Merry Christmas!

Hello! I purposely left the photo of my last batch of Christmsas cards for today, so I would have something to share.  This is another of the super easy designs that I pulled off at the last minute.  Starting with the glittery card base made it very easy.  I think the hardest thing was waiting for the dazzling details to dry so I could put it all together!

Now that my girls are a little older and share the Santa Magic with us, I'm hoping they will let us sleep in until a suitable hour this morning!  But even if they don't, I know today will be a beautiful day filled with family, lots of coffee, and the creation of many happy memories!

I also wanted to take a minute to share some love with my blog followers and visitors.  I know that there are many throughout the world who do not celebrate Christmas, so I hope that you will appreciate my deepest wish that you and your loved ones find happiness and peace as we approach a new year.  For the Christmas celebrators, I hope this season brings you closer to to the ones you love and that we all enter this holiday season with the knowledge that 'presence' is so much more important than 'presents', and for my fellow Christians, may we keep in mind the true reason for our celebrations and share His love with others throughout the world.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, and Seasons Greetings to all! 

Wish upon a star... with Anything But a Card Challenges

Hello! It is week number three of our 'Celestial' challenge and my turn to share.  It was so hard for me to narrow down the direction I wanted to go with this theme.  With Christmas right around the corner, I could go with a Christmas star creation, or maybe something with angels and the heavens... But in the end I decided on something a little motivating to place in my crafty work area to remind me of where I am and the direction I would like to go.  I created an ATC to add to my growing collection (really need to do something special with them...) and decided to play with some long neglected supplies too.  Once again, I have found my photography skills severely lacking.  This really sparkles with the gold and glitter, but the photo turned out very 'eh'.

I colored the background of a piece of watercolor paper with some black, purple, and blue pastels.  Then I pulled out my stars mask and dug out my bottle of gold Smooch that I've had for ages.  After the ink dried, I stamped my mantra words for the coming year.  The whole thing was treated to a smearing of dazzling details to give it just a little more sparkle.

The three words are a gentle reminder to slow down and not allow myself to become so busy that I don't have time for dreaming, creating, and inspiring.

I will leave you with a quote and the hope that you will find time to play along with us at Anything But a Card.  You still have a week left to share your inspiration with us! Have a wonderful week!

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Do you wanna build a snowman?

Anyone associated with young girls probably has the song from Frozen running through their heads now! Sorry!!  I am so very happy that you stopped by today!  We are counting the days (hours) until Christmas vacation begins and I for one am quite ready for the break even if I'm not finished preparing for the big day!  We have been baking cookies, shopping, and putting together gift bags for some very special people.  There was only one little snafu...  While I had made enough cards for our mailing list, I forgot to add the ones that we hand out with gifts. Doh!  So here I am, the week before Christmas making last minute cards!

As I was trying to decide what design I wanted to go with (obviously, simple was in order), I spied a box of sparkly card blanks that have been on my craft shelf for waaaaaay longer than I care to admit! A little dsp, a cute lil' snowman, some fun glittery snow, and taaadaa!!  

Cold Play is a very retired stamp set, but it is just so fun to make these little snowmen!  I also have to admit to a bit of an addiction to Snowtex.  I'm not sure which of you wonderful blogland people turned me on to this stuff, but it is awesome!!

Well, there are many things on my 'to do' list so I will leave with the promise to return soon and get some blog visits in as well!  Have a wonderful day!

Card Recipe: Paper-glittery card from stash, whisper white, Christmas Cocoa dsp (ret),  Stamp Set-Cold Play (ret), Inks-memento tuxedo black, garden green, pumpkin pie, real red, Accessories-cherry cobbler bakers twine, snowtex

We need a little Christmas-a little Christmas gift idea!

Hello! I am so glad you stopped by today!  As many of you already know, things have been pretty hectic in my household, so I'm especially happy that I have something to share!

Quite a while back, my fellow ABAC teammate, Lynne, was in the spotlight and shared how to create these cute post it note and pen sets.  I loved them so much I made 60 of them for our ladies group at church!!  Of course, I did not have them finished in time to post on her spotlight challenge, and then actually forgot to take a picture until this past weekend (right before I packed them up for our party!).  They were a big hit and are actually pretty simple to make.  You can see Lynne's spotlight here, see a lot of her other marvelous creations (She makes the most wonderful quilts!!), and get to know a little more about her.

In an effort to use up my Christmas papers, I opted to make a Christmas version.  I used the Trust God stamp set for the sentiments, and I found the perfectly sized pens at Wal-Mart in their Christmas section.  I wouldn't be giving them an advertising spot but it was the only place I found pens that would fit!

If you would like to make your own post it sets, you can click on the 'here' link above and Lynne has very clear instructions you can follow.

There is a new challenge on the ABAC blog too! Our theme is Celestial and we would love to see how you interpret this into your artwork!  I would love it if you would link up and play along!

I hope you have a very pleasant week filled with creativity!  I will be back soon with a few more creations!

Giving thanks and making ornaments

Oh, my poor blog has been so neglected lately!  Seems like crafting and blogging has been getting put on the back burner more and more.  However, Christmas will soon be here and this almost always gives me a good excuse reason to be creative.  I have several things in the works and have managed to partially complete several projects, but since none of them are finished yet, I have no photos to share.

I do have some handcrafted ornaments that my girls made for our annual Thanksgiving/family reunion.  DD#2 is always so organized and knew what she wanted to do and had things to make them well in advance.  She would have been finished weeks before Thanksgiving if her mother had been more on the ball!  But I did manage to get her the rest of the materials she would need for her altered cookie cutter ornaments.

a gingerbread man complete with pearl decorations

Santa with his pack of goodies

After she finished, we discussed that a bit of glitter or sparkle would have really dressed these up.  She still has a few she will be making as gifts, so we'll have to see what she does with them!

DD#1 is most definitely her mother's daughter!  She was frantically finishing her ornaments Thanksgiving day!  Luckily, she went with a fairly simple paper ornament.  She is thinking about putting a decorative punch edge on the next ones she creates.

It was hard to get a good photo showing just how

pretty these were...  I love the papers she chose!

I know I am quite late with my Thanksgiving wishes, but shouldn't we be thankful every day?!  This year has been quite chaotic and it seems like we have very little down time, however, there have been so many positives for us that all of the stress has been viewed as a 'strengthening of the irons'.  My job has been quite the adventure this year and I am usually exhausted at the end of the day, yet it has also been so rewarding.  I am neck deep in the realization that I can make small differences that lead to great things for others.

I was also reminded of how amazing my girls are (moms need that sometimes).  We always sponsor a child at Christmas through our church's giving tree.  We do our best to get the things on the wish list while still keeping with our budget.  The girls were so caught up in shopping for a little girl they had never met (and probably never will) that the gifts were over our budgeted amount.  They both agreed that we could spend less on them so the little girl could have everything they picked out for her.  DD#2 even told me that she no longer needed us to get the game she had asked for.  She was going to save her own money and decide if she really needed it.  I love all of the little Christmas miracles that seem to happen every year!

My goal this Christmas is to make gift giving more meaningful.  Of course, this has added a lot more baking and creating to my list, but I'm looking forward to opening my busy schedule to do some fun things with my kids and sharing the love with others.

Well, it is past my bedtime and tomorrow is another busy day.  I hope you are also counting your blessings and preparing to celebrate this season with love in your heart! I also hope that you have a bit more luck than I at finding time to be creative! At least there is always Christmas break!  Thanks so much for stopping by! I am so thankful for all of my blog friends and visitors!