Christmas Ornaments

Every year I have made ornaments for Christmas Eve and day services. The first year I intended them to be for the children but didn't really know how many to make. So, had lots of extras and gave one to each household. Everyone loved them so much that I made the same number the next year. I make about 90 of them. Each child gets one during the children's lesson and then other households get one as they exit.
Usually I know what I'm doing and have them done by November but wound up doing them the weekend before Christmas this year. I found the idea on Pinterest and then modified it a bit acoording to my husband's wishes. I am so glad I have the Big Shot rosette die cut! And that I don't throw anything out. Because once I realized I needed 12 inch paper it was too late to order it in time to make them. But I found some 12 x 12 heavy paper that had come in a scrapbook. It was so much easy to fold than card stock, too.


And those are just the paper craft projects I've been working on the last two weeks. I also made a quillow (small quilt that folds into a pillow) for the newest baby in the family, a scarf for sisters scarf challenge (sister Carol saw a scarf made with yarn and ribbon and challenge us each to make one and bring to Christmas gathering) and did some holiday baking. So, yes, I'd say my energy has improved and I'm feeling better! Thanks be to God and all the prayers being said on my behalf.

The quillow:  unfinished top and the completed item.

 The challenge scarf. It will be fun to see what the other scarves look like.

Sunday School Ornaments

Our Sunday School Superintendent asked me to make ornaments for each of the 44 children. She had a sample ornament that her adult daughter had received from the church years ago. So, I just pulled a stamp (Holy Triptych - retired) that was very similar to the one used by previous stamper and copied the layout. The previous stamper had used a metallic pen to "paint" the edges of the stamped image. I decided to use glimmer paper. The only problem with that is getting the top layer of card stock to stick. I wound up using Tombow Liquid Glue and putting something heavy on top until the glue was mostly dry.
The sentiment on the back of the ornament is from God's Blessings (also retired).

Another Christmas Card

These are the cards I made for the parishoner mailboxes at our churches. I make post card type cards and just place them in the mailbox. Saves on envelopes. This is such a pretty nativity scene from last year's Holiday catalog. I actually ordered it after Christmas last year. Most years I have my cards designed and done before the Holiday catalog is out. While I had this year's designed and some things cut I didn't get them done until December.

Christmas Cards

I promised back in September to show you my Christmas cards for this year but then other things got in the way.

Better late than never... here are the cards I made to mail to family and friends.

   I used the same layout and stamps for each card but I had lots of retired Designer Series Paper I wanted to use. So I varied the color and accessories to match the card. It was a lot of fun to switch it up when making so many cards. We send about 180. That's what happens when you live in a lot of different communities during your life; it's great having so many friends! Each one is a blessing and then we have many family members, too. We are blessed!

November's Paper Pumpkin

The top card is from the November Paper Pumpkin.It is one of two card designs in the package.

I started getting the monthly Stampin' Up! Paper Pumpkin's in April of last year. I didn't think I would enjoy them so much. I only subscribed when I did because of a special the company ordered and it would count as a Sale-A-Bration order. (Sale-A-Bration starts again, soon!) Anyhow, there are always a few extras in the kits of some things. And of course I can't throw them away. There was an extra pre-cut holly leaf and a few red pearls left, too. So, I used some of the scraps from the punched out holly leaves as a stencil and inked a sponge dauber up with Old Olive to make two of the leaves in the bottom card. Then added the left over pre-cut holly leave. I like the way it turned out.

Since I already had lots of Christmas cards made I decided to use the Paper Pumpkin cards as holiday thank you notes. It's been a great incentive to write the notes as gifts are received since they have a Christmas look and sentiment. And we are blessed with lots of Christmas goodies/gifts from the parishoners at this time of year. Such generous people!

A few more thoughts on Paper Pumpkin. There are lots of bloggers who take the supplies and make alternate items with them. So, even on the few months when I haven't had a need for the projects as outlined I have found other things to make and use.  And it is fun to get that little box each month and see what is inside!

Little Box of Candy

I made this little gift box to include in the package I sent off to my daughter, who can't make it to our home for Christmas. (So sad! But that is the way it goes when one has a career and live so far apart.)
I CASED from Linda Heller's stamping school. (Yes, giving myself another birthday gift subscription. She's always got great ideas.)
Anyhow, Linda's box was made to hold gift tags and strands of ribbon for the tags. But she mentioned that Ghirardelli squares and Hershey's nuggest would fit in the same box. A window sheet makes the see-through lid. It was a bit hard to score and fold but used Linda's tip to score from both sides and that made it a bit easier. The snowflake charm and Designer Series paper was from last year's Holiday catalog. These would make great hostess gifts, too.

