Learning To Make A Simple Card

I think I most enjoy making fancy, special kinds of cards . . . cards that swivel, slide, pop-up or have some sort of surprise element. But cards like that take a lot of time to do, something I don't have a lot of. So I decided that this year, I would try to make an effort to learn to do "simple" cards that can be put together at the spur of the moment. But even these two simple cards took me longer than expected. The goal is to use my stash of scraps from scrapbooking to make quick & simple cards that don't look it. Not so easy. I need lots more practice.

First Card of the Year

My first card of the year is for a very special friend and co-worker who celebrates her birthday this month. It's an origami fold type card that I learned to do from Brian at Photocraft Hawaii last week while visiting the store. It's a good thing he let me take home a sample 'cuz even though it looked so simple to make while I was at the store, it was quite a challenge to try and make my own once I got home. And because there are 4 panels on this card, it was kind of like making 4 cards for one. Took me quite a while to finish! Used the Cuttlebug Happy Birthday embossing template and oodles of Sizzix and QK dies.

Push-Pull Gift Card Holder

Used the Push Pull Gift Card holder pattern to make these cards with gift card surprises. After finishing 3 of these, I think I finally got the hang of it! Hopefully these will continue to get easier and easier each time...want to get this one down to a science! Used the Cuttlebug snowflake embossing die for the background, Cricut Beyond Birthdays for the sentiment and Sizzlits for the snowflakes.

Holiday Paint Cans

Bought several of these cute clear pint sized paint cans to decorate and fill with goodies to give away as gifts this year. Decorated these with die cuts made with Cricut (Beyond Birthdays & Zooballoo), Sizzlits (large snowflakes) and various sized snowflake paper punches. Though I had hoped to make more, I ran out of time after only finishing ten. Filled some with cranberry butter cookies and some with butter chex mix. I'm thinking now that maybe I'll decorate the rest of the cans for Valentine's Day...

Triage of Trees

And here are 3 more trees I managed to complete this year. The tree on the far left (no teddy bears!) I made for someone who actually placed an order for one. The other two were given to two special aunties. I tried something different with the white one by adding silk poinsettias and candy canes to go with the red/white theme. These are really fun to make, but afterwards, the glitter mess that's left to cleanup is almost "un-bearable"!

A Tree For Chiemi

These are the first two trees I made this year.
They're all teddy bears and snowflakes again,
but one is purple/lavendar and the other is pink/red. Still hoping to do more before Christmas, but these had to be done pronto because they have already been mailed to a couple very special people in California.

These are unbelievably quick to do with just some wire hangers, tinsel and lights.

It's Beginning To Feel A Lot Like Christmas!

Make a slide show, scrapbook, or ecard

Okay, so now that I have this blog thingie, I just had to import the slideshow showing the Christmas trees I made at the last minute last year. My friend and co-worker had made a bunch of these and brought them to work to decorate and put us into the Christmas spirit. We were so awed by her creativity, and she shared the instructions to make them with us. Can you believe that it's basically just wire hangers, tinsel and lights? (Once you start the slideshow, move your curser around on the screen and see the magic!)