Christmas cards

Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted.  But I've been a busy bee.  I made 150 cards, which I sent to Ronald McDonald House, and then there was Christmas and all the shopping and family time.  And at work I had year end and getting things ready for the accountant.  But I'm back now and hope to post a little more often.

I did want to share with you my Christmas card this year.  If you remember, last year I made a card featuring 3 French hens:

This year I made 4 calling birds.  I only made about 20 of these for special friends.

I'll be back later with some more cards....

Inky hugs,

Hug a Child's Heart - Literally

Re-printed with my friend, Donna's, permission:

HUG A CHILD'S HEART - LITERALLY!

"Greetings, everyone!

(a special note to my friends in the U.S.)

There are many card drives during the holidays and throughout the year.

May I share about one you may have never heard of?

"HUG A HEART" CARDS DRIVE FOR CHILDREN

Our Blogging Buddy Christina Hor Memories Crafter has a very special Mission.

Her husband is a cardiologist at Ohio's Nationwide Children's Hospital.

Christina tries to give parents of terminally ill children in the cardiac unit encouragement cards during the long process of procedures and care. If the saddest moment of loss happens, she provides a heartfelt sympathy card to the parents at the loss of their sweet baby or dear child.

She also tries to provide cheerful cards to the children in the cardiac intensive care and inpatient wings throughout the year.

Especially during Christmas she strives to deliver holiday cards.

This year, Christina and her children are creating mini 3D Christmas trees for each room in the intensive care and inpatient wings.

With so many rooms, Christina has never been able to have a card for every child spends Christmas in the cardiac unit. 

This year, she is hoping to do that, but needs a little help from friends.

Would you like to create a simple, sweetly-appropriate children's Christmas card for those pediatric cardiac patients who will have to spend the holidays in the hospital?

If so, here is Christina's message

As these cards go to very young age children and of different ethnic background, I do have a few guidelines.

DO's:

• use kid's friendly images.  Kids love anything that is cute, cuddly and funny such as teddy bears, woodland creatures, reindeer, penguins as well snowman.  Just to name a few.

• keep it clean with minimum embellishments.  However, shaker cards and pop-up cards are welcome.  So if you like making one of these cards and you know who you are, please do!   But please make sure to use strong adhesive to ensure that none of the shaker/embellishment pieces fall out.  

• consider keeping your theme more of a: winter scene, "thinking of you" as well just a general "holiday" theme since not all of them celebrate Christmas.  Some celebrate Hanukkah, Bodhi Day, Pancha Ganapati and some just don't celebrate the holiday at all.  So avoid using sentiment like "Merry Christmas" on your card.  

           Here are some sentiments i like to use: Let It Snow; Warm Winter Wishes; Thinking of you this holiday season; Sending you lots of hugs and wishing you a happy holiday.

If you are able to help, please have your card mail to me by December 10th to the address below.  If you know of any crafty friends who would like to help, please forward the message to them or share on your blog post.  It is safe to include the address in the blog post as it is my PO Box address and not my home address.  

Christina Hor 

P.O. Box 517

Dublin, OH 43017

Thank you SO MUCH in advance for your help!

Hugs,

Christina

RECAPPING:

Christina suggested greetings to read something like:

"Sending you hugs and thinking of you this holiday season. From Ms. Christina of Ohio"

(only use your own name, of course LOL)

She will be delivering the cards and trees on Dec 15. 

She is requesting cards by December 10.

REMEMBER:

NO GLITTER - NO ORNAMENTATION THAT

 MIGHT FALL OFF OR BE PROBLEMATIC 

FOR SMALL CHILDREN.

and a sweet thank you from me to my Sweet Friends!"

Let's all get in the Christmas spirit and make some cards to share.  

Inky hugs!

Fleece Navibaa....

I won the cutest set of stamps from Debbie Corbari, a designer for Gina K Designs, by going on a blog hop. I never win anything so I was extremely excited to win this set.  They are so stinkin' cute, I had to sit right down and make a card or three.

Anyway, here are a couple of cards from the set Fleece Navibaa....

See how cute they are?  More Christmas cards to add to my stash.  

I hope you have a great day. Go stamp something.

Christmas Card Crunch Time

Well, it's that time of year again.  Although I've been diligently working on Christmas cards all year long, I've come down to crunch time and need to get them finished up.

