Much Love

 Hello friends, we have an easy OPTIONAL theme at
Can You Handle The Pressure and it is 
ANY Holiday!

It's optional and you can create any embossed card
but it is Required that you use an embossing folder!

I chose to go with Valentine's Day for my holiday card giving me
a break from the Christmas/Holiday cards!
I purchased this embossing folder in January of 2025 and it is a beauty
from Simon Says called Dotted Hearts.
I used some very old Core' dinations papers on both cards so I could 
sand them and really make the hearts and dies stand out.
The sentiment is an OLD woodblock from the dollar bins that
Michaels used to have.  I embossed with Versamark using an
embossing powder from when SNS was in business, it is called Amour, so pretty.
The hearts came with the embossing folder and are die cut from scraps.

Card #1

Card #2

Have lots of embossing folders?  Then get them out and come and join our fun
challenge at Can You Handle The Pressure!

Angel Ornament Card

 The theme at The Sisterhood of Crafters is
Anything Christmas, easy peasy!
I am sure you have seen over this past year I have been sort of hooked on the
Katy Sue 3D cards , or maybe I should say addicted.  They are fun to do
and I work on them when my mojo isn't in the mood for anything else.
My angels card is one of those.  These cards have layer after layer and take lots
of pop ups for each layer.  My card is a square 4 1/2" x 4 1/2".

Hope to see you over at The Sisterhood of Crafters.

Deepest Sympathy

There is a challenge at Little Red Wagon and the theme is

Sad Songs (Say So Much) meaning they want to see
sympathy cards, encouragement or support,
someone experiencing grief.

We had a tragedy of a member of our town this weekend,
a mother/wife lost both her husband and son to a
tragic car accident, I can't even imagine her pain.

Prayers go out to her and her family!!

This card was created with Katy Sue 3D cut outs,
it is very layered.  These cards are a bit time consuming
but quite the statement when done!

Thanks for visiting with me today!! 

Christmas Santa

 Hello Friends, today at Peace On Earth we have  a pretty
inspiration board that has a somewhat vintage look.
But, you can create anything as long as it's Christmas themed!

I always try to go with our mood boards as close as I can
so on this one I let the upper left big Santa face inspire me along with the colors.
Years ago I purchased these BIG stickers (1986), yes I've had them that long,
from a local Apple House that my sister, my mom and I myself used to go to for
lunch, they had the best grilled green olive/cream cheese sandwiches, plus a cute gift shop
which is where these stickers came from. These were so large that I had to make A6 cards
not my usual A2.  I decided to make three using all three stickers instead of putting them away for another 20 years.  I had some pretty vintage color papers  from P13 Cozy Winter that
looked good with the kraft card bases, so all in all these are pretty simple cards
using just the papers and big stickers!

Card #1:

Card #2:

Card #3 

Christmas will be here soon, come and have some holiday fun with us!

Entering the following challenges:

Let's Craft & Create .... Vintage Feel
Christmas Crafts All Year Round .... Santa Claus Is Coming To
 Town

Christmas Kickstart .... It's Christmassy

Santa Gift Card Holders

Hello friends, it's time to get those pretty designer papers out
you have been neglecting for so long and join us at
Love Those Pretty Papers challenge!

Our OPTIONAL theme is SANTA!!
But you can WOW us with anything as long as we see
those pretty papers being used!

I made these Santa money/gift holders using a die from
Art Impressions and LOTS of scraps of my pretty Christmas papers,
LOTS (the entire backs) more of these papers show on the back then they do the front
but I already had them bagged before I got pictures of their backs
but I think you get the idea!

Anything Goes:

Being the 'season' I created a second Christmas card
using some pretty papers from Mintay Winterland.
The die cut is Tutti Designs Poinsettia corner and the
large and fun sentiment is The Ton's Styled Christmas Sentiments.

I hope you will come and play with us at
Love Those Pretty Papers and show us what you have,
we can't wait to see it!!

Entering the following challenges:
Sparkles Christmas Challenge #179 .... Poinsettia
Jingle Belles ....ATG Christmas
Christmas Crafts All Year Long .... Santa Claus is Coming To Town
If You Gave A Crafter A Cookie .... Time For Santa

More Fun

 Our OPTIONAL theme at Simply Clean & Simple is
Reds and Greens
but you can create anything as long as you keep it CAS!

