holiday gift tag

Happy Christmas Eve Monday!  Are you wrapping a few last minute presents?  We are sharing some Christmas gift tags you can whip up to dress up your package or gift bag!  Mine is super quick and simple-a basic tag from Plaintain Schoolbook with a cute snowflake to pretty it up.  I made the whole thing in just a couple of minutes.  You can see the rest of the team's projects over at BBTB2 and link up your tag.

I am getting to spend some time with extended family before Christmas, which I am looking forward to, but it will be the first Christmas without all the boys home.  Son#1 is flying to London on Christmas Eve to see his girlfriend, who is studying at Oxford this year.  It's going to be a little quieter around here without him.  I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and get a chance to celebrate with some of the special people in your life!

Cricut:
Plaintain Schoolbook-tag
Joys of the Season-snowflake
stamps-unknown set
twine/ribbon-My Mind's Eye
Ink-brown chalk ink for edging, Stampin Up cherry cobbler for sentiment

Penguins

Happy Monday!  It's not such a happy Monday at my house, as the flu has found us.  I knew it was only a matter of time for the kids, as it began circulating around school district....and the hospital I work at has had very high levels of flu activity and been very busy.  At work at least I am protected by mountains of isolation gear.  I haven't got it yet but I can feel the invisible ticking clock of doom as the inevitable germ here at home breaks through my cloud of hand sanitizer, lol!  One news article I read this week said flu levels were high in every state except Hawaii, with the peak level here in Missouri.  I think that means I should go to Hawaii immediately!  For my health, of course.

Our BBTB2 challenge this week is penguins.  Who doesn't love penguins-they always look so cute and adorable at the zoo!  I did a thank you card featuring this guy from Joys of the Season.  Since it's a thank you for one of the teens to use, I thought a little text-speak would be on point (or maybe it's on fleek-I never get the difference), so UR Cool as my teens would say to someone providing an awesome gift.  We have lots of adorable penguin cards over at BBTB2 and hope you will take the opportunity to make something too!

Cricut:
Joys of the Seasons-penguin
Lyrical Letters 2-font
Paper-American Crafts Jack Frost paper pad print, CTMH solids

Xmas ornament card

Happy Monday!  Mine is not quite so happy, as I'm a little under the weather.  Hopefully some hot tea and Vitamin C will fix things right up.  My nurse self is also prescribing naps (the cure for most things, lol!).   Because there is no time to be sick with Christmas coming up!  Our BBTB2 challenge this week is to use a holiday symbol like an ornament on a project.  This is another of my Christmas cards this year, using the ornament and word from the Joys of the Season cartridge.  The paper is all shimmer paper, which didn't photograph very well, but looks really pretty in real life!  Hope you will check out all the design team projects at BBTB2 and you can link up a project over there-good opportunity to make and share a special Christmas card!!!

Cricut:
Joys of the Season
shimmer paper from Hobby Lobby

Ornament Christmas Card (for BBTB2)

It's getting closer to Christmas….I'm finishing up my last Christmas cards!  (I make a lot of them in October at the family Xmas card scrap with my mom and nieces, so I don't have to stress in December.) Our BBTB2 challenge this week is to make a Christmas ornament or use a cricut ornament cut.  I did two all white cards this year.  This one features one of the ornaments from the Joys of the Seasons cartridge.  For white on white cards, I like to add texture with either embossing or glitter paper.  I embossed the background here with a snowflake folder and embossed the ornament with my favorite all-purpose Swiss Dots (seriously, if you could only have one embossing folder that would be the one I'd have!).  I popped my ornament up on foam tape for some extra dimension.  It came out just like I was envisioning-which doesn't always happen, lol!  Hope you will share some of your Christmas ornament projects with us at BBTB2 this week!

Sorry my photo is so dark-when I shot it in a well lit area, all the white just washed out and you couldn't really see the embossing!

Cricut:

Joys of the Seasons-ornament/shadow cut at 4 1/2 inches

Paper-white card stock

Swiss Dots and Snowflake embossing folders

foam tape

Xmas in July (for Exploring Cricut)

It's a Christmas in July blog hop for Exploring Cricut today…so give White Christmas (the Bing Crosby version) a hum, think chilly, and look at some Christmas cards!  I know it's probably over 90 degrees outside-maybe our blog hop will make you FEEL cooler!  The blog hop list is at the bottom, so you can see all the fabulous Christmas projects from the design team.

My card uses Joys of the Seasons for my snowy trees.  I used white glitter paper for the snowy tops, but it didn't really show up in the photo very well.  I embossed the white background with the all purpose Swiss dots and stamped my Christmas sentiment at the bottom.  It feels so good to get a few Christmas cards done early!!!

