Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas!!  I'm so happy to be spending this holiday with my sweetie and our parents.   My parents moved to Arizona almost 2 years ago.  That was the first time I have lived more than 30 minutes from my parents, outside of my college years, so it was very difficult for me.  I love when we're able to spend time together!

I thought I would share the cards I sent out for Christmas this year to friends and family.  I go in to the holidays thinking I need to make a simple card to send since we send out nearly 60 cards, and inevitably it ends up more complex and time consuming than I was planning.  Does that happen to you??

I just love Peachy Keen face stamps and knew I had to use one of the faces from the Winter Faces Assortment I got not too long ago.  I think those faces add so much character!!

I wish you all a safe and wonderful holiday!  Thanks for stopping by!

Recipe:
Shimmer cardstock from DCWV and Core'dinations
Solid cardstock from Recollections
Snowflakes embossing folder
Snowman from Winter Frolic cut at 3.5 inches
Sentiment from Pink by Design's Christmas Wishes set
American Crafts ribbon
Crystal gems

Christmas Bag and Tags

Merry Christmas Eve!  Do you all have fun plans with family/friends today and tomorrow??  We are spending time this evening with my sweetie's extended family and tomorrow we are hosting Christmas dinner for our parents.  I'm so excited to have my parents in town for the holiday and am looking forward to spending time in the kitchen with my mom preparing the meal.

I thought I would share some of the tags I made and also a coordinating gift bag.  I kept them all pretty simple, using my Santa's Village Imagine cartridge.

All of the tags are from Plantin Schoolbook.  I filled them with various patterns from Santa's Village and cut out coordinating images that I adhered with pop dots.

For the gift bag, I printed a 6x8 rectangle with a pattern from Santa's Village and again cut out a coordinating image.

Like I said, pretty simple!!  Thanks for coming by to take a look and enjoy your Christmas Eve!!

Recipe:
Pattern papers from Santa's Village Imagine cartridge
Tags from Plantin Schoolbook cut at 4 inches
Penguins from Simply Charmed cut at 2 inches
Candy Cane from Simply Charmed cut at 2.25 inches
All other images from Santa's Village cut at 2 or 2.25 inches

Christmas Luminary

Good evening!  Are you all ready for Christmas??  Only 6 more days!  I made a couple of stops on my way home from work today and picked up a couple gifts.  I *think* I'm finished shopping. :-)

The project I have to share today was a pretty quick and easy one to make.  I think I'm a little obsessed with luminaries lately, as I've been making some for all the holidays recently.  They're so easy though and a fun decoration - and who doesn't like the soft, relaxing glow of a candle.  Right?!?

For this luminary I used a spaghetti sauce jar, completely removed the label and cleaned the jar.  Then I sprayed it with 2 coats of frosted glass spray paint.  According to the can, the paint I used dries in 5-10 minutes, but I waited closer to 30 minutes before spraying the second coat.  After the paint was dry, I cut my image on Cricut vinyl and placed it on my jar.  Finally, I decorated the top of the jar with ribbons and a decorative button.  Add a tealight and turn off the lights!!

I'm going to link this up to the Christmas Party challenge over at Decorate to Celebrate.  Thanks for stopping by to take a look!

Recipe:
Jar
Frosted glass spray paint
Cricut vinyl in red and green
Wreath from Celebrate with Flourish cut at 3.25 inches
Ribbons and button from my stash

Gift Card Holder

Good evening!  I hope you all had a nice weekend.  Mine was very busy between holiday parties and trying to get various projects wrapped up.  My Christmas cards are nearly done and just about ready to put out in the mail, and I also managed to get a gift card created.

I knew I wanted to participate in the challenge this week over at Fantabulous Cricut - Bells are Ringing.  I got some inspiration from a number of gift card holders I've seen on blogs and Pinterest recently, and also from one of the FCCB Design Team Members, Missy.

I folded a piece of 6.5" x 4.5" cardstock in half and glued the two side together, leaving the top open.

I used the Book feature of the Elegant Edges cartridge to cut the tag and punched a hole in the top, tying a bow with crinkle ribbon.  I tied a jingle bell to the bow - thanks for the idea of using an actual bell Missy!  There you go, gift card holder complete - just decorate as you wish!

Recipe:
Pattern and glitter cardstock from DCWV
Solid cardstock from Recollections
Jingle bells from Wrap it Up cut at 2.5 inches
Crinkle ribbon
American Crafts twine
Jingle bell

Gift Bags

Hello!  Can you believe Christmas is less than 2 weeks away?!?  Are you ready??  We are nearly finished shopping, but I've only just started our Christmas cards.  I'm hoping to get them finished up by the weekend and in the mail by Monday - wish me luck!!