Coaster calendar

Then I made 8 of these calendars. They weren't all made with the same Designer Series Paper. I tried to choose paper that I thought the recipient would like. I made 3 for friends, 1 for a hostess gift, and 3 for family Christmas gifts and one for myself. I think I'll be making one more as part of a wedding gift for an early January wedding. The bride and groom came for a pre-marriage counseling session with my husband while I was in the midst of making them and oohed and aahed over them.

Originally I made these with chipboard coasters. But now I use the heavy white sheet that comes in the DSP packs for the covers; just cut them to 4 inch squares and cover front and back with DSP. Then I use card stock in colors that coordinate with the DSP for the twelve months. I make my own calendar using MS Word each year.
This year I used the retired Every Little Bit stamp set for each stamped image each month. Snowflake, heart, shamrock, umbrella, flower, sunshine, star, bee, school bus, bat, pie and Christmas stocking are all in that set. There are lots of other little images in the set. It's a set I have used a lot!

It's been a while... but I'm back!

My fall didn't go as I had planned...  but things seem to have gotten better and I've had the energy to spend time in my craft studio. Oh, I was getting some time in there all during my absence, but mostly just trying to keep up with daily needs and didn't have the energy to blog.

But I've been making up for lost time in the last two weeks. I started out by making 2 of these CD case calendars.

Every year I make new pages for my daughter and husband's CD case calendars. The pages fit in a CD case that has been taken apart and put back together in such a way as to make an easel-type holder.

More Little Squares of DSP

I got this idea from Jan Tink's blog. She made a square card, I wanted a regular A2 card, so her's my take on her idea. The squares are 3/4 inch pieces of Designer Series Paper. The little hearts are from the Pictogram Punches stamp set. That's some retired ribbon on the bottom. I'm always challenging myself to use up retired ribbon and DSP because you get so much.
I've been working on Christmas cards this week. I told myself I had to use things I already had in stock for this years cards. I'll be sharing this year's design next week. So, if you are on my Christmas card mailing list this is a spoiler alert! Or who knows, maybe I'll make a few special cards for blog followers.

Pompoms for New Baby

We have a new baby in our parish. And I've been looking at the annual catalog and copying some of the projects in it. This design was actually a little gift bag in the catalog. I stamped the Big News with my Whisper White stamp pad and then filled in the letters with my white gel pen. The trick with the gel pen is not to apply too much pressure. If you do, it just won't work.
I cleaned the stamp and then stamped with Early Espresso on the Baked Brown Sugar base and layered the Big News over the top.
The linen thread and pompom strand were attached using a staple and then tied the linen thread bow. It covers the staple  nicely. And of course, you've got to line the envelope with some matching Designer Series Paper.

Washi Tape

I saw this layout and it screamed, "Washi Tape!"  So, I made both a masculine and feminine card suing the same tap and Designer Series Paper pack.

One Layer Card Fix

I made this one layer card for a challenge group. I really like the way it turned out. The card was based on one by Dawn Olcefske. Her card was more like the second one. I actually like the one layer better but I mis-stamped on one of my cards and so added the layer with the sentiment to cover up my mistake. There's always a way to fix an error.

Last But Not Least

Another CASE from Lee Ann Greff's purse blog. And that is the last of the cards I made to go inside the purse.

Some Paper Piercing

This card was also a CASE from Lee Ann Greff. I decided to use my paper piercing tools to add some dimension to the white rectangles. Sometimes the design on the paper is so big it just screams, "Use me as background!" And it looks so pretty as envelope liner.

DSP Makes it So Simple

Here I just let the Designer Series Paper do all the work. Just added a flower and green expression stripe. So pretty, so easy!

Layers of Thanks

Another CASE from Lee Ann Greff. All the Designer Series Paper for these cards and envelope liners came from the same pack. Those packs go a long way!

Flower Power

I had some little pieces of DSP laying on my desk top and noticed Lee Ann Greff also had a card on her purse post that used either washi tape or thin stips of paper.

Floral Thank You

This layout is one of the designs Lee Ann Greff had in her post of the purse from Tuesday's blog. It's just clean and simple. I did wind up adding some candy dots; those little flowers needed something.

One Inch Squares

Here's a card design CASE'd from Dawn Olchefske. If you have a one inch punch it is a snap to make this card. Layer your one inch pieces of DSP on 3-1/4" square of card stock and then that was layered on 3-1/2 layer. Then just add whatever sentiment, embellishements, etc.

