Starting Those Christmas Greetings!

With it being the last day of November, I got to thinking... I had better get cracking on the Christmas cards.  I did come up with a few ideas, but I still don't have anything definite on what I'm going to create to send out this year.  But, I guess I better make up my mind quick.  Of course I will put my trusted Cricut and Core'dinations brand cardstock to good use for whatever it is that I decide to make.  Those two items are a must ;)

So while I narrow down the various ideas floating about my mind, thought I'd at least share some festive cards that I have already created and that will surely be sent out to some special people on my list! 

Here's one that I created with some non-traditional Christmas colors... gray paired with some burgandy!  I really love the combination! 

I also used some vintage looking Jenni Bowlin Design Core cardstock with the stars and cut the santa hat out with the Joys of the Season Cricut cart.  The hat was decorated with some fabulous Diamond Dust glass glitter to enhance the texture and give that extra festive look! 

Next I made a semi hybrid card with a digi "chipboard" Believe element from the talented Chris Hertel, who passed away this past year.  I've always enjoyed using Chris's digi elements in my crafting and I do so miss her and her designs! 

Here I also did some stitching near the bottom using the We R Memory Keepers Sew Easy stitching tool and I used the cool tartan plaid Cuttlebug emboss folder to emboss some kraft colored Black Magic Core cardstock.  For the flower I layered together various Making Memories and Recollections flowers secured with a Pink Paislee glitter brad.  There is also some Basic Grey Jovial patterned paper in the mix here as well! 

I guess that's about all for this time a round!  Hopefully by the weekend the rest of my holiday card making will be in full swing.  I'll be sure to post about them in the days ahead... enjoy :)

Winter Jammin' and Scrappin'!

Hello!! Good Thursday to you all!  Got just over an inch or so more of the white stuff last night, so not too, too bad compared to some other areas of PA!  I'm still really fed up with being so cold and I'm not at all thrilled about having to send in a $250.00 heating (electric) bill tomorrow!  But, what I am excited for is that we get to go to the Winter Jam concert tomorrow in State College!  I've been waiting for this for months and it's finally here! We didn't get to last year's event so we are really looking forward to this, and you so can't beat the price of admission for this... $10 for 10 bands/artists = a terrific day of entertainment! 

So... what have I been working on this week?  Well over the weekend I scrapped up a storm and it was so fun to have nothing on the agenda but playing with paper!  One of my very favorite scrappy sites, the Nook, had a crop going on so I participated in a bunch of their challenges which were so fun because they all centerd around the theme of a Family Reunion!  I believe I got 7 projects done, so not too shabby for a day's creating!  Here's what all I did...

                                      ( A card for the Monochromatic challenge!  I used lots of pink and mauve from  Bella BLVD. )

( A layout sharing something strange or nutty about a family member!  These pix of my SIL, Wendy fir the bill perfectly! )

( This challenge called for making a page with no patterned paper... all cardstock.  This happens to be one of my favorite things to do... I love all cardstock pages and cards!  I decided to make this one all about me for once.  My dh took this shot of me recently one Sunday afternoon with his new Galaxy phone.  I had not a stitch of make-up on and I don't believe my hair was even brushed, but I still kinda really liked it.  )

( Loved how this one turned out!  These are the last photos I happened to take of my Dad!  We went to vist for a weekend in Feb.of 2008 and I took my camera... I believe God nudged me to do so!  I had always wanted to take pictures of him reading.  I wanted to capture that because that was my Dad's favorite thing to do.  He was always reading and I wanted to get this aspect of him down on a scrapbook page.  I had wanted to get these pictures snapped for so long and then on this day I finally did it.  I can still remember him looking over at me and saying, "What in the world are you doing"?  I just smiled, laughed and said, "You know me... the scrapbooker"!  Am I ever grateful for taking those last special shots!  I never could have imagined that 2 months later he would be taken from us.  I would so regret not having them!  Just confirms to me the power of a picture!!   Anyway, for this challenge we needed to scrap with some of the older product in our stash, and here I used the June Bug collection from Basic Grey! )

(This page required us to use something that showcased "Wood" to represent the Family Tree aspect.  I happened to have the perfect photos for this and the cutest laser-cut tree accent that I had been saving from Riff Raff Designs.)

(This one I kinda got disqualified for because not only were we supposed to use "Timeless Treasures" in the page title somewhere, but we also needed to include a"vintage" photo.  Although the subject of my photos here is vintage, the photos are not, as they were just taken this Christmas!  No worries though because I still got a nice page scrapped! )

(And for this last challenge I did, we had to use a family monogram.  I loved this one because I've been wanting to use my Cricut vinyl for the longest time to create a monogrammed charger plate.  This was so fun and easy to to and I can already tell I'll be making a lot more of these type of projects! ) 

Sooo, geesh, I think this post got a bit picture heavy!  I was going to share another card I did the other night but I think I'll save that for later, lol!  Anyway, thanks to everyone who took the time to go over to the myStamp BOX blog and leave such nice comments for me... I really appreciated it!  And if you want to check out something else I did over there this month, I have a new tutorial posted on the blog again today about Glimmer Mist Stamping!  Thanks again!!