used two of them on these cards.  One is the full card background on the red card with the snowman in the lacy oval die cutout which was made with a Nestability die. The other is a strip embossing of snowflakes which I than colored over using a GellyRoll glitter pen.

On all three of the cards I added a  hat (the snowman stamp is a bare headed snowman) that I had in another Christmas stamp set.  The hats were colored and cut out and then placed on the snowman's head with a Stampin' Up Dimensional.

These were all fun cards to make and I did four of each style, but they were way too time consuming to make as many as I needed.  There fore I needed a much simpler design.  Watch for it tomorrow. 

CARDS, CARDS AND MORE CARDS

A few weeks ago I attended a Stamp Camp here in The Villages. I've helped put on Stamp Camps before, when I was a Stampin' Up demonstrator, but this was the first I took part in as a participant.  What fun!  I made 15 cards in 3 hours!  Now that's what I call some serious stamping and card making.  There were actually 4 hours allowed for the stamp camp, but I was off schedule and got there an hour late.  No problem I got everything done. 

Most of the cards were designed to be either Birthday, Thanksgiving or Christmas cards.  I couldn't do much to adapt the Christmas cards to become the Thank You cards I needed to send out, but was able to adapt all the Thanksgiving and all but one of the Birthday cards to be what I needed. So it was a very productive day for me and time well spent.  Of course it was great fun!

The Thank You cards have all been sent out.  I hope those who received them enjoyed getting them as much as I enjoyed making them.  As for the Christmas cards I have a start on the cards I need to send out in a few weeks.  I can hardly believe it is time to send out Christmas cards. 

I very much enjoy the process of coming up with a card design, but when a large number of cards are needed in a short period of time Stamp Camps are a wonderful thing.  I look forward to attending more of them.

My next stamping event will be this Friday.  It is not a Stamp Camp, but just a time for me to take a project I want to work on and stamp and make cards with others who share in this passion.  I am hoping to spend time making more cards for Christmas at this.  They will be my own design and probably mass produced.  I have a lot of mailing to do this Christmas season!

MORE FROM THE CRAFT ROOM and FIRST PROJECTS

 I finished up in the craft room today.  I needed to make a card today for a friend and so that gave me the impetus to finish it up.

The main thing I needed to work on was the ironing board which had become a gathering place for items that still needed a home.  I also had a box in the living room that needed to have a home found for its contents.  Homes were found for all and here now is a view of my sewing area.  I can't wait to do some sewing in it. I will do so before the weeks end!  Even if it is only one seam. I am so loving my new craft room.

Like I said in the beginning of this post I needed to make a card today.  One of the emails I got today told me of the death of  the husband of a friend of mine in Maryland.  I didn't have any sympathy card in my stock inventory so a card making session was in order.  I have a favorite set that I go to when I need sympathy cards.  It is Close as a Memory from Stampin' Up.  I have other stamps I use but this is my go to set when I just want to card to come.  I love it!  It probably sound a bit strange, but I think sympathy cards are about my favorite cards to make.  While making them I pray for and think a lot of the person or family I am making them for.  I find making sympathy cards more than just a creative endeavor.  It is a very personal and meaningful one.  I also love doing the flower image on watercolor paper using my Stampin' Write markers to color the stamp, then I spritz it with water using my mini mister.

I didn't want the only card I made today to be a sympathy card so I also made a Thank You card.  I have many Thank Yous to send out.  So many people were so generous with their support before I left Maryland and I do want to thank them all.  I made the first of my Thank You cards today as well.  It's fall and so I pulled out one of my favorite fall sets  Serene Sunflowers also from Stampin' Up. This card was going to a very special friend and I love the sentiment that comes with the set.  It reads: "True friends grow separately without growing apart".  I stamped this on the inside of the card. 

I used several techniques in  the making of this card.  One was thumping which I used on the center of the sunflower.  I inked up the center stamp with Close to Cocoa and then thumped the stamp with Chocolate Chip. I also added some bronze stickles to the center to give it a bit of dazzle and sparkle. The sunflower itself I inked in Mores Mustard and then using my Stampin' Write markers colored over the bases of the leaves with Bravo Burgundy and Pumpkin Pie.  I think this gave some depth to the flower.  In order to put on the stem and leave I used the masking technique. 

