Now that all the gift cards have been given, I can share some gift card holders I made with My Favorite Things, Money Card and Gift Card Pocket dies. I could have made my own, but picked these up on sale and they certainly speeded up the process. 

First up, one for my daughter-in-law. She’s reads lots of books on her Kindle, so an Amazon gift card seemed just right. 

I love this bright pink paper from Gina K, and the striped paper from My Favorite Things’ Christmas Cheer pad matched perfectly. The die cut snowflake is also from Gina K–from the Sparkle and Shine kit. The sentiment is from My Favorite Things’ Best Gift Ever.

For some sparkle, I added some Iridescent Drops from Pinkfresh Studio which are so beautiful when the light catches them.

Next up is a gift card to a great golf course near us. It’s one of the more expensive ones to play so a gift certificate to Ravenwood is always appreciated.

The patterned paper for this card was in my stash of unmarked papers. The images were stamped with an old Papertrey Ink set, On the Links, and the letters from their Headliner Alphabet.

The last gift card was for LL Bean. I didn’t have any appropriately themed stamps so went with a Christmas theme, using stamps and a die from My Favorite Things Jingle All the Way set. It has some of my favorite images of Santa. I popped up Santa on an image from Simon Says  Ornament Options stamp and die set, 

This time I used patterned paper from an old American Craft pad. I couldn’t find the name of the paper but it was printed in 2016 which is probably when I purchased it. When I went to add the stitched panel to the stitched rectangle from the Gift Card Pocket it would have covered up all the cool images in the patterned paper, so I embossed the sentiment on another die from the Money Card dies.

The last one was a gift card to a nail salon, and the gift certificate was on a heavy cardstock the size of a business envelope. I found a bright pink slimline envelope that worked perfectly and added three die cut nail polish bottles from My Favorite Things Iconic Beauty set. It was another purchase during a sale. I figured with four granddaughters I’d have plenty of opportunity to use it. And, as it turns out, it’ great for an adult as well.

The sentiment is from My Favorite Things Best Gift Ever set, and I coated the polish bottles with Nuvo Crystal glaze for a more realistic look. I CASEd the glittery labels from one of the images on the MFT’s site. 

As luck would have it, My Favorite Things has a  Show Me the Money Challenge, so off three of these go.

It’s been a little over two weeks since I’ve written a blog post. I’ve been busy creating and getting ready for today in many different ways. I have lots to share and will try to get the holiday projects shared before New Year’s, but I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas if it’s a holiday you celebrate.

One of my favorite projects this year was a limited edition Christmas card. I suspect I’ll make a few more next year. They were a lot of fun to put together.

I started with The Greetery’s Elegant Entrance Arches die cut from black cardstock. I added door handles with gold paper and mounted it on Simon Say’s Fog cardstock. I was careful not to add any glue to the bottom portion of the door so I could add the Oh, Christmas Tree from The Stamp Market to the inside.

The tree was die cut with Concord & 9th’s Evergreen cardstock, one of my favorite dark greens. I splattered some gold metallic paint on it before adding the garland cut from gold glitter cardstock. The garland has places to add gems (as ornaments) and I used a variety of Pinkfresh drops.

Once again, the Memory Box gold foiled black “Merry Christmas” tabs was the perfect sentiment. (Best seen in the top photo.)

There are still some challenges out there looking for holiday themed projects so I’m sending this on to The Card Concept: Christmas Cheer where the inspiration is the evergreens and the Christmas colors., to Inkspirational: Celebrate (indeed we did!), and to NBUS as this was the first time I used the arched door and the Christmas tree. The Card Concept asks you to select a style for your card. It’s not often I would choose Classy and Elegant, but in this case I think it’s the best fit.

We celebrated with my son and his family yesterday before the Christmas Eve service at church where we were both ushers. That turned out to be more involved than usual since it was the candlelight service. Today Tracy’s local family and in-laws came for an early dinner. Everyone brings a dish so it’s not an overwhelming task to get dinner on the table. Years ago there were 27 of us for dinner (four tables). This year there were nine at one table, and my brother-in-law spoke for all of us when he said he misses all the kids. We are, however, so very grateful to be healthy, happy and to have family nearby. We’re on our way to Wisconsin tomorrow afternoon. We take two half days to drive there. It makes for a much more pleasant trip. We have dinner reservations at a favorite restaurant near Toledo tomorrow night, and will arrive in Racine on Wednesday. I expect to be a much more frequent blogger in the next few weeks.

I hope you’ve had a wonderful weekend and a happy holiday!

Halloween has never been a favorite holiday of mine, probably due to the fact that elementary school students (regardless of grade level) were rarely very attentive on Halloween–or the day after. I do, however, enjoy making Halloween cards for my grandchildren. When I took these down to my granddaughters last night, I was very pleased to discover that the oldest has kept many of the cards I’ve given her. I never thought they’d last much beyond a day or so, but she ran upstairs and came down with about 20+ cards for various occasions. The Halloween pile was, in fact, the largest. Here’s this year’s edition:

Just about everything on these cards came from The Stamp Market. I purchased just one die set this year, the Shaker Ghost, and also bought the sequin mix for the shakers. The “eek” was part of last year’s stamp & die set, Happy Halloween. 

