The Reason for the Season

O.K. all...I am going to get on my soap box and hope that I don't offend anyone. But I think that I and many others like me have been quiet for too long. I am a Christian...and proud of it...and I am so tired of being Politically Correct! Now don't get me wrong...I believe that everyone is welcome to their belief's...if you are athiest and don't believe in God...that is your choice...if you are Jewish and celebrate Hanukka I will wish you a Happy Hanukka back...or if you celebrate Ramada or Kwanzaa...and wish me a Happy Ramada or Happy Kwanzaa I will return the greating! I am not offended by the greeting, in fact I am happy to be included in your celebrations.  But I am Christian and I celebrate Christmas...and in the same respect that I will not try to stop you from celebrating your religious belief's I would appreciate not being told that I cannot celebrate mine! Jesus is the reason for this holiday...it is not a "winter holiday" it is a Christmas holiday and  I will always refer to this as the Christmas season...I will always wish you a Merry Christmas and if you have a problem with this then maybe you had better think about it the next time you go to celebrate one of your religious celebrations...what if you are told that it is no longer acceptable to celebrate them! We are told that we live in a free society...that we are all able to have our own religious beliefs or none at all if that is your choice...so why is it that the Christians are now being told that they are no longer able to have our religious celebrations? If we went to your countries how would you like it if we told you that you were no longer allowed to have your religion. There is so much more that I would like to say...but should probably stop before my soap box turns over.  I was sent this email today and I just had to post it. Now I will get down off my soap box and again hope that I have not offended anyone...but I am tired of being offended by others.

Twas the month before Christmas*

*When all through our land,*

*Not a Christian was praying*

*Nor taking a stand.*

*See the PC Police had taken away,*

*The reason for Christmas - no one could say.*

*The children were told by their schools not to sing,*

*About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.*

*It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say*

* December 25th is just a ' Holiday '.*

*Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit*

*Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!*

*CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod*

*Something was changing, something quite odd! *

*Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa*

*In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda..*

*As Targets were hanging their trees upside down*

* At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.*

*At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears*

*You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.*

*Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-is-ty*

*Are words that were used to intimidate me.*

*Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen*

*On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton !*

*At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter*

*To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.*

*And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith*

* Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace*

*The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded*

*The reason for the season, stopped before it started.*

*So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'*

*Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.*

*Choose your words carefully, choose what you say*

*Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS ,

Not Happy Holiday !*

Please, all Christians join together and

Wish everyone you meet during the

Holidays a

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Christ is The Reason� for the Christ-mas Season!

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Have yourself a merry little Christmas, make the Yule tide gay....from now on our troubles will be miles away...through the years we all will be together, if the faits allow....hang a shinning star upon the highest bough. It's that time of year again...and inevitable I think of this song and the wonderful friend that it reminds me of. This time of year really reminds you of what's important...the love of family and friends...how much they mean to you and how you should never take them for granted...because one day they may no longer be there.

But enough of that...hope all of you were able to make it to Guylou's bloghop...was a great time! And her new Christmas images are incredible. If you have the chance take a look. You can get to them here .  So I have been busy over the last little bit trying to get an order done for a friend. I have no idea how some of you manage to do 50 cards or more for someone else and still manage to get your own Christmas cards done! lol

The first card I'm going to show you is a card with a poinsetta. My client really wanted a card with a poinsetta and I didn't have one...so I went to talk to Maureen at DigiDrawn and she drew a beautiful poinsetta that my client loved. But she wanted the card done like one I had done previously...so I changed the ribbon to make it more Christmasy...added gold heat embossed poinsetta stamped cs to the back of the larger poinsetta image.

The cardstock is from Stampin Up and the ribbon was bought last year at Michael's. The small poinsetta stamp used for the embossing was part of a kit I got from Michael's 3 years ago.

