Starting 2015 Strong!

I've tried to start this year out with some crafty time. Since the wedding, I've sold my townhouse and moved into my husbands house, which means I had to merge my hobby with his in our joint hobby room...about 1/2 the space I used to have. It's been an adjustment, but I've purged some things, rearranged some things and I think I'm getting settled. Here are some things I've recently made:

I used an OWH Sketch for this card. The paper is SEI "Corrine" (it has some silver metallic in it, which is fabulous), black cardstock is CTMH, sentiment stamp is from PTI.

These cards are from one of CTMH's card workshops. The paper line is Snowhaven. 

My mother in law asked me to make a few baby cards for her. This first one is using DCWV Nana's Nursery paper. the sentiment stamp and twine is CTMH.

This is the 2nd baby card I made...I know the paper is DCWV, I think it's Nana's Kids??? Sentiment and Outdoor Denim cardstock is CTMH.

How Many Days Until Christmas?

61 days.

That is all...61 days. I'm feeling the crunch already.

In about 40 days I will have company coming and staying until after Christmas. I need to get myself moving if I want to have everything ready by the time she arrives! This past month has be derailed by situations beyond my control, so I do not have all the Christmas cards completed yet...but I am even more thankful than ever that I started so early this year. It will help emensely & my new goal is now to be completely done by Veteran's Day. Totally doable.

The bigger problem is I have yet to start shopping and scarier still, I haven't started on the homemade gifts I have planned. Again, I am thankful to have a plan...I just need the time to execute that plan!

I hope the rest of you are well on your way to a stress free holiday season and no matter what, remember the REASON for the season.

Since I don't have any new creations to post, I'll offer up some old family Christmas photos for Throwback Thursday. Enjoy!

Chelsea, Maya & Olivia

Maya

Olivia

My Mom & I ... 1978

Chelsea & My Dad ... 1993

Amy, Erica, Mom, David, Dad, Matt & Me ... 1981 (I think)

Erica, Mom, David, Matt, Dad, Me & Amy ... Early 80's

Gracellyn ... 2011 admiring her first year of decorating my tree.

Weekend Wrap Up

I had some friends over to craft this weekend. Since there is a lot of talking and I am easily distracted as the host, I try to just work on cards I've already designed & hopefully pre-cut the pieces for. I worked on the hot pink cards I designed last weekend & here's what I finished...this is a total of 14...I have more pieces cut, but ran out of the ribbon I wanted to use, so this is it for now!

Weekend Wrap Up

I was on call for my regular job this weekend, so I really didn't have high expectations for what I wanted to complete. I guess I will say I was pleasantly surprised to be able to get a handful of Christmas cards completed and another handful cut & ready to be assembled. These green, red & white cards were inspired by a design from Vicki Wizniuk's blog...you can see her awesome work here: Wizard's Hangout. I get a lot of inspiration from her designs...they are always clean and eye catching.

For these first two, I tried to keep in mind that I need to mail a lot of cards so I kept these pretty flat. The only thing that adds a little bulk are the rhinestones & the metal looking embellishments. The White Daisy cardstock & sentiment stamp is from CTMH & I used a border punch by Fiskars. The patterned paper & red cardstock is from DCWV. (I WILL use up papers I've purchased long ago...I will!!!) The bling is from want2scrap.com & the metallic bling is from JoAnn's dollar spot, I think. I have 3 each of these cards completed.

These two cards were the same basic design as the first two, but I decided to use a different stamp & add some baker's twine to fill in that white space. The sentiment piece is popped up with a little foam tape, but still not too thick to mail. I don't think I'm a fan of the colored one...but the verdict is still out! I will have 3 each of these cards as well.

This card will be a set of 12 & I have another 12 precut with a different background paper, it's hot pink w/glittered words all over. I will use the same stamp & sentiment on those as well. The finished cards will use a variety of sheer ribbons to embellish the focal point. All the papers except the white cardstock are DCWV. The White Daisy cardstock & stamps are CTMH. I used a mix of glitter & clear detail embossing powder over the trees & sentiment & heat set it for a little more sparkle on this card. It doesn't show up in the picture, but it does look pretty! I need to finish stamping, embossing and assembling all the rest of these cards. That will be a project for next weekend I'm sure!

Well, that's all I was able to get accomplished this weekend. The coming week will be a little busy after work, but hopefully I will be able to accomplish something!

Weekend Wrap Up

I must admit I wasn't terribly productive this weekend. On Saturday there was a lot of tv time on the couch.

On Sunday, I had a meeting for my It Works business, have you tried that's crazy wrap thing? Well, after that was over I went home to make a little name plate for a friend to use on a gift bag. Here it is:

Pretty simple...beautiful name, but I might be a little biased, my youngest niece's name is Gracellyn. 

I did manage to get together my sample of the red, green and blue snowflake card, here it is:

The green on the background paper is glittered...love the sparkle! 

That's all I really have to chat about this morning. Have a great Monday...tootles!

Productive Labor Day Weekend

Now, I will admit, I spent a lot of time just lounging this past weekend...but, I also completed 26 Christmas cards...and I am excited about that!

I completed 8 of these:

Paper: DCWV & CTMH  Sentiment Stamp: CTMH
Twine & Silver Shimmer Trim: CTMH
 

I had cut out the papers for this card a LONG time ago & never completed them, so this was the year! I love a little sparkle on my Christmas cards & I'm really loving twine lately. This is another great card for mailing, not too thick!

I also completed 18 of the blue & white snowflake cards I posted about a week or so ago. I loved the ease of that design so much, I made another set of 18 with a red/cream/kraft color scheme & I have started a third set of 18 with a red/green/blue color scheme. I need to take pictures still of the finished products, so those will come in a later post.

I believe my completed Christmas card total is now at 72! I'm going to keep on going because I really want to sell some this year for some Christmas cash...and because I have a really obscene stash of Christmas swag that NEEDS to be thinned out. I'm loving not feeling the rush of doing them at the last minute and I'm pretty confident I'll be done creating Christmas cards by the end of October. WooHoo!

Christmas in August???

Christmas card creations are in full swing right now in my studio. I really started them a couple of weeks ago, but this past weekend I really started making some progress.

I found this layout on Pinterest and have used it for some other themed cards, but I thought it would be perfect for Christmas cards as well. I went through my extensive stash of Christmas papers (really, it is ridiculous what I've accumulated) and chose some papers with glitter on them. I have selected 3 different paper designs & each one will create 18 cards since I had 3 sheets of each design! By the end of this weekend, I'll have 54 of these cards done! I can not even express to you how excited that makes me!

Here's a look at the first set:

Add caption

I will take some better pics once they are all assembled, but I like to do a sample to make sure I like the finished look before I get to involved. You can't really see it on my sample, but the white cardstock is embossed with snowflakes after stamping the sentiment and the background paper has glittered snowflakes. I have a couple of different ribbons I'll be using on this card.

Super simple, easy to do assembly style, flat enough to mail and I feel like I might actually get all the cards made for the holidays early this year...and have some to sell as well!!!

How early do you start your Christmas cards? How many do you attempt to send out each year?