Christmas

Through the Branches

I have sent handmade Christmas cards for many, many years — even before I became a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator. In recent years, I’ve moved away from creating one single card design because I found myself agonizing over which of my favorites would be the star of the holiday card show each year. I love being able to create a variety of designs using both current and retired products in my stash and then choosing a design that really fits a recipient. What about you? Do you send a single card design? Or do you mix it up?

I love creating designs that seem to be peering through the trees. I’ve made several cards over the last couple of months that use this design concept. Today, we’re peering through the evergreens to this lovely Christmas tree in the center.

We get started with a base of Mossy Meadow cardstock. Our background panel is a sheet of the Take a Bow designer paper. I loved the variety of greens and the contrast that this patterned sheet provided to the design. Our focal panel has many layers and begins with a background panel of Mossy Meadow that is diecut using the largest Deckled Rectangle die. The evergreen branches are cut from Mossy Meadow using the Winterly Treetops dies from the Nests of Winter suite. Layers of dimensionals give the illusion of us looking through layers and layers of branches. Our focal tree is from the Joyful Images ephemera pack, and I cut around the image to remove as much white space as possible. I added a star, also from the ephemera pack, to the top of the tree. The sentiment is from the Joyful Sayings ephemera pack, and I love how the lighter green really pops against our mossy background panel. We finish things off with gold thread and snowflakes for a little touch of sparkle to bring out the small gold foiling elements on our tree.

Next week, we’ll be looking at all the ways we can use our crafty goodies to create special holiday gifts. I hope you’ll tag along.

Products used in today’s design:
Mossy Meadow cardstock
Take a Bow DSP
Joyful ephemera
Deckled Rectangles, Winterly Treetops dies
Gold thread
Snowflakes assortment
Dimensionals
Adhesives

Christmas

Advent Prayer

We’re already halfway through the first week of December. I’m still working through Christmas lists and holiday to-dos. What about you?

Today, I’m sharing an update to our family dinner prayer. A month or so ago I shared the story of how this got started for our family. This is such a terrific practice, not only to hide the Word in our hearts, but to give us new and fresh ways to reframe each day — no matter how well or how poorly the day has gone. I challenge you to adopt something similar for your family and see how it begins to change things for you.

We get started with the same 6×6 frame from Amazon. Our backdrop for our scripture this month is a sheet of the (very sadly now-retired) One Horse Open Sleigh designer series paper. I printed the scripture on a quarter panel of white cardstock and then diecut using the Radiating Stitches dies and mounted on the background panel with dimensionals. I added a few snowflakes and rhinestones basic jewels for a little sparkle. I’m storing all of the prayers we aren’t using in a 6×6 paper pocket envelope (also an Amazon find) so they’ll be ready to use again.

Products used in today’s featured design:
6×6 frame (Amazon)
One Horse Open Sleigh DSP (retired)
Basic White cardstock
Snowflake assortment
Rhinestone basics jewels
Dimensionals

Christmas · Coming Soon

Sending Snowy Cheer

It’s that time of year where we’re all in holiday mode. Swiping all of the sale items off our lists to give to loved ones and friends. Taking the annual family photos. Carefully choosing the annual holiday cards.

Today, I’m sharing another holiday card from this year’s crafting stash. I have several versions of this particular design that I hope to try, but this is by far the simplest one, I think. And I just love the look of the new Soft Waves embossing folder that will release with the new catalog in January. Doesn’t it give the perfect look of snow drifts swirling swiftly across this scene?

We get started with a base of Real Red cardstock. The background panel is a quarter panel of Real Red that’s embossed with the new (not yet released) Soft Waves embossing folder and then lightly wiped with craft ink to give the look of swirling snow. To create the snowdrift in the front, I took a panel of white cardstock and tore it to create the perfectly soft and frayed-looking top edges. Our mailbox from Sending Love is stamped in black on white cardstock and colored with Stampin’ Blends. I cut with the coordinating die and then made the cuts even tighter with my paper snips. The wreath from the Sophisticated Sled stamp set is stamped in Shaded Spruce and Old Olive and then colored with Stampin’ Blends before I cut it out with the coordinating die. I also tightened up the edges around the wreath with paper snips to reduce the white space. I slit the wreath and then put it around the mailbox. Dimensionals help give it definition all around. The bow is cut using the Peaceful Evergreens dies and is cut from gold foil paper. Dimensionals help give the whole scene layers and dimension for all of the elements. I wrapped some red & white baker’s twine around the bottom of the focal panel and added the sentiment from the Joyful Sayings ephemera pack. Gold snowflakes and gold iridescent gems finish things off with just the right amount of sparkle.

