Christmas card time!

Nativity card: gold sponged, purple crystal brad, three bronze eyelets.


Christmas Tree card: this is actually a birthday hat stamp and I added stumps. Plus one has a star eyelet for its topper.



Happy Holidays card: scalloped, punched, dimentional-ed (pop up), ribbons and green crystal brad.



Snowflake card: Silver sponged, blue crystal brad, ribbon.


Lone tree card: gold eyelets, ribbon, green crystal brad.



Snoflake bookmark card: Lucky recievers of this card will get to keep the happy holidays bookmark! its tucked in a pocket made by silver eyelets. This one is also silver sponged, sorry the scans didnt turn out so well.

We decided to put inside a Family update in a short poem and a photo. Below:

In Seattle’s misty shade
Violet her grand entrance made
On an early springtide day,
Now she crawls in merry play.

When Ginny sat with potty under
Her parents cheered in awestruck wonder
Talking day into the night,
Pink and princess her delight.

While rocky rills ‘neath foot were spurned
In the lab with lasers turned
Cells. His test were passed as planned;
Bens degree grows nigh at hand.

And Bri was crafting all about,
Sewing, baking, stamping out
Cards for you with Christmas joy;
Started by a baby boy.

Christmas Cards

As part of my year long campaign to make all of my own cards, I made my own Christmas cards this year.

I had two basic themes: Snowman and Reindeer. All of the cards were made using a variety of cardstocks and the decorative papers were from the DCWV Ultimate Christmas stack from 2007. They have a lot of hand made accents and embellishments, since I wasn't able to get the supplies I wanted out here.

The Reindeer card:
The face was an oval cut from DCWV paper. The nose is a red print paper punched out using a 1" circle punch. I used my eyelet punch to make "button" holes. I used ivory crochet thread for the button. The eyes are just white cardstock punched with a normal hole punch and colored in. The antlers are free hand and cut out of beige paper. The mouth is made from black crochet thread, and the head is accented with a red/blue ribbon. I stamped greetings, and placed them on hand cut tags, which were punched and tied to the antlers with crochet thread (and taped in place on the card). The reindeer head is on a dimensional (made from cardboard).

The Snowman card:
The snowman was hand drawn (I made a template for myself so I wouldn't have to keep drawing it over and over again), as were the hat (made from black cardstock) and "arms" (made from brown decorative papers). I used satin ribbon for the hat accent and scarf. The scarf is held in place by a pewter star brad. The buttons on the snowman are black glass beads, and the body is accented with white glitter. The nose is just a piece of orange cardstock. The rest of the features are drawn on. I stamped greetings, and placed them on hand cut tags, which were punched and secured to the card using a pewter eyelet. The snowman body is on a dimensional (made from cardboard).

Holidays For Heroes

This year I made a few cards for Holidays for Heroes, a program by the Red Cross to deliver mail to American service members.

Special Cards for Special people

I will apologize now, if this offends anyone, but I wanted to share.

This is not a post of a card, but an idea of sharing the talents that all of you have.

A friend forwarded me this address. The idea is to make an extra card or cards this holiday season, and send one on to the address below

A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue,NW
Washington,D.C. 20307-5001

These cards will go to some very deserving service members who have been injured in the line of duty. They don't have to be extra fancy, in fact I imagine that many cards that will be sent will be store bought. But, I thought it might be mighty nice for these men and women to receive some handmade cards, and you all make some awesome cards.

Please don't feel as if I am demanding you participate, I am not. But, if you are going to be doing some holiday cards, please consider sending one. I have the opportunity to live in a military community, and I have the honour of seeing first hand the sacrifice that our military members and their families make on our behalf....this is just a little way to say thank you.


So I looked at the snopes website and it had a link to another snopes website that talked about the Walter Reed address and it actually said that is false. Walter Reed will not accept cards to "recovering soldiers." The website on that is:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/christmas/walterreed.asp
BUT, it is true that this year the Red Cross will be hosting an event like that where we can all send in cards and they will distribute them. The website about that is:
http://www.redcross.org/email/saf/

Christmas Cards

Holiday Cards

I tried making some christmas/holiday cards...I think that I was a little too ambitious on this one.