The next card that she wanted was one with a Nativity. I had won a really cute Nativity image from Ellephantastic when I entered a challenge hosted by Helen. So I designed a card that had doors that had two little doors that opened. On the outside of one door is the Star of David, and on the other door is the verse "Beneath a shining star, Upon a silent night, Within a lowly stable

I used Brocade Blue cardstock from Stampin Up as the base. On top of that I put a shimmery gold cardstock from my stock...then Cappacino cs also from Stampin Up and then more brocade blue. The last color is white cs from Michaels. The gold ribbon is from the Dollar Giant Dollar store. At the upper left and lower right hand corners I added 3 small white pearls made by Kaiser Craft and bought at my local Scrapbooking store.

When you open the little doors you reveal the manger complete with Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus.

I colored the image with Stampin Up water color pencils and added a gold halo on the baby Jesus and gold hay in the manger. The swaddle is done with Metalic blue Gelly Roll. The Gold and Blue Gelly Roll pens are from Michaels. The edges are sponged in a gold pigment ink from a kit bought at Michaels 3 years ago.

Then she wanted a shaker card with a Christmas ball stamp and the words Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas on it. This I took and heat embossed in gold on Stampin Up Cherry Cobbler card stock. I used a paper cd/dvd holder and decorated it with small ornaments in each corner using Stamping Up Cherry Cobbler ink pad. I used gold string to connect the ornaments. and the gold pen from Michaels to color the tops of the ornaments. I will be posting a tutorial at a later date to show how to make the "Shaker card without the shake" lol.

Thank you for coming and seeing my pictures...and I hope you all Have a Merry Little Christmas.

Guylou's Blog Hop

Hey all...don't forget that Guylou's Inimitability is having a blog hop this Saturday November 27th, starting at 7 a.m. EST and ending on November 28th at 9 pm EST. We will be getting a chance to see her wonderful new Christmas images, as well as a chance to win some prizes. So hop on over there and see what she has to offer...you won't be disappointed! You can get to the blog hop by clicking here  Hope to see you there!

Sneak Peak

Stamp Fairy is giving a sneak peak of a new image that will be released soon...and they are also giving a cute little freebie! How great is that! If you would like to see the "peak" and pick up your freebie, just click here

Merry Christmas Fairy

Anita Be Stampin has a sketch challenge going on using the sketch above...so I just had to join in.  If you're interested in checking
 out her site you can find her hereI used her freebie fairy. She's such a wonderful image and so much fun to work with! She is done with SU cs from my stash and ribbon from Michael's. The fairly is colored with SU water color pencils, crayola pencil crayons(the face). Her dress, shoes and hat are colored with Blue Metallic Gelly roll pen  and her wings are done with Silver Metalic Jelly Roll pen. Her pompoms, and neck piece are heat embossed with Blue Tinsel embossing powder from Michaels.

Guylou's is having a Blog Hop!!!!

Guylou's Inimitability is having a Christmas Release Blog Hop starting November 27 at 7:00 am to November 28th, 9:00pm.

You will see the five new Guylou's Inimitability digistamps and get to participate in a blog hop with prizes... lots of them.

Each blogs participating in the blog hop will draw randomly a winner from the comments left on their blog post and the winner will receive one digistamp of her choice from Guylou’s new releases. A grand winner will be selected on Guylou’s Inimitability Blog to win all five new releases. You must comment on all the blogs participating in this blog hop in order to qualify to win the grand prize.

Eight designers are participating in the blog hop, so this is going to be a whole lot of fun.

So come on down to Guylou's Inimitability starting November 27 at 7:00am and join the fun.

You can find her blog by clicking here or click on her direct link button on the left side.

Shaker card...minus the shake lol

O.K...so I promised a good friend that I would post a picture of one of the shaker cards that I've done. I love doing the shaker cards...they're pretty easy and they look good. The only problem that I seem to have is getting the shaker stuff to actually shake...it usually sticks in around the bottom and won't move around lol. So this one I did for a group of cards I made for my sister a couple of years ago.

To do this card you use a paper dvd cover which is 5.5 x 5.5. Cut your inside paper to 5.25 x 5.25. Use your embossing buddy on the inside paper and then stamp image using versa mark. Add your embossing powder onto it and heat with heating tool. Once you're done your inside, decorate the outside as wanted. I stamped little ornaments in red and then used a gold glitter pen to color in the snowflakes and tops on the ornaments. I connected the ornaments with gold string and sponged red around the edges.