Purse Cards

Over the next few days I'll show you the cards I put in the little purse from yesterday's block. This big expression comes from Another Thank You stamp set. It is so big I often struggle with how to use it. But I love the script and like the way this card turned out. If I was making it for myself I probably would have added some candy dots around the thank you but my mother-in-law prefers "no bumps" on her cards.

A Little Purse of Cards

 I made this cute little purse to hold 8 thank you notes I made for my mother-in-law. She's been laid up with a broken leg. Since we don't live close to each other I was finally getting the chance to visit her and wanted to take a little something. I watched LeeAnn Greff's how to video. So, easy, seriously!
I knew my mother-in-law would be in need of the thank you cards because so many people have been visiting and bringing meals and treats.

This is looking down into the purse. It easily holds the 8 cards and envelopes (which i lined with DSP). In fact you could probably get twice as many in the purse if you wanted. You just need DSP and 8.5X11 cardstock. paper trimmer with scoring blade and strong adhesive to put this together.

 Have you seen these cute little self-closing boxes. I used Dawn Griffiths video tutorial to make this one. But it was too small for the little gifts I had. So, I enlarged the cards stock base and moved the score lines accordingly. Well, I thought I had. But I forgot the bottom of the box would be a larger square. So, for the one below I had to make a false bottom to cover the gap.

 This is the next one I made with all the correct score lines. And the picture below gives you an idea of the size differences.

Stepping It Up!

Here are three cards that use the same layout. I've just taken each one a step further.
I started with the top card, nice and simple.
On the second card I added a layer of embossed card stock to give it a little more depth.
The third card I added a larger embossed piece of card stock and added some black gems to the flower centers.
Which is your favorite?
And that uses up that pack of Designer Series Paper. Now I can get the new design in this year's Holiday catalog. Ordering for it starts on September 1.

Another Lovely Layout

Here's another layout I've been playing with. I used my Circle framelits to cut the Designer Series Paper. The new Holiday catalog has a fun new acorn punch and coordinating stamp set. Since I don't have that (yet). I used my retired Autumn Accents die and Big Shot to cut out these acorns. Then i used my stylus and added some dimension to them freehand (see the bottom photo).

Lovely Layout

This is a lovely layout and great for using up some Designer Series Paper scraps. As a Stampin' Up! demonstrator I get to see previews of the catalogs before the sales begin. The new holiday catalog has some beautiful DSP in it! I especially like the new one for fall but had a little bit left from last year's fall pattern. So, I told myself I can't order the new until the old is gone.
So, I grabbed my 1-inch square punch and used up quite a bit making these two cards. The little squares are layered on 3-1/4" cardstack squre and that is layered on a 3-1/2" square.
Layout CASE: Dawn Olchefske

Here's another card using the little "plant" monster. I made the top card first using white card stock and then sponging with Basic Grey in hopes the spider web would pop more. But I wasn't pleased with it. So, the next time I just used teh white as it was. Then I decided to try it with a black embossed spider web. Which do you like best? You'll notice the DSP in the background is different sizes. That's because I made a mistake cutting for the bottom two cards. I wanted the orientation to be in a certain direction because I thought it sort of looked like eyes. Darn, if I didn't cut it the wrong way! Even though I had another sheet of that design I decided to use it as cut. You will also notice the bottom cup is slanted a bit. I wish I had done this on all of them. This was a "happy accident". I stamped the boo and it was crooked. So, I decided to place the cup so that BOO was straight on the card. I like this look better. Too bad, my happy accident happened as I was putting together the last card. Oh well!

Little Green Monster

This is a CASE from Rachel Tessman. I can think of some people who are going to love getting this card and a few who may not be so happy because they'll have the little tune running through their mind all day long. I know it's been running through mine ever since I made it. I used the Rotary Alphabet stamp for the lettering on the cups. It takes some practice. I've found I need to stand to get a straight no smudges image. When I'm sitting I have a tendency to rock the rotary stamp. And I use a piece of scrap plain paper to place under the portion of the rotary stamp that is blank.
The "happy birthday" comes from the retired, You're My Type stamp set. I wanted something with a similar font.

Paper Pumpkin July 2015 Alternate Card

I usually wait a bit before using my Paper Pumpkin kit because I want to see what others are creating. I search for Paper Pumpkin with that month and get so many ideas. This month I found a great resource in Stamp Your Art Out by Rachel Tessman. Very creative! The layout for this card came from her post.