Christmas

Another version of that Christmas card from the last post…..

Here is another version of that Christmas card I posted the other day.  For this one, I used the Deck the Halls fabric again for the ribbon, but I also attached one of the matching buttons to it. I think it really makes the card look more old fashioned. I used a rhinestone in the center of the snowflake too. This is one of my club cards for the next couple of weeks.

Here is a close up of the button and the linen thread. I LOVE these buttons! The fabric is so nice and it matches our colors perfectly.

Christmas is coming!

I was at Target yesterday and they were putting out the Christmas stuff already and it isn't even Halloween yet! What the heck?? Well, it is never too soon to get started on those Christmas cards and here is a great one. My upline Melissa Ellis shared a similar card with me a few weeks ago and I changed it a little bit and did it for a swap with a group of friends. It is super easy and uses the new Northern Flurry embossing folder, the Candy Cane Christmas fabric, and the Tags til Christmas set. All of these items can be found in the Stampin Up Holiday mini catalog.

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Gorgeous Bells and Boughs card

This gorgeous card was made by my good friend Deb Valder for a swap I hosted. She always does such a fabulous job. I love the fan fold accent on this card. Deb showed me how to do these at Founder's Circle but mine never come out as nice as hers! The background paper on this card is from the Deck the Halls Designer series pack and the stamp set for the holly is called Bells and Boughs. The big Dec 25 stamp is from Tags Til Christmas. All of these items can be found in the Stampin Up Holiday mini catalog. If you haven't gotten one yet, please let me know. I have plenty here.

To place your Stampin’ Up order online  24-7, click here

Cards for the Troops Day!

Yesterday I held my first ever Cards for the Troops Day at my church. I had a great turnout….26 ladies came and worked like crazy stamping over 500 cards in less than 2 hours! It was truly amazing! At this table we have Paulette, Nicole, Holly and Wendy. They were the super fast table and whipped out the cards in no time flat.

This table was all beginners and girls from my church who had never stamped before and they did an awesome job making a ton of Christmas cards!

Here are Sheila, Deb, Bonnie and Niccole. Niccole is in my downline and Sheila, Deb and Bonnie are my customers. They also did a fabulous job!

This is Donna Cunningham (in red) who is another fellow demo in our area and she had all beginner stampers at her table too!

Here are just a few of the many cards we made today.  As you can tell from the picture, it is a great way to use up lots of retired papers!

There were about 15 or so different cards and we made between 20-50 of each one. I have to give a big THANK YOU to one of my downline (Melissa Carr) who couldn't come but sent in 5 different projects for the girls to make today. Also thanks to Niccole Marshall, Donna Cunningham, Susan Tenczar, and Lynn Wyndham for helping out today. I could not have done it without you!

When I got home, I went through all the cards and bagged them tightly into the biggest box Stampin' Up has and it was filled up to the very top! These will be sent to http://www.fromourhearts.info/ and then they ship them to several different groups of service men and women stationed overseas.

Here is a side view of the box so you can see how big it is.  I can barely lift it! I bet it weighs about 40 pounds.

Cute Little Matchbook Treat Holder

I whipped up this little ghirardelli treat holder for my downline meeting this month and they are so quick and easy to make. You just need to cut the cardstock at 2 1/8 by 7 1/4 so you can get 5 out of a sheet of regular cardstock (8 1/2 by 11).  Then score each piece at 6 1/2.  Then I stapled the ghirardelli in the bottom flap, folded the rest of it over so it tucks into the stapled end. Then I decorated the front and covered the staple with a little ribbon.

Here is a view of the inside…..

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My Founder’s Circle Swap!

This was my Founder's Circle Swap! I had to make 135 of these! Can you say "arm falling off?" LOL! Luckily my wonderful husband helped me out and did all of the Big Shot cranking for me. He is now my official big shot boy. Any time I have a bunch of cranking to do, I hand it over to him. This is our new Northern Flurry embossing folder and Northern Frost decorative strip which both go through the big shot. They are both found in the Stampin Up Holiday mini too. The sentiment is also in the Holiday mini. It is the level 2 hostess set.

Here is a close up of the snowflake. I spritzed the whole card with the vanilla smooch spray but it is hard to see in the picture. Just put your nose right up to the screen! That is also one of our gorgeous rhinestones in the center there.

To place your Stampin’ Up order online  24-7, click here

Featured Demo of the Month part 2

Here is part 2 of my featured demonstrator of the month. For part 1, just scroll back a few days. This month I am featuring Niccole Marshall and her cute creations. This first one is an adorable gift for a small child for a birthday goody bag or for a classroom gift. I just love the owl punch.

This one is a cute Halloween treat. This one shows the new bat punch and the lace trim ribbon found in the Holiday mini.

Inside you can fit any small treat like this yummy Reese's Peanut Butter cup. That is one of my very favorite chocolate treats. Who doesn't like chocolate and peanut butter together?

Note: Niccole just gave me the dimensions and scoring for the Reeses treat holder

cut 9×4 piece of designer paper and score at 1/2 inch on both sides of 4 inch side

score at 2, 2 1/2, 5 1/2 and 6 on the long side. Then fold up to look like box shown. You will need to cut off the edges of top part and do corner rounding.

Here is a cute little key chain with a mini post it note inside. THese make great little gifts for anyone. I know I am always looking for  a little piece of paper in my purse to write something on.

This last card is so cute. Niccole used the polka dot embossing folder for the background and the Candy Cane Christmas designer paper from the Holiday mini. The stamp set (A Cute Christmas) is also in the Holiday mini.

Christmas in May Stamp camp!

For this month's stamp camp, I am doing Christmas in May! I can't wait til July since this Christmas Jingle Simply Scrappin kit might be retiring next month. This is a great kit for making LOTS of Christmas cards. We will be using just half of the kit and will make 10 full size cards and 8 notecards. This class is for my local customers only but don't worry, I hope to have a tutorial done in the next couple of weeks for those of you who don't live close by!

Christmas at the Freeman house…..

I know I have been pretty bad about posting the last week or 2 but I have been spending time with my family. I wanted to post a few Christmas pics that I took. To say that our family likes to cook is an understatement. My husband Chris is the head chef in our family and my daughter Lindsey is taking culinary as an elective this year so she got her dad a chef's uniform as a gift and had it embroidered with "Chef Dad".

My husband and my daughter Lindsey got me a Kitchenaid mixer for Christmas but guess who was the first person who got to use it? I think there was an ulterior motive there.  THis is Lindsey making rolls FROM SCRATCH! They were sooooo good too!

This is a picture of them as they were still rising. They smelled so good….nothing like fresh bread baking. She is a perfectionist so she scooped them all out with a mini ice cream scoop to make perfect balls.

Here is my award winning apple pie! Oooooh was it good heated up with ice cream on top. I am the baker in the family and make tons of goodies for all of our friends, family and neighbors. I should have taken pictures of all of the trays I made before I gave them away….3 straight days in the kitchen.

This is my sweet little angel. I only have one more year til she leaves to go to college. I get sad just thinking about it. She is such a sweet girl.

Glitterchicks Christmas party!

Here are some pics from my downline Christmas get together. We had a pot luck dinner and Christmas gift exchange. Everyone also got to make several projects. It was a really fun night.

Here are the girls holding up gifts that I gave them and projects that we made.

Here is one of the many nice gifts that we exchanged.