I recently purchased some stamp sets from Gina K Designs that were designed by Melanie Muenchinger.  There are 3 sets that are designed to use together: Fabulous Frames, Fabulous Frame Fillers, and Fabulous Holiday Fillers. I love these stamps and use them often.  However, I don't quite use them as they were designed.  There is a small learning curve and I'm not quite there. However, I have used them to paper piece cards quite nicely, thank you very much.  Below are some examples of cards I have made with these sets.  

The poinsettia stamp is from The Angel Company, and is also a favorite of mine.  I used up some of my Christmas patterned paper and scraps, which is always a good thing.  The poinsettia is stamped on white cardstock, colored with Spectrum Noir markers and attached with pop dots.

I know, I can't believe I bought more stamps.  Especially when I own a stamp company. But what are you going to do?  I can't be expected to have every single stamp I like.  I just bought myself an early Christmas present, that's all. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I hope you have enjoyed these cards. 

Happy Stamping!

Christmas Cards

Good morning!

As promised, here is my prototype Christmas card for this year.

The poinsettia stamp is a stamp I got from The Angel Company that I love!  I have used it a lot.  It just speaks to me of Christmas.  I miss The Angel Company and wish they weren't out of business.

Anyway, I stamped the poinsettia, colored it in with copics, and cut it out.  I layered two different complementary patterned papers on my card front, glued the poinsettia on it, then made the border using red cardstock and a Fiskars scallop edge punch.  I stamped Merry Christmas (The Angel Company), and adhered it to the seam of the two patterned papers. 

I stamped a holiday greeting on the inside of the card and it's done. 

The beauty of this card is that you can change the look by using different Christmas patterned papers.

The majority of my Christmas cards will be this or a variation, but I did make some stray Christmas cards when I would get bored coloring, so if you are on my Christmas card list, you might get something totally different.  ;-)

Also, as a token of my appreciation, I am offering Free Shipping through December 15, 2013 at My Paper Moon. Just use coupon code THANKS at checkout to receive your free shipping.  Free gift with every order. 

Christmas Luminary

I realize it's been some time since I last posted.  Sometimes life just gets in the way, you know what I mean?

Anyway, I made some of my luminaries for Christmas, and wanted to show them to you before I put them away until next year.

Die cut the snowflakes, added glitter and gems.

 Close up of the snowflake

These were made by coating the inside of the jar with thinned white acrylic paint. Then I diecut the snowflakes, added glitter gems and adhered to the outside of the jar. 

I have another to share, made another way, so I will take pics and post tomorrow.

Hope you like them.

Christmas Tag #5

And here is the final tag:

I used some background cardstock I had, then stamped the tall trees, and embossed with clear embossing powder.  They weren't very vivid, so I colored them with permanent markers.  I added some sheer silver ribbon, the JOY letters, some holly and some snowflakes.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing the tags I've made for my loved ones for Christmas, and maybe gotten a little inspiration along the way.

I hope you have a very merry Christmas.

Christmas Tag #4

Day 4:

I cut the Christmas trees from some paper I had, then added dimensional glaze.  I used the same music stamp I used in some of the other tags, and the Martha Stewart snowflake punch.  The JOY letters are from TAC stamps.  I embellished the snowflakes with jewels and glitter glue, and smeared some gold metallic acrylic paint on the side of the tag to give it some texture.

Hope you enjoyed this tag.  Tomorrow I will share the last tag.

Christmas Tag #3

Day 3 of the Christmas tags:

This tag is for Emilie, who is 8.  I used the Christmas Ornaments embossing folder, then layered the different elements. It created a fun tag that she'll like.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Tag #4.

Christmas Tag #2

Here is tag #2:

Rachel is in chorus in high school, so I chose a musical theme for her tag.  I used the music notes embossing folder, embossed the background with gold and sanded off the notes so they retained their natural color.  I stamped the JOY using TAC stamps, colored with copics, cut out and added dimensional glaze.  I stamped the music score, cut out, distressed the edges and added a paper flower that was colored with copics.  The name I used some EK Success stamps, colored with markers, punched out and added dimensional glaze.  Hope you like this one, too.

Christmas Tag #1

Good morning. As promised, here is my first Christmas tag:

I was inspired by Tim Holtz to make some tags this year.  I used his embossing folder technique for this tag.  The background is then embossed with white embossing powder and then the raised part was sanded off, allowing the background color to show through. 

The large snowflake is a cuttlebug punch, and I embellished it with glitter glue and jewels.  "J" "O" "Y" was punched out and colored with copics, then I added dimensional glaze to them.  The smaller snowflake is a Martha Stewart punch and it also was embellished with glitter glue.  I added a stamped piece of music and some trimming and I was done.

