Every year when I go to Founder's Circle I get to spend a day with my friend Susan Adams and several other girls. It is always such a treat because Susan is such an amazing stamper and quilter. She has her own quilting machine! Her stamp room is incredible. I wish I could just move in with her. You can literally stay all day and not see everything. 

This is one of the many displays she has out. I loved this Christmas stocking banner. She made it with the Big Shot stocking die and felt material. You can either sew the edges or use a hot glue gun. Then hang it from a piece of our striped grosgrain ribbon.

Here is a close up of one of the stockings. The alphabet is also a set of Big Shot dies. Sprinkle a little glitter on top to make it sparkle.

This version is made out of cardstock. Same basic concept just with paper instead of the fabric. No sewing involved! These are attached to the ribbon using twist ties. How clever!

This one is a placemat that Susan decorated using our Stampin Up Holly Berry Bouquet fabric found on pg  22 in the Holiday mini.

Wow! We are actually having a white Christmas here in VA on the east coast for the first time I can ever remember. We rarely even get snow here but on Christmas, we are usually still in the 50's. THis year has been super cold so far and this is the 3rd snowstorm for us! I think that is a record! It sure is pretty though.

I got many hand stamped Christmas cards from my friends and customers that I LOVED but this is one of my favorites. It was hard to choose because there were so many awesome ones and I am saving them all! This one was made by one of my customers named Chris. I think it turned out just great.

I also got several gifts that were handmade and this was one of my favorites. My good friend Sam made this one. She handmade the star ornament. I have no idea how she did it but it looks like a lot of work. She also made a little cookie cutter with fudge to go along with it. I just thought it was so creative and delicious at the same time! Thanks to everyone who sent me a card or gift. They were all loved and appreciated.  I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas. Mine was great but I sure need to go on a diet immediately! I have one more apple pie to make for a special friend tomorrow and that is the end of my holiday baking. I think I gained 10 pounds just looking at food this week.

THis is a close up of the ornament. It is made out of paper but it totally does not look or feel like it.

Merry Christmas to all of my friends, family and customers.  I hope you all have a wonderful day spent doing what you love…..I will be baking and eating! Two of my favorite things! 

Here is one of the cards that  I did in my stamp clubs this month. I used the Christmas Collage set from the Holiday mini. This set is only available for a few more days!

This is a close up of the center piece. The medallion is from Artistic Etchings. I stamped the card in cherry cobbler and then went back over it with a sponge in crumb cake.

Here is another sample with the same stamp set. This original card was made by my friend Lorrie and we all got to make it at our shoebox swap a couple of weeks ago.

Here is another last minute gift idea. This fits a standard gift card or if you are short on cash, you can put a Ghirardelli chocolate in it instead. You start with a piece of cardstock 4 1/4x 6 3/4 and score it at 1 1/8 and 4 1/8 on the long side. Then do the scallop edge on the end of the bigger piece. It is super easy and you can whip these out in just a few minutes.  I used the Deck the Halls designer paper and artichoke cardstock.

Here is an inside view of it. The gift card fits just as well.

I made a bunch of these ornaments this month with my clubs and downline and they are so easy. You need the long board chipboard ( pg 205) and the clear circle die (pg 207) to make these. I cut out all of the circles from the chipboard sheets and then covered the back in another old olive cardstock circle. The front is made with scraps of Jolly Holiday designer paper (pg 174) and also scraps of cherry cobbler and old olive cardstock. This is a great way to use up your scraps. THe designer pieces were all 1 inch by 4 inch and the solid colors are 2×4 inches.  I used the border punches to jazz them up a little. You lay all of the pieces across the top how you want them, glue them down and then flip it over and trim around the circle. The hanger is the Decorative Label punch folded over the top. That can be found in the holiday mini or the new Occasions mini.

Here is a close up of the button and the sentiment that I topped with the rhinestone. THere is a little bit of a glare in the photo so I am sorry that it is kind of hard to see.

Here is a quick and easy gift you can make for anyone on your list. I started with a piece of 6×6 crumb cake cardstock and folded it in half. Then cut 1 3/4 inches down on that fold line. That makes the little flap in front that I punched with the pinking hearts punch. I put a piece of sticky strip down the side and a little on the bottom to glue it shut. Decorate the front and you are done. The Hershey Bar should fit perfectly inside. I made a TON of these for friends and they all loved them.

