My Christmas Cards for 2007

I finally finished making my family's Christmas cards for this year and they've all been mailed! Such a great feeling of accomplishment and relief! Out of the many designs that I came up with, I ended up choosing two of my favorites. For one of the designs, I wanted to do something simple with a touch of elegance. For the second design, I wanted to incorporate my children's pictures on the front of the card to give to family since we live too far and we don't see each other often enough. After making and mailing several of the "Noel" and ornament cards with my girls' pictures on them, I read several threads online regarding sending bulky mail and having them returned for extra postage. After becoming aware of the post office's regulations, I revised my "Ornament" card a little so that it wasn't so bulky. Hopefully, none of my cards find their way back home asking for more postage!Here is the revised version of the ornament card. Read How To here.

Keepsake DVD Case

After I finished decorating the gift card holder tins for the kids on my Christmas list, I started looking for a small box to put my brother's Apple Store (a favorite store of his) gift card in. I just happened to have a dozen of these round CD tins in my ever-so-crowded work area and thought: Perfect! My brother is not only a very gifted musician, but also has an amazing talent in videography. When our mother passed away New Years Day 2006, he made the most moving video tribute in her honor for her memorial service. So, what started out as a simple box for a gift card, became a keepsake DVD case to store the video of memories of our mother. The front has a picture of Mama when she was a young mother and another picture of her taken 10 days before she passed on. For the back, I cut out part of the actual program from her memorial service and the rose petals were from the rose I saved that day. I added a heart bracelet charm to close the case securely. Inside contains the poem, "God's Gift." After mailing the gift, I felt a little uncomfortable because the more I look at the pictures of this project, the more I think it's too girly to give to a guy!
I will post a "How To" before the end of this week. Right now, I have other presents to "wrap" before the 24th creeps up!

Ultra Mini Lunch Box for $1!!!

I went to Target yesterday to pick up some gift cards for several kids on my Christmas list, when I saw these cute little 4x3 tin lunch boxes. They had Disney characters on them, but I would have wanted to decorate them anyway. And they were only a buck!!! Plus, the chocolate nuggets fit perfectly inside. Hmmm... gift card, chocolates, cute storage... How perfect is that? Read "How To" here.

Embrace Life

I was so excited when I received my shipment of the new Spring/Summer sets from Stampin' Up! on Friday! But with all the holiday goings on around here, I wasn't able to play with any of my goodies until the wee hours of Monday morning (1 a.m., I believe was when I started!). The first set I reached for was the Embrace Life stamp set. It was my favorite choice from the preview catalog. Here's a sample of one of the 3.5 x 5 note cards that I will be putting together for a class. This will be part of a boxed stationery set. I have two designs done, two more to go -- my first project for January '08!

Shannon, Angel and a Wish List

This is a picture of my special 11 year old neighbor, Shannon, with my "guardian" Angel. Angel was actually kind enough to pose several times with Shannon until Shannon finally got the picture right (just kidding, Shannon). But honestly, Angel does love to model for the camera!

When Shannon saw the Christmas Wish List Clipboard I made for my daughters, she was so excited to make one for herself. She came over today and we had a one-on-one class using the 9x9 chipboard clipboard from SU! She chose the Dashing DSP and we tweaked my original 3-clip design a little to make it for one child, rather than two.

Easy Christmas Cards

If you want to make cardmaking easy, just use good designer paper and a little bit of embellishment! This simple, but elegant card is 4-1/2 x 6 and was fairly easy to make. The only difficult part about making this was cutting the tag. Other than that, it's simple and quick. Recipe here.

If you really want simple, look at the card below. I would have finished this card in about 5 minutes, but I just can't leave well enough alone. I just had to add some shine, so I reached for my gold embossing powder! Skip that, and you're done in 5 or less. This card is also 4-1/2 x 6. Recipe here.

Get Well Wishes

A few weeks ago my neighbor was in a severe auto racing accident which, according to the news, left him with extensive injuries to his legs and hands. Over the weekend, one of my daughters babysat two of his nieces and had found out from them that their uncle is now in a wheelchair and his hands are "broken." How sad for him especially since he's a professional race car driver. When my husband found out about his condition, he asked me to make a card for him. Well, this is what I came up with. I haven't done too many masculine cards, so I pulled out the first set that came to my mind: Winds of Grace. The sailboat was quite appropriate actually, because he lives right across the lake from us. For recipe, click here.