Tomorrow, I hope you’ll pop in to see how I’ve updated our dinner table prayer for the season of Advent.

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Christmas · Holidays

Christmas Greenery

As soon as I saw the Seasons of Green & Gold suite of products by Stampin’ Up!, I immediately put it in my cart. Aside from the fact that one of my favorite things about the holidays is all of the evergreens, this suite had all of the festive sparkle that could be used beyond holiday card designs.

Today, I’m using a combination of evergreen colors with the glittering gold elements of the suite to create this elegant holiday design.

We get started with a base of Very Vanilla cardstock. Our background panel is a sheet of the golden greenery from the Seasons of Green & Gold paper pack. I used some of the leftover diecut greenery from last week’s home decor project to create an evergreen spray for the center focal point of this design. The greenery is diecut from the Graceful Greenery vellum and Seasons of Green & Gold patterned paper using the coordinating Golden Greenery dies. The sentiment combines the word Merry from the Joyful Sayings ephemera pack and elements diecut using the Peaceful Season dies and a combination of gold foil and festive glimmer papers. A faux bow of Shaded Spruce sheer ribbon adds a layer of green while dressing up the design. Dimensionals give us lots of layers between the card elements. We finish things off with a combination of earth tones shimmer gems and regal foiled dots.

Tomorrow, I’m going to share our newest dinner prayer with you — just in time for Advent.

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Christmas · Holidays

Merry Stockings

Happy December, everyone. I don’t know about you, but I’m over here wondering how I ended up in a time warp! Every year, I feel like the fall months just whiz by and we end up at Christmas in the blink of an eye!

The last quarter of my year has definitely felt like it’s on fast forward after returning to work. I just can’t seem to find a good rhythm to keep all of the balls in the air. Each week, something has to give, it seems. So for those who have been following along for a while and for those who are new here, I’m still working on finding a good balance in order to find time in the craft room.

I was fortunate to have a few days at home over the Thanksgiving holiday and could carve out a little crafty time. I’m still working on Christmas cards and it’s going to be a race to the finish to get enough made to get them all out before Christmas! Today’s card uses the Joyful Ephemera packs to create a super simple and very festive holiday card.

We get started with a base of white cardstock. The focal panel is machine embossed using the Cute Crochet embossing folder that is then matted with some red Festive Glimmer paper. The mantle is a strip of the Take a Bow patterned paper pack that is mounted with dimensionals. The stockings and bows are from the Joyful Images ephemera pack and the banner sentiment is from the Joyful Sayings ephemera. A few iridescent discs finish things off with a twinkle and help the eye pass across the design.

I’ll be bringing you some more holiday designs as the week moves along. Thanks for dropping in!

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Christmas · Holidays · L2S Group Instahop

Most Wonderful Time

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Our family has so very much to be thankful for this year. Most importantly is that we’re all here to celebrate together. After my husband’s very serious health crisis early in the year, we do not take for granted that he is here and he is healthy and recovering!

A quiet holiday week at work has turned out to be quite busy, and so once again, I’m mostly playing catchup this week. But I’m thankful to have a job that I really enjoy and that provides for my family. Even if it does cut into my favorite hobby! *wink-wink*

And speaking of my new job, I wanted to create a little festive holiday art that I could display in my bookshelf. And so today’s project uses the ever so lovely Seasons of Green and Gold Suite of products to create the festive 6×6 framed project. This is a simple white frame that I purchased on Amazon.