Today I am sharing a gift bag I made using a tutorial I had found quite a while ago.  I have seen a number of people make bags like this, most recently Gigi over at The Cricut Bug.  You can find the tutorial for making these bags HERE.  The bags are easy to make and work perfectly for those small gifts you're giving - I'm putting soft fuzzy socks in them.

I'm going to link these up to this week's Wrap it Up challenge over at My Craft Spot and also to the Thankful Thursday Red and/or Green challenge at DL Art.  Thanks for coming by to take a look!

Recipe:
Pattern and glitter cardstock from DCWV
Snowman from Jolly Holidays cut at 3 inches
Face from Peachy Keen Stamps Winter Faces Assortment
Fiskars Threading Water border punch
Crinkle ribbon

Christmas Card Holder

Good evening!  I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and that your week is off to a good start.  My weekend was busy, but also productive - I managed to get quite a bit of crafting done!

One of the projects I completed this weekend was a Christmas card holder.  My sweetie and I didn't have a good way to display Christmas cards that we have received.  I saw a creation on Pinterest that I thought would be great - a wreath made out of painted clothes pins on wire shaped in a circle.  Have you seen the one I'm talking about?

Cute, huh?  Well, I got the clothes pins, painted them, strung them on the wire, tied my bow.....all was going fine until I tried to get it on my wall.  No luck.  I just couldn't get the clothes pins to behave, my circle turned in to an oval, and it just looked all wrong.  Ugh!  So, back to the drawing board (also known as Pinterest and Google LOL!!).  

I got some inspiration and this is what I created:

I am much happier with how this turned out!  (Sorry for the bad lighting in the pics - it's been cloudy here the past few days so the light wasn't good).  I cut the frame shape twice out of thicker cardstock and glued the ribbon that will hold the cards between the two pieces.  To hang my sign, I punched two holes with my Crop-A-Dile Big Bite and reinforced them with eyelets, then tied a ribbon through them to create my hanger.  

I am going to link this up to the Holiday Choice challenge over at Decorate to Celebrate.  Thanks for coming by to take a look!

Recipe:

Solid cardstock from Recollections

Pattern and glitter cardstock from DCWV

Frame and shadow from Elegant Edges cut at 11 inches

Seasons Greetings from Celebrate with Flourish cut at 4 inches

Presents from Winter Frolic cut at 2 inches

Ornament from Winter Frolic cut at 2.3 inches

Stocking from Jolly Holidays cut at 2.3 inches

i-rock gems

White Sakura gel pen

Ribbon 

Christmas Gift Bag

Good evening!  I've had a busy week at work and have been trying to get various things done around the house this week, so I haven't been able to craft too much.  What's new, right?!?

Well, my brother is coming to visit tomorrow and I'm hoping to have all the Christmas presents for his family wrapped and ready to go so that I can send them home with him when he leaves.  I have the packages wrapped, but I needed a gift bag for one of the gifts we're giving my niece.  I dusted off my Imagine and got to creating!!

This is the first time I've attempted to fill an image from a regular Cricut cartridge with a pattern from an Imagine cartridge.  Very easy - something I will definitely need to keep in mind for future projects!!

I'm going to enter this bag into Holiday Spirit challenge over at Die Cuttin Divas.  Now I'm off to try to get started on my tags so I can get these packages finished up!!  Thanks for stopping by!

Recipe:
Kraft bag
EK Success snowflake border punch
Pattern papers printed from Christmas Wish Imagine cartridge
Mittens from Simply Charmed cut at 4 inches
Glitter
Buttons from my stash
Twine from My Craft Spot

IFTL Christmas Cards

Good evening!!  Have you all been busy preparing for the holidays??  I love this time of year!  It's a little hard getting in to the spirit though because where I live we're experiencing unseasonably warm weather.  I'm not used to 60+ degree temps in December!  I definitely want at least some snow this year (perhaps a white Christmas?!?), and I would also like some colder weather so that I can get some use out of the scarves and hats I've crocheted this fall!

My weekend turned out to be a bit busier than I'd expected so I didn't get to spend much time crafting.  I did get some time last night though and I created a couple of Christmas cards to send to Madison's I Feel the Love project.  If you aren't familiar with her project, please visit her blog HERE.  She is collecting Christmas cards that will be taken to Children's Hospital Central California and delivered to children who will be spending the holidays there.

I think Madison has such a wonderful heart and collects cards for wonderful causes.  Thank you Madison!!  You still have time to send some cards Madison's way!!

Recipe:
Solid cardstock from Bazzill and Recollections
Pattern paper from Heidi Grace Designs
Santa puppy from Create a Critter 2 cut at 3.5 inches
Bird with presents from 3 Birds on Parade cut at 3.5 inches
Twine from My Craft Spot
Sentiments from Pink by Design's Christmas Wishes and Hero Arts Holiday Sayings sets
White Sakura gel pen
Glitter