Will you Be???

As some of you already know my dear granddaughter Paige is getting married in Jan 2011 (I know another year but she has to finish nursing school first), She is the light of my life and my "crafting" buddy so when she came the other evening and told me she wanted to make a personal invitation to her bridesmaid/maid of honor we came up with this idea. Her theme is going to be snowflakes and her colors are blue/lt blue or silver so this seemed perfect. She highlighted each snowflake with our sparkle pen and I think they turned out just perfect.

Tag Wreath

My angel friend (and supervisor) gave me an absolutely darling tag wreath for Christmas - I just had to share this and will probably case it too!!! She die cut tags out of our papers stamped and paper pieced a "retired" angel on them, paper pieced the angels and then stamped saying on other tags scattered around the wreath. She used a formed wreath and then bent some of the tags just a bit to make it fuller, paper flowers, some fibers and talk about a treasure - love it. If you click on the wreath to enlarge you can really see the detail. I need "photo taking 101!!!

All Wrapped Up Blog Hop

We are having a fun blog hop at Paper Wings so follow the paper trail of names and you will get some great fun gift wrap ideas.
This year I hosted the annual TAC gift bag swap and had some really cute ideas. I made 4 different bags for this swap posted above. The red handle bag and the vintage green/kraft bags were very easy to make using the Vintage Santa on the red bag and the Joy of Christmas on the vintage bag.
The bright lime bag was so easy peasy and perfect for the smaller gift - I punched snow flakes from silver cs and then embossed Winter Cheer from Ready, set, snow set.
The teal blue bag was my favorite and most fun to make - I used Ornamental snowflakes and Winter flurries for this bag - which is just a lunch bag that I can only find at Meiers in Mishawaka IN. I made some snowy rolling hills by tearing the cardstock and then tucked my little image under one of the hills. I am a stickles and glitter gal so had to use both on this bag.
Go ahead and hop on over and blog hop to see what everyone else has created for some fun useful ideas.

Laurie
Jen
Laine
Rita
Chris
Diana
Angela
Stacey

Holiday Mugs

I made these cute holiday mugs for my co-workers this afternoon and I think they turned out so... cute. I used a variety of snowpeople, penquins and snow angels for my focal image colored with Copics then mounted them on the snowman soup poem. In the mug (from Michaels) I put a pkg. of cocoa, pkg. of minature marshmallows, a few chocolate kisses, a dessert stir stick and a candy cane. Ran some curling ribbon through the poem and curled the ribbon. I am pleased with how they turned out. Thanks Pat for letting me "case" this idea. Tell me what you think.

Snowman Nativity

I mentioned in last posting that my friend Shelley was coming over to finish up her Christmas cards well here is a sample of her finished product. We used the Snowman Nativity which is one of my all time favorites as I love snowmen images. Colored with watercolor pencils (I think this is one of the easiest coloring techniques to show a "newbie"), of course some stickle on the snow and who can't live without the new stardust pen for highlights. We found this ribbon while shopping at Archivers a couple of weeks ago and it matches perfect with the green/maroon hues. I also scanned the inside of the card and it completes the story of Christmas. When we started this project a couple of weeks ago she came over and I had several of my Christmas cards out for her to view and perhaps "case" and so I have to give credit to one of my downlines Donna as this is her idea - we just changed a couple of things to make it Shelley's own.

Vintage Santa

Can you believe this is the first time I have used this stamp set - Vintage Santa - love it - minimal coloring - well in fact just his pink cheeks and a red pearl on his holly. I love this paper which was discontinued with last catalog but it has such a vintage feel that I hated to see it go. Had to play with my new toy from Tonic - a border punch system which you can interchange multiple punches for your border - this happens to be a ribbon punch and I am having a lot of fun using this system. Some polka dot ribbon goes perfect with the paper and presto a super easy card and fun to make. Tomorrow a friend Shelly is coming over to "finish" up her cards - a newbie stamper - they are so much fun to watch when they have created a "masterpiece".

Peace

This is my Christmas card I made for our monthly swap group - simple yet elegant. I used the Peace set from TAC embossed in gold and the dove is entirely glittered with prisma glitter. Gate fold card using a shimmer white and shimmer gold cs from Archivers which added richness to the card. I used my MS punch for the edging. What a wonderful swap this was. Yearly we invite the subs to participate with us and the ideas are amazing. This year was no exception.