Hanukkah, Candy Canes and Yarn!

Hi Everyone!
I have so many stories to share with you today and of course some cards to go along with those stories.

I purchased and 2 days later received a set of Hanukkah stamps from Lawn Fawn. I love everything about this fairly-new-company. I always receive my order 2 days after I place it. The quality of the stamps is exceptional and I especially love the fonts they use on their stamps. The set of Hanukkah stamps includes a dreidel, a Star of David, a menorrah, and the phrase "Happy Hanukkah".

Here's one of the cards I created with the dreidel stamp. Whenever I see a dreidel I think of the "Dreidel Song" we used to sing in school back in the days when we did sing Christmas and Hanukkah songs in school. While I was creating the card I was singing the song to myself. I embossed the layering paper with a Cuttlebug music embossing folder before I attached it to the card. The text was created with some stickers. The dreidels are attached to the card with pop dots to make them look more realistic. I think that a child would love to receive this card.

I also ordered a set of Harold's ABCs from Lawn Fawn.  Harold's ABCs is a set of 103 upper and lowercase letter stamps.  There are multiples of most of the lowercase letters which means you can create complete phrases all at once and stamp them on your card.  I created several different versions of this "Oh Christmas Tree" card.  I used a musical embossing folder for the background of some of the cards and a Christmas tree embossing folder for the background of others.  I used an EK Success pine tree punch to create the trees.

I told you that Toni and I went to Ink About It in Westford, MA on Thursday. I behaved myself and only bought a few stamps, about a dozen sheets of paper, and one package of cards. One of the stamps that called out to me was a basket of yarn and a second one was a stocking being knitted. I HAD to purchase both of those stamps. I've shared my memories of my mother and her knitting with you. When I see knitting and sewing stamps I immediately think of my mom. When I see tea stamps I think of Jan and when I see anything "dog" I think of Jeanne. That's just the way my mind works.

Here's the first card I created with my new knitting theme stamps. I LOVE it. "Sending warm fuzzies" is from a set of Hero Arts clear stamps. Some of my Christmas cards will have the same images on them along with the text "warm winter wishes" . I know I have that stamp in my collection.

My head is spinning as I have so many cards planned. A few weeks ago I saw a new Fiskars candy cane squeeze punch in one of the chain stores. I wanted it, but didn't have a coupon with me and it wasn't on sale, so I waited. While I was at Ink About It I saw some candy cane paper that I KNEW would be perfect with that punch so I bought 2 sheets of the paper, went to JoAnn's and bought the punch and came home to "play" with my new toys. Remember the "Enjoy the Sweet Things in Life" wooden stamp that I used over and over again this past summer. Well, I thought that would be a great stamp to use with candy canes. I bought some red and white cord at Michaels yesterday, but it turned out it's a little too stiff to use the way I had planned so I will save it for gift bags, etc. I glanced up at rolls of ribbon that are on the shelf in front of me and sitting there waiting for me patiently was a roll of ribbon with candy canes on it. Perfect. I also found some tiny plastic candy canes in one of my clear storage containers. So here's my card. I embossed the layering paper with a swirly Cuttlebug embossing folder.

I will be at the Fall Flaire Craft Show in Acton next Saturday, November 6. On November 20 I will be at the Saint Joseph's Craft Fair in Wakefield and on December 11 I will be at the Polar Bear Craft Fair in Reading. Meanwhile I have also been busy creating more cards for the Wayland Depot.


I have lots of other cards to share with you, but for now I must get back to work.
Have a great weekend.
Carol

More Christmas Cards

Good Morning!

Ugh! I stayed up too late last night creating cards and now I feel like a zombie! But I did have a fun and productive night. I made some Hanukkah cards that I will share with you another time because I still need to photograph them. 

Meanwhile, I still have Christmas cards to share with you. I once again used dcwv glitter paper for the cutouts on these cards. As you can see I cut the light bulbs and ornaments out twice and then layered them. You cannot tell in the photographs, but I put pop dots behind the bulbs and ornaments to add dimension to the cards.

I ran the glittery layering paper on this card through a Cuttlebug Christmas tree embossing folder. The trees were punched with an EK Success Christmas tree punch. I cut off the patterned tree trunks and then free cut some brown paper to create new trunks.

I used a Sarasota ribbon tree wooden stamp to create the image on this card. I pressed the stamp in a
glue pad and then stamped it on the card. I sprinkled glitter over the paper and shook off the excess. The glitter stuck to the glue creating a sparkly ribbon tree. I free cut a tree stand and added a rhinestone star to the top of the tree. The text is a Recollections sticker.


Toni has taken the day off and we're going out for a day of shopping at Ink About It in Westford. Will let you know how we did!


Have a great day!
Carol

Glittery Christmas Cards

Hi Everyone!

The days are just flying by. I have been spending as much time as I can each day creating cards. Some of my cards are now being sold at the Wayland Depot in Wayland, Massachusetts. The Wayland Depot is a very cool place. The shop is a member of the National Federation of Womens' Exchanges and is staffed by volunteers. Proceeds of their sales are donated to charity. I have also been creating cards for 3 craft fairs and for friends of friends of friends!

