Holiday Cards & More

It's back!

I love this issue. When it arrives in my mailbox I get that, ok, it's really time to decide on a Christmas card design before Thanksgiving weekend comes and I end up making all 140 cards in the space of 7 days. Yeah... every year, I swear. Except last year. I started even later that that. Yeah... brilliant, I know.

This year I may do another Christmas card/baby announcement. That would be because Noelle arrived in April and I have yet to do her announcements. (Don't judge me, friends.) She would be our second child to arrive in April (on the same day, no less) and for a variety of reasons I sent his announcements out with the Christmas cards. So, it's only right that the tradition continues. Right?! {Insert your affirmation here.}

Anyhow, so yes, I've already started searching out holiday stamp options. I'd really like to use a "noel" stamp on the Christmas card to go with the "Noelle" announcement (again... don't judge me... cheesy, yes, but I like it and I've had this evil genius plan of doing a double Noel/Noelle Christmas card/birth announcement for years on the off chance that this whole baby girl issue came up). I'm pinning all my hopes and dreams on Papertrey coming out with their holiday sets next month (I have no idea when they release Christmas stamps... is it September or October?) and one of them having some giant "Noel" stamp in some beautiful swirly font. Hoping, hoping, hoping. But just in case, maybe y'all could let me know if you know of some beautiful "Noel" stamp or set? I know I could use PTI's Merry & Bright, I'm just not sure if the font is quite big enough. I think I can really only hold out for one more PTI release before I need to make a decision.

So, back to the real story at hand. Holiday Cards & More. Every page filled with new ideas to gobble up like marshmallow covered sweet potatoes at Christmas dinner. (Sidenote... do not place said marshmallow covered sweet potatoes too close to the broiler. That would be a fire hazzard. I'm just sayin'. Although I tend to like my marshmallows crispy, anyways, so I thought it was yummy. The rest of my family deemed it was a bit carcinogenic.) Here's one of my projects that made it in...

I struggled with which project to share with you from the mag... I was really into the holiday projects this time. My husband and little Zeke also make an appearance in this issue and I wanted to show you their cute faces in that project, too, but I decided that would just be out and out bragging. (So I'll just brag in small print... love that pic of them because it really shows how blue blue blue Zeke's eyes are!) I picked the card above because I love how the little candle flames turned out! I'm not Jewish, but I saw this super simple white menorah in a catalog (Crate & Barrel? Pottery Barn? Can't remember.) and it totally inspired me. I made the little flames by punching yellow circles out of cardstock and trimming the sides and top.

And since we're in holiday mode, here's another little holiday card. This one came out in Stamp It! I thought the little birdie feathers looked like scarves and that inspired the holiday theme. Since the stamp was a bit of an non-traditional holiday choice, I went with non-traditional Christmas colors as well. To do the embossing, I inked up with both Versamark and navy ink and stamped, then used clear embossing powder over that.

If you'd like to get into the holiday spirit, you might try visiting Paper Crafts Connection and Moxie Fab World. We're all celebrating the release and a little birdie told me that there might be giveaways involved. And someone I know just recently won something from the Paper Crafts Connection blog (Hi, Karisa!) so next time it might as well be you, right? It never fails. I always come here thinking, "All righty. Today's the day that I'm just going to do a quick, non-verbally overloaded post." And again, today was not that day, was it? Maybe next time!

{Merry Christmas} card Clear stamps: Wild Flowers (Basic Grey) Rubber stamps: from the Holidays & Wishes set (Stampin Up) Dye ink: Not Quite Navy (SU) Watermark ink: VersaMark (Tsukineko) Cardstock: Paper Basics Kraft (Papertrey Ink) Patterned Paper: Deep Sea Dot (Bo Bunny); Full Moon from the Vintage Moon line (Pink Paislee) Chipboard: American Crafts Glitter: Smoky Quartz (Martha Stewart Crafts) Embossing Powder: Crystal Clear (SU) Seam Binding Ribbon: Putty (Martha Stewart Crafts)