I had a very CRAFTY Christmas, how about you?

Cory was so great to me this Christmas. He got me all of the crafty goodies I requested including a Giga scalloped oval punch (wow!!!), a white Staz On pad, Prima Got Flowers, Stardust gellyroll pens, envelopes, and more. I also got an incredible surprise of some beautiful stamp pad holders for my craft room. They are perfect and hold so much stuff that they freed up a lot of my room on my craft table. I couldn't be happier. How lucky am I???

Merry Christmas to all!

I know I've been slacking in posting cards as often as I was in the beginning, but the holidays are taking a toll. Here's a picture of our tree before I wrapped all of the presents. I'll have to take another one with the presents (because that's the best part!)

I hope to get some cards made during my break from work, so we'll see. In the meantime, I hope everyone has a joyous Christmas and a prosperous new year!

Merry!

I got a new set from SU! this week and had to play with it. I got the inspiration for the colors from the SU! website. Inspiration is everywhere!

The Santa hat is embossed with a mixture of red embossing powder and Dazzling Diamonds glitter. I used about 1 T. of red embossing powder and 1/2 T. of glitter. I put it in an empty jar and shook it up really well. Voila! I embossed like normal using Versamark ink. I love the way it turned out. The snowflakes are stamped in White Craft ink and embossed with iridescent ice embossing powder (mixture of clear embossing powder and glitter). 'merry!' at the bottom is stamped in White Craft ink with a small adhesive rhinestone on the exclamation point.

Thanks for looking!

Images Copyright Stampin' Up! 1990-2007

In addition to stamping

Another thing I love to do is make Christmas candy and cookies. This weekend I had help from my dear friend Betsie. We worked for 6 1/2 hours on Saturday and made gingerbread men, pecan tassies, and English toffee. Yum! Plus we painstakingly painted chocolate on mini muffin cups for homemade peanut butter cups. The PB cups are fabulous, but SO labor intensive. Here are a few pictures of our creations.

I'm starting to slip...

I know, I was on a roll posting every day for a while and now I've slipped. My scanner currently isn't working, due to a software upgrade at home by my dear techie hubby. :) So, I have to take pictures of all of my creations. That's all fine and dandy, but I just forget to do it. I will have to do some tonight and post over the next few days. So, sorry for the blip. Don't give up on me yet!

My favorite Christmas card this year

1990-2006 Images Copyright Stampin' Up!(r)

This is my favorite of all the Christmas cards I made this year. I got the idea from a Stampin' Up!(r) regional seminar so I can't claim it as a "Lesley original" but I still love it. I cut out the large and small poinsettias from a sheet of Holiday Thyme designer paper (sorry, this is no longer available - it was only in the Holiday Mini Catalog) and used the Versamarker on the petals. Then, I added Iridescent Ice embossing powder, tapped off the excess, and heated. I layered the small one on the larger one and voila! The rest of the card is Cranberry Crisp card stock, more Holiday Thyme paper, Always Artichoke card stock, gold embossing powder on the Season's Greetings image from SU! Many Merry Messages set, and some gold cord. Oh, and to pop up the poinsettia, I used a giant super sticky pop up glue dot. Those things are SO sticky put perfect for popping something up and securing ribbon at the same time.

I just love anything that sparkles. Glitter and sparkly embossing powder give that extra BLING that makes a card look more expensive. Not to mention that every time I'm done using glitter Cory loves to point out that I have glitter on my face. LOL!

Another Christmas card

1990-2006 Copyright Stampin' Up!

Here's another of my Christmas cards for this year. I used Snow Flurries, Perfect Ending, Bliss Blue card stock and ink, shimmery white card stock, White Craft ink, Holiday Thyme background paper (for the blue behind the white oval), stitched ribbon from the Seaside ribbon collection, pewter hodgepodge hardware, the two sizes of oval punches, 2-way glue, and Dazzling Diamonds glitter (all products Stampin' Up!(r) unless otherwise noted).

I loved this card because it was quick and easy while showing the versatility of the oval hardware and punches. The stitched ribbon is by far my favorite. SU! also sells it in whole rolls of Cranberry Crisp, True Thyme, and Vintage Violet. They just announced that even though it was in the Holiday Mini Catalog, which ended Nov. 30th, the ribbon will be available through June 30, 2007. Woo hoo! That's GREAT news!

Have a great weekend everyone and STAY WARM!