During these busy days I will mainly be posting just photographs of my cards without a lot of information about each card. If you have a question about any of the cards please post it on the blog and I will answer your question as best I can.

I used some Sizzix dies and paper punches to create today's cards. I used glitter paper for all of the shapes because it feels "Christmasy" to me. Hope you enjoy them!

Carol

A Little of This, A Little of That

Hi Everyone!

I have become more and more immersed in card making. Christmas cards, baby cards, wedding cards, birthday cards and more. I am busy getting ready for 2 craft fairs and have been making made-to-order cards too. I was walking around BJs the other night and saw all of the Halloween candy and thought to myself, "I wonder why they still have so much Halloween stuff." Silly me. In my mind Halloween has been over for weeks!

So today is going to be a very quick post. I am just going to share a few of the cards I have been making lately. As always I'd appreciate having some comments posted on this blog telling me what kinds of cards you are looking for these days.

Have a great day!

Carol

Wedding Cards

Good Morning Everyone!

Is it my imagination or are there fewer and fewer hours in a day? The first time I had any time to create new cards in at least a week was yesterday afternoon. Someone asked me to make a wedding card. Although I have some wedding cake stickers and a set of Hero Arts clear wedding stamps called "Best Wishes" the cards I made yesterday were my first wedding cards.

I embossed the layering paper on this card before I adhered it to the card. I used my rectangle Nestabilities to cut the smaller papers that I layered onto the card. The love birds and phrase were stamped with stamps from the Hero Arts "Best Wishes" set. I used my Marvy Twinklette's markers to add color to the love birds.

Here are the same images being used with other colors and papers. Dug into my Valentine's Day stash and found some tiny pink heart stickers. The layering paper is from SEI. I used my oval Nestabilities to cut the ovals and a Martha Stewart punch to embellish the SEI paper.

This next card was an easy one to create. The wedding cake is a Recollections sticker. "Congratulations" was stamped with a wooden stamp from Rubber Stampede. The swirled layering paper is from SEI.

Here's another easy card. Papers are from SEI. The silver ribbon is from my stash. "Happily Ever After" was stamped with a stamp from the Hero Arts "Best Wishes" set.

While I had my supplies out I created multiples of several of the cards so I'd have extras in my stash. I have been duplicating some of my Thanksgiving and Christmas cards too. I'll post again when I have new cards to share with you.

Have a great weekend!

Carol

Knit One, Purl Two

Hi Everyone!


I wrote my very first post for this blog on Monday, March 29, 2010. This is my 100th post which means that in the past 194 days I have written 100 posts. That's just slightly more than a post every other day. Maintaining a blog is time-consuming and work, but it's also a lot of fun. I love creating cards and sharing them with you. I enjoy reading the comments that some of you write and wish more readers would post comments so that everyone could learn from each other.

When I was growing up our family usually spent 2 weeks of every summer at Cape Cod and 2 weeks in different parts of New Hampshire. My mother loved the beach and although I do remember her swimming in the water with my father, my brother, and my 3 sisters, I have stronger memories of her sitting on the beach knitting mittens and hats for all of us. During the summer she only knitted part of the areas of the mittens where the fingers and thumb belong. As winter drew closer she'd have us try on our mittens , would measure our thumb and fingers and then would quickly finish our mittens. I loved to watch my mother knit. I always felt that she was the fastest and best knitter in the world. Her stitches were always exactly the same size.

Today is October 8, 2010. Today would have been my mother's 86th birthday. I decided to create this birthday card to honor her memory. Happy birthday, Mom. I think of you often and wish that you, Robbie and Marie had had the opportunity to meet each other.







My friend Susan DeMuth from Shapes, ETC. will be arriving at my home sometime tomorrow afternoon. She is driving from Dansville, New York to spend the long weekend visiting with me. We are planning to spend the entire weekend talking, eating, and paper crafting. I am sure I will have new cards and ideas to share with you early next week.


I hope you have a great weekend.
Carol

Kris Kringle from SEI

Hi Everyone!

I cannot believe that I am actually sitting here posting a blog. My house is in utter turmoil. I'll be honest. At least some part of my house is usually a disaster, but today takes the cake. Marie and I are swapping beds and bureaus and to do that we had to move the bookcases from the hall, pull stuff out of my room so we could take the bed apart, etc. We worked feverishly until just after midnight. At that point we had finally set my bed up in her room and put her new sheets on it. We both collapsed on the freshly made bed and called it a night.

So this AM I woke up to a mattress in the living room and a second in the dining room and clutter of every kind stacked wherever you look. The night wasn't void of events that got in our way. Two weeks ago the "floor" setting of my vacuum didn't work. Last night we couldn't get the "hose" setting to work. I think it's time for a new vacuum. We ran out of garbage bags and had the darndest time getting Marie's bed apart.