Hope you enjoyed it.  I'll have another tag tomorrow.

My Holiday Gift for You

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

from My Paper Moon.

Please accept our gift of Free Shipping for any order placed by December 31st, 2009. Please use Coupon Code SHIPFREE at checkout when it says enter coupon code if you have one (right after it asks how you heard about us).

Thanks so much for your support. We hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday season.

Over The Moon Monday - Challenge

Good morning! The kids are out of school here, and preparations are almost done for Christmas, but I wanted to leave you with 1 more Christmas offering. And if you don't have any time to play right now, perhaps you could use the idea for a Valentine. Just tweak it a bit to fit the occasion.

Tags are very popular right now, with Tim Holtz doing his 12 Tags of Christmas, and I have seen other websites that are doing the same, so I thought it would be fun to do a tag.For those of you who know me personally, you know I should be the Grunge Queen, because I don't shy away from getting my hands dirty.

For this tag, I spritzed on brown and pink inks, using a paper towel to smoosh them around. Then I used some drywall tape and gesso to add some texture. It still needed a little something for texture, so I used gold acrylic paint with the drywall tape. Then I spritzed the whole thing with gold.

I stamped the Christmas tree onto watercolor paper, then used markers diluted with water to paint it. When it was dry, I carefully cut it out and adhered it to the card. I used stickles to add glitter to the tree and star.

I stamped "Noel" onto the tag, then went over it with a black copic marker, to give it more definition. I also used green stickles to go over the letters to give it more oomph!

I punched out some pink snowflakes, adhered to the tag and then colored with stickles, and added some faux stitching around the edge of the card. I tied a gold ribbon and viola, I was done. The tag is grungy, but also feminine with the pink colors.

I challenge you to use a tag in your art. When you do, please leave a link in the comment section so we can see your artwork.

With the Christmas holiday I may not have a post for next week. Have a blessed Christmas.

Over The Moon Monday

Good morning and welcome to Over The Moon Monday. I can't believe the weather here in Florida. It's less than 2 weeks from Christmas, and it's still in the 80's. We truly need some cooler weather.

I did get some Christmas shopping done. We are only buying for the granddaughters this year, as their dad has been out of work for over 6 months, and money is tight. We try to help them out all we can, so money is tight for us, too. But the girls will be taken care of.

I had the opportunity to work on another Herringbone card (I shared an ATC previously), and wanted to share it with you. I love the look of these cards, each one has a different look, depending on the patterned papers you use. And it's surprisingly easy to achieve.

This week I wanted to work with the Layered Star stamp from My Paper Moon. This is a very versatile stamp, as you can see below.

I stamped the image onto the green, pink and red patterned paper and adhered to cardstock. I stamped the image also onto green solid paper and red solid paper. I cut out the triangles from the green cardstock and adhered to the patterned paper. Then I cut the red triangles out and used pop dots to adhere them over the green triangles. I then cut out the red star medallion from the inside of the image, and adhered it with pop dots to the center. I cut out the small green star and the small red star from the very center, and adhered them with adhesive.

I can make another and adhere it to the back, punch a hole, thread some pretty ribbon and use as an ornament for my tree, or I can adhere to a card and send to a friend. Wouldn't these look beautiful with different Christmas patterned paper and used as Christmas ornaments?

Here are some of the ways you can use this stamp:

Just by cutting the stamped image apart and using pop dots, or making cuts and folds, you can totally change the look of this image. I apologize for the smallness of this image, but it was resized for the website.

I hope you have a wonderful week.

Santa Tag

Good evening! I've had a busy, busy day, but I have a few minutes to share this tag I made for one of my granddaughter's gifts from Santa. I colored a tag with light blue dye ink, then covered my brayer with magic mesh and rolled it through some gesso, which I then rolled over the tag. You can't see it very well from the scan, but it's definately there. Then I stamped snowflakes randomly on the tag and applied icicle stickles. While that was drying, I distressed some stickers with blue dye ink, and applied them to acetate that I had cut to the size of the tag. Then I wrote "from Santa" with a permanent marker. I punched a snowflake from light blue paper and applied it to the acetate, then punched the hole where it was supposed to be. I applied blue stickles to the snowflake and let dry. When it was dry, I layered the acetate over the tag, threaded blue ribbon and viola....it's done. It's very sparkly in real life.

