Christmas Card Favorites....

 Merry Christmas...

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Christmas! Even IHOP is advertising holiday stuff already! I'm just warning you that my next few cards are Christmas cards. Ready??


This is more of a snow covered winter tree, than it is a Christmas tree. I have some ideas on decorating this to look like Christmas tree.... This tree has a lot of potential.

This particular card is simply done with no layers. I just stamped and colored directly on a Kraft card and added a little bit of glitter to dress it up a bit. --There's that gingham ribbon again!

It didn't take me very long to color so I think this can qualify as a quick card.

Anyway, more Christmas cards to come. I'm hoping to get a few more made this week, if I can stay home for a few hours. Stay tuned for more Christmas ideas.

Be blessed! Jacki

Merry Christmas!

The princess has been busy, but I was tired of looking at that same card for the last several days. I thought I'd step in with a picture of me as a change of scenery(wink wink). I was a Christmas present to the family 7 years ago, so Christmastime is special to us as a family.
Jacki will be back later with something she wants to share. Until then, I hope your Christmas is blessed with friends and family... especially the furry kind. Choosing joy too, Sam.

Three Tree Christmas and Proud Mama Alert

Here is another one of the brown Christmas cards. I'm still calling it a Christmas card although at the last minute, I decided not to put a message on it... you know just in case. ;) If I don't get it mailed out in time, I can still use this as a winter card.
Stamps: Three Tree Christmas and Stunning Snowflakes (Hero Arts)
Card stock: Chocolate, White and Kraft
Ink: Artprint Brown and White (Memories)
Other: Prismacolor pencils, ball point glue pen, Prisma glitter, Martha Stewart border punch, satin ribbon.
The images were stamped on Kraft with brown ink and colored with Prismacolor pencils and then glitter was added to the snowy areas.
There are two layers of the the bordered card stock done with a Martha Stewart border punch.
The background was stamped with white dye ink.


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This morning I started this post and tried to upload a short video from the Christmas concert at my daughter's high school last night. The chorus did several songs and then there was section for soloists and small groups. I had a clip of most of her solo. I tried for a long time and couldn't get the video to upload. My guess is the file is too large. Soooo here's plan B. I'm uploading the 20 seconds that I captured at the beginning before I realized that you can't zoom in with my regular digital camera the way you can with a video camera. I had to stop recording zoom in or her and start recording again. This that beginning part, but you do get to hear her beautiful voice even if it just a few seconds. So listen and try not to be distracted by the spastic visual. One of these days I'm going to learn how to reduce the size of the video and I'll put her on youtube. Do you know any teenagers that can figure that out for me? Seriously, if you can offer me any assistance with that, please let me know...

Edited to add: One of my young people is going to help me with the file of the rest of the song. I'll post it as soon as we get it worked out. Yeah!

More Christmas card RAKs and Christmas update

Renee K.

Deb S.

Denise B.

Michelle B.

Amy W.

Juanita M.

Mary D

The last two cards were made by the card makers who live with me. While we were getting ready for Christmas, the kids were banished to the basement. The two of them asked if they could make cards since they were stuck down there. This is what they came up with.

Let me back up. We decided just before Thanksgiving that we would go home for Christmas. It's been a long time since we've been home for Christmas so I forgot how much of a priority it is to get the dog a kennel reservation over the holiday. Of course, I remembered when I saw the kennel owners at the grocery store just a week or so before we were scheduled to leave. After call every place that was recommended to me with no luck we thought we were not going to be going anywhere. That Friday while I was at the school helping with the party, I ran into one of my neighbors. We spoke briefly and turned and walked away. Then, I remembered something I needed to ask her so I called her back. After we finished with that conversation, she asked me if we were going away for Christmas. I mentioned my plight and she recommended one more place I had not called. Although we were resolved to figure out a way to go later, and just enjoy Christmas at home, we held out a hope that a miracle would happen.

So, I called the place and they just had someone come and pick up their pet and had one space available depending on what size dog we had. So here was our miracle. One spot, just opened in our dog's size. We had to switch gears, because while I was hoping for a miracle, I was not preparing for that miracle. I wasn't preparing because I was doing other things-- making Christmas ornaments and wrapping teacher gifts and Christmas shopping at the last minute. We still had not gotten everything we needed for the kids so, my husband and I had to finish shopping that Saturday morning. That brings me to the part about why the kids were banished to the basement on Saturday evening. We were upstairs wrapping and preparing for the "Christmas" we were going to have for the kids later that same evening. I held out a few smaller gifts to bring with us so that they would have something to open on Christmas morning at mom's house.

