Holiday Thank You Cards

Hey everyone - hope you had a wonderful Christmas if you were celebrating it! I had a great time with my Mom & Dad at their house, along with my brother & his wife. My two sisters wisely stayed in Arizona, rather than brave the below zero temps in Minnesota - can't blame them! I made a lovely ham dinner - did the ham in a crockpot using a Betty Crocker online recipe. Marinade was 1/2 cup each of Dijon Mustard, maple syrup, & brown sugar - yum!

Came home yesterday and got busy making thank you cards for holiday gifts from friends and family. Even though we don't really exchange gifts among our family anymore, I still got a couple of ornaments. I got a lot of snacks from friends which I really appreciate, even if my waistline doesn't!! I made 16 thank you cards, mostly variations of those in the top photo.

Supplies: Paper - Michael's Christmas red cards (3.5x5"); Stampin' Up Lost Lagoon; Hero Arts Daffodil, Pop-tone Black Licorice and Sour Apple, Neenah Classic Crest Solar White, BoBunny Tis the Season & Altitude Collections 6x6
Dies - My Favorite Things Blueprints 20 (retired) & Thank You Circle Frame; Impression Obsessions DIE024-X Snowflakes Die Set & DIE241-Z Snowflakes Cutout; Lawn Fawn Stitched Snowflakes; Poppystamps Spectacular Thank You
Stamps - Hero Arts CL368 Create Your Own Snowman - retired (holly)
Other - Copic Markers, foam tape, Icy Stickles, DCWV gems, Doodlebug enamel dots, Stick-It

I applied Stick-It to a full sheet of green card and die cut the circle frames. I used 3x3 chunks of card and after die cutting, decided the negative looked good enough to use. That way I didn't waste the Stick-It! I was, however, too lazy to find the teeny bits of the letters that had fallen all over the floor....

Today I finished them up, wrote notes inside and mailed them - whew! That was a marathon! Now, if we had a challenge blog like Merry Monday for Christmas thank you cards, maybe I'd have been in better shape - LOL. Thanks for stopping and, speaking of Merry Monday, be sure to stop back on New Year's Day to kick off a new year of  challenges!

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating! No cards to share today and Merry Monday is off this week but we'll be back on January 1st with a new challenge.

People ask me to post my Christmas trees so that's what I'll do today. This year I was busy with a chorus show, playing in a church orchestra, helping my parents, etc. so I only had two this year. First - a 7.5' slim tree in my family room and second - a mini wood frame tree I got at Hallmark this year.

Oops - cut the topper off my slim tree when I took the photo but it's a paper maiche angel a friend gave me years ago. Since I was in a bit of a hurry with my decorating, I put the first topper that came out of the storage closet. Of course I had to put my musical ornaments on the tree - hippo that plays "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" , a jolly Santa in a sombrero playing "Feliz Navidad", Snoopy's dog house that plays a Charlie Brown Christmas song, bell that plays "Carol of the Bells", among others. I think I've mentioned in the past that I go around the tree often during the day, hitting all the play buttons! I'm easy to entertain!!

The wood frame tree (about 14" tall) has mostly 2017 minis but I added a few from earlier years. I have an 18" mini tree that I usually put up but it's a lot of work and I didn't get it done this year. Same with my wreath with several sets of Christmas mice ornaments that I collected from Hallmark years ago. Oh well, we do what we can.... I think the wood tree would look nice with a backing so I'll work on that for next year.

Hope you have a wonderful day like I'll enjoy with family and friends! Thanks for stopping!!

Christmas-y Birthday

Hey everyone - Happy Christmas Eve! Special day for many and especially my friend Jan who has a birthday today. She was the bass in my prior quartet Chord Company (retired in 2010) and we still sing together in the City of Lakes Chorus. Anyway, given a 12/24 birthday, I couldn't resist making her a Christmas-y card using two Art Impressions stamp sets I got at Michael's 70% off!! Practically free so I had to have them, especially after seeing this cute card by Felicita, a sister guest designer at Merry Monday. But a quartet needs 4 people so I masked in an extra lady from the other stamp set. Here's the card:

Supplies: Paper - DCWV A7 card; Neenah Classic Crest Solar White; Doodlebug Christmas (plaid); 

Poptone black and Michael's green

Stamps - Art Impressions Ugly Sweater and Merriest

Dies - label from Penny Black's Gift Card Pocket 51-191

Other - Copic Markers; enamel dots by unknown

Do you get to open a present on Christmas Eve? Hope it's the best gift ever! And stop by tomorrow if you care to see my Christmas trees.... That's it for today. Thanks for stopping!

Merry Monday #270 - Tic Tac Toe!

Hi everyone - time for what would've been my last post as a Merry Monday Guest Designer. This past four months went so quickly and I thank the Merry Monday Team for the opportunity! I enjoyed it sooooo much!! So much that I jumped at the invitation to continue as a Guest Designer with the other fabulous guests! You will see me in 2018 after the Merry Monday team takes a one-week break for Christmas - yay!!