Here's some other samples of things you could do.

Thanks for always being there for me

Guylou, of Guylou's Inimitability,  has a Thanksgiving/Thanks Challenge that is ending today and this is my entry. The requirements of the challenge are to use one of her wonderful images along with the words Happy Thanksgiving, Thank you or Thanks. I went with a thanks card and used Guylou's Jessica Image. She is a freebie when you join Guylou's site. If you'd like to check out Guylou's and all the wonderful images that she has created, just click on her "button" on the left and it will bring you straight to her site. The problem for me, with this challenge, was how to make a girl with an umbrella fit in with a Thanks card. Luckily late last night inspiration hit and this is what I came up with. The outside says: Through sunshine and rain good friends we'll  remain. The  inside says: Thanks for always being there for me.

The pink and blue cardstock is from SU, the patterned one is from my stash and the white is from Michaels.

The flowers are from my stash and the image was colored with SU water color pencils, except for the metal parts of the umbrella which are colored with a silver gel pen from Michaels. The light pink ribbon and the jewel brad in the middle of the flower is pink and are from Michaels. Thanks for coming and looking at my card.

Baby Cards and Window Cards

So I was talking to friends on CDAC...and I told them that I would post some pics of some Baby Shower invitations that I had done up. So here they are.

I did this one so that it looks like you are inside looking out the window on a nice summer's day.

These are the three sample cards I did for a lady that was wanting Invitations for a baby shower.

The first one is a "traditional" type of card with the baby booties.

Since we didn't know the sex of the baby at this time I just went with a pastel green and yellow cs with some embossing for emellishments.

This card has a little onesie that pulls out, with Tigger and Pooh stamped and colored on it.

The baby came early...so for the last one I actually knew the sex of the baby. This last card is the one that my customer went for.

I loved the idea of the onesie, so I made this one big enough to put the information in. And since I didn't like my own writing on the first onesie card, I decided to just stamp "It's a Boy" on it instead. And since we knew he was a boy, I was able to taylor the colors more. I used blue, yellow and orange cs to tie in with the colors of Tigger and Pooh. At the shoulder I used yellow and orange eyelets to mimic the snaps on a onesie. The images were stamped on and heat embossed and then colored in.

So Far Behind

Yup...you read it right...I am so far behind! I have 3 cards to post and 1 card to post the front of it (Gabrielle). But I have very little time right now so I am going to post the 3 cards and then come back and fill in the details for everyone.

The first one is a Birthday card that I did for a friend of mine. The  image is from Guylou's Inimitibility...you can find her link in the left hand column. The image is called Manager Brenda and was a real joy to work with.

The caption on the front reads: Happy Birthday to the Girl who's still got it...

The inside reads: Now if you can only remember where you put it!

The next card is a card using a Priscilla Styles image. She calls this one fruit and she gave it to the members of her blog to celebrate having 400 members! As soon as I saw this image I knew what I wanted to do with it. I could see reds, and dark purples and lots of gold. So that is what I did.

The leaves are colored with 2 different types of gold pen...a mat gold and a glitter gold. The vines are done with the glitter gold and the branch is done with the mat gold on the end and a third gold. I wanted to make this a Christmas card so I figured using the deep reds and purples and golds would help to give it that festive look.

The last image that I'm going to post is a card that I did for a young lady that I know. She asked me to make a Sleeping Beauty card for a friend of her's daughter. And thanks to a wonderful friend, I was able to find the perfect image and make a card that I hope she'll like as much as I do.

Sleeping Beauty's dress is done in Red on the top, with a red glitter collar and red glitter at the waist. There is a pink shimmer underlay (on top). The bottom of the dress is pink with pink shimmer details...and a red underdress with red glitter accent. Her head is topped by a glittering gold crown. The top cs is a red shimmer paper, with white paper that I used a SU Holly stampin wheel to decorate, underneath. The main part of the card is made with SU Cherry Cobbler cs.

"If I Die Before You Wake" Tribute to Armed Forces

Let Us Remember

                                 

THE FINAL INSPECTION

The soldier stood and faced God, 
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining,
Just as brightly as his brass.