I used the cutest My Favorite Things stamp set
Christmas Safari.  This set has the 5 cutest little Christmas critters
you have ever seen and two fun sentiments.
I crimped a scrap piece of holiday paper and used a Cheery Lynn Banner
for the sentiment and a Tutti Designs Banner for the image.
It has a bit of 'sparkle' as I used a
silver stardust pen on the scooter.

We would love to see YOUR CAS designs at
Simply Clean & Simple challenge!

All Is Calm

 Hello friends, happy December.
We are at our last Word Power challenge for this year.
We are an anything goes challenge where your SENTIMENT
takes center stage!

Last year (and probably this year too) I have been taking advantage
of the fun Spellbinders Warehouse sales.
I purchased this Betterpress sentiment for a mere $1.00
and used it in my hot foil Glimmer machine.
I love that the Betterpress dies can be used to hot foil,
makes them twice as useful!
Background paper is from the Paper Studio's Woodland Wonderland.
I added one of my homemade Spellbinders Poinsettias.

If you have some center stage sentiments we certainly would 
like to see them at our Word Power challenge, come on over!!

Flurries Forecasted Challenge

 Today I am joining the last bi-weekly challenge for the year
at Art Impressions and the theme is Flurries Forecasted!

I am showing my second round of one of  these super cute
 Snowmen gift card holders (the Santa gift card holders will

 be on my blog in a couple of days)
It also takes the Envelope GCH set to complete.  I made lots of these
to give to my grands for Christmas (20 grands and 11 greats),
I didn't put gift cards in but money,

it holds that just as well.

Aren't they just the cutest?  Nothing says snow flurries like a cute

snowman.  We had more then flurries here during the Thanksgiving
weekend, we had two feet of snow!!

Christmas Wrappings

Hello friends, today we have a super fun theme for our challenge at
DOUBLE D and it is
CHRISTMAS WRAPPINGS.
It includes all the items mentioned below and we have a
festive mood board for inspiration too! 

(Christmas bows, ribbons, tags, packages,
xmas designer paper counts as xmas wrapping paper
just have fun with it)

I am almost embarrassed to admit this but I purchased this fun 
Wrapped In Love die/stamp set during their 2023 release
and this is the first time I have used it.
There are lots of stamps and dies to this set and it came together pretty easily.
I had die cut all the pieces then went to bed and made this card the next day,
but several of the pieces had disappeared overnight, where did they go, does that happen to you?
So I just used what was still there  Crazy isn't it?
This will be a fun set to use with the holiday paper scraps too!
Edited to add:  This is a The Greetery stamp and die set!

Come over to Double D and join our Christmas Wrappings challenge, 
we would love to have you!

Entering the following challenges:
Die Cut Diva's .... Christmas/Winter
Simon Says Wednesday .... Dies

Happiest of Birthdays

 Well, here we are at the last Triple B challenge for the year
and we have this almost all black and white elegant inspiration board for you.
Our challenges are the THREE B's, meaning you can make anything in any colors
as long as  you use butterflies, blooms or birds, one, two or all three.

I used a new to me Memory Box die I purchased in 2024 for the first time
called Blue River Butterfly, I even like the name let alone the pretty die.
I had the embossed inked panel in my 'spare parts' box and die cut a Tutti Designs oval
from it for my butterfly to 'land' on.  The sentiment is from Close To My Heart that
I stamped in Versamark then heat embossed with SNS black EB powder.
I love the bold look of the embossing and need to do that step more!

I wish you could see this in person as it is such more intense and beautiful!

Come on over and join in our last TB challenge for the year!

Stencil Fun December Challenge

Hello friends, at Stencil Fun we have an OPTIONAL
theme of Winter Related.  Of course this is optional as
mentioned and you can create anything as long as you
have used a stencil!!

I used a Waffle Flower postage college snowman stencil .
This is a 2 part stencil making it very easy to create with!
I also stamped in bits and pieces of the postage stamps
and added some snowy dots by using a white gel pen and a
Stardust glitter gel pen. It shines a bit more IRL!

For my Anything Goes card, I once again have a card I created
for my 2024 Christmas cards using the Taylored Expressions
layered Holly Holiday stencil.
This stencil allows you to create three different card front panels
all at once with each layer (there are 4).
These are geared to make a mini slimline but I trimmed them down to
fit an A2 card front as I didn't want to have to make lots of mini
slimline envelopes!  I used four different colors of Altenew inks
Firefly, Green Field, Crimson and Velvet.