The orange cardstock is The Stamp Market’s Melon, and the cardbase was made with Spellbinder’s Brushed Black which has a subtle shine. The eyes and mouth were die cut from some black glitter paper in my stash. These were fun to make and all three girls seemed quite pleased with them (as well as the small cash enclosure.)

There’s still one challenge open for Halloween cards–especially ghosts: Inspired by Boo! I’m also sending this over for the last day of the NBUS site since this is the ghosts’ first appearance. 

We rarely get many trick-or-treaters–our street has no street lights, few sidewalks, and is a dead-end street on both ends. I hope the tinies that live on the street show up again this year. They were absolutely adorable last year and arrived as one group with all the parent in tow. 

Today is the 12th birthday for my oldest granddaughter. You couldn’t ask for a nicer young lady–serious about school and passionate about horseback riding. We gave her a gift certificate to the local tack shop which is loaded with all kinds of things for horseback riding. I’m sure she’ll find something she’ll like. Unfortunately, my stamp collection does not include images of horses. Well, there’s one wooden stamp but I forgot about it when I was making her card. She also loves rainbows and pretty colors so I went with this:

I was lucky a month or so ago and won the Sneak Peek kit from Waffle Flower that included this Stacking Cake Die.  I used glitter paper for the frosting, and purple and bright pink for the candles–adding a bit of glitter to them with a Nuvo glitter pen. The sentiment strip was also included in the kit. For the background I used the Pinkfresh Studio Layered Sunburst stencil which I ink blended with a variety of Pinkfresh Studio inks.

I’m sending this off to the Seize the Birthday challenge without the topping this time. The colors of Skylar’s card match pretty successfully with the STB logo designs. And also to NBUS since this is the first time I’ve used the stacking cake die. 

Hope you’re having a great day! Sun is shining here which is always a mood booster!

I’m basically in recovery mode after a very busy and emotional weekend. My MIL’s memorial service was on Friday. It was a beautiful service and brought the entire family to Rochester—all 38 of us from six different states, including, of course, Sarah and her family. Sarah was the liturgist for the service, and it was wonderful to see her participating in a service in the church where she grew up and was ordained.  We had a dinner Friday night and gathered together Saturday at the Air B&B my brother-in-law rented for his immediate family of thirteen. We hired a professional photographer who did a fabulous job of capturing every possible family configuration! She sent us over 100 photos. Here’s one taken of the whole group. It was supposed to be a very rainy day, but the rain held off until late afternoon allowing for photos outside and lots of running and playing by the kids.

These two cards were made last week prior to the memorial service to thank our pastor and organist for their participation in the memorial service.

I pulled out one of my all time favorite Simon Says stamp sets, Be Kind. After stamping the leaves on white cardstock I colored them with Copic markers, using two blue markers that I blended with a yellow marker. I’m really pleased with how it worked.

The sentiment is from another favorite set, Thank You Kindly, by Papertrey Ink.

These cards fit two Clean and Simple Challenges open now:  Less Is More: Anything Goes and Addicted to Stamps and More: Any Occasion.

For those of us in the United States it’s Thanksgiving Day, and for most of us that means turkey, potatoes, and pies at the very least. Tracy’s family has a pretty set menu: turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, squash, Waldorf salad, and pies. The pies are my assignment, and this year I made two, but as I was finishing up I realized that neither pie was vegan. My sister-in-law is vegan, but luckily Tracy managed to snag an apple berry pie from a local orchard while I put my pies in the oven. My first pie was the mandatory pumpkin pie and the second was a new recipe from The New York Times — Bourbon Pecan pie. The pecan pie was a huge hit, and I must admit, the best pecan pie I’ve ever had. That recipe is definitely a keeper.

After dinner at Tracy’s mom’s with his family, we joined Betsy’s family to celebrate Ella’s 8th birthday. They had a huge crowd for Thanksgiving dinner–good friends and parents of the friends, and so. much. food. Fortunately, I was too full from our meal to even consider eating more there. I even skipped the birthday cake.

Ella got a coordinated gift and card this year. It’s funny, though, when I showed up with the gift both Skylar and Ella commented that I had used the same wrapping paper for Skylar’s gifts in September. I’m not surprised. I love the paper, and now there’s just enough left to wrap a few small gifts.

Last year I made an Out of the Box card for Maddy, and earlier this year, one for Skylar, so it was definitely Ella’s turn. She loves unicorns so the theme was an easy choice. The wrapping paper has sparkly silver stars all over it. I die cut the sky for Ella’s card from the wrapping paper.

In addition to the unicorns and the rainbow from My Favorite Things “Fairy Tale Friends” I die cut a cake and some presents from two other My Favorite Thing sets. All were colored with Copic markers and then die cut. I attached all the unicorns to the box with strips of clear acetate so the movement of the unicorns wasn’t lost. The sentiment is also from My Favorite Things.

Here you can see the box from the other side as well as the decorated envelope. 

The stars from Simon Says “Be Joyful” were stamped in navy blue and embossed on a silver envelope.  I added three tiny rhinestone stars as well. Ella is my “sparkly” granddaughter.

And, finally, you can see that the card fits into a standard A2 envelope–and the metallic sheen of the silver envelope can be seen as well.

I’m entering this in the Happy Little Stampers: Anything Goes with Dies challenge. With the exception of the sentiment, everything was die cut.

If you celebrated Thanksgiving today, I hope your day was blessed with family, friends, and good food.