More Christmas Cards!

This card has kind of a modern look and lots of sparkle.  The tree is from CTMH's Tannenbaum stamp set, and the sentiment is from the Snow Flurries set.  The CS colors are CTMH's Pear, Sky, and Dutch Blue.

Kind of a different color combo for Christmas, this card almost looks masculine.  The snowflakes are all punches, and there's a little pearl embellishment in each snowflake's center.  The sentiment is from the Tannenbaum stamp set.

Believe Santa Card

The cute papers used here are from CTMH's Believe set, and the Santa is from the Believe Workshop on the Go exclusive stamp set.  I colored the Santa with copics outlined him in a very light grey to give him a little depth.  The Santa inset is raised with dimensional adhesive under the green mat.  The only embellishments are  the button and baker's twine.

Special Olympics Scarf

I made this scarf to donate to Special Olympics Iowa.  My crochet skills are limited, but I can make easy projects including scarves.  The Special Olympics organizations around the country accept scarves and gift them to the Special Olympics participants.  Red Heart yarn is a sponsor.  To find out more specifics about the colors to use and where to donate a scarf for your state, click HERE

Bundled Buddies Christmas Card

There is a lot of "bling" on this card that doesn't show up well in the picture.  The animals are all from the CTMH stamp set Bundled Buddies, and each of their scarves were colored with Spica glitter pens.  The trees (also from the Bundled Buddies set as is the sentiment) and the snow are highlighted with glitter gel.  The background paper is from the CTMH paper set Elemental.

Some Random Cards

I made some random birthday, thank you, baby, and Christmas cards tonight.  here are a few of them.  They were all made with with miscellaneous supplies, and many were from "scrap candy" I had stamped, colored, and cut out that was sitting in a pile all ready to fasten to a card.

Cardstock Christmas Tags

Three simple Christmas tags that came together very quickly.  All are composed of cs only, no B&T.  The tree and snowman have baker's twine, and the snowman has a couple black CTMH opaques for eyes.

Orange Slice Pumpkins

Another Pinterest find, I made these orange slice pumpkins in just a few minutes.

Take about nine orange slices and wrap them in plastic wrap.  Twist the wrap closed at the top and secure with floral tape.  Add a paper leaf, and it's done.

I bought the orange slices at Walgreens for 99 cents per bag and made two pumpkins from each bag.

Easy Paper Christmas Ornaments

These cute ornaments are super easy.  Start by cutting or punching out 12 circles.  I used a scalloped circle punch because it is the biggest circular punch I own.  Two-sided B&T paper works best.  I used a retired Christmas paper from the Close to My Heart "Jingle" collection. 

Next, ink all the edges, front and back.  I used CTMH's Tulip ink.

Fold all the pieces in half.  My scallops didn't always match up perfectly, and it doesn't really matter.  I tried to keep the stripe somewhat straight.

After you have this little pile of cute taco shells, pile them all up in one stack.  Fold them so like sides are together.  In my case the tone-on-tone red sides faced each other and the brighter stripes faced each other.

Next, flatten out the stack and put a couple staples right in the crease to hold the circles together. 

On the right edge of any circle in your stack, adhere a glue dot about one third of the way from the bottom.  Fold over the flap on the left. 

On the flap you just turned, adhere a glue dot about one third of the way from the top of the circle, again on the right edge.  Fold over the flap again from the left.

  Keep doing this, alternating the glue dot from the bottom third to the top third, all through the stack of circles until you come around to the first flaps you glued.

This is what you'll have:

All that's left to do is embellish.  I used a CTMH Just Bloom, some ribbon, and a brad on this ornament, all held to the top of the globe with a large glue dot.  These are super simple!

I found this pattern on Pinterest.  It was pinned from the site http://www.homemade-gifts-made-easy.com/.  Pintrest is my latest online obsession.  There are endless crafting, cooking, and decorating ideas. If you're not a member yet, SIGN UP. If you want me to invite you, email me, and I'll send you the link. If you are a member, do me a favor and pin some of my blog posts!

Crochet "Paper Chain" Scarf

This scarf looks like the paper chains I made as a kid at Christmastime.  I saw a scarf like this hanging in Michael's and knew even I, a novice at crochet, could make it.

I used cheap yarn in white and bright red.  Each ring is 40 stitches around and consists of one row of chains and then four rows of double crochet.  Easy!  You just have to remember to join your chain into the last chain before starting on the first row of double crochet.
 

You're Sweet Thank You Card with Elemental

This card came together in minutes.  The papers are from CTMH's Elemental papers, and the apples and sentiment are from the stamp set "So Sweet."  The apples were inked with cranberry ink, then "kissed" with a newsprint stamp to make them a little more old fashioned looking.

The apples are raised with dimensional adhesive.  Everything is distressed with cocoa ink.

Nick's Smiling Face

Nick was in an exceptionally smiley mood one day when he got home from school, so I snapped several pictures of him smiling--not always an easy task.  His blue and brown shirt coordinated well with CTMH's new Wonderland paper pack, and this is the layout I created.  The layout itself is a combination from a bunch of layouts I saw while looking through examples.

While trying to find just the right title for the layout, I came across James Taylor's song "Your Smiling Face," which was perfect.  I printed the lyrics and cut them out with a crazy font--"Christy" I think.

The tag is a punch, and I added the mini binder clip.  "Nick" is made with CTMH's stamp set Typeface, and the flourishes are second generation stamped from the Pair-a-Phrase set.  The date stamp is a retired set called Today's Date.  The arrow embellishment points to the 26th, the actual day I took the picture.

"2011" and "love" are from a set of CTMH rub-ons.  I added random CTMH mocha opaques.

There is a partial circle of mocha opaques on the first page and another one bridging the two pages.  I made these by using round dimensional elements as a guide. (see photo above)

Blog Award

Yesterday, Lisa at her blog, Lisa's Loft of Joy, gave me a "Liebster Blog" award:

First and foremost, THANK YOU, Lisa!  Please visit her blog  HERE

  Admittedly, I usually ignore blog awards, and (get ready this is going to offend many of you) find them too often resembling a chain letter, because to post that you received the award, you are supposed to bestow the award on someone else, therefore pressuring them into passing the award on to someone else, etc. etc.

Those of you who know me, probably aren't surprised at my attitude:  When I receive those emails where you are supposed to forward it on to 5, 10, or 20 people for good luck, wealth, or to avoid death, I've been known to send it right back to the friend who sent it to me 20 times to annoy them.  Rude?  Probably, but it stops the forwards.  :)

Back to the Liebster Blog Award:  I decided to accept this award (FYI:  I'm told by Lisa that Liebster means "beloved" or "favorite" in German).  Because it's directed at "smaller" blogs, those with 200 or less followers, and it helps them get more hits and then potentially more followers, it seems like not only a good deal for me, but for five more small blogs, so here it goes:

Here are the Liebster Blog Award Rules (not in my words):

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.

2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.

4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.

5. And most of all - have fun!

Now, my own rule:  If any of the people I pass the award on to have any reservations about participating, PLEASE don't worry about it.  Just know that I do enjoy your blog. 

My picks (in no particular order):

Erica's blog: From the Heart

Janelle's blog: Jak's Scraps

Leslie's blog: Panda Scrapper

Beth's blog: Paper by the Lake

Janelle's blog: Stamp and the City

Although the Lieber rules state the receipients must have less than 200 followers, I limited mine to less than 100 followers, so please help out these blogs and give them a look!