Cricut:
Joys of the Season-trees
Paper-from the scrap bin….no idea!
Stamps-from an old Ali Edwards set

Blog Hop Schedule

Annette   www.mymindsdustbunnies.blogspot.com

Sharon    www.meemeescreations.blogspot.com

Faith        www.thecraftingprofessor.blogspot.com

Donna     www.wwwkindredreations.blogspot.com

Rae Ann   www.joyinart.blogspot.com

Emily       www.emilyqueenofallthingscrafty.blogspot.com

Michelle N  www.justanutterpapercrafter.blogspot.com

Christi      www.tidbitsoftexas.com

Liz             www.unikbyyes.blogspot.com

Tina          www.thescrappinrabbit.blogspot.com

Katrina    www.scrappyhorses.blogspot.com

Michelle S www.cricutcrazyscrapper.blogspot.com you are HERE 

Diane      www.happyscrapperdiane.blogspot.com 

3 French Hens Christmas card

I've always wanted to make a 12 days of Christmas series of Christmas cards using Joys of the Season, and this year I finally found some paper from Graphic 45 that inspired me to actually create them!  So here is the 3 French Hens card (don't ask me why I started with the french hens-it just happened, lol).  I sanded and inked the basket just a bit after embossing it since it looked kind of plain otherwise.  The hen and basket are from Joys of the Season and the lettering is from Artbooking.  The print paper is from the Graphic 45 12 days of Christmas patterns and solids 6x6 pack.

Cricut:
Joys of the Season-hen and basket, cut at 3 inches
Artbooking-letters, cut at 3/4 inch
Paper-Graphic 45 prints, CTMH solids
brown chalk ink, embossing folder

Fantabulous Cricut is having an Animal Cracker challenge that I am going to link my french hen up to-lots of fun animal projects to see over there!

White on White Christmas card (for BBTB2)

It's time to get to work on those Christmas cards!  Our challenge at BBTB2 this week is to make a white on white Christmas card.  I'm very fond of the polar bear on Joys of the Season, as he kinda reminds me of that old Coke commercial, so I decided to use him for my white card.

I added some embossing to give some texture to the all white cuts.  I also felt like my polar bear deserved a scarf in sparkly Christmas red to celebrate the holidays!  The sentiment stamps on the inside are from a My Pink Stamper set.

Cricut:
Joys of the Season-polar bear cut at 3 inches with shadow
embossing folders
Paper-CTMH red, American Crafts red glitter paper
stamps-My Pink Stamper
ink-Stampin Up Real Red

We would love to see you join us with a white Christmas card this week!  My DT sisters have some beautiful projects for you to look at over at BBTB2, so I hope you are inspired to join us!

Be Merry layout

Such fun my little critters from CAC2 are having as they decorate for Christmas!  A stack of penguins are getting the star and ornaments on the tree (do penguins come in flocks??  gaggles? no wait, that's geese) and my friendly mouse and cat are hanging the stockings on the fireplace.  Imagine the carols playing in the background.  And of course my sweet little pup is putting a bone under the tree.  All being properly supervised by the senior penguin of course, to make sure no one decides to get into the presents!

Cricut:
CAC2-all cuts except candle, fireplace pieced by hand
JOTS-candle on fireplace
Paper-CM and CTMH solids, Echo Park print from This & That Christmas collection
brown chalk ink

This layout is for the Cardz TV "scene challenge" and I had so much fun making it with CAC2 (except for the candle, which is from Joys of the Season).  I've got lots of Christmas pictures from last year to scrap, so some are going on this layout ASAP!

A Cup of Cheer

One of our family traditions at Christmas is to go to an area in our city that has lots of Christmas lights and sit in the Starbucks there drinking hot choclate looking out at the lights.  Then we go drive around to look at more lights around town and in our neighborhood.  The challenge this week at Fantabulous Cricut was "warm up with cocoa", perfect for my pages!  I used Winter Frolic for the cup of cheer title and Graphically Speaking for the cup and Mmmmm.  I cannot for the life of me remember what the snowflake is from, as it was leftover from another project, but found a home here!  It uses my super cute new paper pack from Echo Park called Winter Park.

Edit: the snowflake is from Joys of the Season!

Cricut:
Winter Frolic-title
Graphically Speaking-cup, Mmmmm
Joys of the Season-snowflake
Paper-Echo Park's Winter Park collection
pop dots, Stampin Up ribbon in cherry cobbler

Christmas mini shape album (pic heavy!)

This is my first attempt at a shape album, mostly using Doodlecharms.  I made Christmas shapes for the pages:  a stocking, two ornaments, a Christmas tree, and a present and used last year's Echo Park Christmas line for the paper.

Cricut:
Doodlecharms-stocking, present, tree pages
Joys of the Season-ornament page
CM Cheerful Seasons-present on cover
Mickey Font-JOY and LOVE
Paper-Echo Park's Merry Christmas

I'm going to link this to the Fantabulous Cricut challenge to have the project have something to do with a gift.  This has the gift cut on the front and the last page is the gift shape from Doodlecharms.

Polar Bear thanks card

So I was trying to cut the awesomely cool polar bear on Joys of the Season (who always makes me think of that old coke commecial)  for a scrapbook page, only I cut it too small.  BUT, he was the perfect size for a card, so I changed paper and here he is!

Cricut:
Joys of the Season-polar bear
Winter Woodland-thanks
Paper-My Mind's Eye (striped paper, which is glittered and really pretty in real life, but didn't photograph well)

I saw this morning that the Fantabulous Cricut challenge is to make a thank you card, so Mr. Polar Bear will fit nicely.