JAMSquared

This year James was really pushing me to just do a photo card. I still kinda wanted to hand stamp cards, but back in November, Summer Driggs posted some Christmas card digital scrapbooking templates on her blog. They weren’t really my style, but I was intrigued. I am still new to digital scrapbooking, but I thought maybe I could do that. Then, I discovered Maurine Stettler via a blog hop. I added her to my long list of blogs in my Google reader and a few days later, she posted the most adorable digi kit, Santa Claus is Coming to Town. See a preview of the kit here. I loved the kit and made my Christmas card with it. The 6.5×7-inch card is unique to us, but I only had to make it once and get Costco to print it 75 times. Plus, Costco does their photo greeting cards with envelopes, so I didn’t have to go out and get more envelopes. Click on the picture for a closer look.

2010 Christmas Card

Papers: Let Me Scrapbook! Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Elements: Let Me Scrapbook! Santa Claus is Coming to Town

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Today I’m sharing the Christmas tags I made for our friends Aric and Kristy.

Aric’s tag was made with the Just Us Girls Challenge #64, a color challenge to use light blue, green and white.

Aric's Tag

Stamps: Close to My Heart Merry Pursuits
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Garden Green
Ink: Stazon Jet Black; Dell printer
Embellishments: Stampin’ Up 5/8″ satin ribbon Bashful Blue; Stickles Holly; eyelet
Tools: Stampin’ Up markers; Copic markers; Nestabilities Labels Four

I made sure to use red as the main color for Kristy’s tag, since that is her favorite color. I recently bought two Copic markers, E00 and E000, so I could color faces better, but I am a tad frustrated as every time I’ve used them they blend the black ink used to stamp the image. Anyone in blogland have any suggestions about using a different type of ink? The only time I didn’t have that issue was when I used a digi stamp that I had printed about 3 weeks earlier. I’ve even tried heat setting the stamped image and it still blended.

Kristy's Tag

Close-up to See All the Sparkle

Stamps: Close to My Heart Merry Pursuits
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Real Red
Ink: Stazon Jet Black; Stampin’ Up Garden Green (edges); Dell printer
Embellishments: grosgain ribbon; Stickles Xmas Red and Icicle; Stampin’ Up pewter eyelet
Tools: Stampin’ Up markers; Copic markers; Nestabilities Labels Four

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I like to give homemade Christmas goodies to a number of our neighbors. This year, I decided to make two styles of Christmas treat bags.

This first one is the one I liked best. It uses two stamp sets I received as birthday presents.

Snow Treat Bag

Stamps: Papertrey Ink Friendship Jar; Friendship Jar Holiday Fillers; Stampin’ Up Snow (wheel)
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Marina Mist
Ink: Stazon Jet Black; Stampin’ Up Marina Mist
Embellishments: liquid applique, Stickles silver
Tools: Papertrey Ink Friendship Jar die; Stampin’ Up Creamy Caramel marker

The second style of treat bag has a color flaw that is bugging me. Even though the green ink I used on the treat bag matches the green cardstock, they don’t look like the same color. It is probably because the treat bag is glossy, which is great for keeping the treats contained.

Yummy Treat Bag

Stamps: Stampin’ Up Yummy, All About Christmas (wheel)
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Garden Gree
Ink: Stampin’ Up Garden Green, Real Red
Embellishments: the Twinery Maraschino
Tools: Nestabilities Labels Four

Both of the above treat bags are made using Window White Tin Tie bags from Paper Mart. I bought a package of 100 a while back and I need to find reasons to give gifts more often. Both of these treat bags are also made with a challenge in mind, Meljen’s Challenge #38 sweet as candy (or cookies). I have to say that goody bags filled with cookies quality as sweet.

This last treat container is actually one I made quite a while back at an A Muse workshop at Stamp Salado. My friend Geeta is a certified A Muse instructor and she came up with the design, but I wanted to share it, because it is super cute. I filled it with candy cane kisses and rollos to give to our baby-sitter. We’ve only used Maddie twice now, but I am super pysched about the implications of having a non-friend baby-sitter.

Penguin Treat Bag

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On Friday, our playgroup met up at the mall to visit Santa. Millie went first and at first she was okay sitting on Santa’s lap, but then she got upset. Jessica went next and I thought she would scream bloody murder when I tried to put her on Santa’s lap, but she surprised me. She didn’t cry when I handed her to Santa. She didn’t cry when I stepped a few feet away out of way of the camera elf. She didn’t cry at all. I couldn’t get big smiles out of her, but she did great. I was so proud of her. Parker was the last of our playgroup to visit Santa and he had such a serious face the entire time he was on Santa’s lap. I have to say the Barton Creek Mall Santa is awesome. He has a real bead and he is so great with the kiddos. He tried so hard to make them smile. He had this little reindeer stuffed puppy and some sleigh bells and Christmas books. I would definitely recommend him if you’re in the area.

Jessica and Santa

Jessica Smiling Up at Santa

You never know when you might need a little Christmas gift. Here’s one I finished up today. I filled it with candy cane kisses. I used a template for a trapezoid box that I picked up from Mirkwood Designs. She has a bunch of neat templates there, although I found the trapezoid shape to be somewhat annoying for putting a band around the middle since the sides aren’t perpendicular. I knew this when I decided to use this template, but it didn’t dawn on me until I was getting ready to adhere the snowflake band. That’s why you see a slight gap at the edges. I made this little gift with three challenges in mind: All That Scraps Weekly Wednesday Challenge #57 which is all about gift ideas, Paper Pretties challenge to use punches, and Pink Elephant Challenge #90 to make a winter wonderland card/project/layout. If you haven’t noticed, I’m really digging the Baja Breeze/Whisper White/Real Red color combo for Christmas projects. Maybe you’ll see some projects in a different color combo, but no promises.

Trapezoid Christmas Gift Box

Stamps: C.C. Designs Christmas Around the World
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Baja Breeze, Real Red
Ink: Stazon Jet Black
Embellishments: Stampin’ Up 1/4″ grosgrain ribbon Real Red; The Twinery Maraschino; ultrafine white glitter; velcro closure
Tools: Stampin’ Up markers; liquid applique
Punches: Martha Stewart Snow Flurry; Stampin’ Up Tag and Small Tag

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