Day 21: Carol of the Bells (for 12 cellos) - ThePianoGuys

25 Days of Christmas - Day 20 Freebie

Check out these great Share the Memories free Christmas cards!

Created by Marie H Designs.

Available free until December 29th.

Click image to go to download.

Looking for a Christmas gift for someone who loves scrapping, or wanting to get started in digital scrapbooking to scrap your 2013 Christmas memories?

USE THIS CODE: STMMMS79285

 

to get $10 off My Memories Suite Software! (in the US and Canada)

Merry Christmas!

25 Days of Christmas - Day 19 Freebie

SIX days until Christmas!  Our house is in a tizzy of Christmas excitement and happiness.  Except when Daddy made everyone go rake leaves instead of watch TV.  That was very Grinchy of him, in the children's opinions!

Take lots of pictures over this next week, and use Dandelion Dust Designs' new "Mistletoe Magic" to scrap them!  It is a perfect blend of traditional Christmas and Christmas whimsy.

"Mistletoe Magic" is available exclusively at ScrapTakeout.

And now for a little Christmas gift, download your free quickpages from Mediafire!  Click images to go to download.  PU only.

Merry Christmas!

Disclaimer:  I received a free copy of this kit in exchange for layouts.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 18 Freebies

C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!  WHAT DAY IS IT!!??

Yes, you know the answer!  HUMP-DAAAAYYYYY!  That is my son's favorite commercial, and I just love this camel in the picture.  It was made for the Christmas parade float at the church where my kids take Band lessons.  The frame is made from PVC pipe and some kind of wire mesh.  Then the very talented ladies who made it sewed the material around the outside, standing on stools, ladders, or whatever they needed.  The head alone took them 4 hours.  I think it looks just amazing!

Today is also ONE WEEK before Christmas!  Can you believe it?  Are you ready?  I have two freebies for you today - one for digital scrapbooking, and the other is a link to a free recipe book download.

Check out this great Share the Memories Freebie!

Created by Touched By A Butterfly.

Available free until December 29th.

Click image to go to download.

Looking for a Christmas gift for someone who loves scrapping, or wanting to get started in digital scrapbooking to scrap your 2013 Christmas memories?

USE THIS CODE: STMMMS79285

 

to get $10 off My Memories Suite Software! (in the US and Canada)

Then go to Knowledge Quest and sign up for their newsletter to get this free download of Christmas recipes from around the world!

Merry Christmas! 

Day 17 - Ring Those Bells: Bean and Bailey

And we will catch up to Day 17 of December with another Bean and Bailey video and some pictures of the Christmas Cow.  Not because the Christmas Cow has anything to do with Bean and Bailey, other than the fact that they also have a Chick-Fil-A song somewhere, but just because I love Chick-Fil-A's Christmas Cow!

Merry Christmas!  :-)

25 Days of Christmas - Day 16

Some very fun Christmas card ideas from my friend Vicki (who probably snatched them from somewhere on Pinterest!):

This one is made with a blue base card, red paper cut with "stamp" punches, and blue paper cut with square punches.  Punch white circles for the snowmen's heads, place them in the corners, and trim the sides to match the square on which they sit.  Use tiny black punched circles or beads for the eyes and smiles, and small orange triangles cut for the noses.  Stamp white snowflakes across the bottom.

For this card, choose a Christmas-themed stamp and stamp it with red ink on a cream-colored rectangle of scrapbook paper.  Glue this on a slightly larger red mat, and then glue the whole piece onto a slightly larger green mat.  Glue the matted picture to the front of your card, stamp a sentiment at the bottom, and run a green or red ribbon through punched holes on the left side.  (Make sure you punch the holes only on the front of the folded card, not all the way through the front and back.)

This card is similar to the last, except that the stamped image is stamped onto white paper or cardstock, colored in with color pencils, and the edges are inked.  In this example, just one mat was used, and extra music note stamps were used around the card instead of tying a ribbon bow.

Here are a few more cards using various stamps, ribbons, border punches, embossed papers, and a torn and inked border.

Vicki is our favorite craft go-to person.  She brought these cards in for an event at our ladies' group last Christmas.  Since each lady would only spend about 20 minutes at each station, she made a "card-making express" table.  She pre-cut or punched all the pieces that would need to be assembled for each card and assembled them ahead of time in ziploc baggies, along with any ribbons or stickers needed for that particular card.  (The one pictured below has the completed sample on top.)  She also laid out glue sticks, stamps, and inkpads.  Each lady chose a baggy, assembled her card, and stamped it as she wished, either following the example or adding her own creative twist.  Some also stamped a sentiment inside, while others left the insides blank.  Each participant was able to make at least one card, and sometimes several, in the 20 alloted minutes and then take them with her.  Everyone loved the event so much that we had a whole card-making event this year!

I love scrapbooking, but for people who would like to dabble in some paper-craftiness without making the commitment of starting a scrapbook that will probably never get finished, card-making events are great fun.  Participants can make a few cards to send to friends without buying a lot of materials or starting anything that needs to be finished later.  And there is no fun like the fun of getting a bunch of women together over crafting supplies!  If you have one person get the materials ready ahead of time like Vicki did, consider having everyone make a donation to cover the supplies.

Happy card-making!  :-)

25 Days of Christmas - Day 15

One of our favorite activities for any holiday is to make play dough in the appropriate holiday colors and get out the cookie cutters!  For these Christmas ornaments, I made red and green play dough, and I mixed in gold and silver glitter that I'd been wanting to use up.  We made the shapes with Christmas cookie cutters, decorated them if we wished, and punched a hole in the top of each with the end of a drinking straw.  Some recipes call for baking the ornaments on low heat, but while the no-cook-play dough recipe I used here is my favorite one for consistency, I have found that it does not bake well.  I just left these sitting on waxed paper for 24-48 hours until they dried well, then we hung them on the tree.

I cannot find the exact recipe I used, but the one at The Imagination Tree is very similar.

Merry Christmas!  :-)