My Christmas Cards for 2009

I had received a Christmas card from my friend Megumi living in Japan and loved her layout! I used her Gate-card style and made my cards with Real Red, Bashful Blue and Brocade Blue card stock.

Santa Class!

Directions on making bows:

3" x 6" piece Double Sided Patterned Paper
Paper Cutter
Pop-Up Glue Dots
Adhesive
Brads
1/16" Circle Punch

Step By Step:

Step 1.Cut 8 strips of 1/2" x 3", 4 strips of 1/2" x 2 1/2", and 1 strip of 1/2" x 2". It's important to cut the 1/2" x 2" strip before cutting the 1/2" x 2 1/2" strips.

Step 2.Take 4 - 1/2" x 3" strips with pattern "A" face up and put adhesive on one end of each strip.Take the other 4 - 1/2" x 3" strips with pattern "B" face up and put adhesive on one end of each strip. Take the 4 - 1/2" x 2 1/2" strips with pattern "A" face up and put adhesive on one end of each strip. Take the 1/2" x 2" strip with pattern side "B" face up and put adhesive on one end.

Step 3. Wrap the 1/2" x 3" strips and the 1/2" x 2 1/2" strips.

Step 4. Wrap the 1/2" x 2" strip.

Step 5.Use the 1/16" circle punch to punch a whole at the bottom of each "cone".

Step 6.Use a brad and attach the "cone" together.

Step 7.Place a Pop-Dot in the center of each layer.

Step 8.Stack each layer by alternating patterns.

Your Turn!

"Christmas Wishes" Meander Book!

We made our "Christmas Wishes" meander books today! I was a little worried about the way the book is cut but everyone did it perfectly. The little book is made from ONE 12x12 piece of double sided patterned paper on the inside! The way it is cut and folded makes little pockets to put tags into. My books had the words Wish on one and Santa on the other. I wrote down some other ideas for words to put on the front and they liked them better. As you can see Noel was used and we had Peace on a couple. My book will be used for my families wish lists. I will put each member of my families picture on each page with all their "Christmas wishes" on the tags that are in the pockets. Try it!

Directions for Meander Book:

One 12" x 12" sheet of double sided patterned paper
Two 3 1/4" squares of patterned paper
Two 3 1/4" squares of cardboard
Cardstock to decorate and make tags
1 3/8 Circle punch for pockets
Paper cutter
Paper scoring tool

2-way glue pen

Pop-dots

Doublesided tape
Binding tool and spiral wire

Ribbon

Brads

small stapler
Stamps, Ink and Embellishments

Step-by-Step
Step 1
Score 12" x 12" paper at 3", 6" and 9".

Step 2
Turn paper 90 degrees and score again at 3", 6" and 9".

Step 3
Fold and unfold all score lines.

Step 4
Use scissors to cut paper as follows:

On the first vertical score at 3", cut from 3" all the way to 12".One the second vertical score at 6", cut from the bottom to 9".One the third score at 9", cut from 3" all the way to 12".Cut the first and last square off and discard.

Step 5
Start folding paper up from one of the sides with a missing square. Fold it up accordion style, stopping at the end of row.

Step 6
Tuck the accordian pages of the first row under the second row.

Step 7
Fold the second row accordion style like the first one.

Step 8
Tuck your accordion pages under the next row.

Step 9
Fold the third row accordion style.

Step 10
Fold pages under the last row.

Step 11
Now fold up the last row accordian style.

Step 12
For pocket pages, start by punching a half circle on the top of the middle page. Punch half circles on all pages to make pockets.

Step13

Punch holes in the side of the book pages for binding. I used a Carla Craft binding system punch.

Step 14

Add 2-way glue to the pages to make a pocket. Stay close to the edge with your glue. Glue pages together.You won't need glue on the side. It will be held together with the binding later.

Step 15

Stamp pages if needed.

Step 16

Tape 3 1/4" patterned paper to cardboard squares. Punch binding holes in the side of both of the covered cardboard squares.

Step 17
Stack front, back and pages the following way: Front cover face up, page pockets, back cover face down. Insert the spiral wire through the holes and bend ends.

Step 18
Cut tags for pockets. These were cut to 2 5/8" x 2 3/4" . Decorate the inside pages. Staple ribbon to top of pocket tags.

Step 19
Decorate front cover.

