Christmas in Florida

One of my sons recently moved to Florida.  He loves the warm weather and has been braving the cold winters here in upstate NY for many years.  

I was looking through my stamp sets to make him a Christmas card and found this cute little Santa dressed in his bathing shorts and getting ready to go surfing!  He's having a pina colada on the beach in the palm trees.  :)

Here is the inside of the card complete with palm trees.  The set is called So Santa and was around a couple of years ago.  The sayings are so cute, too - "Ho, Ho, Ho - who needs snow?"  As I get ready for winter, sometimes I wonder this myself.  

I don't have many Christmas stamps to use for people living in FL, so I may have to make a variation of this card for many years to come!  

What do you think of this warm-weather Santa?

 

Holiday Gnomes

The first set that caught my eye in this year's holiday catalog was the Gnome for the Holidays stamp set.  It features 3 cute little gnomes decorating and getting ready for Christmas.  I like buying and using sets that a little bit different from what I already have.

This is just the sweetest little card featuring the gnomes that I've seen!  The original idea is from Jo Blackman.  I love having the gnomes peek out of the little windows on this card.  :)  I changed up some of the designer papers and used the Merry Christmas word dies.  It's one of my favorites this year.

Next up is the little man gnome trying to find a place to hang his Christmas ornament.  I used trees from In the Pines to create the forest and paper from the Heartwarming Hugs collection. So sweet!

The next card has the little girl gnome standing outside of their home.  She may have gotten confused as to where she was supposed to put the Christmas tree!  This card idea is from Cathy Bethel.  I used Heartwarming Hugs for this card, too.

To compliment the gnome cards, I added this In the Pines tree cut out card.  I used the same holiday papers so that all of the cards would coordinate, giving them a cohesive look.  This card was easy to make, but I love it's simplistic impact.  This idea is from Patti Dolan.

Are you into the holiday Gnomes this year?

 

Welcome to Poinsettia Place

Over the years Stampin Up has had several Poinsettia stamp sets in the holiday catalogs.  But this year the Set, Poinsettia Petals is so amazing!  After seeing so many beautiful samples on Pinterest, I knew that I had to get it for my own holiday crafting.  :)

This pretty gold card is made using gold embossing powder with gold accents leaves.  I also added the Plush Poinsettia velvet flocked paper!  I added Misty Moonlight cardstock for the background, but you could put any color background cardstock on this card and it would be beautiful!  I got the idea from Jan Clothier.

Another beautiful card that I made to coordinate with the previous one is this fairly easy gold embossed card.  It features the In the Pines cut outs and the Evergreen Forest embossing folder.  I added a strip of the metallic cardstock to the front of the card and ran them both through the folder.  Then I added the front to some thick white cardstock for a white-on-white look to the card.  I embossed the saying from For Unto Us stamp set and cut it out with the stitched circle framelits.  Add some bling and welllah!  A beautiful card.  From Kerry McDonough.

Seemingly every time I take the camera out to photograph my cards, my kitty Ginger wants in on the action.  Here she is posing along with the two cards.  Actually, she was trying to eat the gold tree, but let's not talk about that.  :)

I made this card using the Poinsettia Petals.  This time I stamped the flower petals in Basic Brown and in Olive Green for the leaves.  I added some gold metallic sprigs to bring out the gold highlights in the papers.  I embossed the saying with gold powders.  You can also see the inside of the card.  This idea came from Christy Fulk.

Lastly I wanted to stamp the petals onto vellum cardstock for a more muted look to the poinsettia.  I colored them on the back side with Sweet Sugarplum ink and used the same color for the card base.  I got the idea from Mary Brown.

Altogether I loves the "golden" look of these poinsettia cards.  And today I found out that this set will be available past January.  I just might try using it in additional colors.  

 

Two Different Advent Calendar Looks

Last year I bought the holiday Advent Calendar kit from Stampin Up.  I put it together this year to give to my daughter, who loves them.  

I added some of my own stamps from various sets, ribbons and buttons for embellishments.  It was fun and easy to put together.  I hope that she uses it for a many years.  I put candies in the drawers and an idea every day to make Christmas special each year.  

Here you can see some some of the drawers a little closer up.  I loved adding the little dog and other holiday images from the set Ready for Christmas.  