We start with a 6×6 piece of white cardstock as the base for our greenery spray. The greenery is diecut from the Season of Green & Gold patterned paper and Graceful Greenery vellum using the coordinating Golden Greenery dies. I also mixed in a few green Festive Glimmer paper sprigs for a pop of sparkly fun. Our pops of red are also diecut from Festive Glimmer paper but use the small sprig from the Changing Leaves die set. The greenery is adhered to the white cardstock in varying layers, which are created with dimensionals. The sentiment from Greetings of the Season is heat embossed in gold on white cardstock and diecut with the Spotlight on Nature die set. A ribbon of silver and white sheer ribbon dresses the sentiment panel with some shimmer. And drusy embellishments in the corners catch the eye and move it across our decorative piece. I really love how this turned out and can’t wait to put it out in my office!

Today’s card is a part of the Luv 2 Stamp Group Instagram Hop, which goes live at 9 AM Pacific Time (PST).  Click here to head over to my Instagram feed at 9 AM Pacific/11 AM Central and check out what the other demos in our L2S Group have created for you today! 

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Holidays · Winter

Stopping on a Snowy Evening

We’re finishing off this week’s stopping by the woods on a snowy evening card series with this clean and simple card design. I’ve been wanting to try the double embossing technique, and this card gave the perfect opportunity to layer snowflakes and evergreens. Let’s take a closer look at how this stunningly simple card comes together.

I wanted this snowy scene to literally sparkle, so I started by covering a quarter panel of white cardstock with a heavy layer of Wink of Stella. You want the layer to be fairly heavy without completely saturating the paper, which will drastically impact drying time. I allowed about an hour of air dry time and then finished things off with the heat gun. Next came the embossing, and I learned that even when you think your paper is dry, it’s probably still too wet to emboss just how a truly dry sheet will. I also learned that the Snowflake Sky embossing folder seems to emboss more deeply than the Painted Trees, so while I wanted the snow to be drifting in front of the evergreens, I had to emboss them a second time to ensure that they were actually visible through the snowfall. I used my finger to apply a very light layer of Shaded Spruce ink over the evergreens to help them stand out. I adhered this panel over a mat of festive glimmer paper and then wrapped the bottom with iridescent striped ribbon and tied a small bow. The sentiment from the Joyful Sayings ephemera pack is adhered over the ribbon with dimensionals. Green transparent dots finish things off by drawing the eye across the card design. This whole card just shimmers in the smallest amount of light.

I thought it would be fun to leave you with this week’s inspiration, and one of my favorite Robert Frost poems, to really bring this theme to life.

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

As we are entering the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, how might you be able to stop and take it all in like the man on the horse? To observe the wonder and joy of the everyday moments that make up this thing we call life? I hope we can all take a few mindful moments when we’re enjoying time with family and friends this holiday season to just breathe and take it all in.

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Christmas · Holidays · Winter

Sketchy Fridays: Snowy Wonder and Happiness

I really, really love this week’s theme, which is one of the reasons that I wanted to spend today showing you the designs I had planned for you throughout the last week. One of the most valuable things I have learned over the last several years is that flexibility is key when things don’t work out exactly as you planned.

So this post is the ode to Sketchy Fridays. Each week we’re using a card sketch to design our featured card. Right now, we’re working through a full series of designs using the card sketches found in current Stampin’ Up! catalogs.

This week’s card is based on Sketch #13 from the Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog and features the Peaceful Evergreens and In the Grove Dies, along with the ever-lovely Snowflake Sky embossing folder. Today’s card design is inspired by the very talented demo known on Instagram as Craftsomnia.

This week’s design theme is stopping by the woods on a snowy evening. This Robert Frost poem is all about taking the time to bask in the wonder of falling snow, and I can’t help but think how well the idea of stopping to take in the wonder and joy everyday moments of life has to be one of the best life lessons. And outside of this wonderful life lesson, the theme lends itself so well to a variety of lovely winter cards, don’t you think?

We get started with a base of Balmy Blue cardstock. Our backdrop is a panel of Night of Navy that is machine embossed with the Snowflake Sky embossing folder and then lightly brushed with white craft ink to really bring out the beautiful soft snowflakes. Our snowbank is a simple piece of white cardstock that is torn to create the soft edges of a snowy hill. The Mossy Meadow trees are diecut with a combination of the In the Grove and Peaceful Evergreen dies. A touch of craft ink to the edges of the treeline and a bit of white glimmer paper on the larger evergreens in the foreground make for the perfect dusted evergreen grove. The sentiment from the Peaceful Season stamp set is stamped in Night of Navy in the center of a white banner cut with the Radiating Stitches die and then finished in the snowbank. Dimensionals help give lots of depth to our scene, and the silver trim and iridescent faceted gems lend the sparkle.