And now some pics from that night.

Staci's JOY RAK

Staci sent me this beautiful card and gift filled with joy! because of the colors she used, I can leave it on display all year!




She made the box...

...which contained a joy stamp. Thanks Staci!

You Make Christmas Special

We interrupt the regularly scheduled "desk cleaning" and "grapes" posts to include a Christmas creation.

Here is another one for the Salt Challenge. Jesus, the true meaning of Christmas

I have a huge stash of backgrounds already embossed from when I first got my Big Shot last winter.
I included the second picture to try to show you that this piece is double embossed. I used a Fiskars Texture plate with the baby's feet and hands first and then embossed the baby words over it. This piece was sitting on my desk because I thought about making a baby card for Jackie. (It's getting close to her due date.) I still had baby Jesus circles laying around too. It hit me that all the words shown could also apply to the miraculous Christmas story. ... so here is another Christ centered Christmas card for the Salt challenge.

The embossed layer is on top of the red layer. I punched a 1 3/4 inch circle from it. I punched the baby Jesus out with a 1 1/2" or maybe a little smaller circle so that you could see the red behind Him too. I like how this one turned out.

Hmmm, so I guess that means I need to do something else for Jackie!

Finished Card size: 5.5"x 4.25"

Stamps: Baby Jesus in Manger( Biblical Impressions), You make Christmas Special( Impression Obsession)

Card Stock: Real Red(SU) Shimmery White ? (I got this from marco Paper, but I cannot find the name of it.)

Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black and Rocket Red (Tsukenko),

Coloring Medium: Prismacolor Pencils

Other: circle punches, Cuttlebug Baby Words embossing folder.

Free Day/Believe

All day yesterday, I thought "tomorrow" was going to be Thursday. I realized now that I'm lucid again that today is Wednesday and not Thursday, so it's like and unexpected Free Day. How do you like that logic? What should I do with my free day? Make a card you suggest? Sounds like a great idea!

The main image is my Baby Jesus stamp from Biblical Impressions. I cut the smaller two circles with punches and the teal or largest one with the Coluzzle. The stamp used in the background is from Rubber Stamp Ave and Believe is a Hambo stamp. The ribbon, which was my inspiration for the color scheme, came from Michaels.

OK, I'm off on my free day to have breakfast with my neighbor. I'll have to tell you about my Christmas tree and something that mysteriously appeared under it last night while I was at work....

Jesus, the true meaning of Christmas -- Salt Challenge.

Wishing you a Season of Joy...

Here is my first card with this stamp set from smARTworks. I'm still playing around with the coloring and now that I see it blown up on the computer screen, I think it needs glitter or something.

I've been busy working on getting my cards ready to be mailed. I have the address labels and return address labels printed and stamped. We'll sit down together tomorrow night and sign and stuff them. It looks like we are on track for the Friday's mail out goal. Yippee!!! Even after the following conversation, I'm still on track.

18 year old Daughter: Mom, I need to tell you something and I don't want you to get mad.

Mom: Oh my goodness what did you do???

18 year old Daughter: Nothing, but you have my email address wrong on the Christmas card.

SOOO totally relieved Mom: Great, so you got the package?? How do you like the glasses? What about the contacts? About the Christmas card... no worries I'll just fix it with my marker.

I sent her an advance copy with her package the other day. And just like I told her, I fixed the transposed numbers of the email address on each copy. I do that all the time. If this were a paid order, I would have had the customer proof the numbers, but since it's for us, it just proves that I'm not perfect.

I also had to mail out the blog candy and CDs. I sent out approx 25 CDs today-- all but 5-- which will go out tomorrow. Would you believe that it was actually 2 cents cheaper to send it to Canada than to the other side of Atlanta? I didn't think about it until after I left the PO. She didn't give me a choice of how it was going to go, so I hope they didn't go on a slow boat. If you are one of the ones who will receive a CD, please forgive me for the lack of a personal note or card. There are a lot of great intentions in my life, but not a lot of time.

