Holiday card making in full swing

Here are a few of the holiday cards that I've made lately.



I absolutely love the Basic Grey Figgy Pudding paper. I've been trying to use bits of it here and there. This card layout was cased from a card that we made at Sharon and Milette's North Texas Shoebox Swap in October. I changed the colors and papers, but kept the cool fold.

Details:
Cardstock - White, Stampin' Up! Soft Sky, Basic Grey Figgy Pudding
Ink - Stampin' Up! Ruby Red
Stamps - Season of Joy (Stampin' Up!)


Another one using Figgy Pudding. This card is way outside my normal color range, but I love the way it turned out.

Details:
Cardstock - White, Stampin' Up! Chocolate Chip and Ruby Red, Basic Grey Figgy Pudding
Ink - Stampin' Up! Basic Black, Versamark, Stampin' Up! markers - Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Always Artichoke, Ruby Red
Stamps - Believe
Accessories - Detail Gold Embossing Powder (SU!), sponge, Stickles, dimensionals
Here's a new stamp set that I couldn't wait to try out. I love this big swirl! This is a set from Gel-a-tins called Spiral Symphony. The card is very simple, but I love the way it turned out.

Details:
Cardstock - Stampin' Up! Shimmery White
Ink - Stampin' Up! Blue Bayou and Purely Pomegranate
Stamps - Spiral Symphony (Gel-a-tins), Playful Christmas (Kitchen Sink Stamps)

Trimming the tree

I thought it would be fun to show you some of the Christmas tree ornaments that I've made.


This ornament was made from a kit by Basic Grey. Although I've made this type of ornament from scratch many times, the kit sure did make it snappy. The circles are die-cut and already have the triangle folds scored for you, so it's just a quick gluing exercise to complete the ornament. I highly recommend Mono Multi glue for the task. It only takes a tiny bit to do the job, and it dries quickly so that you don't have to spend lots of time holding pieces together.


Here's an even easier kit from Basic Grey. This is the new Figgy Pudding ornament kit. This one was totally not obvious to me from the pictures on the various web sites selling them, but these ornaments are made from a single piece of paper! It starts as a square, with the various patterns printed in a four-pointed star arrangement. It's pre-scored and folds up very simply. Just a bit of glue and it's done!



These two ornaments are made using the Marvy giga punches - circle and oval. I used the retired Holiday Thyme paper from Stampin' Up! I use ten punched shapes per ornament. I also strung some of the pearls and beads from the SU! Pretties kit on the cord. A simple double overhand knot in the end of the cord keeps the beads from sliding off. There are several tutorials available for these. I think that Emily Giovanni came up with these, as an adaptation of a pumpkin design by Stephanie. Amy gives some instructions here that are really easy to follow. I use Mono Multi for these ornaments, rather than the tape mentioned in Amy's tutorial.


This is a pinecone ornament. It's made from lots of 1" by 2" pieces of paper, a styrofoam ball, and about 150 straight pins. Some wide organdy ribbon tops it off. These are definitely a bit of work, but the wow factor is there. I highly recommend a thimble if you make these - the pins really kill your fingers after awhile! Check out this link on Amanda Sewell's blog for instructions.

Mind reader in the house

Look up at my beautiful new banner! Isn't it the best? To those who know me, it's no secret that I'm a color freak. If something comes in hundreds of colors, I must have them all. And it's also no secret that my life and home are great examples of barely-contained chaos. On top of that, I'm trying to live a more peaceful life amidst all of this chaos and craftiness. So I presented Melissa Kulesa with the challenge of trying to fit all of that into a blog banner, having never met me in person. In fact, she never met me online until yesterday. What a fantastic job she did expressing who I am in color and in attitude! All of this in less than 24 hours. Wow! I highly recommend her if you're in need of a banner and watermarks for your site.

Peer pressure of the best kind

Okay, okay, I give in! Seems that all of the cool kids have blogs nowadays. So in an effort to become one myself, I'll join you all. Like many other stampers, I was completely knocked off my feet by this hobby. "Come over to my house and make some pretty coasters," said a friend. So I did. Very innocently, I might add. I made the pretty coasters, and loved them. So when asked the next month if I wanted to come over and make Christmas cards, I said yes, still innocent. That was the night - the night that the Stampin' Up! catalog went home with me. Uh oh. No more innocence.

I spent days with my nose in that catalog. List after list, scribbles everywhere, until I had a list that was ONLY $900 long. Eeek. Trouble. So I placed an order for about $150 worth of stuff. Had my own private party, I did. That happened to be during Sell-a-Bration, so I got an extra three free stamp sets. Whee! Now I was getting seriously hooked. So I asked my friend, who had now become my dealer, I mean demonstrator, to let me have a workshop real quick before Sell-a-Bration was over. It was a small party, but enough to get me another few free sets. Wow, it's really easy to get addicted to free stuff!

I very innocently put my new stamping supplies on the ONE shelf behind the closed doors of an old computer desk we have.
















And then when I tried to order even more stuff, my dealer, I mean demonstrator, the lovely Milette, kindly counseled me to become a demonstrator myself. So I did.

Little did I know what that little stash of goodies would become...















This picture was taken during our kitchen remodeling this summer, so hopefully it's not a true depiction of my messy nature. But it's not that far off, either.

I'm in the midst of reorganizing my stamping supplies since the remodeling was completed, all of the kitchen stuff moved out of the craft room. We also sold the pool table that was acting as my craft table, and I've been left to see just how much stuff can fit on and under a pool table! I'm having to get very creative to fit it all back in the room. I'll share some more pictures of the craft room soon. It's starting to come together nicely. My dear hubby just returned from some Black Friday high-tech shopping with the parts to build me a new computer for the craft room. No more running up the stairs to print pictures from splitcoast and back down to the craft room to create. That will be a nice change.

Back soon to share some stamping pictures!