This design is even more stunning in person as the lighting in my craft room just wasn’t quite right today to capture the true colors and details. I hope you’ll drop in a little later as I bring you one final clean & simple design in this series.

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Winter

Loads of Holiday Cheer

Well, to say that my week didn’t exactly go as planned is likely obvious to you all by now. I had everything planned out, but when all was said and done, I simply didn’t have the time to execute. I had to travel out of town for work and then had some other obligations that simply overran the time I allotted for them. Such is life sometimes, eh? So today, I’m going to play a little catchup and bring you all the content I had planned for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of this week.

If you’re new here, for the last month or so, I’ve been working with themes to inspire designs. This week, we’re stopping by the woods on a snowy evening. And today’s card was inspired by a design that was recently posted by Stampin’ Up! Artisan crafter the Crafty O’ Ink Pen. When I saw her design, I knew it would be perfect for this week’s theme, and I wanted to do my own take on it. That’s the wonderful thing about design inspiration — you get to make it your own!

So we get started with a base of Night of Navy cardstock. The background panel is a sheet of Pool Party that is machine embossed with the Snowflake Sky embossing folder, which is then lightly inked with a sponge dauber and Pool Party ink to give the look of a cloudy sky. To create the snowdrifts, I tore a quarter panel of white cardstock in half and then very lightly inked the torn edges with the Pool Party ink to give some definition and detail and layered them to the snowdrifts. They’re ultimately adhered to the background panel with dimensionals. Using the Merriest Trees dies, I cut two of the smaller sized trees from Shaded Spruce cardstock and lightly rubbed some craft ink over the tops to give them the look of having a dusting of snow. They’re tucked in and behind the snowdrifts to give depth and dimension to the scene. The sled is diecut with the Sophisticated Sled and Filled With Fun die sets from gold foil and Early Espresso cardstocks and then cut in half to create the side view of our sled. Isn’t this brilliant?! Such a great idea, Crafty O’ Ink Pen! The sled is filled with holiday goodness which has been stamped on white cardstock using the Filled With Cheer stamp set and then colored with Stampin’ Blends. Our sentiment from Filled With Cheer is stamped in Night of Navy on white cardstock and then diecut using the Peaceful Season small banner die and adhered with dimensionals over some gold trim. Adhesives snowflakes finish our snowy scene with a little sparkle.

Check back in a little later in the afternoon for our Sketchy Fridays snowy evening design.

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Winter

Snowy Thoughts

It’s a super busy week around the Song Sparrow household. Yesterday, the kiddo’s basketball team had their first game of the season. It was a fairly solid loss, but I think the kids learned a lot and could see areas that still need some work and improvement. Everyone seemed to have fun, and that’s all that really matters in sports, as far as I’m concerned. I’m over here prepping for some out-of-town training and a big meeting for work, so I’m burning the candle pretty low.

This week, we’re working around the theme of stopping in the woods on a snowy evening. I kept it pretty simple with this first design. We’re using a layout by the lovely Did You Stamp Today demo as our inspiration.

We get started with a base of Shaded Spruce cardstock. Our focal panel is a strip of the snowy evergreen forest pattern from the Winter Meadow designer series paper pack that is matted with Pool Party to really bring out the more subtle blues. Our sentiment panel is cut from the blue woodgrain from the Country Woods patterned paper using the Spotlight on Nature dies. He sentiment from Friends for Life is stamped in Pretty Peacock. Our focal trees are from the Frosted Forest die set and are diecut from Shaded Spruce and adhered over a strip of layered Shaded Spruce satin ribbon and white diagonal trim. A few carefully placed regal foiled dots finish things off with a little pop of color and sparkle.

I’ve really enjoyed working with design themes the last several weeks. I find it especially useful if I want to highlight a bunch of different products rather than focusing on just one. What about you? Which format do you like best? Let me know in the comments!

Thursday we’ll continue our stop in the woods with the Sophisticated Sled set. I hope you’ll pop in!

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