Day 1- Flurry of a Season

It seemed so appropriate to use this Flurry of a Season card as my post for the day before Christmas because at this time we are all in a flurry of assorted preparations for the big day. It may be baking goodies, grocery shopping for holiday meals, rushing to the mall for that one last gift you forgot to purchase or hurrying to another holiday event. It becomes a flurry of rushing here and there and not always getting to relax and enjoy the holidays. I hope that your Christmas Eve. is spent with family & friends and a little respite from the seasonal flurries!

Day 4 - Pocket Full of Sweets

These treat pockets are fun and easy to make using patterned papers, some punches, ribbon and cardstock trimmed to 4-1/4" x 11" and scored at 5-1/2" and 9-1/2". You can make two of these from a single sheet of letter sized cardstock! For the side two pockets, I used the cheery, brightly colored patterned paper from Cosmo Circket’s Get Happy Collection, which match great with the brightly colored stick candy purchased at Cracker Barrel. I used a large circle punch to spotlight the embossed snowflake from Stampin’ Up’s Snow Swirled set and rimmed the edges using a stampin’ sponge and ink. On the middle snowflake, I embossed using clear embossing powder on white cardstock and swiped a baby wipe containing drops of ballet blue ink over top of the flake for a streaked effect. Again, I edged the circle with ink to make it pop. For the middle pocket, I used the blue patterned paper from the Frosty Days collection found in the Stampin’ Up Holiday mini catalog. These can also be filled with gift cards and a candy.

Assembly of these is a piece of cake. First fold pocket in half, then bend down the 1-1/2" flap and use corner rounder on ends. On the white cardstock, I rimmed the edges with ink and a sponge to add a little something extra. Next, flip the bottom panel down, run one strip down each side of the pocket using Glue Arts’ Permanent Adhesive and a Glue Glider Pro. Fold up to secure the sides, place one small strip of adhesive under the flap to secure and punch two 1/8" side-by-side holes through the right and left sides of the pocket. These will be used to attach the decorative side bows. Cut taffeta or satin ribbon for the large bows and thread points through the holes so the two points are front facing. NOTE: Before you tie the bow, place small piece of contrasting ribbon in the center. Make two bunny ear loops from the large ribbon and tie bow. Knot the contrasting ribbon over top of this and trim the ends of all ribbons. Decorate the pockets with stamping, stickers, whatever you like and have fun filling! These are perfect last minute appreciation gifts for teachers, the post man, neighbors, as classroom treats or for party favors. They also are a fun way to present a gift card, gift certificate or check. Ho, Ho, Ho!

Day 9 - 80 Degrees, but posting about Snowflakes!

O.K., so this doesn’t seem very fitting. It is about 80 degrees in Florida today and I choose to post these snowflake cards. The only snowflakes I am viewing here are decorative ornaments hung from my window panes. Again, I used my favorite holiday set, Snow Swirled, and the gorgeous snowflakes from this set. I stuck with a winter color scheme of Whisper White, Baja Breeze and silver. I just love the wide grosgrain ribbon in Baja Breeze. I used it to create this faux stylized bow. To make the embossed snowflakes spotlighted, simply cut your strip of white cardstock, stamp the large flake in baja breeze ink, use a circle punch to create the windows, attach to the card front, then emboss the flakes inside the openings. Glue Arts’ ribbon adhesive works great for attaching the ribbon. I also used some micro adhesive squares from their product line to attach the loop around the ribbons. For the top card, I also used the scallop edge punch from Stampin’ Up!®. See my new tip of the month posting (in the side bar) for evenly spacing the circle openings!

Day 11 - Same Card, New Twist!

If you visit my blog often, you then already know how I like to use the same layout and mix it up a bit by changing paper, ink colors or embellishments. Why reinvent the wheel when you can get on a good roll with one good idea, right? Today’s card, Amethyst Glitz, is a twist on yesterday’s Kiwi and Red Christmas card idea, only I made the wheeled pattern a bit stronger, used chalk pastels, sponge daubers and versamark ink to colorize the tree and snowflake. I cheated on ribbon useage by doing a smaller bow, added some scallops to the bottom of my framed panel and made the tree sparkle by randomly dotting 2-way glue and adding some lavender Cosmo glitter. The color combinations used are: Whisper White, Certainly Celery and Orchid Oppulence CS. The wheel is So Swirly and the stamp set is Snow Swirled, my Christmas favorite. For the verse, I used Orchid Oppulence Ink and Certainly Celery was used for wheeling. To add vibrant edging, I used Tempting Turquoise to make the white panel stand out and spattered Celery, Turqouise and Orchid markers over the white background using the Color Spritzer tool. All of these products are available on my Stampin’ Up!® website!

Day 12 - Never to Late for Christmas Cards!

Each year I vow to start my cards in August, but I never can seem to get into the Christmas mindset in the middle of summer. This hasn’t gotten any better since we moved to Florida. In fact, getting into the Christmas state of mind takes some real convincing until the reality of Thanksgiving sets in. This year I am being good to myself and have decided to not design a nightmare card that has me up all hours. Here is a peek at our card for this year. I went back to the traditional red and green color scheme with a twist, using the In Color Kiwi Kiss from Stampin’ Up!® with my favorite bright red cardstock, Real Red and the silky smooth Whisper White. I just loved the beautiful swirly tree from the Snow Swirled stamp set embossed in White on the red — it really pops! I will later post a cool poinsettia project using this same combination! So keep checking back on the blog for that project.

Other tools and supplies used: Kiwi Kiss/Very Vanilla Satin Ribbon, Stampin’ Dimensionals, So Swirly wheel, Stampin’ Around jumbo handle, jumbo cartridge with Versamark ink refill, heat tool, white eyelets, Color Spritzer tool, Old Olive Marker and Kiwi Kiss Classic Ink. Adhesive: Glue Arts Glue Glider Pro and the easy-to-use cartridges make large cardmaking projects like this a breeze! They are easy to switch from temporary to permanent adhesive and you don’t have to fiddle with reloading new adhesive when you run out. Just pop in a new cartridge!

Hot Tip: For even spacing on the eyelets, I used the double circle punch from Stampin’ Up!

This is a really fast way to make sure the two eyelets are properly aligned on top of one another. Next use the Crop-A-Dile for quick and easy setting prior to mounting the red panel on card front.