Step 20

Add ribbon ties to binding spiral wire.

Your Turn!

Aged Christmas

My card is a 5 3/8x5 3/8 square. The dimensions, starting with the background paper, are5 1/4x4 1/4 cranberry crisp and 4x5 Fruitcake Holly berries. Moving clockwise, the tree box dimensions are: 2 3/4x3 3/4 Old Olive, 2 5/8x3 5/8 Fruitcake cherry and 2 1/2x3 1/2 fruitcake Holly Berries. The flowery box: 4x2 1/4 Old Olive, 3 7/8x 2 1/8 cranberry crisp, 3 3/4x 2 Fruitcake Tidings. The plaid box: 2 3/8x3 cranberry crisp and 2 1/4x 2 7/8 Fruitcake plaid.

Our 2nd "Crazy about Christmas" card class

Our second "Crazy for Christmas" card class was today. I found this ribbon at our PX and wanted so badly to use it on our cards. It is made by Hallmark. I used the perfect presentation "North Pole December 25Th" circle stamp. The Sweet Holidays stamp set was our main stamp set that we used. I have never used the gingerbread house before. We colored it and Versa marked it, then poured iridescent ice all over the image. We heat embossed it then added the liquid applique and heated that up, also. It is so cute and fun to decorate! Also, the candy cane came from the Holiday Tag Team set. The box that we made was just a 2x4x6x8 box. I cut a large 12x12 Whisper White paper into 81/2 x 12. Then I cut that into 71/2x 81/2 and kept the left over for the top of the box. I made them 51/2 inches tall.
I thought this turned out so cute I may use this for my Christmas cards this year. Kiriko's class did a wonderful job on their cards today and did a better job at coloring our little houses than I did!

2nd "Crazy about Christmas" Card Class!

'Tis the season to be stamping! We will be making a Christmas set. See you tomorrow!

"Crazy about Christmas" Class!

We had our "Crazy for Christmas Cards" class today! I wanted to have them make a Christmas card and a matching Christmas box. Both the box and card have pieces of fresh Cyprus on them. I love to use natural elements in my cards. It smells so good when you take the cards out of the envelopes! We used liquid applique right on the branch as to look like snow. The snowman came from the "Thanks snow much" retired set. I believe that was my first stamp set ever! I love the color combination with this card. I used Purely pomegranate, Old olive, Whisper white and River rock. Also, Dashing Christmas paper.



Hiroko is concentrating :o)My Beautiful friends! Thank you so much for all the food for our lunch today! It was so good! I especially loved the Chinese meatfilled buns. YUM!

Two of the finished cards. Great job!

Next Class-"Crazy about Christmas!"

'Tis the season to be stamping! We will be making Christmas cards tomorrow! See you all then!

October Card Class-Theme "Antique Christmas"

Our class today was on making Christmas cards, "Antique Christmas cards". Two different styles, Two of each style. The first card we did was an antique Victorian looking card using the Peaceful Wishes stamp set and the second was a snowflake card. I love snow! So, I had to break out my Snowflakes stamp set for the second card. The picture is above. We used a sponge and sponged the edges of our blue snowflake Designer series paper from last year. Stamped our word stamp in black and then Cuttlebugged it with a Cuttlebug snowflake embossing folder . I then had them attach the bead to the paper. I found the beads at our craft store on base. I think they are for applying to clothing like the "Beadazzle" beads. I look at everything differently now:o) We stamped our Baroque Motifs stamp on our paper strip with basic black. Versamarked our strip with two of the Snowflake stamps and then embossed it with Winter White embossing powder. We used a sponge and applied Night of Navy ink in a circular motion starting in the middle of the snowflakes and worked our way out. I used the smallest snowflake and Versamarked it on the empty spots of our strip. The big snowflake was Versamarked and embossed with Winter White embossing powder then sponged with Night of Navy in the technique used for the snowflakes on the strip. Then we Versamarked the whole snowflake paper and covered it with glassy glaze and used our heat gun to finish. They even took it a step further and embossed white little snowflakes on bashful blue paper and then punched them out. They sandwiched silver cording between two snowflakes and pop-dotted them together and made tassels dropping from the top of their cards. I don't have a picture of that yet but I will post it soon. Everyone's cards turned out great! So proud of you all! Doesn't Kayoko-san look sooo cute in that picture!!! Her cards match her outfit, too!