We hope you will get your stencils out and join us for some stenciling FUN!!

Entering the following challenges:

Just Add Ink ....Stencils (both cards)

Aud Sentiments #332 .... (non) Traditional Christmas and/or Winter + Sentiment (both cards)
Cupcake Inspirations ...Let It Snow (snowman card)

Hand Stamped Sentiments .... Tile Inspiration (both cards~ The bird and the snowman)

Simon Wednesday .... ATG

Ghostly Witch

Hello friends, yes it is December but at
Two Old Bats we challenge you to pull out those Halloween supplies
and have some  'off-season' Halloween fun with us!
As always, we have a fun mood board for inspiration but
you can create anything as long as it is Halloween themed!

I try to always let the mood board inspire me and this time it was no exception.
I fell for the cute little ghost and pumpkins in the bottom right corner.
Last year (2024) I purchased this cute Witchy Ghost die from one of the
Cottage Cutz sales, die cut her in entirely white card stock and colored her in
with  alcohol markers. She is a tiny little thing!  She is mounted on a scrap piece

from my Halloween scrap bag of papers that was die cut with an Elizabeth ATC die.
The base paper underneath is Crafters Companion Vintage Halloween.

Hope to see you over at Two Old Bats,
go ahead, take a break from Christmas and come on over
and have some 'spooky' fun with us!

Colorful Options December 2025

Well here we are at our Colorful Options challenge for December, but we might have another
challenge surprise coming up later.
Our colors as shown on our super cool inspiration board are
red~green~brown~white along with our rainbow colors if that is the way you choose to go.

For my card I pulled out a new and never been used before
Cottage Cutz die Ginger Pocket Peeker that I purchased at one of their spectacular sales they have.
I die cut all my pieces on a white card stock scrap then colored
each piece in with Copics.  Once it was all put together I die cut a 
Cottage Cutz Stitched Eyelet Rectangle then ran it
thru my TH Sizzix Snowfall embossing folder.
The background paper 'P13 Santa's Workshop' was die cut
with a Waffle Flower Lacy Layered die.
My 'ginger' is pretty dark, I might have 'over baked' him, teehee!!

Come over to Colorful Options and have some
'colorful' fun with us!

Entering the following challenges:
Send A Smile 4 Kids .... Holiday Card For Kids

December 2025 Winter

 Yikes, we are into our first month of winter at The Four Seasons
and have to admit my least favorite season of all, the older I get the
harder the long, dreary cold days are harder to take!
But winter it is and we have a wintery cold inspiration board for you
but you could always warm up with a hot beverage as shown in the
bottom right picture, OR you can create anything as long as it is
winter themed!!

As you have I am sure seen me post about it in the past, I hit a big Sizzix
sale at the beginning of the year and this die  Sizzix Forest Shadows die is from
that sale.  It reminded me of the upper right picture.  I added a bit of water to some
glue, then with a brush spattered it on the front of the card and trees,
then sprinkled the entire card with SNS Crystal Ice glitter. 
Once dry I sprayed with a light mist of hair spray to keep the glitter intact.
A The Ton Easy Expressions Holiday sentiment was added to finish.

We would love to see YOUR wintery creations at The Four Seasons!

Entering the following challenges:
Make My Monday .... Christmas Trees
Simon Monday Challenge .... Dies
The Paper Players .... Tic-Tac-Toe (Dies~Trees~Sparkle)

Under The Gum Leaves

 Hello friends, I am back today with my last 
The Neglected Stuff card for 2025.
Hard to believe yet another year has come to an end.

We are an anything goes challenge where you can use 
all that poor neglected stuff you have in you stash
and just for whatever reason never got around to using.

I pulled out a very old and VERY neglected Kaiser Crafts (2019)
Under The Gum Leaves ephemera and paper set.
When this came I had put together a small bin of papers, card stocks
and other things that went well with the set thinking I
would use it up and make lots of cards with it.
It has been sitting here ever since, pretty pathetic!

Other then the background paper and the die cut oval came from
this set.  The ephemera is all Australian die cuts and has some
really pretty pieces in it.  My goal is to use it all up, I have 14 card bases
so far ready to go, a good winter project I think!

The animal featured on this card is a Platypus native to Australia.
I'm not from Australia but Michigan, I think when I bought this the colors
and the cute animals appealed to me.

Come on over to The Neglected Stuff challenge blog
and have some fun with us using all YOUR neglected stuff!