My legs are about to fall off. We spent most of the day walking through the flea market and another store, then this evening we walked through Sam's Club, and now I'm tired. I think I'm going to take a shower, and prop my feet up and read awhile before bed.

I hope you have a great weekend!

Christmas Cards

Yeah, I know it's only August, but I figured if I worked on my Christmas cards, I would be cooler. So, here is one of the Christmas cards I will be sending out this year.

This is a Joy Fold card, and the dimensions and instructions can be found in the newsletter archives at Splitcoaststampers. The poinsettia was colored with copic markers, and there is gold glitter in the center. The background for the poinsettia is a polished stone technique and has gold running through it. I liked the fact that I could use 2 different Christmas patterned papers and it still looks good.

This is a fun technique, and I've already used it several times.

Hope you are having a crafty day!

Merry Christmas!

May you have a joyous and wonderful holiday season, with family and friends.

More Christmas

Good afternoon! I've been a busy girl today. After making out my Christmas Card list, and checking it twice, I found that I don't have anough cards made. And this is after I made 200 cards! Of course, I mailed off 140 of those to the troops.

So, I got busy, and made 10 more, but I still have a few more to make to have enough for MY list. And hubby hasn't given me HIS list yet!

Anyway, I thought I'd share a few more cards for inspiration.

This card is a matchbook card.I really like to make these cards, and they are soooooo easy!



I liked the look of this card....very soothing with the blues and purples. In case you didn't know it, blue is my favorite color.

And a snowman card. I love snowmen! This is another matchbook card. The scan doesn't snow it, but there are also white snowflakes stamped along with the blue ones.

I hope you have gotten some inspiration today, and I hope you get some crafting done.

I have a busy weekend ahead...making more Christmas cards, going to dinner with my daughter and her family, and tomorrow we'll be going to the cemetary to put the Christmas flowers on my parent's graves.

My Travel Card

Happy Friday! I hope today was good to you. It's been a long week, and I'm glad the weekend is finally here.

As promised, I'm trying to update my blog more often. Today I want to share a card I made. I'm not good at collage, but I'm trying to force myself to do it more often, so I become better at it.

I tried to use background stamps that would add texture to the card without it being too lumpy. You know how the post office hates lumpy letters! Anyway, let me know what you think....

It's been so cool for the last week, and I'm loving this weather. I wouldn't mind if it stayed like this year round. We've had lows in the 60's at night, and highs in the 70's during the day. Just about perfect, don't you think?

In upcoming posts I will share some of the Christmas cards I've made. I get bored easily, and making the same card over and over and over is just not my cup of tea. So, at the beginning of the year I challenged myself to make 5 cards a month, so by December I would have 60 cards, right? I decided each month I would make the 5 cards the same, but each month would be a different card. I was doing really well, and some months the creativity was there and I would make more than the 5 I was supposed to make. I was really chugging right along. Then I got a note from Soldiers' Angels that they were going to try to send 140,000 cards to the troops for Christmas. Now, I have a soft spot in my heart for the soldiers, since my step-son is among those deployed in Iraq. So, I got busy and made Christmas cards like crazy. You would have thought I was Santa's Elf on deadline. Yesterday I mailed 140 cards. And....I still have about 20 to send to my close friends and relatives that enjoy my handcrafted cards.

Now, here's the best part. I sent a note to my granddaughter's 5th grade teacher asking if they would like to make cards, too, and I would furnish the supplies. The teacher (who's husband is also overseas) thought it would be a good project for their "Caring for Others" module, but she's going to take it a step further and see if the whole elementary school can participate. That's 750 cards! Wowsa! I'm excited!

Talk to you again, soon!

Whew!

I feel just like this polar bear...whew!

I had a wonderful Christmas, how about you? I got something I've been wanting for a long time...a Scor-It Board! Can't wait to make some cards with it. And, my sweetie got me a circle of love necklace. Awwww.... I would have been completely happy with no gifts at all....I got to spend money on my 2 sweeties, Rachel and Emilie, and they had a wonderful Christmas. I think they got everything they wanted except the Butterscotch Pony. So, they had a good Christmas, which means I had a good Christmas.

Scott fixed dinner for us all...we had prime rib, rolls, greek salad, and presley made deviled eggs and his mom brought green bean casserole.

I got signed up on My Space, so I can keep in touch with my family, who is spread out all over the country. If you want to take a look, the url is www.myspace.com/mypapermoon.

We'll be spending New Years in Savannah. Woohoo!

Talk to you again, soon...