Thank You Cards

My SIL and her family usually come to our house on New Year's Eve to celebrate in relative safety.  It seems silly now that our children are older, but when we were having babies it was a way to celebrate without requiring a babysitter and the noise and difficulty of being out with littles.  Now, it is just something we've done for so long (her oldest is my daughters age which makes this the 19th year, I think!, celebrating this way).  I'm ever so looking forward to tonight's fun.

I thought I'd share this card with you.  I used my SSS Stamptember Damask Greeting stamp set along with my MFT Fishtail Flag Frames die along with some fussy cutting.

Ultimately, I've been using these cards to express my gratitude all throughout Christmas (which is the end to birthday season in my family).  The stamps are easy to use and create a beautiful result.  I see more goodness with these stamps in my future.  My 2018 future that is!!!

Since this is my first endeavor with the Damask Greetings stamp set, I'm posting this card to Simon Says Stamp's Work It Wednesday Challenge.

Happy New Year.

My 2018 Annual Calendar Gift

There are a few of you loyal followers who have stuck with me over the years and will remember my annual calendar making endeavor.  This will be my sixth post.  Previous years are found here:

2013
2014
2015
2016
2017

In year's past I used the Basic Grey calendar kit.  Sadly, Basic Grey has gone out of business so I no longer get the pleasure (and help!) of using their kit.  I always make one for my immediate family and one for my grandma.  The pictures are from the previous year so they end up being a condensed scrapbook of sorts and I always cut them out of the binding and put them into a scrapbook.  My grandma keeps them together - a sort of handmade scrapbook of memories.

This year I used the Graphic 45 Children's Hour paper pad, matching coordinating paper pad and chipboard stickers.  I kept with the collage theme throughout each page and just tried to mix things up, centering around the photo selected for that month.

My grandma has celebrated 72 years of marriage, her 90th birthday and completion of radiation treatment for lung/breast cancer this year.  I'm praying that this calendar might bless her throughout 2018 as she celebrates many more milestones.  This tiny little project brings her great joy to open each Christmas and I couldn't be happier to do it for her.

Year of Psalms Card Sets

Here today to share one more set of cards made for gifting this Christmas season.  This time I'm using my Papertrey Ink Year of Psalms stamps and the Beautiful Berries stamp set.  Various edge and shape dies were used to create the final cards.

I've been studying the Psalms this year and these cards made me so happy.  Lots and lots of MISTI stamping and die cutting.  I had to run the edge dies through 4 times for each card to get that final look.  They are more lovely in person.  In the end I made eight sets of 6 different cards as gift sets for my Bible study group.  That's 48 cards.  So very much fun and shamefully, not much of a dent in the craft supplies closet known as the ScrapBox.  Still, it felt good to do and I'm sure will be a blessing to those ladies.

Whew!  I'm sure grateful that you stood by me through all those photos.  It's been quite a post.  I'm hoping that the excitement of Christmas day spreads throughout this last week of the year for all of you.

Christ is Born! Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas morning to you all!  We are off to my SIL for Christmas breakfast celebrations and will join my mom/grandma and the rest of the family later today for Christmas dinner celebrations.  I wanted to share one more Christmas card design as a way to mark this special day.

Gold embossed background using SSS Cora background stamp and sentiment using Papertrey Ink's October Year of Psalms stamp set with matching stars on the inside sentiment.  Cranberry ink sentiment on the inside adds to the rich feel of the card using the other stamp from the October Year of Psalms stamp set.

I'm sending my hopes for a joyful and peaceful celebration for your day.

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Just popping in for our annual posts of Brandy's beautiful Christmas card creations.  This year's cards hit one out of the park *as usual*.  She's used the Tim Holtz Snowglobe Thinlits die set with solid cardstock to create a winter scene in a snowglobe.  The card front is edged with some silver embossing powder to add to the snowy look.  Inside are clear and white seed beads for a snowfall and twine holds the sentiment in place

As an added challenge to herself, Brandy chose to try her hand at painting a similar image onto a card front as a variation.  I simply cannot say which version I enjoy more. 

All our Christmas preparations are finished and it is time to slow down, find peace and joy and celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus in a tiny manger all those many silent nights ago.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Andie for 

Peace on Earthtones

I had mentioned in a post earlier this week that my Papertrey Ink Winter Village stamp and die set has been a real inspiration to me.  I really wasn't kidding and used this pin to inspire a very different card design for me.  I'm sure it is mostly the lovely stamp set design, but I like even this starker design as it inspires a smile and joy to me.

On the inside is a simple stamped sentiment from the stamp set.  Elegant and joyful all at the same time.

Those gold sprinkles are made using my Starry Colors watercolors.  They never fail to deliver sparkly goodness to a card design.

We don't get snow here in Arizona so that might be a reason why I am enjoying these snowy scenes so much.  I know that I'm very spoiled, but I just can't help myself.

Just a few short days left.  Happy celebrating.

Christmas Greetings

This card is my original card design selected last year (!) when I received the Papertrey Ink Winter Village stamp and die set for a birthday present.  Distress Oxide inks were new to the market and I really wanted to see how I could use them to blend a night sky scene with snowy hills and yellow lit windows.  As you may have noticed with my gifts created earlier in the month and shared in this post, this post and this post, I have been unduly inspired with this stamp and die set.

The inks here are Papertrey as well and pattern after this card design.   

Ultimately, I made around 32 of these cards, masking with a die cut piece of cardstock/double sided 3M sticky note and using my ink blending tool.  I alternated between a more blue background (Faded Jeans as above) and one with more purple (Seedless Preserves in this second card) chosing to highlight with Cracked Pistachio in both. 

The brown ink ultimately showed some difference in shading when stamped over the Distress Ink so I used a white Signo pen to add show to the tree limbs and fence posts.  In some cards, as above, I used a yellow colored pencil to shade the windows.  Others I left plain.

This was a pretty labor intensive effort which my MISTI helped immensely in reducing.  I'm ever so pleased with the final product and had great joy in sending them out to family and friends earlier this week.

I hope this post finds you having finished all your holiday crafting or nearly so. 

Happy Christmas preparations!