There's even a little plate of cookies in it!

I had so much fun making the Advent calendar that I decided to make another one, this time for my craft room and not for Christmas!  I used the template in the kit to cut the drawer fronts from a package of designer paper that I had lying around called Share What You Love.  

I added buttons to each of the drawers and love how it turned out.  :)  I might add some trinkets to the drawers and maybe some candy to snack on when I am crafting in my room!  

What sort of calendar would you make?

 

Heartwarming Hugs

This week I worked on some cards and projects using the Heartwarming Hugs suite from the mini holiday catalog.  I love the warm red homespun look that it brings.

I started with the coffee mugs holder and made it into a hot cocoa gift set.  The cup has chocolates in it and the little " gift bag" has a hot cocoa mix.  I added some mini marshmallows and love how it all came together.  :)  

Here you can see a little better what I put in it the carrier.  It makes a sweet little gift to give to someone.  :)

For this card I used the set Christmas Cheer and added in a mini marshmallow stamp that I had from an old set.  I like the candy cane cut out and the little greenery in the cup.  I saw the idea for this from Anne Marie Hile on Pinterest.  

This card uses A Merry Hello hostess stamp set.  I got the idea to fold back the designer paper from someone on Facebook.  I can't find her name, but I do love the card idea.  (Let me know if this idea is from you and I will give you the credit.)

And lastly, I made a little gift card holder using an older Label die set.  This is so cute for putting in a gift card or tucking in some money.  I would love to make more of these and put them on the tree!  This idea is from Julie Gilson.  

How is your holiday crafting coming along?  I'd like to make these coffee cup sets in some blue snowflake papers and have them for after Christmas. :)

Beautiful Friendship

I'm not really much one for making cards and projects with flowers all of the time, and I'm actually surprised that I liked this stamp set - Beautiful Friendship.  I think Stampin Up gets carried away with their flower stamp sets, but I really like how these cards turned out.  

This card features the Stitched Lace die for the background and then I added some flowers from the Beautiful Friendship set.  I also used the gold hoops that are part of the Forever Fern suite.  The hoop really adds to the elegance of the card.  Seriously, I just love this card.  I got the idea for this from Facebook from another demonstrator, Mandy Patzold.

This pretty blue cards also uses the same stamp set, however I got the saying from another flower stamp set, All Things Fabulous. Two flower sets?  What has gotten in to me?   I got the idea from Cindee Wilkinson.  
 

I saw this card online and I thought it was so beautiful that I had to buy the All Things Fabulous set.  Some of the flowers are stamped onto the white cardstock, then embossed with the Tasteful Texture folder.  The flower and a couple of the leaves are added on at the end.  This card is elegant, and has texture and dimension.  Thank you to Mikaela Titheridge for this beautiful card.

I used the Birch background stamp for these two cards.  One has flowers from All Things Fabulous and the second one has flowers from Beautiful Friendship.  I got the idea for this card from Charlet Mallett.  

I had so much fun making these pretty cards.  Stampin Up might even be turning me into a "flower loving" girl after all these years!  

Deer in the Woods Wall Hanging

For my daughter's birthday this year, I wanted to make her something that symbolizes the outdoors.  She lives in the Adirondacks and loves all of the wildlife around her house.  I found an old McKenna Ryan pattern in my stash and changed up the colors to make this deer table runner for her.  It can also be used as a wall hanging, if she would like hang it up.  I wanted to use a lot of greens and some bright colors, so I decided to make it look like it was fall.

Here is a close up photo of the deer.  I cut them out of a brown batik fabric that had a large leaf pattern on it.  I think this gave them a muted animal look.  I like how they turned out.  

When it came to quilting the appliques, I didn't know what I wanted to do.  I stitched around each cut out using the free motion on my machine.  I was surprised at how well they turned out!  Then I did some stippling in the background.

I am happy with how this turned out.  I'd like to make more, next time adding in some moose or bear in the woods, maybe even a bit of all three. 

While I was taking photos outside of the project, my little kitty was watching from the door.  If you look at the reflection, you can see the deer's legs from the wall hanging in the photo.  After the photo session, I let her out on the deck to sit with me for a while.  We both enjoy a nice fall day.  :)