I was so happy to be back in the stamping and card making mode.  It's been a very long time.  I look forward to doing more soon. After all I need lots of more Thank You cards. 

NEW VIEWS OF CRAFTROOM

 That mess from the previous post is pretty much put together now.  I like the way it turned out and look forward to spending time in the room creating.  One frustration I have is that I've unpacked everything except for China cabinet boxe3s and I am not finding any of my 12x12 card stock and even worse I haven't found any of my nestabilities!  I can't imaging that they were left back in MD but sure don't have a clue where they are.  The card stock I can deal with, but I want my nesties!!!!!

Here are two views of the craft room.  The first was taken while standing in front of the ironing board and looking into the closet. You can see the new home of my Horizon 7700.  I can sew and then turn around and iron without too many steps.  The rotary cutting will be a different matter.  I think I will need to use the top of my stamp table for that.   I love the white storage cubes.  I think they look really nice and they really do help with keeping things organized.  I am going to label the drawers so I don;t have to keep pulling them open to see what's in them.  Label makers are wonderful things.

The second picture is of the stamping area.  Yes I know I have way too much stuff, but I plan to use it all one time or another.

First thing up is making lots of Thank You note to send to my wonderful friends up in Maryland who gave me such encouragement and a wonderful send off. 

I purposely didn't take a picture looking back at the ironing board.  It still has a pile of things on it that I know where they are going but just ran out of steam.  Tomorrow I will finish that off and take a picture of that corner of the room.  One thing I still need for this room is a waste basket.  That blue basket is a paper recycling container.

A WORK IN PROGRESS

I am into my new home in FL.  At the moment I am still working on the unpacking.  I am being challenged by having to fit what was in three rooms into one.  Well one and a small walking closet.  Fortunately for me the master bedroom has two closets so the smaller one has become a craft closet for sewing supplies, fabric and other non-paper craft items.This picture shows the side of the room that will be used for me quilting and sewing.  Not much space but I think it will work.  As I said I have to store the fabric else where.  So its in the bedroom closet. We'll see how it works but I really don't have any choice.  There's just no space in this room for it.

 This will be my stamping and scrapbooking part of the room I've had to go up and will also try and make some things accessible under the tables.  All my paper crafting items and supplies are stored in this room.  That's why there is not room for fabric. 

When I get things all in place I will take some more pictures and then I can begin creating.  It's been so long since I have had the time or desire to sew or stamp.  I can't wait to get back to it.

I'LL BE BACK

I haven't been around because much is changing in my life.  In a little over two weeks I am making a major move and heading to Florida to begin a new life.  As part of that new life I plan to refocus on my creativity.  I have had nothing going on in that area of my life for many months now and I am looking forward to re-finding that part of me.  See you in October.  It may be closer to the end of the month since I will have to find things.  Hopefully that will be more fun than the packing of them has been. I'm guessing it may be like Christmas; opening all those boxes and rediscovering my toys and tools.

IT'S A POLKA DOTS AND PAISLEY KIND OF DAY!

Today it's a Polka Dots and Paisley kind of day. This is another older Stampin' Up stamp set.  I say older because I stopped being a SU demonstrator in 2009  and so I know I got the set before that.  I haven't even seen a catalog since then so I have no idea whether it is a retired set or not.  Oh well.

I did not find this an easy set to work with.  I had to spend a lot of time in the Split Coast Stampers gallery of cards for this set to get some inspiration.  I did manage to  come up with 6 designs.  Today /i have here two cards where I used the flower stamp three times on each.  On this first one I used same color flowers.  Once again I used my markers to color the stamps, huffed on them and then stamped.  Unlike the past two days this time I didn't use watercolor paper but just white card stock.  I wish I could tell you what kind of card stock it is but I can't.  I have many different kinds and over time I have lost track of what is what.  The patterned paper here is another of my scraps that was found in the brimming scrap folder. The sentiment is not a SU stamp but is from a large set of stamps I got at Costco years ago.  I'm not sure of the company, but know it is an acrylic stamp. 


