Poinsettia Love

I won't lie and tell you that Poinsettias are my favorite flowers. They are not. Yet I do love my Poinsettias at Christmas time!

This little card is made with Poinsettias from the Close to my Heart Flower Market Cricut Cartridge. This is my offering for this week's Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge.

Poinsettia Love

This was very fun to make using shimmer trim for the stripes on the left side. Here is the sketch:

AHSC Week of 11-6

I hope you'll play along with us and share the art this sketch has inspired in you.  Find the directions the Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge blog.  Thanks for stopping by today. I hope to see your art soon!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I have two classes coming up on me like a freight train!  Tomorrow night is my City Sidewalks layouts classes.  We are doing four pages, aka two 2-page layouts.  These are so cute & wintry.

This workshop is only $25 at 6:00pm on Thursday, December 1.  Contact me at betsygully@gmail.com for more information.  That's tomorrow, so don't wait!

My other upcoming class is a Christmas Tag & Box class.

Won't your gifts look fabulous adorned with these beautiful tags?  We'll be making 12 tags and the box for just $20. The date of this class is Saturday, December 3 at 10:00am.  Email me for more information and to reserve your place.  betsygully@gmail.com.

A Yuletide Carol Update

I had not finished my second 2-page layout when I posted my classes for Yuletide Carol.  Just in case you own this paper pack and are looking for some inspiration, I'd like to share. 

I am completely in love with the beautiful and delicate features of this paper pack. 

Thanks for stopping by today!

Sneak Peek at Christmas Cards!

There are so many things to love about Christmas and all the days and weeks leading up to it.  One of my favorite things is that it's such a "crafting" time of year.  Through my crafting is one of the ways I show my friends and family how much I care.  

Another wonderful thing is that it's one of the few times of year that we reach out and communicate through snail mail.  It saddens me how much of our personal histories we are losing just because we don't write it down any longer.  I love getting Christmas letters tucked inside my Christmas cards and I save them all! 

My Christmas cards are one way I embrace both crafting and snail mail.  Would you like to join me in making cards this year?  Here is what we will be doing. 

For more details about joining my class, click on this link.  Hope to see you here!

Stocking Stuffers!

I love Christmas. Besides looking forward to seeing family, shopping, eating, partying and honoring the birth of Jesus, it's also a great time to be a paper crafter. I get to design and make my own Christmas cards. I love sending out cards that mean more to me than a pretty picture and a pretty saying. I know that not all recipients appreciate the time and effort it takes to make my cards, but the process of making them and thinking about the friends and family I'll be sending them to is very important to me, a tradition I adore.

Besides making cards there are so many other holiday things to make by paper crafting. I'm certainly not as creative as so many of the crafters I admire, but I do have fun! This photo is of five items we are creating in my next workshop. They can be small gifts for people you want to acknowledge with a little something or they can be stocking stuffers, or perhaps, like the ornament or notebook, you can keep it for yourself. However they are used, they are sure to be appreciated!

Let the holidays begin! I so love this season!!

Holiday Card Workshop

Today we had the first of three Holiday Card workshops. Every participant received a thank you gift from me before we jumped in and made 20 holiday cards, ten designs, 2 of each. We had yummy Christmas cookies and non-stop Christmas tunes. Don't shame me for breaking out the Christmas tunes too early, it's necessary to have the appropriate music when making Christmas cards! We had so much fun!

There are some workshop plans in the CTMH book "Wishes" but I felt uninspired by them. Instead, Alyssa and I looked at all the cards in "Wishes" and picked out individual cards that appealed to us. It was a little more work but I am so pleased with what we came up with!

All these cards use the Mistletoe Level 2 paper packet and the Creative Basics Mistletoe Collection. The card above was my design, focusing on the papers themselves. The pretty little poinsettias are part of a collection called Mistletoe Level 2 Assortment. I adore them! The sentiment is from the Tannenbaum My Acrylix stamp set.

This card is Alyssa's design. The sentiment is from Christmas Melodies.

This is also Alyssa's design and also uses the Christmas Melodies My Acrylix stamp set. On both cards the berries are filled in using red stickles. So cute!

Another card by Alyssa. Did I mention I am starting to feel inadequate? LOL! I really love this stamp set, I Believe. It also has a reindeer, santa and sleigh, stocking & snow flakes. Very versatile!

And this card was designed by..... you guessed it! Alyssa! She used the My Acrylix stamp set, Adorn-able and added the pearl Opaques for a little added pop.

Final card was my design (finally!). If it seems familiar it's because it's one of the cards I featured on the November blog hop. This tree is alway a hit! The stamped and glittered trees are part of the Holiday Trinkets My Acrylix stamp set. The second generation stamping gives the appearance of depth, as if the trees are fading off into the mist.

