Lemon Lime Reindeers

For this card, I CASEd the lovely Miriam @ Cards and Scrapping. Lemon Lime Twist is such a great color for Christmas and the reindeer outline is perfect! I ended dup switching out the small stamped sentiment to use the 25 image from my 25 Days retired stamp set. 

• Stamps: Merry Patterns; 25 Days
• Inks: Cherry Cobbler; Garden Green; Basic Black
• Cardstock: Wood Textures DSP; Lemon Lime Twist; Whisper White; Vellum
• Accessories: Black Rhinestones; Cherry Cobbler Twine (retired)
• Tools: Layering Circles Framelits

Blue Candles

I always have to throw in some nontraditional color Christmas cards. I loved the repeating candle image, so I made that part of my background. I added a bit of DSP from an old retired set. Finally I added the great sentiment from the Merry Patterns set and some rhinestones. Love this card!

• Stamps: Merry Patterns
• Inks: Pool Party; Island Indigo; Basic Gray; Daffodil Delight
• Cardstock: Winter Frost DSP (retired); Island Indigo; Whisper White
• Accessories: Rhinestones; Year of Cheer Washi Tape
• Tools: Stitched Shapes Framelits

Merry Mittens

For this card, I wanted to use the sentiment mitten from Smitten Mittens. Unfortunately I realized that my Cherry Cobbler ink pad needs to be reinked. I managed to get a decently saturated image for this card, but I need to add reinking to my to-do list this week. I can't survive Christmas without Cherry Cobbler. It's hands-down my favorite Christmas color. After stamping, I had a die cut mitten to complete the pair and then started added DSP layers. I finished off the card with a piece of retired Cherry Cobbler Baker's Twine.

• Stamps: Smitten Mittens
• Inks: Cherry Cobbler
• Cardstock: Be Merry DSP; Garden Green; Cherry Cobbler; Whisper White
• Accessories: Cherry Cobbler Twine (retired)
• Tools: Many Mittens Framelits; Stitched Shapes Framelits

Sunday Haul #17

I snagged a Peachy Cheap deal for this Simple Stories collection. Probably going to use it for my mom's Holiday album.

I took advantage of Freckled Fawn's Black Friday sale. I bought some cute zipper pouches (stamp club gifts), a washi assortment, a blooper bag, and some enamel dots. 

A quick trip to Michael's to get a few snowflake stickers and I came out with all these goodies. Hard to see but the washi tape in the top right is coffee themed.

My Stampin' Up! Occasions Catalog preorder arrived!!!! I got so many goodies.

• Picture Perfect Birthday Stamp Set
• Picture Perfect Party Cardstock
• Simple Stripes Embossing Folder
• Picture Perfect Party DSP
• Love Mini Tinsel Trim Combo Pack
• Petal Passion DSP
• Brusho Crystal Colour 
• Beautiful Day Stamp Set
• Myths and Magic Washi Tape
• Myths and Magic DSP
• Myths and Magic Glimmer Paper
• Spritzers
• Bermuda Bay Chevron Ribbon
• Amazing You Stamp Set (SAB)
• Celebrate You Thinlits (SAB)

Snowflake Reindeer

For this card, I CASEd the lovely Martha Inchley @ Inch of Creativity. Hands down my favorite card I made with the Merry Patterns Stamp set. I love the repeating reindeer outline on the Crumb Cake piece, but my favorite part is the snowflakes. Those metallic snowflakes have been my favorite accessory from the Holiday Catalog.

• Stamps: Merry Patterns; Merry Cafe
• Inks: Chocolate Chip; Cherry Cobbler; Garden Green
• Cardstock: Christmas Around the World DSP; Garden Green; Crumb Cake; Whisper White
• Accessories: Metallic Foil Snowflakes; gold foil washi tape
• Tools: Squares Framelits

Wonderful Shine

For this card, I CASEd this great card from Cindy @ Paper Craft Crew Challenges. I love making Christmas card with big sentiments! I kept the Wonderful Year stamp set from last year just for that reason. For this card, I stamped my sentiment onto a piece of whisper white, added a Garden Green layer, and put it all on a piece of beautiful gold foil paper. At first, I just saw the Bundle of Love DSP pack as baby paper, but the gold side is just so versatile. I'm sure it will be used a few more times before Christmas. As a finishing touch, I added a couple of punched gold foil snowflakes. 

