Wrapping up Christmas

Decided to go ahead and post the last of the Christmas cards today. Then I can start fresh in 2009!

Last, but certainly not least are cards from Nicole on the left and from Jill on the right. They are 1/2 a world apart..Nic's in Japan and Jill's in Cali, but they were channeling each other in their paper selection! That happens a lot with our group! Nic spent endless hours painstakingly cutting out wreaths. Jill spent equally endless hours stuffing sprinkle-y doo-dads inside her snowman to make him like a snow-globe. Both effects were well worth the time and effort they both put forth.

And with that...I will bid adeu to 2008. Looking very forward to all that 2009 brings. If you are going out tonight, be safe. Designate a driver.

See ya next year!

three more

Liane was into snowmen this year! We got two from her! The cute owl card is from Heather.

a few more...

Christmas cards to share. Top one is from Evan. Left is from Jenn. Right is from LA. Bottom is from Brandi. What you can't see on Brandi's is the swirls on the background white piece of cardstock ot the cute little snowman on the small piece of cardstock.

more pretties

Here's a couple more of my favorite cards that we recieved this year. You'll notice a trend for these. All are hand made!

The "Let It Snow" card is from Jeanne and NTS and the "Celebrate" card is from Debbie and her family.

Saring special cards

We got some beautiful Christmas cards this year and over the next few days I'm going to share some of my favorites.

This one means the most to me. It is from my friend Evan. It's special in two ways. One because Evan collects Nutcrackers and I thought it was so cool that his cards were Nutcrackers. Two, and most important. It's a Braille card! It is the first Braille card I've ever recieved. I generally send all of my Christmas cards to an organization of ladies that makes them into new cards for their missions in Africa. This one will NOT be going to the ladies! I have hung it on my scrap shelf so that every time I look at it, I will think of Evan.

OCC challenge week 27

Hard to believe I've been doing these challenges for over half the year now! I've enjoyed playing along with the gals at Our Creative Corner and look forward to what the always clever DT has up their sleeves for 2009!

This week Julee challenged us to use something clear on our cards. So I pulled out my almost new bird Nestabilities and cut the largest one out of a piece of SheetLoad clear card base. Then I cut the middle size bird using a piece of the B&T paper from the new CTMH Unforgettable paper pack. I just bought my first Martha Stewart punch today! It's the Embossed Zig Zag punch, so that's what I used on the center piece of B&T. I cut a tag out using my Coluzzle and added a piece of ribbon across the bottom and tied another piece of ribbon to the top of the tag.

Japanese family

This is John's cousin Akiko with her mom Junko and father Kazimas. She was recently married in Taiwan. The family sent a large goodie box to John's folks for all of us for Christmas. We got lots of Japanese food, soups, snacks, a couple of calendars and wall hangings. It was lots of fun opening THAT box yesterday!

The Aftermath!

Christmas with the Waters family...in pictures.

Japanese bells hanging on the back porch. Tree with all the gifts under it. Hunter table. Nativity. Table with crudite` platter and shrimp platter. John relaxing before the fam arrives. Garlic Monkey Bread explosion! JoAnn secured a seat on the ottoman right next to the food! Mom and Dad relaxing. Bill. Food, and more food. We made really quick work out of it! There wasn't much left.

And so it ends for another year. Only 364 days to go!

Merry Christmas

John is at work this morning loading his truck. The transporter truck didn't arrive til O' Dark Thirty last night and he opted not to wait around for it. So while I got the bird in the oven he went to load his truck for tomorrow. That way he won't have to go once his folks and sister leave this afternoon and try to fill the truck on a full belly!

I've got "A Christmas Story" going in the background, as is MY holiday tradition! I may wander over to my scrap table and work on my latest project since it's too early to start putting side dishes and other stuff together.

May you have a day of peace and joy with those you love. I'll have pictures to share tomorrow, so stop back by!

Merry Christmas everybody!

