Christmas House

I hope everyone's New Year is off to a good start ... and let's hope it stays that way!

I saw this post on Pinterest that I fell in love with and just had to make it. I CASED it, with a few minor changes. The credit goes to The Craft Spa for making this card. It's beautiful and I was quite pleased with how mine turned out.

This first picture is the front doors. I placed the wreaths on each door and put boughs over the top of the door. That's what is different from the post on Pinterest. I used the Festive Fireplace stamp set for this.

This next picture is the inside. I stamped the windows using Happy Scenes and Cozy Christmas, with vellum on top, and used the Hearth and Home framelits for the gold windows, and cut two more windows using whisper white for the inside of the window sashes.

I don't know if you can see on the mantle or not, but I punched out 6 candles - 4 white and 2 gold.

Of course, I'm going to keep this card for myself. It took a lot of time to make this, and I want to thank thecraftspa for making such a lovely design.

I hope you like it as much as I do. I just might try this card again for other seasons. Since it takes quite a bit of time to make, I'll have to do it on a day where I don't have much to do.

Thanks for stopping by!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016!

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all my family, friends, and followers! You are the treasures of my life, and I'm thankful for all of you. I wish all of you a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year! I'm excited to spend 2016 with you, and beyond. May you be blessed with good cheer, laughter, and friendships in the coming year.

I wanted to share my last hooray in 2015. In Glenmoore, PA, every year, the Methodist church puts on a cookie and Christmas craft bazaar, and this year, I got to participate. I only had 2 weeks to prepare, so of course, I was like a craft making machine for two solid weeks. I didn't make a whole lot of items, but to my surprise, I sold quite a lot. I was super happy about that ...

Here are some of the items I made to share with you:

 Here are the snowmen gift card holders I made the flew out the door like crazy. I sold almost every one that I made, and I made 26! I just love them.

 Here are the snowmen cookie boxes I made. Would you believe, I only sold a few of these? OMG, I thought they would fly out the door, especially with the cookie sale going on. Nope. O well, they will go to good use next year.

 I saw a cute video on how to make these adorable Frosty the Snowman hats. I didn't sell any of those at the bazaar, but I had several people purchase them for gifts, and I ended up giving them away as gifts as well. They were so flippin cute ...

I made these Santa wine tag holders a couple years ago, and they sold this year. It pays to hold on to things. If they don't go one year, they certainly will go another time. Phew, that's great!

 This is a picture of my wares that I made for the bazaar. There are gift card holders - the coffee cup ones flew out the door - sure wish I would have kept one ... they were mighty cute. In the background, I had some left over bags I made for cookies and didn't sell those, but all of the Christmas ornament lip balm holders sold like hot cakes, but the purse lip balm holders did not fare well. The Santa gift card holders and the Snowmen gift card holders flew out the door, as did the random gift card holders you see in the background. They were left overs from previous years. I did not sell any of the Christmas tags .. but that's ok, I'll use them for next year's gifts.

Here is my display at the bazaar. I came home with one box less than I started with, and $250 richer. Whoooo hoooo! I also got special orders and filled those rather quickly. All in all, it was a good day.

I hope you enjoy your New Year's Day, and best wishes to all of you in 2016!

A Christmas Celebration 2015

Well, this is the last day of 2015 everyone. Can you believe it? I can't. Another year has gone and sometimes I just can't remember where the time went.

I thought I would share some of our Christmas pics from 2015 ...

First up is a picture of the Christmas lights hung in the streets of Brooklyn, NY in South Slope. I visited our daughter and her husband, and on the way home, I just couldn't leave without taking a picture. It looked so festive, and I wanted to remember how pretty it was.

How crazy, but I lightened up the background and when I posted it here, it looks dark. O well ...

Next is a picture of Aileen and Josh's Christmas tree. You will see the presents I brought under the tree, and maybe you'll recognize them ... take a peek.

The boxes under the tree were all made by me. I had to much fun making them and they look so cute, I must say. Aileen had to work on Christmas day, so needless to say, the two of them could not join us for Christmas. They were certainly near and dear to our hearts and thought of all day long.

Now on to our son Tj and his girlfriend, Ashley's Christmas tree. How cute is this?

This this their first Christmas and their first Christmas tree together. I love how cute it is. They went to California this year to celebrate Christmas with Ashley's family, so we missed them this year, but they were ever close in our hearts and thoughts.

This is our Christmas tree. There were a few more presents, but I forgot to take the picture with all the presents under the tree.

This next picture is one of a mesh wreath I made at a class at Michael's. I coaxed my sister into going with me and she did, and we had a wonderful time. Sadly, when I brought the wreath home and showed it to my husband, he wasn't a fan of it and through it was "too poofy". Well, it took the wind out of my sails. The next day, I showed it to my son, and he had the same reaction ... he didn't like the white. So I decided to put it on the wall, took a picture, and then took it down and put it away. I must say, it was a bit larger than I expected ... I started with a 16" wire wreath, and by the time we "poofed" it all out, it was big! Check it out when I'm holding it next to my sister's and you'll see how big it is.  hahahahaha.