• Stamps: Wonderful Year (retired)
• Inks: Cherry Cobbler
• Cardstock: Bundle of Love DSP; Garden Green; Whisper White
• Accessories: 
• Tools: snowflake punch

Silver, Black, and Red

For this card, I CASEd this great card from Linda Dalke. I wouldn't have thought about combining silver, black, and red, but I love the effect! It's hard to see in my picture, but the sentiment is wonderfully shiny as it's been heat embossed in silver. I'm in love with the beautiful metallic washi tape including in the Year of Cheer Washi Tape pack. You receive a thin strip of silver, gold, and copper, plus two great pattern rolls. This pack of washi tape will not last through the Christmas season, I've been using them on everything!

• Stamps: Snowflake Snetiments
• Inks: 
• Cardstock: Merry Music DSP; Real Red; Black
• Accessories: Silver Foil Snowflake; Year of Cheer Washi Tape
• Tools: Silver Embossing Powder

Currently

Reading: Bonk: The Science of Sex by Mary Roach. Our book club selection for December. A very fascinating nonfiction read.

Watching: Obsessing over Dirk Gently S2 right now. Oh so good! 

Listening: I got Arthur hooked on Christmas is Coming! an advent style story from Panoply and Pinna. It's a great little story and each episode is about 8 minutes long.

Making: Lots of Gingerbread Molasses cookies for cookie exchanges and just to have in the house. Love that gingerbread for Christmas.

Feeling: We leave in one week for Indiana. I'm in a weird holding pattern right now. Not really stressed, but I can feel the stress looming as we get closer to plane day.

Planning: We still need to get through the next week and lots of activities. I'm finishing planning a few of those...

Loving: Q has been super snuggly lately and it's glorious.

So Many Merry Christmases

For this card, I CASEd the lovely Dani Dziama @ Dani's Thoughtful Corner. 

• Stamps: Merry Patterns
• Inks: Cherry Cobbler; Garden Green
• Cardstock: Merry Little Christmas DSP; Cherry Cobbler; Whisper White; Gold Foil
• Accessories: Green Metallic Thread
• Tools: Squares Framelits

December Crafting Goals

A recap of last month’s goals:

• Memory Planner Pages August Through October -- So close! I still need to wrap up October, but I'm getting there.
• 30 Days of Christmas Cards from Sketches -- Success! Love all the cards I made this past month.
• 2017 Christmas Cards -- Success! I love sending my cards out in early December, before we leave for Indiana.
• 30 Days of Lists (September) -- Fail. Never even started on this one.
• Craft Destash -- Fail. 
• Prep December Daily -- Success. I pulled out a ton of supplies, now I just need to narrow it down to what I'm taking to Indiana.
• Complete Week in the Life 2017 -- Success! Now I just need to photograph the pages and write up a blog post.
• Pull cards for December -- Success! Birthday and thank you cards have been prepped and the early ones have been sent.

December Goals: We're heading to Indiana on the 12th, so my list will be shortened for this month.

• Finish sending out Christmas cards -- I only have about 30 more to send.
• Create my December Daily pages -- I'm going to include mine in our usual family Project Life album.
• Finish my 2017 Memory Planner -- Since I'm including December Daily in my PL album, I'm not going to do December in my MP. I just need to finish out October and November. Next year I'm changing formats slightly by going to a Big Horizontal Happy Planner. 
• Finish out a few random leftover projects -- I want to clean off my craft counter before leaving. Just need to wrap up a few card kits and random things laying around.
• Complete my Occasions Catalog swap cards -- I hope my Occasions Catalog preorder arrives before the 9th so we can use some supplies for Stamp Club. Then, I will be taking some of those supplies to Indiana to complete my swap cards due on January 3rd.