Hard Caramel Christmas

With apologies to Dolly Parton and her wonderful song, Hard Candy Christmas. To hear it, go here Dolly Parton – Hard Candy Christmas – Listen free and discover music at Last.fm

Janelle at My Life posted this http://fullbellies.blogspot.com/2007/12/homemade-caramels.html wonderful sounding recipe for homemade caramels. I ran to the store this morning to get what I didn't have so I could make some. I followed the instructions to the letter. I let them cool. I went to cut them and they are hard. Like rock. Hard! They are supposed to be soft...like a caramel. Hmmm, ya think?! You are supposed to be able to score them with a pizza cutter. Notsomuch here! I broke out my meat pounding mallet and went to town on those bad boyz! Broke 'em into a gozillion pieces. They taste really, really, really good. I may never eat another Brach's caramel again!

OCC challenge week 26

Today is Julee's at Our Creative Corner 11th anniversary. Happy Anniversary Julee! Hope you and your hubby have a great day.

In honor of her anniversary, she challenged us to make a "Love of a Lifetime/Anniversary card or project." I pulled out the brand new That's Amore' paper pack, and a bunch of stamps to create this card! I used Playful Flourishes, Make It Count, Best Friends, Tiny Typewriter Alphabet and unknown hearts from my stash. Colors used are Tulip, Blush and Chocolate. A few diamond blings on the flourish and a piece of Chocolate Ribbon Round.

One more.....

Christmas gift done! I did some cards for my mother-in-law to send to her friends and family back in Japan. And I can say they are for her because they don't have a computer and therefore, don't read my blog!! I have to keep the cards very simple since that is the Japanese way. So there's not a lot of embellishments or extra "fluff" on these. Just very basic cards. I used Prima Tea & Silk paper pack and Bazzill cardstock. Stamp sets are the yet unreleased Aspirations, Intrinsic Backgrounds, and Kanji Phrases from CTMH and a couple of Oriental stamps from my stash. I used Creme' Brulee, Sorbet, Juniper and White Daisy inks.

Another Christmas gift

Nothing like working down to the wire! I've got a week. Why rush?!

This is a brand new item for CTMH in the Spring IB. It's called a My Creations Cube. Six sided, 5" to each side. Some lucky recipient will be able to just adhere their pictures to this and have it to put at their desk. I used the new Key To My Heart stamp set that is available NOW from any CTMH Consultant. It's a beautiful E size stamp set and comes with a coordinating paper pack. I chose to use the new Emporium paper pack because the paper pack better suits the recipient than the colors of the Key To My Heart paper. I also got a chance to use my brand new Nestabilites Labels Two dies. LOVE them!!

Amanda Faye's swap

AF is the only CTMH hostess I will still swap with. She's been doing her new IB swap for three years now and has the same gals who swap with every IB. Quality swappers who put just as much time and energy into their swaps as I do. I always take the same 4 spots, 6x6 layout, circle album page, altered item and cards. And I always take Paper Pack 3. We never know in advance what our paper pack will look like, but so far Paper Pack 3 has been good to me! With the Spring campaign, my pp was "That's Amore" and the colors are Tulip, Garden Green, Blush and Chocolate. I also used Garden Green My Accents, Chocolate ribbon Rounds, Blush Ribbon Rounds, White Daisy Mini Medleys, Love Notes Rub Ons, White Daisy Waxy Flax, Prisma Glitter, Black Bitty Brads. I used the new Damask Tiles stamp set. I also used my Nestabilities, Pinking Circles and Birds and Fiskars Threading Water punch.

SheetLoad Dec challenge

Alicia and crew at SheetLoad gave us a great sketch to work with for Dec. You can find it here: http://sheetload.blogspot.com/2008/12/december-08-sheetload-sponsored-by.html

I needed a couple of birthday cards for this month, so I used this challenge to make them. I had ordered the Tea and Spice collection from Prima with the intention of using the Oriental theme papers to make my mil some cards to send to her family in Japan and never did. So I grabbed this DP along with Juniper and Sorbet cardstock from CTMH and the brand new, not even available to customers yet stamp set Aspiration, to make my cards. Sentiment is from Say It In Style. The flowers are stamped in Creme' Brulee and Sorbet. I used a sponge and inked around the outside edges of the larger flower for some depth. I also curled up the edges of the flowers to give them a bit more dimension, in addition to pop-dotting them. Ribbons are from the Sorbet and Sweet Leaf CTMH Ribbob Rounds collections.

