A 2010 start on Christmas Cards

Well I am back today with a Christmas card that I made using scraps. I made a total of 10, each slightly different based on scraps I had on hand.


The Happy Holiday sentiment with ribbon is what I put inside each of the cards.

Ingredients:
Stamps: PTI Signature Christmas;PTI Holiday Treats
Paper: Scraps
Ink: PTI Ocean Tides, Versamark
Accessories: Super Jumbo (yellow) Marvy Snowflake punch; 1 3/4" circle punch; PTI Ocean Tides Vintage Buttons; PTI Ocean Tides Saddle Stitch Ribbon

Christmas Recipe Book

When it's time to prepare for Christmas I always have to pull out all of my recipes to figure out what ingredients I need to buy. I was getting tired of having to search for each of the recipes. So I decided to put together a Christmas Recipe book that has all our family favourites. That way from year to year the recipes are all together and I don't have to spend time searching for each one. I have organized the recipe book into meals and by days, Christmas Eve, Christmas Breakfast, Christmas Lunch, Christmas Dinner, Desserts, etc.

The pages are simple, since I will only being using the book once a year. I created presents out of the pages, and recipe cards. There are still blank pages to add any new recipes my family think are Christmas worthy.

Christmas Cards

I am one of those type of people who are always ready for the holidays a month in advance. I love being organized, knowing that everything is ready to go, and then I don't have to stress and do things last minute...like my DH (it is four days before xmas eve, and he still hasn't bought my gifts) All my shopping is done, the gifts are wrapped, packages have been mailed, and the cards are already in the mail. My only problem is I can't post any of the gift ideas or cards until Christmas time. And of course I haven't been up to anything else but Christmas things. Hence the reason my blog has been so quiet. During the year I am always so busy with work; however at Christmas time I have two weeks off which allows me to relax and spend time scrapbooking. So I actually have had my Christmas cards done for a year now. During last years Christmas Holidays I put together some accordian fold Christmas cards. Back during the summer I posted a sneak peak at one of them. I am back today to give you a look at a few others. The first accordian card I did from scratch. Even the letter panels I stamped from nothing. I then decided to use Christmas paper packages that had letters included. It helped move along the process. I ended up making a total of 12 different accoridan cards. Three were quite long, but then I decided to cut it down to around 6 panels per card.

Below is the card I sent to my Grandparents. **Funny story.....my grandmother thought they were gift tags and almost started to cut the card apart.** Sorry for the first blurry picture. I didn't notice it till after I had already mailed the card. Each panel uses some Christmas DSP that I got from Walmart (was a huge package for around $13..bought it last year). I then used a gold pen to outline the panels. Each panel has a letter that spelt my various messages. Merry Christmas, Let it snow, Joyeux Noel (French), and Khristos Razhdayetsya (Ukrainian). Each panel also has eyelets at the top, threaded with various Christmas colours of ribbon. The panels are also embellished with Christmas brads and snowflakes.

Here is the Ukrainian card I posted last summer. Instead of putting ribbon on every panel I used some square pictures that were a part of the Christmas DSP paper I purchased.

And for those in my family who are not religious I made Let it Snow cards. Here is one example of many I made. The word snow is versamarked, stamped in Bashful Blue ink (SU) and then embossed. I used a snowflake as the letter O.
Well lets see how many Christmas cards I get done this Holiday for next year...LOL

Here is a little sneak peak at some notebooks I made.

Snow Cubes

Well life offline has been quite busy the last month so the bloglife has been quite quiet. I finally remembered to bring my camera with me to document a few of the offline activities I have been up to. Today a few ladies got together to make cubes using either the words Joy, Noel, or Snow. Our demonstrator, Tara, created the items using the new Digital Studio from Stampin Up. Here are a few shots:

Spoiler Alert To Family--Christmas Gifts Below!

It's that time of the month where Papertrey Ink challenges their customers to participate in the Blog Hop. This month the Blog Hop asks us to share our Christmas cards, gifts, and packaging ideas. Unfortunately I didn't receive my Papertrey Ink Package yet that had tons of packaging and gift ideas inside (nugget tins, tea tins, take note pads, etc) so I thought I would share with you what I have started on. The post is a little long today, but please enjoy.