If you are counting you may have noticed that I have only posted six cards. The final four are being held back and will be revealed December 1st for the December Paper Trail blog hop. Mark your calendars and check back for the remaining workshop cards. Thanks for stopping by!

Holiday Cards - Do You Still Send Them?

I've been participating in some craft shows this fall and along with my other items presenting cards for sale. They are not moving as well as I would have liked. I hope that doesn't mean people are not sending Holiday cards... I so love getting them!!

This is one of my favorites made with Mistletoe Level 2 paper pack. The glittery ribbon came with my Mistletoe Creative Basics. I've been investing more & more in corner and border punches, totally in love with them! Mary Jane taught me to do the accordion flower a few months ago and I have made tons of them since. Do you ever get "stuck" on something so fun you just have to keep making it? This card also includes My Acrylix stamps, St. Nick and Peace on Earth.

Did I tell you? Martha Stewart corner & border punches used for this card. I just can't resist! The beautiful musical paper is another part of the Mistletoe Level 2 paper pack. My Acrylix stamps are A Timber. Its a very sweet little set!

Two of our new colors are featured on this card, Pacifica and Sky. I used my Cuttlebug to emboss the card stock with snow flakes and then lightly sanded the top, leaving the white core to show. I love how easy it is to get this beautiful effect. My Acrylix stamps used on this card are from the Ice Crystals set.

This is one of my favorites! I love round cards and CTMH makes it so easy! I added paper from Magnifique Level 2 paper pack, using the pretty light patterned back of a much bolder pattern. I used the strip of embossed Pacifica cut off of the One of a Kind card and added my sponged, colored & glittered image from My Acrylix Snow Days and Thank You.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you are sending real cards out this holiday season. Snail mail means so much more!

November Paper Trail Blog Hop - Mistletoe!

Welcome to the November edition of the Paper Trail blog hop! We are a group of Close To My Heart consultants working together to bring you cards, layouts, and other art featuring a different Close To My Heart paper packet each month. If you arrived here from Terri's My Frame of Mind you are on the right trail!

This month we are featuring the paper packet Mistletoe and it's beautiful holiday papers. I did some paper folded Christmas tree cards. The inspiration comes from Joyce. You can see her video here.

My daughter Alyssa got busy with Mistletoe and created a mini-album. It's a perfect size to put in a CD envelope and mail some holiday memories to family or friends.

A small Velcro tab holds the album closed.

Plenty of room for some journaling on the left - photo on the right.

Every page has room to tell the story of the photos you place inside.

The very center has room for 3 photos.

Close up of right side of center & Santa
.

I love the ornaments designed for a journaling spot!

And a lovely sentiment for the last page.

Thanks for stopping by. You're on your way to Karen's Inky Fingers blog now for some more great ideas. Just click on her blog.

Christmas Cards

Now that Christmas has come and gone I can share the cards I sent out this year. If you didn't get yours let me know and I'll check into it. It could be because I didn't get one from you so I had no return address to mail to.... That's my little attempt at humor today.



I was so intent on getting my cards all mailed out before Christmas, a change I decided to implement this year, that I forgot to take photos of this one. A big thanks to Susan and Dennis for emailing me a photo of their card.


When I began running short on time I switched over to a set of cards designed by my friend Shari. Her awesome instructions allowed me to crank out another 20 cards in record time. I tweaked in a couple of places but most of the cards are a straight stamp lift. I apologize to anyone who received on of these and thought it was my original work, which it was stamped as on the back, but only because I wasn't able to find a stamp with simply my name. My apologies to you, too, Shari.

Creative Basics - Jingle

When I ordered my new toys from the CTMH Winter 2009 Idea Book I got a paper packet called Creative Basics Jingle Collection - page 30 if you want to follow along in the book... Last night I cracked open my Wishes Card Confidence program and selected the Celebrations Workshop to use this paper with. This workshop uses only 2 sheets of the background texture papers, 2 coordinating sheets of cardstock and 6 more cardstock for the 6" x 6" cards bases. With that, I can create 12 beautiful cards, two each of 6 designs.

I chose White Daisy, Juniper, Hollyhock & Tulip for my bases. Since it was pretty late in the evening all I did was cut all the papers according to the cutting guide in Wishes and organize the bases with the cut pieces. I decided to not do the same color bases for the 2nd card of each design to see how different they would look. I had time to make up three of the 12 cards. Take a peek!!

The Juniper grossgrain ribbon is included with the Creative Basics Jingle Collection papers. I tied the white craft buttons with natural hemp and sponged them with Tulip and Juniper inks.

More natural hemp (sponged with Juniper ink) knotted and attached to the card with Liquid Glass. Pretty glittery Twinkle Brads adorn the center of the snowflakes.

The Holiday Trinkets My Acrylix stamp set is what I have used for all of these cards. I really like the simplicity of this card, and distressing paper is one of my very favorite techniques!
I have nine more cards to do with this project... hurry back!!