Christmas Cards and Gift Tags

The kids have been hanging out in the pool all weekend because it's been so hot and muggy. My method for keeping cool is to stay inside by the air conditioner and make Christmas cards and gift tags. It probably seems weird to make Christmas cards now, but free time is so scarce for me in the fall and winter that it is much more fun to make them in the summer. I chose very simple cards this year. The original plan was to use colored pencils to shade and color the designs. After adding color to one card, I realized that I preferred the cards to be colorless.




These are the gift tags that I will use on my children's presents. It's nothing fancy, but is a big improvement over writing their names on the gift wrap with black permanent marker.

More Christmas Cards

The kids and I managed to make 20 Christmas cards, 30 gift tags, and 6 small gift bags for Christmas this year. I also found a pattern to make card stock 3-d triangles for ornaments. I stamped 8 of them for Mike and the kids, which I'll fill with candy for them to open Christmas Eve.

Amy and I have spent the afternoon listening to late-80's through late-90's pop music. It's really sad that she and I can sing all to all the words!
Happy Memorial Day!

Christmas Crafting

Yes, it is Memorial Day. Although I should be painting the kitchen cabinets which were started 3 weeks ago, I woke up early this morning and began making Christmas cards with Paige and Madelyn. This is not as time-wasting as it sounds. There is never enough time around Christmas to make cards AND I'm using up craft supplies so that I can be better organized. That's my story and I'm not budging!

Here are some of the cards we've already made.


I also managed to make 12 scrapbook pages. Now, to make potato salad.

Time for Myself

We're having a really tough time right now. I'm not able to talk about it, but please remember my family in your prayers. My stress level is through the roof and tears are frequent. Our van died a couple of weeks ago and I will be without a vehicle for at least the entire summer which is not helping my situation. My wonderful husband told me to make sure that I do some things for myself each day. He thinks that it will help me deal with our situation. Today I spent 1/2 in hour locked in my bedroom doing yoga. It felt good to work up a good sweat. This afternoon I made my youngest 2 girls take a rest period because they were down with vomiting yesterday. During their enforced rest period, I made some cards. One card was to a dear friend whose son left for Afghanistan yesterday and another one for my mom who underwent another chemotherapy session last week. I made a couple of extra cards for whenever they are needed. Here are the "extra" cards. They are not particularly exciting, but I enjoyed the quiet crafty time.

Gift Cards

Madelyn and I spent a couple of hours on Saturday making gift cards. She would really like to begin making greeting cards and I wanted her to start on small projects. We made 70 assorted gift cards for Christmas. Madelyn learned some stamping techniques and I have a good start on my tags for next Christmas. We're hoping to spend some time next week making more gift cards and then begin to make gift bags.

I never have time in November or December to make gift cards. I usually just write the kids' names on their packages using a felt tip marker. The already completed tags are in sheet protectors in my holiday notebook. It feels wonderful to have some Christmas crafting already completed!

Stampin' Up Cards

These are the cards that I made at the Stampin' Up party on Saturday.


Later in the day, while the kid's were watching Prince Caspian, I decided to make some very simple cards using my scrapbooking supplies and a few stamps that I had purchased years ago at a Stampin' Up party.



I enjoyed making the cards, but I just can't see spending hours making greeting cards that will end up in the trash.