Hey all. I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. I must say, Christmas was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much less stressful for me this year as I was all done with my crafting and cardmaking about a week and a half before the big day. In fact I was all done with everything, save baking, by that time. And, let me tell you, it made Christmas so much better for me that I'm vowing to be that in control next year too, rather than my usual up really late every night from the 15th on, making and doing Christmas stuff right into Boxing Day.
I think one of the reasons it went so smoothly was that I made a number of Christmas cards earlier in the year, which I have already posted as I like to combine my dt cardmaking with cards I actually need to make. But, I do still have some I haven't posted so I thought I'd show 'em all in one big round up post. So, here we go.....
First up we have my card for my oldest, who has a barn full of sheep,....and is 14 years old going on grumpy-old-man 90. Thought this file from
SVG Cutting Files was fitting.
Next up is a clean and simple card that I knew had to be mailed and just this once I wanted to do so without having to pay extra postage so it's completely free of any embellishments. It's not free of mistakes though since the first embosing go 'round I accidentally put the image in upside down so now there's both embossed and debossed snowflakes on there - whoops! Digi is from
From the Heart Stamps.
This one is using a fantastic digi from
Dilly Beans Stamps. I just love this penguin. I also used some of this fabulous tinsel trim I should really use more often.
I made a shaped card again this year too. This was my second try for this card as I made a very poor paper choice with my first, opting for a colourful tiny polka dot design. Poor Frosty looked like he had a hideous case of the chicken pox and someone took their Copics to his spots! Neutral colours were certainly a better choice....
(Inspiration for this card came from this card
here.) Cutting file was a freebie from
Miss Kate's Cuttables. If I made this one again I would take out the cut lines from the top of the hat seeing as they look a bit silly without the cardstock backing them.
I also made a few non-card crafts too. I made some ornaments....
...which are basically wooden shapes with paper and some embellies added. Funny story with these....I had my aforementioned 14 year old drill some small (although they were bigger than I wanted) holes in them so I could add the hanging wire. Later on I said to him, "Wanna see what I did with those shapes you put the holes in?" When I showed them to him he very seriously said, "But...but...but, you covered up my holes with paper. No one can see them." To make him feel better I had to promise I'd tell the recipients to flip the ornaments over to look at the holes he made. I guess he didn't want his contribution to go unnoticed!
And finally....we come to the pièce de résistance. Let me tell you, my friends, this project was so much a bigger undertaking then I thought it was going to be. Like ridiculously so. So, so, so, so ridiculously so. I underestimated how long it would take so monumentally. Not that I didn't enjoy making them, it was fun designing them and the cutting wasn't too big of a deal....but putting them together, omg, what a time suck! All told, for the six of them I made, I bet it took....let's see.....24 to 30 hours of designing and making. Now because of the colossal amount of time this took, and because I'm still sensitive about the time I spent on this project, I have come up with a number of prepared compliments you may use if you would like to comment on this make. Only these comments will be accepted, all others will be ignored. Feel free to either copy and paste them into the comment section, or for the sake of ease, simply quote which comment by its number.
1. Wow, these are cool! Your friends are so lucky to receive such a thoughtful gift.
2. Very neat! Your friends are so lucky to receive such a thoughtful gift.
3. Nice! Your friends are so lucky to receive such a thoughtful gift.
4. Your friends are so lucky to receive such a thoughtful gift! And you are such a wonderful friend to spend hours and hours of your time to make something for them. JanR, I wish I had a friend like you. What lucky friends you have! Lucky, lucky, lucky!
Now, after all that build up, here it is.....
As you can see, it's a desk calendar. Now, this was my copy, 'coz I decided that I was gonna make one for myself too, so there's a special feature that I didn't photograph for the other calendars but should have. I had also made a "Birthday Wishes" panel with a happy cupcake. And I put that panel on the recipients' birthday month. And, on my copy too, one of the mitt hearts went awol and I had to cut a new one. Of course, I couldn't find the exact colour, and did I think to just cut two hearts out of the new colour? No, of course not! And that's going to bug me the whole month of November, guaranteed.
So that's my round up of Christmas makes. I hope my Canadian, United Kingdom & Australian (and other readers who are living in former British colonies) are enjoying Boxing Day. And to my American friends, a quick Google search let me know that some of you (depending on the state you live in.....meaning geographically, not philosophically) will be celebrating Day After Christmas Day....Day? (I'm unsure of the second Day is necessary.) I must say, original name, that is. Well, whatever you're celebrating (or not celebrating) today, I hope you have a good one.
