Guest Post With Kyle - A Monogram Card Set

As a part of the 12 Days of Christmas gifts, my friend Kyle wanted to make a notecard set.  The gift was going to a young man and so they needed to be masculine in style.  I got out the Cricut and cut these letters and the contrast frames.  In the end, the "D" and "P" were initials of the recipient and Kyle did all the work of putting the cards together.

We kept commenting on the patterned paper and which was our favorite.  There were several that we enjoyed so it was a battle through to the end.

I'll be back soon with another set of cards we made for a second set of 12 Days of Christmas gifts.  Again, I assisted, but Kyle did most of the work.  Hooray for team work!

Andie for Kyle

The Twelve Days of Christmas

I've had a solid 10 days off on the blogging front and have enjoyed the time immensely.  We celebrated with both kids in small short bursts as they both work consistently.  That made for lots of fun times, but little crafty time and/or blogging.  I did ultimately work with my friend Kyle to create a set of gifts to bless a mutual friend with the 12 Days of Christmas gifts.  I did take photos of the tags I created using my Graphic 45 12 Days of Christmas stamp set and my Studio Katia tag die.

Most of the tags were colored with Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers using glitter and/or FlowerSoft materials.  I really love the final result - very bright on the simple white background.  I have some photos to edit for the actual gifts that we made to give and I'll share those later this weekend.

12 Days of Christmas 2016 Style

 

I've enjoyed a season of gift giving over the past decade where I have made a set of 12 gifts for my niece and nephew's and a family friend.  This has been such a tradition that I don't know how to stop.  My niece and nephew's are approaching 10 years old - that magic pre-teen age where such things are seen as blase at best and a nuisance at worst.  Still, I think I have one more year in me.  This is the bags I stamped for this year's gifts.  I decided to stamp in black Archival Ink and they color with my Zig Clean Color pens and glitter.  Simple, but very effective decoration though the cloudy skies here didn't lend to very nice photos.

This first gift - pear hand soap for the kitchen.  A much needed post-holiday gift!

The second gift - a bag of turtle candies.  This year's gifts were heavy in the snacking - a reaction to the fact that most of the kids are moving to an older age...

Third day - dry chicken noodle soup mix in a jar with an adorable gingham fabric top.

Fourth day - a set of cards and some M&Ms for snacking while writing cards - pandering to the little ones!

















Fifth day - gold nail polish  for the girly girls in the bunch.










Sixth day - some goose turd shaped toys that expand into Christmas shapes when soaked in water.  I never said I didn't pander to the boys too!  I found these in the Christmas section at Walmart - meant less as goose poop and more as stocking stuffers :)










Seventh day - hot pads - there's no reason, just that I found a set that I thought was adorable and wanted to gift them...
















Eighth day - a small personal iron cast skillet to make a baked cookie for topping with ice cream.












Ninth day - some soft, fuzzy socks.

















Tenth day - aches and pains soak for those tender toes tired from all the dancing and leaping.












Eleventh day - Starbucks tin of cocoa and a bag of marshmallows.
















Twelfth day - Pretzels, peppermint chocolate melts and sprinkles to make candy melt pretzel bites.

I can see my days of creating this set of gifts is diminishing.  Life has and ebb and flow and probably will flow back my way if I am blessed with grandkids which I hope to be quite a few years in the future.  For now, I'm going to keep pinning ideas for next year and will look forward to the next opportunity at contagiously crafting.  Hope all your gifts were completed as desired.

The Twelve Days of Christmas Miller Style

If it is Christmastime, I'm planning a 12 Days of Christmas gift for my nieces and nephews.  I also gift one set to good friends who have small children.  It is a ton of fun, gives me an excuse for crafting and makes a good gift in times like these where the children I know have everything they could wish for.

I'm starting with the card set I made.  I thought this set would be sufficiently Christms-y, but could be used throughout the winter season for thank yous.  I made a set of four for each family.  This card was a piece of cake to spin out 12 of using my MISTI stamp tool.  I placed the Darkroom Door Yuletide Vol. 1 stamp in my MISTI and stamped in green ink repeatedly.  That took about 5 mintues.  Then I placed the sentiment and heart stamp and inked in black Archival ink.  I stamped all 12 cards in less than 10 minutes using the MISTI.  I then wrapped this twine around the card and then twine to hold the set of 4 together.  I even whipped up a couple extra for my daughter to give to teachers, etc.  Those were more Christmas specific, so I used a gold ink pen to color circle ornaments on the tree.  I didn't snap a shot, but this was fantastic too.

Onto some of the other treats I made:

I used a piece of cardstock to create a cone and then glued kisses to the cardstock.  To fill the gaps, I used some red shiny plastic garland - using a glue dot at the beginning and end of the garland to hold it into place.  I loosely followed this as an guide.

I used this recipe to make my own mints.  Couple of tips - I used 1 tsp organic, pure peppermint oil.  I could have used the 1/2 tsp. as suggested.  I think the organic makes the oil stronger, so if using McCormick or something like that - maybe 1 tsp.  Also, when the cream cheese gets warm it gets sticky.  I used the Cricut to cut wax paper circles to layer between the mints to try to keep them separate.  You can barely see the wax paper.