First of all lets start with my Holiday Inspiration Table. I take all my Christmas themed stamps, paper, and embellishments and lay it all out so I can see what I have. It helps sparks inspiration and reminds me of all the items I have.

This basket contains nuggets (finally found some here in town); peppermint patties, snack bags, plastic card boxes, candy canes, recipe book, and PTI holiday stamps. Underneath is a huge package of paper, along with more holiday paper behind the basket.
Here you can see my other stamps; a Santa bag filled with kraft gift bags to decorate; vintage buttons; jingle bells; PTI ribbon; punches; and tons of holiday embellishments I found at Micheal's.

Now onto some gifts:
Snowmen Peppermint Patties

I took my scallop punch and punched out white scallops for both the front and back of each peppermint patty. I used my single hole punch to create the black coal buttons and the eyes. The hat is punched using SU 1 1/4" square punch and the word window punch. I then drew on the nose and mouth using copics. The punch art idea came from various people who shared on Splitcoaststampers, so thank you.
I then took the little snowmen and placed two in a small glassine bag from PTI. I then wrapped some PTI Enchanted Evening Ribbon around the bag, added a top note die topper in Enchanted Evening which was stamped in Fresh Snow (PTI) using a snowflake stamp set from SU. To finish it off I added a tag (sentiment To: From: comes from PTI's Halloween Tag set), and a marvy extra jumbo (yellow) snowflake punch with a Enchanted Evening Vintage Button, and a little Noel sentiment, stamped onto a punched marvy extra jumbo scallop square, from Dawn McVeys handwritten Signature Christmas set.
Here they are all packaged up!

Now onto some hot chocolate & other drink gifts:

As I posted the other day I made Trendy Tubes Hot Chocolate gifts. You can find the post here. These are individual gifts but I plan on using PTI's Tea Tin to create a family version along with some other treats to eat and drink on a cold Northern Canadian winter's day! All the treat ideas will be packaged up into a nice basket. If you also look at the post below this one you will see a PTI plastic card box that I have decorated. I have placed some drink items inside.

Now onto reusing PTI Stamp boxes:

I have a soon to be SIL whom I have just met. The two of us went to Sweet Flour in Toronto where you can create your own cookie and have it baked in front of you. Now my brother is Vegan so can't eat this sweet delicious treat, so I have put together a Hot Chocolate, Peppermint Patty, Gift Certificate package. I am reusing a PTI Stamp box to put together this package.

To create the Gingerbread Peppermint patty I used my scallop punch again, and just added some small circles to create the arms and legs. The sugarcoating is created using a white ballpoint pen. Added some hole punched red circles for buttons and a small ribbon as a bow. The box is wrapped in dark chocolate paper which has been stamped using a gingerbread stamp in Fresh Snow Ink (PTI). Ribbon was then wrapped around the box and jingle bells were added to the bow.
On the right of the above picture is a Gingerbread man created from the Top Note Die, marvy oval punch (blue), 3/4" circle punch, and the 1 1/4" circle punch cut in half to create the eye lids. The gingerbread man's edges were inked with Fresh Snow to make it look like icing. Then on the back of the gingerbread man I die cut another top note die, but cut it in half. I adhered just the edges so that it becomes a little pocket and the gift certificate to Sweet Flour will fit inside.

Here are two other Top Note Die Gift Certificate holders I made. Another gingerbread one and a snowman.

Do you see the gift that is illuminated???? Alot of people are making these these days. It is simply a glass cube (this one is repurposed from a lady's house here in town, but you can buy them at your local hardware store). You tie ribbon around it, tie a bow and decorate, drill a hole into the back side, and feed a small set of Christmas lights into the back. Neat huh???
Here is what I haven't gotten to. My to do list:

1. Nugget Tins

2. Alter Tea Tin into Family Hot Chocolate Package

3. Pillow Box gift certficate holders

4. Note Books

5. Christmas Crackers (heres last years picture) This year the items inside wont be cheesy

6. Still need to decorate my kraft pages.

Stay tuned for views of all of these, plus my Christmas Cards. I am not posting my cards here as I did not use any PTI supplies on them (as I made them last year).

Thanks for stopping by.