For Challenge #270, the last one of 2017, Kelly has a fun Tic Tac Toe for us to play:

I found it hard to pick which line to choose - all the options are such fun! Ended up doing the upper left to lower right diagonal: Stamping - Ribbon or Twine - Buttons or Brads. I employ stamping quite a bit on my cards so that was a no-brainer. It seems like ages since I've used buttons on a card - they were all the rage a few years ago and I have plenty laying around!! Decided they needed some love so that meant ribbon had to make an appearance. Plenty of that around here too! Here's what I created:

Supplies: Paper - DCWV A2 card; Poptone Sno-cone; Basic Grey 25th & Pine; Paper Studio glitter
Other - Copic Marker BG01, Hero Arts red nail heads & pool gems, various buttons; Icy Stickles;
Memento Tuxedo Black ink; brown Crayola pencil; Michaels Christmas ribbon; foam tape; white gel pen
Stamp - Hero Arts G5804 Shari's Tree No.2 (retired)
Dies - Hero Arts DI337 Nesting Oval Infinity Dies

When I decided on buttons, I went looking for the darling woodblock stamp you see in the photo. The amazing Shari Carroll designed it (and two other trees) for Hero Arts back in 2013 when she still worked there. I bought all three but hadn't used this one yet. Simon Says Stamp still carries Tree No.1, if you want to take a look, but not the other two. I'd seen #2 done with buttons years ago, including this beauty by the talented Rosemary, but hadn't tried it myself. Just had to give it a go for Kelly's challenge!

After stamping the tree and coloring the trunk, I spent a lot of time playing with buttons. I didn't have teeny ones so added gems, including some extras, and then added a few nail heads to tie in with the glittery frame. Since the patterned paper says Season's Greetings, I didn't add a sentiment. I stamped and fussy cut an extra star to pop up with foam tape - added some icy Stickles to it for some shine.

Hope you have a chance to check out all the fabulous cards by the Merry Monday Design Team and I thank them again for the past four months and the extension! Having been a part of the team, I've seen firsthand how hard they work to offer these fun challenges and bring inspiration each week. Thank you, thank you! Wouldn't get my Christmas cards done without Merry Monday - truly!!

Remember - Merry Monday will be off next week for Christmas but look for us on January 1st - you can get a start on next year's stash right on New Year's Day!! Thanks for stopping and happy holidays to you and yours!

Merry Monday #269 - Colors!

Hi all - Yikes - only 2 weeks till Christmas! But there's still time to crank out those last few Christmas cards or get ahead on next year's stash. This week at Merry Monday, Debbie hosts Challenge #269 - a fun color challenge! Just choose three of the six colors shown in the inspiration photo below:

I leaned toward the combo of green, chartreuse & pink and liked how this turned out in real life, even though the photo is a bit wonky due to the glitter paper. Some day I'll have to figure out how to photograph it!

Supplies: Paper - DCWV Ms Sparkle green A2 card, Paper Studio glitter paper; Michael's green and pink
Stamps - Hero Arts CM100 Christmas Messages; retired cling music stamp
Dies - Spellbinders S5-218 Divine Eloquence & S4-433 Holiday (retired)
Other - Hero Arts snowflake gem; Michaels gems; Twisted Citron & Lucky Clover Distress Inks

I decided to show some love to a couple Spellbinders dies, cutting the base layer from green glitter and the label layer from plain chartreuse cardstock stamped with a fun holiday music background (couldn't find the name of it - long retired by Hero Arts). My pink snowflake looked a little plain so I jazzed it up with a Hero Arts snowflake gem, replacing the center clear crystal with a pink one. Stamped the JOY sentiment - done!

Please be sure to check out all the fabulous creations by the Merry Monday Design Team and I hope you get a chance to play along with us this week! Remember, you need crafty time amid all the rushing around to prepare for the holidays!! Thanks for stopping!

Merry Monday #268 - Santa Hat

Hey everyone - there's still time to get a few more Christmas cards made for your stash so join us at Merry Monday! This week, Deanne would like to see a Santa Hat on your card for Challenge #268.

I found a fun digi cut in the Silhouette store - a large sentiment with a Santa hat on it by Erin Doran. Here's my card:

Supplies: Paper - American Crafts Christmas (plaid); Michael's green and red, 

Neenah Classic Crest Solar White

Digi cut - Silhouette Design ID #65244 "Season's Greetings"

Stamp - Hero Arts CL368 Create Your Own Snowman (holly) - retired

Other - 3M foam tape & glitter washi, Copic Markers, Glossy Accents, Stickles

I cut the sentiment and and an offset mat, making them so large I had to make this an A7 card! The plaid paper was only 6x6 so I added a strip of 1/2 inch washi on both sides to frame the sentiment and add some more sparkle. This would be an easy card to mass produce; in fact, I already have a pile of holly stamped, cut and colored - just need to cut some more sentiments, mats and hats.

Be sure to check this week's Merry Monday post for more inspiration from the fabulous Design Team and I hope you get a chance to play along with us!! Thanks for stopping!