I thought these were so adorable so I just had to lift the idea.  The snowflake was cut using the Cricut out of white cardstock.  The red is a rather opaque washi tape - I worked fabulously.  I used my paper trimmer to cut the rectangles and then my corner rounder to trim the corners.  After gluing the hat together, I stuffed the clear treat bags with the hot cocoa mix and marshmallows.

This year I made the bags rather plain - stamping with my Graphic 45 12 Days of Christmas stamps.  I first stamped with white ink onto the kraft lunch bag and then stamped a second time with a colored ink.  Some of the images were a bit difficult to read, but all were legible.  Here's a complete list of the gifts and the phrases I used:

On the first day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

Pear trees are not particularly pretty and so we thought you might enjoy these mints instead.  [cream cheese mints]

On the second day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

Something to prevent a Chappy Christmas! (Chapsticks)

On the third day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

All the things you need to make a very smart [felt] French flag.  Do you know how to assemble these?

On the fourth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

The calling birds thought you might like these note cards to send out your gratitude.  [thank you cards]

On the fifth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

We thought you might enjoy something to do with all your time off.  Make an angel or five!  Then hang them or give them away!  [Supplies and instructions to make paper clip angels]

On the sixth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

Something to make the house smell fantastic!  [one pot simmer potpourri, anyone need some whole Allspice?  A pound of this was cheaper than one container locally which wouldn't have been enough.  now I can make this simmer until I die with the amount of Allspice I have...and I'm assuming I have a very long life!]

On the seventh day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

Celebrate! Celebrate! Celebrate!   [sparkling cider - a tradition every year]


On the eighth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

With all the milk provided by those maids, surely these snowmen will come in handy!  [hot cocoa snowment treat bags (above)]

On the ninth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

The ladies thought you might enjoy some pretty gel nail color for your tippy toes.  This stuff will last even if you dance the night away!   [gel nail polish]

On the tenth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

With all those lords a leaping around, we thought you might need this to get into shape and join them!   [ jump rope]

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

All the supplies need to make your own flute/pipe.  Then parade around the neighborhood like those pipers and go a piping!  [supplies to make these]

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

Isn’t that Christmas tree put away by now?  No?  Well then, put this one away in your tummy!  But be sure to share because everyone loves a chocolate on a Christmas tree!   [kisses tree above]

All the bags will have now been open.  I hope that the kids get the same joy out of opening these and doing the crafts as I did making them.  Thanks for indulging one last Christmas craft.

Wrapping Up the 12 Days of Christmas

I thought I would share my Cricut cuts and stamping done for packaging the 12 Days of Christmas gifts.  Each bag was stamped using a retired Heartfelt Creations stamp in cranberry Close to My Heart stamp ink.  I colored the leaves with a Close to My Heart ink pen and created the centers with my Viva Decor red pearl pen.  The die cuts were mostly cut at 4 1/2 inches in layers using the Joys of the Season cart.

On the first day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

 That darn Partridge thought you might enjoy this funny Christmas story!

They each received a copy of The Best Christmas Pagent Ever!

On the second day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

 Rather that two turtle doves we thought you might enjoy making something instead!


They each received the ingredients for making turtle brownies.

On the third day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

 Those French hens are happy homemakers!  They thought you might enjoy making this potpourri.


They each received the potpourri ingredients shown in my previous post.

On the fourth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

The calling birds thought you might like these note cards to send out your gratitude.


This gift was the thank you cards shown in my previous post.

On the fifth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

 Something to light up the night.  Not quite as good as glinting gold, but hopefully fun nonetheless!



I stamped napkins and colored with ink and used a heat gun to melt wax paper around votive candles.  I failed to get a photo of the candles, but trust me they were cute.

On the sixth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

We considered a new car, but decided on something you could really use!  We hope you like your new washer and dryer!


This gift was a new washcloth and towel.  Funny, yes?  

On the seventh day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

Swans, a time honored symbol of love.  Instead of those noisy birds, we thought you might enjoy kiss filled trees instead.

This gift was the Christmas trees from my previous post.

On the eighth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

The milk provided by those maids was likely to be curdled by now.  We thought you might enjoy this to toast the New Year!


This gift was the reindeer sparkling cider from my previous post.

On the ninth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

 The ladies thought you might enjoy some pretty color for your tippy toes.


A small pink nailpolish- so cute.

On the tenth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

Those lords something about tired feet!  Here’s a little gift to sooth them after a long day’s work.


This was the sugar scrub from my previous post.  The Lord is wearing a gold crown triple embossed with gold embossing powder.  Fun!

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

Piping hot goodness to warm your January days.



This bag was filled with hot cocoa and hot apple cider mixes.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

A game to play for the entire family.  Don’t eat Pete (it’s no way to start the new year)!


A bag of M & Ms and a Don't Eat Pete board.  Hopefully the kids enjoyed playing this game...

I typically wrap a cardboard box to carry the gifts in.  Here's the final version.  And one more under our ginormous Christmas tree:

Three sets to fill the space under the Christmas tree.  These beauties were completed about 3 pm on Christmas eve.  Nothing like waiting until the last minutes....