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2012 OLW: Balance

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My OLW for 2011 was FINISH. And although my active pursuit of the 12 projects I wanted to finish collapsed in June, I did complete half of them, and got a good start on #7. The truth is I probably wouldn’t have finished any of them if it weren’t for the OLW project. For awhile I was discouraged about the outcome, but considering our travel and remodeling projects in 2011, I’ve decided it was pretty successful after all.

This year my OLW is BALANCE. Two years ago  I took a class from BPC called “Reclaiming Your Time” by Karen Grunberg. I had just retired and was finding my days slipping away without doing many of the things I really loved. The class was fantastic and helped me set priorities. I still do a better job of balancing activities than I did before the class, but I feel myself slipping again so “balance” seems to be the word that fits.

Family, social activities, volunteer commitments, and cooking always find a place in my schedule. It’s really fitness and creative pursuits that don’t get balanced. Although I walk regularly, I haven’t been to the gym in months. It’s time (especially with the winter weather) to get back to a regular schedule at the gym. 

Scrapbooking always takes a back seat to cardmaking, but I’m hoping to complete at least one layout a week this year.

I’d like to establish a daily practice for photography, so I’m going to try a couple of new photography challenges since I’ve enjoyed Project 64 so much (and it won’t last the year). I’m also determined to finally master Lightroom this year. I’ve signed up for Photo Flow, and Cheri and I are hoping to be class buddies via email.

Reading only seems to happen at bedtime, and I often fall asleep before I’ve read very much. I need to set aside some time during the day to read. Blog reading has also taken up much of my reading time. I recently reorganized my Google Reader and am finding it much easier to keep up with the blogs I want to read regularly.

Not long ago, I read a blog post (by Karen Grunberg again) about how a 15 minute daily practice improved her sketching skills and confidence. So I want to try this technique to improve my coloring skills with Copic markers. I’m hoping to start this next month once we’ve returned from Oregon.

Cardmaking always finds its way into the creative process because I make cards for every birthday and occasion during the year. I had a whole list of challenge sites I checked regularly, but I’ve narrowed it down to just five I enjoy. Whether I participate regularly or not, I’m hoping to incorporate them into the cards I need to create anyway. 

I’ve created a new checklist, much like the one I created in Finding My Time to track how I’m doing. Cheri did something very similar last year. I also have a list of techniques, software, and ideas I want to explore this year that I’m posting it on my bulletin board.

Of course, travel to the west coast is in the plans, and I’m hoping to use these times as a creative break . . . a time just to kick back and relax. It’s probably the one thing I don’t do well at all! (Yes, Cheri, I do plan to work on the class a bit while I’m away this time.)

 

CAS-ual Friday Challenge

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One of my intentions this year is to limit the number of card-making challenges I read each week. I chose five to check each week, and here’s my interpretation of the CAS-ual Friday challenge to use brown paper and string. I need several birthday cards for men this month so this was a perfect combination.

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The first card uses a sticker from Imaginisce that I knew I’d use either for cards or for a travel page in a scrapbook. I adhered it to a Hero Arts card, and stamped the banner and the sentiment from Papertrey Ink’s “Fly Away” sent, attaching them with some twine. The twine and Scarlet Jewel button are also from Papertrey Ink.

The next card is for my nephew’s 40th birthday this week. 

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This is a really CAS card that reads inside “looks good on you!” I die cut the numbers from MME’s “Fun Day” paper pack with Papertrey’s By the Number dies and layered them on the Mat Stack #3 die cut from a dark brown scrap in my scrap file. I inked the edges with the Tea Dye ink from Papertrey.

 

 

Before the Old Year Slips Away

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I’m trying to organize my folders and prepare for the photographs and challenges of the new year. In the process I found some projects I created recently that were never posted so before the year slips away, here they are. A tag I created with a Maya Road chipboard house and Tim Holtz distress inks for a house-warming gift I gave Sarah last month.

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Although I created some gift-specific tags (you’ll see those in an upcoming JYC post), here are the bulk tags I created this year with my Silhouette. The white dots are a glitter pen, and the recipient’s name was written in white. I wrap all my gifts in red and white paper so they worked for any gift.

