All with the help of my elves!

     Well, we finished the Christmas card on Thurs. and I finally found a moment to post it :- ) I have to give the credit to my DH elf for cutting the scallop from Recollections paper with the large nestabilities die (as well as scoring and folding all 40 cards, following through on the tree decorating when it stalled and signing all the cards.) My DS elf embossed the snowflakes and corner rounded the sentiment, as well as spraying the image with Crafter's Companion Spray & Sparkle Iridescent glitter varnish (gotta love him ;- ) The image and the sentiment are both from Meljen Designs and were colored in Photoshop. The pattern paper is a digital paper from Bits and Bobs and is part of a free sampler. I'm giving you the direct link to the free sampler I used, but here is a warning: I found the sampler from a direct link and when looking for it, for this post I found that this site does have kits that link to adult content (there is a warning), so you might want to be prepared or just go to the direct link, if you are interested in the paper and the matching embellishments. So you've been warned!

  
     I didn't take a photo of all 40, because there was no place to set them all up ;- ) At this point, I decided to diverge from my usual path, and just stamp on the inside with out adding any other paper (need to be quicker and simpler.) The sentiments are from Clear Dollar Stamps's Christmas Blessings and were embossed with holographic embossing powder. Now here are some stamping tips:
1) You will get ink on your fingers every time you touch the stamp block or stamp pad
2) Ink that doesn't wipe off will always come off on white cardstock when you touch it  >.<
3) you should totally wash your hands with soap & water and wipe the stamps every 4-5 cards (not      really moving fast, but very important!
4) A damp cloth to wipe your fingers with after touching the stamp &/or stamp pad will keep down finger smudges on your cards
5) ink smudges are a naturally occurring phenomenon on cards and only add to the beauty and value of your card (just like those tags on clothes)
6) forget perfectionism or you will never finish ;- )

     Yes, of course, I showed you the best one. I'll be entering this in Stamping With the Dragon's challenge which has anything to do with snow. Thanks for coming by. I hope you and your family have the most Blessed of Christmases. Please leave a comment before you go. I really love to hear from you!

Great freebie ;- )

     Just dropped in to let you know that SVG Cuts has a great freebie available until the 28th.  It is a set of SVG's to make these adorable 1-sheet boxes.

    So, if you have an electronic cutting machine that uses SVG's or if you have Sure Cuts A Lot, head on over there. You can use the affiliate link on my sidebar.  Correction, I remembered when we were out today, that the link on my sidebar is for Sure Cuts A Lot. Here is the link to SVG Cuts. com. The closeness of Christmas is beginning to mess with my mind, ha ha. Mary also has a video showing how to assemble 2 of them.

     Should have my Christmas cards done and ready to post soon, very soon. Thanks for stopping by ;- )

Elves have been sighted ;- )

     Elves have been getting busy. One is working on the tree and the college elf has been spraying glitter for the Christmas cards and has learned to use a corner rounder ;- ) Amazing growth, that college brings, ha ha. However, today's item, is still not our Christmas card. Instead, it is a square tag that I made using the image from the Freebie Challenge at The Outlaws due, surprise, today!

     The image is from Anne's Digital Design by Anne Fenton. You can find her blog here, where she often offers some great freebies. I colored it digitally in PhotoShop. The red cardstock is from Core'dinattions and the pattern paper is from DCWV Holiday Christmas Stack. I just happened to pick up the ribbon this week from Michael's this week, on sale. The sentiment is from Inkadinkado and I embossed it with Kaleidoscope embossing powder.  I went over the sign with a glitter gel pen and added Diamond Glaze to the berries (it appears it's not dry >.<) A nice, very simple tag, where you can put the To: and From: info on the back.

     I'd like to go back to cutting down our tree next year. Just shopping for it, as we have the past couple of years (partly due to the surgeries) causes us to go out for it later and the pickings are slimmer and I don't get to enjoy looking at it as much.  Hope your holiday preparations are coming along on schedule. Thanks for taking the time to stop by. Please leave a comment before you dash off. I really appreciate them. Have a holly, jolly weekend ;- )

Still no elves in sight, but here is a card ;- )

     Today's card uses the image for the Progressive Challenge at the Crafter's Digital Art Center. The image is by Doodle Pantry.  I colored it digitally in PhotoShop. I've been thinking I will do a tutorial on coloring images in PhotoShop some time soon. Maybe after the holidays, if people are interested ;- ) The font I used for the sentiment is LD Leaves from Lettering Delights. I have an affiliate link to their site on the side bar to the right. I plan on completing the card as a gift card holder inside, as soon as I decide to whom it is going and have purchased the gift card. The papers are DCWV's Lemon Flower Stack. Love the glittery paper in this stack ;- ) The flower in her hair, is a button I picked up at JoAnn's.