I had a Paper Wallets class at Michaels tonight. For this class they get to bring whatever paper they choose. Of course the one she brought was one that I hadn't seen up close( by Chatterbox) and now I have to have....

And with that being said, I need to go to bed as soon as I update my prayer list.

More on those Christmas cards....

Yes. Dawn, you read it right! We will send out 150 this year. Each time we move we add a few more people we want to keep in touch with. I think I sent out 125 the last time I sent out a Christmas letter. And then we moved again....

Ok, I don't know why I'm even posting this because it's more of a process and not a finished project. Remember the stamping on the envelope I mentioned?? My bright idea involved this stamp by All Night Media. It is one of the very first stamps I bought 9 years ago. I was so excited when I saw it because ... count the stockings.... I thought it was so cute because there was a tiny pair (I had a 3 month old) and several in between. These days they would all almost be all the same size. I'm not mentioning any names but there is at least one young man in my house whose feet are larger than his big sisters and mom's and soon to be bigger than dad's!

Back to the process. So, I stamped my stocking image on a Cut and Dry pad with a permanent ink. (I used StazOn). After applying the first color reinker I remembered that I probably needed to use the resist reinker so that the colors wouldn't run together.


After I got all the colors on and stamped it a few times, I decided that it was going to take too long. It was cute, but it didn't really go with the design of the card. So I scrapped that idea.


Before abandoning the idea of stamping on the envelopes all together, I tried again with another less detailed stamp.

After doing a couple of envelopes, I decided it was going to be too much work indeed to stamp all the envelopes. I do like the way this one turned out, but I'm running out of time.


The last idea, consisted of this set of stamps that I haven't used in years and the return address labels. Stamping on the label will technically be a little faster because I can stamp a whole page of many labels instead of having to move the envelope after each stamping. After all, I had just finished stamping all the letters when I started this.

Now after all that, and stopping to take pictures and blogging about it, I'm behind in my card goal for today. Am I the only one who complicates everything?

ETA: That last stamp set is by Close to My Heart and the ornament is by Inkadinkado.

Keeping up With the Jones 7

Hey, don't feel sorry for me the next time I mention that I'm busy and overwhelmed. I do a lot of this to myself.

I've been printing for two days now. Why? Because I just can't go to the store and have moving announcements printed. And because sending out store bought cards when I make cards and have a room full of card making supplies is out of the question. Even with all that said, couldn't I have designed something fairly simple?? Noooooooooo, not me! My annual letter/Christmas card/ moving announcement is sucking my ink cartridge dry as we speak. I'm almost finished so it's too late to turn back now.

The first side of the double sided "work of art" contains my family update-- "Keeping up with the Jones 7". It could have been a simple letter for the printer, but it looked a little plain so I have to hand stamp a starburst in the top right corner on each of the 150 sheets.

The reverse side is what makes this a 'work of art'. It's a tent card. The first side (shown at the top of this post) is the Christmas card side and features a picture of our kids -taken this past Easter.

The middle section has three contact information blocks. --One for home and one for each of the girls in college. (Sorry about the red blocks. I'm not crazy about showing the very personal stuff online.)

The third side shows a little of the front of our house.

I'm planning to stamp on the envelopes too, but I may come to my senses or this thing won't be mailed until June! Well, I have to head out for more ink. Have a blessed evening...

The letter side is done with Microsoft publisher. The tent card side is done on Digital Image Pro.

Stained Glass Nativity and more..

Here are several cards made with what I call the Black on Black method.

I use black pigment ink on black card stock and emboss with clear or black embossing powder.

Then I use Prismacolor pencils to color the images.

I used a clear dimensional adhesive on this card, on certain parts.

Stained Glass Nativity and Shepherds stamps by Biblical Impressions.

I'm sending this one to my friend who was recently diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. I know God is sending angels to protect her and carry her through this ordeal.

This stamp is by Stamping Sensations. I used to have a print like this hanging in our house when I was a little girl and I bought one a few years ago for my kids, too. I liked this painting, because not only does it suggest that God will send angels to protect us, but he also sends us a brother or sister to cling to in tough times. Sometimes it's not our biological family, but brothers and sisters He choses to send our way. Next time, when the waters are raging in your life, remember that!

Psalm 91:11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;

(New International Version)