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And a group of thank you cards. The first with one of my favorite dies by Memory Box.

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A thank you note created with LifeStyle Crafts wreath die.

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Three thank you cards with the delightful dies “In the Meadow” by Papertrey Ink, inspired by a home decor project created by Melissa Philips.

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A birthday card for a friend, using the “Friends Til the End” and “Birthday Bash Sentiments” stamps by Papertrey Ink.

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And finally, I want to share a beautiful work of art by Cheri. I received this in the midst of our kitchen remodeling, and set it on a shelf in my studio. One day while they were working on the new window, everything on that wall fell off and hit the floor. Fortunately, nothing was damaged, but I piled it all up and this wonderful canvas was “lost” in the pile until recently when I got it all back where it belongs. Thanks, Cheri. It’s one of my favorite quotes, and a lovely reminder of the wonderful relationships I’ve made through blogging.

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So Excited!!!

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The best Christmas and New Year’s gift ever arrived today. Caleb Elijah was born this morning and weighed in at 8 pounds, 4 ounces. Caleb, Sarah, and Adam are all doing well, and we got a Face Time introduction to him shortly after he was born. LOVE technology! 

Here are the proud and relieved parents!

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We can’t wait to meet him in person! 

Journal Your Christmas: Part 3

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I spent three hours at lunch today with four good friends. It was a great way to spend our first wintery day. I did get one more page for the journal done tonight and a couple of thank you cards, all of which will show up here in a day or two. For now here are the pages I promised yesterday.

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Betsy and Skylar came to dinner. We feel so blessed to be near by and get to see her nearly every week. I have new photos to share of her as well. Journaling reads:

What a blessing Skylar Rose and Betsy are to our family! Although she’s too young this year to understand Christmas, we know what a special joy she’ll be bringing to all our holiday celebrations. She is the sweetest baby ever!

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It’s not often I have a page to add with the prompt about visitors, but this year my brother spent a weekend with us and we had great fun.

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I extracted part of a template by Ali Edwards for this page. The journaling reads: We were delighted to discover that Colgate Rochester Divinity School was hosting a carling party and bell ringing concert today. Our street dead-ends on the CRDS property so we had an easy walk up the hill to listen to the bells and sing carols along with our neighbor, Paul, and about 300 others.

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This was a fun page to do. I used one of the October Afternoon Holiday Style journaling cards to write out the list of things I still had to do. The houses are from a sticker sheet from the same line, the clouds are from Studio Calico, and the Filagree Border is one of the two new ones I just got from Papertrey Ink.

Journal Your Christmas

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I’ve had some time the last two days to get a few more pages done on the Christmas Journal. Rather than work sequentially, I’ve been doing the pages I had photos for, or ones I had written the journaling for already. Since there are several of them, I’ll post a few tonight and the rest tomorrow. It’s a rather electic scrapbook as I’ve been choosing papers based on the photos rather than sticking to a particular set of papers or a consistent template. I’m quite enamored of some of the Christmas Journals I’ve seen this year that have a more consistent look, but I’m not sure how well I’d be able to stick with them. Food for thought for 2012. 

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The idea for this page came from a prompt I received from Tracey Clark about holding onto gratitude. The journaling reads:

Thanksgiving is the holiday where everyone focuses on their blessings, but, truly, Christmas seems like just as good a season to take stock of all I am grateful for.  The list is too long for this entry, but the top three are . . .

 FAMILY–I am more appreciative than ever of time with family now that both Sarah and Matt live miles away. This holiday season would seem much bleaker if it weren’t for a large extended family that is here and will make Christmas Day a rousing, happy holiday.

 HOME–Having done so much work on our house this year, I am truly grateful for a beautiful home, a fabulous new kitchen, and wonderful neighbors.

FRIENDS– We are truly blessed with many friends with whom we share joys, tribulations, fears, and celebrations. Our lives are enriched by our many close friends with whom we share meals, events, and travel. Our book group, our fellow bridge players, my blogging buddies, and our church community add such richness to our lives.