     Well, this is a short one because I, like all of you, am busy with Christmas stuff and am trying to make Christmas cards (a first time for me and... HAPPY DANCE... my son finish his finals tomorrow, so is coming home from college, Yipppeee!

     Thanks for flying by during all you holiday preparations. Please leave a comment before you go, they really mean so much to me. Have a super creative rest of the week!

14 tags and the Cookies are on the Way for Finals! Also Freebie links!

     Well, you're probably wondering were I've been. the party's over and no word from me. I did also have a birthday this week and then I heard then some of my college students were on their way home this weekend!!! Yikes! The cookies haven't gone out, what is happening with this thing called time? Now I don't know what is happen to the college system, but it seems some of them just had to write mostly papers, instead of actually taking finals. What's with that. Don't they know it takes me time to make the 14 tags and mail the cookies? It takes days just to go over all of the possibilities of things that could be used on a tag!

     I finally narrowed it down to cutting the front of the tag with the Cricut's Christmas Cheer cartridge using the Joy tag. I used Design Studio to size it and lay it out with 3 tags on an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of cardstock. Seemed like a good idea, until I went to cut the solid back and Design Studio can't hide the cuts (contours) of the word JOY to make a solid tag, so I had to do the backs with the Gypsy and due to the way the one program allows you to do the size verses the other, the backs are just a bit smaller. Should have used the Gypsy for both parts. The Baby Jesus in the manger is an SVG purchased from Svgcuts.com and is part of the set O Holy Night and cut it with Sure Cuts A Lot. You can find the link on my sidebar. The sentiment is a digital image from Meljen's Designs that I got as a freebie. You can find her images here. She usually has freebies on Mondays. The red paper is a digital paper freebie from Papercraft Inspirations Issue 94 (online). Go here and the click downloads to check out all of their goodies ;- ) Are you beginning to see a bit of a trend, ha ha. I love freebies! The green paper, between the front and back tag is from Sue at PSP Crafting Gallery. You can find her freebies and those of some others here.  The final freebie is the ticket, which is a Member freebie (membership is free), from Crafter's Companion on the UK site, here. It's part of the Nov. set.  The digital freebies include papers, digital ribbons, tags, buttons and other elements all designed to go together. There is a new set every month. Most of the tag was embossed with Sizzix's Snowflake folder from the Christmas set (thanks hubby for helping out!) Yes, my DH know how to run the Big Kick ;- ) Everything was inked with distress inks to make them pop a bit and there is glitter pen and white gel pen on the holly berries.

     On the back, the gold metallic embossed sentiment is from Hero Arts and the rest is inked with Fired Brick distress ink.  The ribbon is from Michaels.

And here they are with their cookies, waiting to get boxed up.

     Here are a couple of photos of the food from our party. We did it mostly potluck this year for the first time. Yummy!

And finally, this is what you might have taken home if you participated in our White Elephant ;- )

     Thanks for dropping by and making all the way through the post ;- ) Have a wonderful weekend and please leave a comment before you go. They really mean so much to  me!

Tag, you're it ;- )

     Well, for the Creative Freebie Challenge at The Outlawz, I decided to due another tag, especially with the Christmas Party being tomorrow. It would have been done yesterday, except for needing to let the glitter glue dry. Then today, a piece went missing :- p Kind of figures, doesn't it ;- ) So after searching for way too long, I remembered that the DCWV Christmas Stack (which all of the papers are from) has another sheet with the element on it and just re-did it. The image is from Sandi Huggett and you can find Sandi's work at Sandi's Samples here. I used Diamond Stickles on the candy canes, Sparkly Fluff on the top, heel and toe of the stocking,  Perfect Pearls on the body of the stocking. I applied a line of Crayola Pip Squeak glitter on the line between the  papers and glitter gel pen to the gift box that was cut out from the DCWV paper. There is also white gel pen added to the NOEL. The stocking image was printed twice and popped up. I'm not sure whose the holographic snowflakes are, because the company name is cut off of the package > . >

     I was out decorating for the birds, ha ha ;- ) and ... 

     The sun is setting way, way to early and it's way to far south :- ( 

     Well, back to work for me. Thanks for dropping in. Drop in over at the Outlawz and join the next round of the Freebie Challenge. Check it out here. Please leave a comment before you go. It means so much to me to hear from you ;- ) Have a wonderful weekend!