It doesn't look bad here, or large for that matter. Now, here's how large it really is ...

Yep, it's big alright...

This next picture is of My Christmas Centerpiece. My friend, Diane, asked me if I would be interested in taking a fresh centerpiece class with her, and of course, I said yes. This is what I made and it turned out really nice - beyond my expectation.

The centerpiece is made with all fresh greens and flowers. I must say, I outdid myself on this one ... LOL

Tomorrow, I'll share some of my creations I made for a Christmas Cookie Bazaar I participated in. That will start the New Year off just right, then ... it's new catty time.

Until tomorrow, have a wonderful, safe, and blessed New Year's Eve.

Love and Hugs.

More Christmas Cards

Hi again! As promised, I told you I would share some of my other Christmas cards I made this year. I wanted to make many more, but time just got away from me and I didn't have much time. I made a lot of crafts for people this year, which then I didn't leave much time for me. I'll learn by my mistake for next year.

So, here are the other cards I made this year:

I just love wreaths, and especially Christmas wreaths. So I embossed this one in gold and colored in the berries with real red marker. The bow on the top is mossy meadow ribbon and gold foil surrounds the wreath as a mat.

For this card, I stamped the larger present in gold ink, the striped present is on dazzling diamonds glimmer paper, stamped with mossy meadow stripes, and the last present is cut out using red glimmer paper. Each of the bows are stamped using mossy meadow, real red, and gold inks.

Unfortunately, I got a bit of shadow on this card when I took the picture and couldn't remove it. GRR!! This is the card I made for my co-workers. I used the winter wonderland embossing folder (snow gently falling), gold glimmer paper and gold ink, then topped the card off with a Christmas tree, which has red dazzling diamonds glitter for Christmas balls - wish you could see it better. The two is gold cord, and the tree is topped off with a gold foil star. It's really a pretty card in person. Some day I'll get the hang of how to take better pictures - I've got to create a small photo studio and that should do it.

Well, that's it for the Christmas cards this year. Hope you enjoyed them, and may they inspire you to create till your heart's content.

Love and hugs!

Christmas Cards 2015

Hi Everyone:

Yes, it's been a while again. I miss blogging and am so glad I have some time to post for you.

Let me start by telling you that I've had several bouts of vertigo, and needless to say, I've been through MRI's and MRAs of my head and neck, ear manipulation twice, and bed rest. Today, I had to go for another ear manipulation, and somehow, it wipes me out. But I took a small nap today and wanted to at least post some of my Christmas cards to share. Yes, Christmas is technically over, but not quite yet.

Here are two Christmas cards that I made and sent out. I love pointsettias, and of course, I'd have to use the stamp and punch and see what I could do. Somehow, they came out really nice. I think I might like the white one better, but I'll let you decide.

I made quite a few of them, and when I needed just a few more cards, I decided to make something else. I made this next card for one of my library classes that ended up being cancelled. Boo hoo!  See what the students missed?

I hope you liked these ... tomorrow I will share some more I made. I'll be gearing up for the new catty and sharing some of my creations using the new stamp sets. I might save those for the start of the New Year ... we'll just have to wait and see.

I hope you had a lovely Christmas with family and friends, and that your heart was blessed with much joy for the upcoming year.

Love and Hugs!

Coloring Down the Lines - A Winter's Day

Hi Everyone! I've missed you. I have been very busy with craft fairs and making things for others, that I just have to start focusing on me now. So what a way to get started ... our weekly blog hop.

You should have arrived here from Amanda's blog. Amanda always tries new things and techniques - you can certainly learn a lot from her. Next up after me is Joni. She too, always comes up with nice cards ... I just love them all.

This week, our color pallet and photograph reminded me of Winter. Here they are ...

This is my interpretation of the colors:

The stamps I used were happy scenes, and white christmas (retired). The evergreen trees were colored using mint macaron, the sky is pool party and smoky slate, while the bear trees are basic gray, and the outline of the snow banks are done with lost lagoon.

I love the winter scenes, and stay tuned. You might see more ...

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs,
Helen

Coloring Down the Lines - White Pointsettia

Well, I wasn't sure if I would make it this week because I'm scrambling to get stuff made for a Christmas Bazaar I'm participating in this weekend, as well as making 14 dozen cookies for a cookie exchange this weekend, and then hopping on a plane to Houston, then Kentucky on Monday and Tuesday. WOW, it's making me dizzy thinking of all the stuff I'm doing.

Anyway, I managed to make a card for the blog hop this week, and I really like it. Yes, I truly do. So because I like it so much, I wanted to share it with you.

Here are the colors we had to work with, along with the photograph.

I also want to apologize if I messed up the line up too because I didn't get to tell everyone in enough time, so I hope it works. I'm just going with the flow I usually go with.

Now, here's my card I made for you this week:

I hope you like my card this week. Now please don't forget to check out everyone's blog this week. Robbie's blog is usually before me, and Joni is always after me. So I'm linking them just in case.

Have a wonderful rest of your week, and I hope to see you soon.

Hugs,

Helen