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One of the articles in a recent Creating Keepsake magazine was about using calendar pages in your scrapbooks. I had this page from a Papertrey Ink calendar I didn’t use this year and decided it would be a fun way to document the social events of the holiday season.

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I lifted the idea for this page right off Miriam’s blog. (Thanks, Miriam, I like it a lot.) Tracy and I were bemoaning the fact that it didn’t seem much like Christmas this year, but in addition to the fact that neither of our kids were here, we also skipped a few of the annual traditions. We’ve decided we won’t do that again.

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For both Advent and Lent our fabulous church choir presents special music. Since we live in a town with a renowned music school, our choir director and organist (who also teaches at the Eastman) has access to wonderfully talented muscians who accompany the choir on these occasions. This year it was two brass choirs, and was not to be missed! I included the page from the bulletin that describes the two pieces they sang. Our church is always beautifully decorated. I wouldn’t take a photo during any service, but I did get one of the chancel area before the service began.

We had a fabulous Christmas celebration with our family. I turned my point and shoot over to Jessie, Tracy’s cousin’s daughter who took over 250 photos. She recently sold her camera and is saving for an DSLR. She had a lot of fun, and I got to relax and enjoy the family. I have them uploaded, but it will be a while before I get through all of them and decide which 5-10 photos I want to use for my journal.

 

December Papertrey Blog Hop

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I missed last month’s blog hop because we were traveling, so I really wanted to participate in today’s. Fortunately, we have NOTHING planned for the day after Christmas so I had time to make a card. The challenge this month for the Papertrey Blog Hop was to use  any of the wrapping paper, bows, ribbon, tags, canceled postage from holiday cards you have received, photos from holiday cards and anything else you might have laying around after the holiday preparations have ended. I decided to use some of the wrapping paper and twine I used on the package and try the technique Maile posted here on her blog a week or so ago. Here’s what I came up with.

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I ran a piece of cardstock through my Xyron and laid strips of wrapping paper down, then used the diecut from Love Lives Here:  Holiday to cut out the mittens. I added some white Liquid Applique to the top of both mittens and then a bit of glittery Stickles. The evergreen boughs were stamped with Love Lives Here:  Holiday and the sentiment was a surprise gift from PTI in my December order. Perfect for the thank you notes I need to write. The heart was punched from a piece of the prepared cardstock and I used the same twine I used to attach tags to my packages to attach the mittens.

Here’s a close-up:

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Hope you had a wonderful holiday! We had tremendous fun at last night’s family celebration, and we’re resting up today.

Merry Christmas

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. . . to you and yours! May your day be blessed with family, laughter and the many joys of the holiday.

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Project 64: Silver

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What a perfect color choice for the holidays! I had several shots I wanted to take, but only had time for one. I may yet do the others, but it’s time to post at Project 64 for last week’s color. I bought these bells at Michaels for just two dollars and they look fabulous in a silver bowl we were given as a wedding gift many years ago.

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I like this view even better, and will be linking this one to Project 64.

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I’m hoping to have some creative time tomorrow, so I may have a JYC post ready, but in case I don’t get back here until after Christmas, have a fabulous holiday!

Needing Some Christmas Cheer

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It’s been a couple of tough weeks around here. One friend is home recuperating from a masectomy, another friend had surgery (more to come, perhaps) following a life-threatening fall, and yesterday one of my dearest friends received a diagnosis of a malignant brain tumor. She went to the ER on Sunday with flu-like symtoms and the tumor was discovered on a CAT scan. Who knows how long she might have walked around with this without knowing had she not gotten some kind of infection. Prayers for all of them would be appreciated!

I do have some Christmas crafts to share when there’s time again to ready them for the blog, but for today, here are the last two projects I’ve posted at the Scrap-Mart blog. My time on the DT has come to an end. I’ve really enjoyed my association with all the wonderful folks there, especially Katie, who is a fantastic DT Coordinator.

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A wintery card made with Canvas Corps and Heartfelt Creations products.

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This was made with October Afternoon’s Holdiay Style papers and snowflake stickers, and a new LifeStyle Crafts Snowflake border die, which was just perfect for this layout. I hid the jounaling on a stamped journaling card, since there wasn’t a good place for it on the layout.

