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