Christmas Wishes For One and All

Just wanted to stop by and wish you all a very Merry Christmas!  May the day be filled with lots of joy, laughter, good food, family, and friends. Don't forget to take some picutes to help you remember this time in your life and all the little memories that you make throughout the day. I know I will.  :)  These snapshots I take are little glimpses into my life and how I chose to celebrate this amazing, wonderful, special holiday that we call Christmas.

 "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord."

"Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

(Luke 2:11, 14)

In that spirit, I wanted to share the Christmas cards I made this year. There were so many great stamps that came out this year and I had so many ideas rolling around in my head that I decided that instead of making the same card over and over and over again, I would make lots of different designs and only make about a dozen of each. So that is what I did.

"Merry Christmas Holly"

This is my favorite card of all the cards I made this year. To create the holly piece, I first stamped the Hero Arts Classic Holly cling stamp onto a 3.5 x 3.5 inch square of Bazzill cardstock with VersaFine Onyx Black Ink. I heat embossed the image with clear embossing powder. I then made my own watercolor paints with Ranger Distress inks and Perfect Pearls Perfect Pearl powder mixed with water.  I used  Bundled Sage, Forest Moss, and Tumbled Glass Distress inks. I then inked up my favorite background stamp, the Friend Definition from Hero Arts with Pumice Stone Distress ink and inked over the entire image. I finished off the piece by distressing around the edge of it using the Tonic Edge Distresser and a bit of Pumice Stone ink. I also added a red cardstock border and a stamped sentiment to the card to finish it off.

"Warmest Wishes House"

This is another one of my favorites. I really loved this set of holiday houses by Hero Arts. I stamped and head embossed this house in gold and then colored it in with my Copic markers, I then cut the the house out and I also diecut 2 pieces with the Tim Holtz Alterations Ornamental Die. I drew a snow slope on one and cut out the bottom piece. I then added glitter to my 'slope' with white paint and set it aside to dry. I heat embossed the pine tree from the same house set with a metallic green embossing powder from American Crafts and the 'Warmest Wishes' from a holiday sentiment set from Hero Arts. I then used Tumbled Glass Distress ink and my inking tool to color the background of the full diecut piece and stamped small snowflakes from the house set with the Tumbled Glass ink. I finally pop dotted the glittery snow piece to my card and tucked the house in behind the slope. I finished the card by running my gold leafing pen around the edge of the blue piece to give the piece some extra shine and adding Frosted Lace Stickles to the snow peaks of the house.

Well it is getting super late so I will be back later this weekend to share more of my Christmas cards.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Janeen

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Hello all my blog friends and readers.  It has been a whirlwind of a month around here between the decorating, the holiday crafting, the festive events, and lots of time spent with the family. I have enjoyed it so much this year and there is still more to come in the next few weeks. I so can't wait...

So I thought I would pop on here and share a few of my holiday going-ons this season with you.

My young adult group at Pathway held an "everything cliche" Christmas party last week. We wore tacky christmas sweaters, had a white elephant gift exchange, and enjoyed all the fun festive foods that this season brings. The above pictures are from the tacky Christmas sweater contest. I ended up winning first place with my twinkling lighted sweater and they just had to turn off all the lights to admire it. :) 

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This was the Manheim Steamroller concert that I went to with my family at the Embassy. It was a lot of fun seeing how they create all the different sounds that go into their music and it was a very festive and fun concert. :)

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This weekend we also had our family Christmas parties....I got to see a ton of my aunts, uncles, and cousins and catch up with them. It is one of my favorite parts of the holiday season. :)

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Lots and lots of decorating...the tree, cookies, our outside lights....gotta love all the festive trimmings that you see this time of year.

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I have also been busily working on my Christmas cards this year. I will try to get some pictures of them tomorrow and get them up on the blog to share with you all. :)

Until then....Merry Christmas,

Janeen