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In all the rush and busyness of the last few days before Christmas, don’t forget to take time to hug all those closest to you, and tell them you love them! 

Project 64: Mahogany

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I thought last week’s color at Project 64 would be more difficult, but when I went to look I found a lot right in my studio and in our front hall. My desk is definitely mahogany, but it wouldn’t make for a very artistic photo right at the moment. I found this jar (check the lid) sitting on my shelf with two balls of twine (not mahogany by any means).

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In our front hall, I found these. I’m linking the last one to Project 64.

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This beautiful, small dresser belonged to my great-aunt, and has lovely inlaid drawers. We keep our dining room linens in it, but it sits in our front hall below the mirror you see above. The candlestick sits on top of the dresser.

My brother is coming for the weekend. I haven’t seen him since September, and it’s been 2 1/2 years since he’s been here to visit. I think he wants to tour some Finger Lake wineries tomorrow, and then we’re taking him to one of our favorite restaurants to celebrate his birthday which was two weeks ago. 

Project 64: Black and the New Kitchen

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When I saw last week’s color at Project 64 I knew it was the perfect time to get the photos up so you can see our new kitchen–all black and white, with a little red thrown in for accents. We are in love with it, and although it took twice as long as estimated, it is perfect!

I’ll start out with the photo I’m posting at Project 64 which is really a Christmas decoration in the kitchen. I bought this last year and couldn’t believe how perfect is was for the kitchen window when I pulled it out this year. When I bought it, a new kitchen wasn’t even in the planning stage.

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And here’s a shot of the full window–the only thing new here is the beautiful tile on the sill that matches the tile backsplash. The old window had lineoleum from the 1950’s.

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Anyone who’s been reading the blog for awhile knows our kitchen’s been under construction since the first of August. The kitchen was finished over Thanksgiving, and our red blinds arrived last week. We wanted up and down blinds—these only go down, but new ones have been ordered and we can keep these until they come in. I love the color–though you can only see the tops of them here. This is the only area where we added space (just 14 sq. ft.), but we now have three windows that give us a wonderful view of our lovely street and so much more light than we have anywhere else in the house.

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This was my only contribution to the design of the kitchen. We had an old bookcase in this spot in the previous kitchen, and I knew I wanted storage for my cookbooks and a place to display my collection of pitchers. We now have two extra shelves, but I haven’t had the time to put them in yet and rearrange.

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An OLD kitchen cupboard used to hang on this wall, and I had to stand on a chair to get almost any of the food stored there. I purchased this chalkboard/memo board from LL Bean and it’s working out wonderfully. I love the new light fixture which I bought from a photograph and had never seen until I got home from our trip out west. We looked at hundreds of light fixtures before I was finally shown this one in a catalog.

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This is the right side of the kitchen if you stand with your back to the window. In the old kitchen I had a very small cooktop on the left side of the kitchen and a very small wall oven on this side. Now I have a full-sized stove and I love it. I got two cookie sheets in side by side this weekend. The old oven barely held one! I also have a new full-sized refrigerator which I’ve never had before either.

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This is the left side. Now that the cooktop is gone, I have ample counter space. I’m not quite sure how Jack got so many cupboards in the existing space, but it’s amazing to me and to my friends how spacious the new kitchen seems when no additional floor space was added. 

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Here’s a shot of my McKenzie-Child teapot–a bit of a splurge, but I’m not sorry. Tracy says I designed the kitchen around it, but it’s not true! It was too perfect, and I already had a couple of small pieces of the same pattern. I used it in an earlier Project 64 post, and several folks asked for a full shot.

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Scrap-Mart Christmas Blog Hop: Gift Bags and Tags

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Today was my day to post on the Scrap-Mart Christmas Blog Hop. If you haven’t checked out the previous days, you can find them all here. There’s inspiration for everyone–regardless of your style!

The manufacturers were incredibly generous with the DT so I had lots of product to choose from. I always need gift bags so I raided my stash of unadorned bags and went to town. You can find all the details for the bags on the Scrap-Mart Blog.

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I love the new wreath die from LifeStyle Crafts and cut it out of felt to use as a centerpiece for the first bag.

