Christmas is Coming - Really?

You wouldn't know it with this beautiful sunny day here in Kamloops, BC with slightly warmer weather and less wind.  It's suppose to be like this throughout the weekend so here's hoping.  My husband will most likely go chop some wood for our new woodstove insert (which warms the house beautifully). Chopping wood day is really neat because everyone gets involved even the two year old.  DH takes one of the kids out to the bush and then when they come home we all work for an hour or so piling the wood while dad splits it.  The amazing thing is that all three kids work so well together. The drawback is that wood doesn't burn as clean as gas but I find if we light the fire for only 5 hours in the evening the gas furnace doesn't even kick in all night.

The wood fire last night put me in the mood to make Christmas cards using the Get Sketchy Challenge #9.  I  can't believe it's been nine weeks of challenges already!  Time flies! and to prove that the Christmas Holidays will soon be knocking on our door.  I had a lot of fun last night using some new, inspiring designer paper and chipboard embelishments.  This collection works wonderfully with SU! colours Soft Sky, Rich Razzleberry, Pretty in Pink, and Olive Green.  Ruby Red also works well but wasn't used in either of these cards.

Thanks for taking a peek and hope you are all doing fabulously.

Merry Christmas

Paper:  Whisper White, Pretty In Pink, Soft Sky, NSU dp

Ink:  Soft Sky, Rich Razzleberry

Accessories:  NSU chipboard santa, Rhinestones

Stamps:  Snow Swirled,  Season of Joy (sentiment)

Merry and Bright

Paper:  Soft Sky, Old Olive, Whisper White, Pretty in Pink, NSU dp

Ink:  Rich Razzleberry, Old Olive

Accessories:  NSU chipboard sentiment, gold glitter glue

Stamps:  Season of Joy  

A Simple Hello

With these cards I had every intention of posting them for the Sweet Sassy Sketch challenge but I just ran out of time to take the pictures and post them in time.  It also took two tries to get this card looking the way I wanted.  The bottom card is my first try.  I couldn't bring myself to post it without posting something better.  I wanted to use my new Flower dies and I figured the sentiment would work well using the letters from the SU! Billboard die.  That die is an excellent letter solution without spending a lot of money.   There's also a strip die called Naturally Serif for a different font solution.  You get both upper case and lower case letters.

Now I learned a few things the first go around.  Firstly, working with felt is difficult when your hands are really dry. Secondly, for small die cut letters it's best to apply envelope glue and then die cut when dry.  It makes less of a mess.  Thirdly, too many prints (whether stamped or embossed or on paper) can make it look too busy.  There was just too much going on in my first card.

My final attempt leaned towards the other spectrum, to very simple.  I even simplified my hello.  There is no print but there are a couple things that add some texture.  There's the felt flower layer, the embossed swirls and the Kiwi Kiss textured paper.  The bling always seems to add a little something extra and I've been wanting to work with this colour combo for quite a while but just never found a layout that could bring all those colours together.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed this post and learned something from my experiences.  My favourite parts are the colours and the die cut letters.  What's yours?  Have a fabulous day and you're likely to hear from me again today as I have a couple of Christmas cards to share with you for the Get Sketchy challenge.

HI
Paper: Barely Banana, Kiwi Kiss, Not Quite Navy, Bashful Blue, Pumpkin Pie
Accessories:  SU! Billboard decorative strip die, Flower Layer original die, scallop edge punch, embossing folder, blue felt, rhinestones

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Today was a busy day.  My mom came last night to visit and she brought with her all the trimmings to make a fantastic turkey dinner today.  She cooked it all and my hubby helped me clean up (I must admit that he did the majority of the work while I was visiting my mom and little sister).  Tomorrow my dad and brother are coming by for a visit and I may just head up to my dad's place tonight for a relaxing visit while the kids are in bed.  I'm very thankful for my family, my children, but most of all I'm thankful for hope.  Hope in my future, hope in my kids future, hope that there are always good times (big or small) to be remembered.  It's all good as long as we love and are loved.  God has graciously provided for my family and lately my family has been blessed beyond the basic needs.  It's these times that I feel guilty for having so much when there are people who are struggling and feeling hopeless.

My post today fulfills two challenges.  The Mojo 107 sketch and the current Crazy 4 Challenges to make a thanksgiving card.  I also tried french knots with floss for a new technique.  I should have stitched through both the Vanilla and the Chocolate chip layer just so it would lay better...but I figure this was good for my first try.  If you want to see cards using beautiful french knots you should hop over to Maile's blog .  She hasn't done them in a while but I highly recommend you search for them.

Anyhow,  I hope that my fellow Canadians are enjoying their turkey dinners and that my friends south of the border are looking forward to their holiday with friends and family.  Peace be with you all this day and the next.

Paper:  Really Rust, Chocolate Chip, Very vanilla, Gold fiber cs,  dp

Ink:  Really Rust, Chocolate Chip

Accessories:  Chocolate chip satin ribbon, circle scissor, floss, rhinestones.

Stamps:  Grateful Greetings, Priceless