'Step forward now, you soldier,
How shall I deal with you ?
Have you always turned the other cheek ?
To My Church have you been true?'

The soldier squared his shoulders and said,
'No, Lord, I guess I ain't.
Because those of us who carry guns,
Can't always be a saint.

I've had to work most Sundays,
And at times my talk was tough.
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.

But, I never took a penny,
That wasn't mine to keep...
Though I worked a lot of overtime,
When the bills got just too steep.

And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear.
And sometimes, God, forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.

I know I don't deserve a place,
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around,
Except to calm their fears.

If you've a place for me here, Lord,
It needn't be so grand.
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand.

There was a silence all around the throne,
Where the saints had often trod.
As the soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.

'Step forward now, you soldier,
You've borne your burdens well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell.'

Author Unknown~

Please take the time to stop, remember and say a prayer for our brave service men and women and their families on November 11th.

Hodge Podge Shop Blog Hop

Hey everyone, the Hodge Podge Shop is having their first ever Blog Hop. There are 6 hops along the way and there is a winner at every stop. Each DT will have a random winner of one of the beautiful Hodge Podge Shop Images. Plus some of them are offering BLOG CANDYso keep your eyes open for it!  So why don't you go on over and check them out...you can find them here . Or maybe you'd like to join in their challenge...the challenge is to make a fall or Thanksgiving card and add some leaves.  And don't forget to leave some love for Linda's daughter Jessica...she's made an incredible card that you can check out on the link page!

Glad Tidings

Glad Tidings...that is what I have chosen to call my new card. I decided on this name because of the beautiful angel that is the centerpiece for my card. The angel is called Gabrielle and she can be found at Guylou's Inimitability. If you'd like to check out some of her images you can find her here. If you are interested in checking out any of the other designers that I have on here you can find them all here . Hope you go have a look...it is well worth the time. Anyways, so I started out with Gabrielle from Guylou. As soon as I saw Gabrielle I knew that I wanted to do a card on when the angel showed up to the sheppards on the night that Jesus was born.

I used SU Night of Navy cs as my base. The inside cs is blue and gold shimmer paper that I bought at Bartell's Scrapbooking.  Gabrielle is printed on white cs bought at Michaels. She is colored using SU water color pencils. The bottom of her dress was done with a gold metalic marker that I got at Michaels. I used a  gold Gelly Roll pen, also bought at Michaels, to give some gold accents in her hair and a gold accent at her waist. I used the metalic gold to outline the star and my SU pastels for adding color to Gabrielle's face and hands. The SU pastels were also used to give the gold "halo" around Gabrielle and fill in the night sky. The silouette images of the sheppards and their sheep were gotten at an LDS clip art site. I used my gold gelly roll pen to add highlights to the sheppards and sheep where the glow from Gabrielle would hit them. Blue buttons with white swirls and tiny flowers on them are from Fabricland. The gold and white cording used for the bow was from the local Dollar Giant dollar store. Gabrielle's wings are covered with a thin layer of Aileen's craft glue with fine white glitter on top to give them some sparkle.

I will download the front of the card hopefully tomorrow.

Sunshine makes me Happy!!!

So it was sunny today...and blue skies! Didn't get as much accomplished today (because of the sunshine) or over the weekend (lots going on with Halloween) as I would have liked. Now that Halloween is over it's time to start looking towards Christmas. To that end I'm working on a new card that I am hoping to have finished by tomorrow. Not going to say what it is in case it doesn't work out lol. It's proving to be interesting to say the least. If you all are wondering where I'm getting the great blog templates it's a place called LeeLou Blogs. She has some wonderful templates and backgrounds (among other things) and they're for free. Speaking of free, if you're looking for some great digi stamps head on over to Crafter's Digital Art Center...they have some great people over there and some incredible images! They have digi's for sale in their stores, but if you'd like to try them out there are some freebee's and lots of challenges where you have the chance to win more. Give them a look...you have nothing to loose but a little time! You can find them here Just click on the "here" and it will bring you right to them.