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For the next bag I started with an adorable stamp set from Heartfelt Creations and added some great papers from October Afternoon’s Holiday Style collection.

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I love stars and was so pleased to find Canvas Corp’s canvas star was the same shape as LifeStyle Craft’s Nested Stars dies. I also love this holly patterned paper from October Afternoon. I think my BIL’s significant other will love this bag.

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I have all the presents wrapped (and left in Oregon) for Sarah and Adam, and have sent a few wrapped gifts for Matt to open in Denver Christmas morning. He’ll be here in early January, so I’ve left a few here as well. None of the rest of the gifts are wrapped yet, but hopefully this weekend! 

Journal Your Christmas

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My first Christmas Journal was made in 2006, so this is my sixth year and it’s a project I still enjoy. I’m much more relaxed about it than I used to be, and by the end of the season I always have a record of our holidays. Some days I write the journaling based on a prompt. This year I’m receiving Shimelle’s prompts (as always) as well as prompts by Tracey Clark through Paper Coterie. Some days I’m too busy to even read the prompts so I come back to them later, and some days I have my own stories to record. In the midst of getting Chrismas cards finished (I made 50 of them this year), writing the letters to out-of-town friends, cooking for our holiday Open House tomorrow night, and the usual meetings and appointments, I squeezed in time to make the first three pages. They’re all going in a Doodlebug StoryBook 3-ring 8X8 album that has two kinds of page protectors–regular and a photo page where I can just slip in extra 4X6 photos.

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I don’t always include Shimelle’s Manifesto, but I liked this year’s and decided it would make a good first page. It took me forever to come up with this simple page design!

The next page actually happened in November, but it was our first Christmas activity, and our only one with Sarah and Adam this year, so it had to be included. 

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The journaling reads:  The Friday after Thanksgiving is Ashland’s annual Christmas parade. Someone had told us everyone in Ashland turns out for it, and that seemed to be true. The weather was perfect, and it was lots of fun to watch Mr. and Mrs. Claus pull the switch from the balcony to turn on all the Christmas lights. It’s easy to see that this will likely become a new tradition for Sarah and Adam and their family.

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Journaling:

Today’s weather report on Channel 13 reminded us that last year we’d already had several inches of snow by now, and by the 7th of December we’d had 24 inches of snow. I remember that last winter seemed like it lasted forever. No wonder. 

This year was the mildest November on record since the 1800s, and I’m not sorry. I’m enjoying walking outside without freezing, and without slipping and sliding in heavy boots. I’m glad to be finishing up my shopping without worrying about whether the roads are passable. I love pushing the grocery card on dry pavement. I’ll be happy to see a coat of snow on the ground on Christmas Day, but I can easily wait until then!

I’ll be back later today with my blog post for the Scrap-Mart Christmas blog hop.

Christmas Blog Hop at Scrap-Mart

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Tomorrow is the beginning of the second annual Christmas Blog Hop at Scrap-Mart. You won’t want to miss it. 

Scrap-Mart has teamed up with these fabulous manufacturers to bring you a week long blog hop dedicated to Christmas-themed projects!

Boss Kut

October Afternoon

The Rubber Cafe

Canvas Corp

Heartfelt Creations (Dec. 7th)

Want2Scrap

LaLa Land Crafts

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Each of the generous manufacturers will have prizes for you along the way so be sure visit and complete the hop each day from Dec. 5th through Dec. 10th to be eligible to win.

And generous is right! When I returned home this week there were two packages waiting for me filled with goodies from Canvas Corp, October Afternoon, and Heartfelt Creations as well as some great dies from LifeStyle Crafts. I had such fun yesterday creating with these fabulous products. I thought I’d share a non-traditional Christmas card with you.

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I love this reindeer die from Lifestyle Crafts (there’s also a sleigh that comes with it). Once I cut it from felt, I loved the way it looked on one of Canvas Corp’s Burlap Minis. Canvas Corp also has these wonderful card sets, and although it’s not a traditionally Christmas pattern, I really liked how the card came together. The green twill is from my stash, but the sentiment strip is another from the October Afternoon Holiday Style collection. It’s a perfect card for one of my many single men neighbors.