We'll continue our tasks when Marie gets home later this afternoon. Meanwhile, I'll organize some of the stuff we have stacked everywhere. Motivation is at an all time high. My friend Susan is arriving late Saturday afternoon to spend the long weekend here and it will be nice if she's able to come in through the front door easily. I doubt that everything will be organized, but we'll see.

Today is Thursday and my Kris Kringle products from SEI arrived late Tuesday afternoon. I was able to sneak in a little cardmaking yesterday so I have a few cards to share with you today. My reaction when I look at them is genuine excitement and happiness. They look "real" to me. Like something I could find in a store, but more personal because I made them.

You know how much I love quilts and that I create quilt cards throughout the year. Usually those cards are made with scraps from my scrap drawer, but this time I cut up some of my new Kris Kringle paper from SEI to create quilts for these first 2 cards. Santa and the snowflakes are from the Kris Kringle dimensional page titles from SEI.

I glued some 1" squares that I cut from 2 sheets of green patterned paper to an A2 card. I used a Sizzix die to cut a Christmas tree from snowflake patterned paper. I glued the negative from that paper on top of the green "quilt" to create the tree that you see here. The "tree stand" was created with an SEI holiday sticker. The felt snowflake at the top of the tree is from the SEI Kris Kringle felt elements collection. I found the little silver snowflakes that I used to decorate the tree and card in my stash. I decorated those snowflakes with some small red rhinestones.

I love this next card. I cut a piece of snowflake paper so that it measured 5.25" across by 3.5" down. I cut a piece of striped paper so that it measured 5.25" across and 1" down and glued it to the bottom half inch of the snowflake paper so that the resulting paper measured 5.25" x 4". I used a piece of Scor-tape to attach a piece of ribbon to the paper. The red dots on the ribbon and the tiny red rhinestones I placed on some of the snowflakes help draw your eye to the red dots on one of the tree dimensional titles. The text is an SEI die-cut accent.

I cut 2 styles of SEI Kris Kringle paper into 5 strips that each measure 1" across by 4" down and adhered them to an A2 card. I added 2 green brads to the "Merry & Bright" sticker before I adhered it to the card. The green brads draw your eyes to the green dots on the paper and then back to the phrase. The snowflake is an SEI felt element.



I wrote everything you have read to this point earlier this AM. I waited until a little while ago to take pictures of the cards that I shared with you in today's blog. Sometime early this afternoon Robbie discovered that our refrigerator isn't working. I called Mr. Appliance and happily they are squeezing me in between 2 and 5 today. Cross your fingers that it's just some minor problem that can be resolved when the repairman is here today. No vacuum, no refrigerator, stuff all over the place...it just doesn't get any better!

Ah, but there is good news. I told you that I bought Marie a new comforter on Tuesday night. We were told it would take between one to two weeks to arrive at our house. UPS dropped it off a few minutes aga! I am excited because I know Marie is going to be thrilled. It took great restraint on my part, but I didn't open her package!

That's it for today!

Carol

Ho Ho Ho

Good Morning Everyone!

I can't believe that I haven't posted a blog since September 25.  I've been busy creating all sorts of cards and other paper crafts for holiday craft fairs and gifts.  I hope that you took or will take the time to visit the blog at SEI.  They added a new feature last week called a "link party" and 17 people including myself added a link to the chain.  You can click on each link to see ways different SEI products were used.  By the way I don't work at or for SEI.  I love the quality of their products and love how easily I can create cards using coordinating products from their lines.  I am expecting products from their Kris Kringle line either today or tomorrow and plan to make the rest of my Christmas cards with that paper and the coordinating embellishments.


Meanwhile I will share a few of my other Christmas cards with you.  In addition to creating holiday cards for craft fairs, like many people I send out a fair number of Christmas cards to friends and family.  I no longer purchase boxed cards so I try to create quick and simple Christmas cards.  I purchased a Sizzix die that spells out, "Joy".  If you don't have that die you could create similar cards with punch out letters. 

This first card is an especially easy one to create.  I added a piece of layering paper to a card and then added the letters "J, O, Y" to the paper.  I adhered a couple of rhinestones to each letter just to spruce them up a little.  I played around to see if I wanted to add some ribbon or other embellishments and decided I was happy with the card just the way it was.  Sandy, this card is so simple a little girl named "Samantha" could create some of them.

I used the same die to create this second card, but this time I added a stamped embellishment.  I used an Outlines diagonal stocking rubber stamp and stamped onto 4 different patterned papers.  I carefully cut along the stamped lines of 3 of those papers and pieced them together to make the tree.  This is easy to do because the stamped image has the pieces that you are seeing on the tree.   By cutting carefully you can use the leftover pieces to create additional cards.  I added a few adhesive pearls to the tree and letters. 

Here's another effective, but simple card to create.  This time I used a mittens die to create the mittens.  I punched a tiny hole through each mitten and laced a piece of cord through them.  I added a brad to the bow and used pop dots to adhere the mittens to the layering paper before I added the paper to my blank card.  I stamped the message and poked a red marker through the holes of a Bazzill template over and over again to add the dots that you see on the card. 


That's it for today.  I'll be back in a day or two with more Christmas cards. 
Carol