OCC challenge week 25

Julee's challenge at Our Creative Corner for us this week was to make a gift card holder. Since I've already made mine and posted a sample, I had to come up with a new idea. So I pulled out my new Nestabilities Labels die and cut my card with the largest one, leaving a bit at the top exposed so the card would open and not just be two pieces of cardstock! I used an old campaign paper, Promise of Spring that I basically have nothing but scraps of! I made a little gc holder to go inside the card. Just cut and folded a piece of B&T paper and adhered it to the inside of the card. A quick and easy card!

Well whadda ya know?!

Tomorrow finally came! I got the Christmas tree up, lit and decorated this morning while John ran errands. Everything else isn't up/out yet, but at least it's a start. Close ups are for Evan so he can see the ornaments!

OCC challenge week 24

I know, bad blogger! I've been busy trying to get my Christmas gifts finished up and tomorrow still hasn't come to our house! The decorations are still not out. The tree is not up. I need to get myself together and just get it done. Otherwise I'll have to leave the tree up til July 31 (Chris' birthday!) to justify even putting it up!

On to the task at hand!

Julee is the hostess for Dec at Our Creative Corner and her first challenge is a sketch. I needed a Thank You card for a friend, so seized the opportunity to use the sketch for my card. I pulled things out of my stash that I have no idea who the designers are, so forgive me! I did use T!m Holtz Fragments with Ranger alcohol inks for the decorative element. And the "T" is Scenic Route. I also used some glossy cardstock and ran it thru the wet alcohol ink to use as a background for the cut out portion of the "T" which I then added Glossy Accents to to make it shine.

Coaster Art

John and I went to Chili's the other night for dinner. Frito had given us a gift card LAST Christmas and I decided we needed to go burn it up before we go to the Appreciation dinner in a couple of weeks and we get new ones! And they had the coolest hexagonal coasters! I've seen the square ones and round ones too, but never hexagonal ones. So I asked our waitress if I could have a few. And she said yes! And she brought me 20 or so. Now I had to come up with something to do with them! This is my first attempt. Paper pack is Aspen and stamp set is Snow Friends. I used my Sakura Jelly Roll pens to color the hats. Lots of Prisma Glitter on the snowflakes! It's more "glimmery" in person...you'll have to take my word on that!

OCC challenge week 23

Denise at Our Creative Corner challenged us to use snowmen and/or snow in our cards for this week. I can count on one hand how many times I've seen snow in my lifetime! But I've got a crap-load of snow/snowman stamps and only ONE "tropical" stamp set! So I pulled out Snowflake Kisses and Winter Memories stamp sets. I stamped the snowman, then stamped him again and cut him out so I could use him as a mask so I could stamp my snow. Then I went back in with Prisma Glitter, Blue Stickles and Blue Liquid Pearls and dotted the snowflakes here and there. I paper pieced the snowman's scarf. I embossed the three larger snowflakes with Winter Magic...it's got glitter in the embossing powder for one less step! Then I cut them out and added bling to the center of each and pop-dotted them with different heights of pop-dots for some dimension. I used the quilt pattern from Evansong paper pack for my base.

Christmas Bows

So friend Jeanne over at silly to sane. . . . posted these ADorABle bows that she found on Splitcoast a week or so ago. And I knew I had to try them! I pulled out Evansong paper pack this morning and went to town! The first few pieces, I was all fumble-fingered trying to figger out how do I fold these dad-gummed thangs anyhow! Talking to myself. Willing myself NOT to get impatient and mess them up. And once I got it figured out and got myself a rhythm going...well...just look out! I was a bow-making fool! I will need quite a few more, but want to try some with the Apen paper pack as well. Here's just a few of what I got done today. Oh, and since I know you'll ask...here's the link on where to find them!

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/dsp_bow