For the second card here I colored each flower differently.  I forgot to say that I used my stamp-a-ma-jig for the first card as well as this one to get the placement of the flowers where I wanted them.  I just love that little gizmo.  Once again I use designer paper scraps and also my scallop punch which is from SU and I love it!  The sentiment on this second card is part of the Polka Dot and Paisley set. The ovals were cut using my Cuttlebug and spellbinders oval sets. 

So that is today's post. I am so happy that I got to do some stamping last weekend.  I really need to make time to do more.  I am a much more content person when I have put rubber and ink to paper withing 24 hours or so........

MORE EASY ELEGANCE

The previous two cards had all three of the Easy Elegance flowers on them.  For this card I only used one of the floral stems.  I've been going though a major clean out of my home and part of that was sorting through organizing and, yes, even reducing my scrap  stash.  I have a file folder full to brimming with designer paper scraps. While working with this stamp set I remembered a scrap I had found of a paper that had a floral motif very similar to this stamp.  Digging through the scraps again I found it and this is the resulting card.  Once again the image was colored with my water color markers, spritzed with water and stamped onto water color paper.  I pulled out another favorite tool to distress the edges of the water color paper to give a torn appearance to the rectangular piece,  I think the jagged edges work well with the somewhat irregular appearance of the watercolor stamped image,

All in all I like the look of this card. 

Tomorrow I'm move on to my use of the Polka Dot and Paisley set.  It was a very challenging set to use.  I needed to get some major inspiration and help from the Split Coast Stamper gallery for this set.

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! I STAMPED TODAY!

It's been so very long, but today I actually allowed myself to take a break from all that needs to be done and made some cards.  I stamped pretty much all day, rediscovering how much I love creating cards.  I also rediscovered that I am not a neat stampers.  Hard to believe one person can create such a mess is such a short time.  BUT it was a lovely mess.

I haven't purchased any new stamps in over a year so I pulled out two of my old sets and challenged myself to use only those two sets for my days worth of creativity.  The two sets I  used were Easy Elegance and Polka Dots and Paisley. Both are Stampin' Up sets from when I was a demonstrator. 


I love using the Easy Elegance set with water color paper.  I colored the stamps with my water color markers and then spritzed them with water just before stamping onto the watercolor paper.  This stamp set has three lovely long stemmed flowers and I used them in both a portrait and a landscape arrangement with the Top Note diecuts using my cuttlebug.  I love my bug! 

If you are not familiar with the Top Note die that is from Stampin' Up it has a perforation that gives you a cutting line to follow if you want to create two layers.  I cut down the water color die cut so that it would layer over the top of the color. For both of these I stamped the flowers after cutting the shape so I could place them where I wanted them. 

More designs later.  I can't use them all on this one post becasue who knows when I have another day to stamp again for a while.......still so much that needs to be done around the house.  Right now that is number one priority

UFO'S AND "CLUTTER"???

First, do you all know what a UFO is?  No, I don't mean a vehicle with aliens.  In the quilting world and I assume general crafting world UFO's are UnFinished Objects. I am not doing any crafting these days.  Instead I am in the midst of sorting though a house full if items and determining what to keep and what to get rid of.  I need to fo this because I will be downsizing my living space in the not to distant future.  So instead of creating I am discovering projects begun and then for a variety of reasons put aside ans forgotten.  It is not an easy thing to discover how side tracked I get.  Some things I choose to keep in hopes that one day my life will return to quilting and stamping.  Other things will be tossed or maybe I will be able to find a new home for.  There are quilters out there that like to finish stated projects.  I hate to toss things, but I know this will have to happen.UFO's can become clutter.  This is what I don't want to move.  So for the moment there will be no reports on projects.  I eagerly anticipate when I will be able to do so again.  Any one want some fabric or wooden blocks????  What was I going to do with all those blocks from stamps I didn't mount anyway? 

YES I'M STILL ALIVE!

Life has kept me occupied with issues other than crafting at the moment.  I do a little, but it's just not a priority at the moment.  Maybe if I could figure out how to remake it a priority life would be better.  But I did take time out to go on a wonderful trip related to quilting.  I wish the week didn't have to end, but alas it did and I'm now back to what seems to once again be mere emotional survival.  This too will end in time and I will move on to another chapter in my life.  I did want to share with you a short peak at my wonderful week.  For those who might read both my blogs please pardon the duplication.