Delight-fall Friday

So glad to be back in my loft this evening. It was a delightful fall day today. My boys had some friends over and we had some adult guests over for dinner; it was a win-win for everyone. And I love it when I feel like everything just falls together perfectly.

Today I popped in on some of my favorite blogs. I found a really cute sketch over at Retro Sketches. Here is what the sketch was:

And since it's been a while I also looked over at CR84FN Color Challenge to see what color palette I could use for inspiration. Here are the soft colors I used for my card:

And here is my first Christmas card that I made in these wonderful neutrals. I couldn't be more pleased with how it came out!

There were lots of creams and tans and grays used to make the mittens and stockings. I took the sketch shown above and just flipped it upside down and put the banner at the top.

There were lots of fun layers I used to make this card. And, of course, I had to add some MS glitter to the teeny weeny clothespins that are holding the stockings.

Thanks for stopping by! Oh, and those dishes are just gonna have to wait until the morning. One load in, another to put off till manana. :)

Christmas gifts for Teachers - Homemade Body Scrub

I absolutely {love} Christmas time! I think that it has to be my favorite holiday. I love the snow we get here, the time spent with family and the fact that my kids are out of school for a couple of weeks. There are so many things to do leading up to their Christmas vacation that I end up vegetating most of their Christmas break till I catch a second wind. I get overwhelmed and race around like a mad woman beforehand, though. I promise myself each year to get more organized, cut back on volunteering, shop early, etc. and each year I find myself in the same place. LOL Oh, well!

I love making handmade gifts to give to my kid's teachers. This year I tried something different. I like to make baked treats but I know that teachers can get so many of those things that they regret it come January. I made some body scrub for their teachers this year, instead. I got the idea from a blog called Deliciously Organized. I made a scent I called Christmas Candy because it reminded me of candy canes. As a funny side note on of the teachers said her daughter tried to eat it because she thought it was a dessert. It came out wonderful and I even had some left over for some gifts for friends. I had to snap a few quick pictures before I sent them on their merry way to their new homes. So forgive the picture quality. I like the way the tags came out.

 I cut the tags out using a seasonal Christmas Cricut cartridge. On the back side I used a Christian stamp from Stampendous. It's hard to tell but I got to use my Papertrey patterned paper to make this tag; it's from their Flourishes and Swirls set. it's such a pretty set. I tied on some lace ribbon and added two tags to each jar. One was the pretty one above and the other was a tiny tag that I punched out with a MS punch to add the "To and From" stamps. Add a rustic jingle bell, a tiny safety pin, some twine and cream seam binding and there you have it!

This could be a great gift year round, just change out the fragrance. I put them in some quilted mini mason jars that you find with the canning goods. It was the perfect size!

Thanks for looking!

Old Fashioned Christmas Carol

Blame it on the tea that I had this afternoon -- it's almost 1 am locally and I am still up! Which means that I had plenty of energy to work on my first Christmas card of the season. I really wanted to do something old fashioned and vintage looking while keep the card simple. And while I was at it I could play along with Card Patterns and get my submission in with a little time to spare. Oh, and I was able to try a new technique thanks to Papertrey's Make it Monday. So let me show you what I made while I was on my caffeine fix!

I had so much fun making this card and I really liked the way it turned out. I followed the sketch over at Card Patterns that you can see if you click here. It was a nice, clean and simple layout and I wanted to try something that had lots of pizzaz while still maintaining my less is more feel for the card. I made my own background for this card by using lots of Tim Holtz distress ink in various colors and several different stamps. I also inked up the edges of the layers underneath the background to keep the worn look consistent. The next thing that I did was to get my Papertrey inks and stamps out to make my own washi tape. This was the new technique that I was referring to earlier. I love watching the Make it Monday tutorials on their site and the one for this week is titled Make it Monday #35: Custom Stamped Washi Tape. I like the look of washi tape and I found it super simple to make my own thanks to their tut. I used some double sided tape (I don't have Scortape on hand but used something similar in Martha Stewart's line) and some tissue paper. I pulled out Simply Chartreuse ink (PTI) and a houndstooth background stamp (also PTI), stamped the image onto the tissue paper that I already adhered to the tape and voila! Washi tape! sooooo coool. ;O)
I dusted off my cricut and cut out those cute little ornaments using the Joy of Seasons cartridge. I stamped those with distress inks and used some background stamps on them to add some interest. To add a sentiment without taking away too much from the ornaments I stamped the phrase "Fa-la-la-la-la" in a light distress ink to the lower right hand corner.

So, there you have it! Now, I've got to get my hiney in bed so that I can get up at the crack of dawn. Ouch!!! oh, and Happy Friday.

Card details:
Inks- distress inks (TH), Close to Cocoa (SU), Simply Chartreuse (PTI)
Stamps - Background Basics: Text Style, Background Basics: Houndstooth, Bitty Backgrounds (PTI), small alphabet letters (Studio G), some random stamps that I have in my stash that are not labeled anymore
Cricut Cartridge - Joy of Seasons
Other - floss, hand stained lace, machine stitching