Earlier this month I had some of my downline over for a Christmas stamping get together and potluck dinner. It was so much fun. We had a pretty small group since everyone is so busy this time of year but that made it even more special for the ones who did get to come.

After we ate an awesome dinner,  we did a gift exchange. There were some awesome gifts. Here are a few of  the pictures. Here are Cyndi and Brenda showing off their presents.

Cyndi got a blanket and stamped necklace.

Brenda got a handmade bag and jar of goodies wrapped in a handmade fabric decoration. These were hand sewn using our Deck the Halls fabric from the Holiday mini.

This is Liz showing off her wreath.

This is Kelly showing off the gifts that she received. I made these. The bag on the left is a sandwich type bag that I decorated and filled with chocolate and the gift on the right is a piece of framed art. 

Rachelle received this gorgeous frame that Kelly made by doing the stencil embossing on there. Kelly came over yesterday and showed us how to make these. I will post mine later.

After the gift exchange, I had a few projects for the girls to make.   We did  those cute notepad holders using the DVD cases that Stampin Up sells. Each girl got to personalize their own.  Then we made those cute Hershey bar  holders. I will post a close up view of that tomorrow. We also made a CHristmas card. I gave all of the girls little gifts too including  a bag of my famous Christmas candy. 

Wow, I can't believe it has been over a week since I have posted. I have been super busy getting ready for Christmas as I am sure many of you have been too. THere is always so much to do during the month of December and never enough time to do it. Plus my laptop crashed and I spent a week pouting about that since stupid idiot that I am didn't back it up so I lost everything! You just never think it is going to happen to you and then POOF! all of your hard work is gone in a split second. Well. after much thought, I have decided to try an online backup service from Carbonite. It comes highly recommended and you know that once you actually do back up all of your stuff, then your computer is much less likely to break…just Murphy's Law….Oh well…life goes on so I will start putting things back on my newly remodeled computer today. More hours of time that I don't have……why can't we just add about 6 more hours to each day so we can do all of the things that need to be done and also throw in a couple extra hours of sleep in there too! Well, I guess I should stop babbling about myself and actually talk about this project.

My friend Cindy Petersen showed me these cute notepad holders when we were at Founder's Circle a couple of months ago so I decided to make them for CHristmas gifts and also do them at my recent Stamp camp. The cases are the empty Stampin Up DVD cases that come in a pack of 4 for only $4.95! (pg 192). Then I made the front and back covers and slid those in the clear outside covers so you can actually change them out for each season if you want. The notepads do have to be cut down to 7 1/4 inches. They come 5×8 at any office supply store. You can actually get them cut right at the store too. THen I wrapped a ribbon around through the inside and tied on the outside.THe paper is from Deck the Halls and the letter is from our Big Shot alphabet set.

Here is a view of the inside. These are not fancy at all but you could add a clear envelope on the left side to put receipts or coupons in. I am keeping mine in my car because that is always the place I need to write something down and never seem to have any paper.

Here is a pretty simple Christmas gift card holder I made using the Candy Cane Christmas paper which has totally sold out as of today! Oh no! I hope you got a pack before they were all gone. This was some really cool paper that was textured and shiny, almost gel like. Here is a close up below of what it looked like.

If you would like to try and make one of these, just take a quarter sheet of cardstock  ( 5 1/2 by 4 1/4) and score the longest side at 2 1/2 and 5. Put sticky strip on the little 1/2 inch flap and close. Decorate the front and then punch a hole in the top. Slide your ribbon straight through the 2 holes and then use your gift card to push the ribbon down as you slide the card in. THen tie a knot or bow on top. THe gift card will just slide in and out as you pull the ribbon up.

Here is an adorable Christmas gift bag idea that I recently did with my stamp clubs. I used the scalloped mini lunch  sacks from the Stampin Up holiday mini catalog on pg 13. You get 10 of these in a pack for only $4.95! They are so much nicer than a regular lunch bag you would get from the store. They are thicker, come lined on the bottom and also come with that scalloped top.   For this one, I decorated it using the Deck the Halls designer paper, plus I used the tasteful trim big shot die and the ribbon border punch. The ribbon is the artichoke seam binding ribbon.

Here is a close of the tag and the button. I used a button from the Deck the Halls button collection also found in the Stampin Up holiday mini and then put a little bow in there using linen thread. These are so much fun to make and a really nice way to give someone a nice gift.