The lights on this one are actually little stickers.


This snow man one looked better in my head. I think I put too much junk on it....hence why I didn't send it out.

Christmas

I'm always searching the web for card ideas. I found this on a link in the Garden Web site. I think it would look better with some different paper.
Another tape card.

Santa Card

I received a card in the mail today from Ben's cousin that I couldn't resist sharing with everyone. Here is what it looked like when I took it out of the envelope:


The buttons are brads, the red paper is textured, the white is a very thin paper (perhaps tissue paper). And this is what it looked like after I slid the belt off and opened it up:

I thought that this was great how there was room for a little message, a picture and a signature page. I just wanted to share the idea with all of you. I hope you all have a super Christmas!

More Christmas Cards

I finally took some pictures of the Christmas cards I made this year. The first two were made with stamps. The Winter Wonder was white ink and red ink. The paper is two -sided paper so the actual inside of the card is the gold that you see on the front. The second card was a techinique that Bri had just taught me of brushing the paper on the ink pad. The last card I made completely out of paper and knick-knacks (sequins, pom-poms, beads, stars, rick-rack, etc.). I showed the three pictures so you could see the various styles that I did. This card is actually made to fit in a legal size envelope. I had never done a legal size card but I really liked it. I might try it again sometime.

Christmas Cards

I thought we could all use a few holiday ideas. I hope those of you who sent me these cards don't mind me posting them!!!!


From Hillary D. I love how this one shines. It's a very classy design.



From Jamie B. Notice the cute eyelets on the corner of the card, which is turned up.

From me:
From Heather F. My sister is amazing! What else can I say? I love the use of brads, colors, and the green stamped on green.
From Amber H. Your cards are always so adorable! I like the bigger ribbon and the edges of the Merry Christmas. This card is even cuter in person and has a lot of texture.From Lynn H. I like the use of the netting...what is that called? I also like the phrase stamped over and over. This card also opens just above the words "very merry."

From Catherine Y. This is embossed and the ribbon/thread is silver. My camera doesn't do it justice.
From me:

This is from a Stampin' Up workshop. It's my favorite, so don't be surprised if you get one in the mail one year. :) Does anyone own these stamps? And that is Robby's finger. He was helping me. We took lots of pictures of his artwork as well...but I wont' post them here!

Branch Chrsitmas invite

It isn't for lack of ideas that I haven't posted. I have MB's of storage space dedicated to stamping ideas. The problem is, where do I start. So here it is, my most recent card. I was asked to make invitations to our branch Christmas party. I was given the sahara sand paper and the patterned paper and the brads and told to do whatever I wanted. In the end I inked around the Jesus paper in red so it stood out more but I didn't take a picture of that one. I made the card but my mom gave me lots of input of this one.

This is a card my mom designed this weekend when we made our Christmas cards. We took a stamp and changed it, You too can change the purpose of a stamp. So instead of a tree we used a bow or sprig, what is that called? Sorry pregnancy brain. Then we put sliver dots on the "trees" and topped them with a punched out copper colored star. The edge of the white cardstock was rubbed in the dark green ink to give it a border. A gold ribbon added a nice touch.

Here is one more my mom designed (Both stamp sets belong to her). Sliver inked City of David with sparkly brown paper and a silver ribbon. Here's why its different...

It opens horizontally! The ribbon shows inside and Mary and Joseph and walk to the other end of the card. Fun huh? Simple cards compared to some of the others we did which took hours (three days total!). We ended up make 10 different cards 6 times. I'm worn out! Somehow I still made two thanksgiving cards. Too bad I didnt scan one before I sent them.

Christmas Card Ideas

This is one of the first cards I ever made. I love the red and green on white (yes, it is white...not cream). I used the 99-cent ribbon from JoAnn's and it was oh, so simple.

Here is another easy Christmas card (once again, with Bri's stamp). I like the white paper strip behind the stamp that divides the card.