Countdown to Christmas- Day 21

Hello everyone!  Cannot believe it’s only 4 more days until Christmas.  Just so unbelievable how quickly the time flies by.  At least I’m pretty well good to go at this point.  I’ve mostly finished my shopping and have tackled a large portion of the wrapping.  Tomorrow I plan on doing some baking.  Want to make some treats for friends and neighbors.  And today I made a few more cards to get mailed out.  At this rate, I should be done by Friday.

I do love this Mistletoe line by Making Memories, and since I still had some scraps laying out on my desk from the other day, I decided to see what else I could create. For this card, I simply used a piece of the striped patterned paper for the background and stitched a zig-zag line on my machine for a bit of detail.  I placed a couple of strips across the width of the card and added the large journaling sticker in the center.  The greeting was cut directly from the patterned paper.

The second card started with the same foundation.

I had one remaining felt embellishment which I paired with a smaller journaling sticker, and again cut the greeting directly from the paper.

I hope that with the hectic pace of the holidays, you all are finding time to enjoy this beautiful season with your friends and family.  It is such a wonderful time of year, and it goes by too quickly.  It’s so easy to lose sight of what’s really important in our rush to get everything accomplished that we set out for ourselves.  I am trying to slow down and savor this special time with my parents and kids.  It is truly a gift.

Before I go this evening, I would like to share this fabulous, yet quick and easy soup recipe that I made tonight.  It is Gypsy Soup, from the Moosewood Restaurant.  One of my favorite soups…..rich and hearty and healthy, too.  Tastes like you slaved away all day, but will only take you about half an hour to prepare.  How perfect is that for this cold and busy time of year?

Enjoy!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Photo courtesy of cooking-books.blogspot.com

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Countdown to Christmas- Day 18

Day 18 realization…………

we have exactly one week until Christmas…..

And I have not finished my shopping, my baking, my wrapping, or my making of the Christmas cards….let alone my mailing of the Christmas cards.

Not good.

My day 18 challenge to self……

Make some Christmas cards that don’t take you all day to make and don’t have embellishments too thick to mail in a regular envelope.

And that’s kinda hard for me, guys.  I have an urge to keep adding pretties to every card, and I haven’t been happy lately unless each card is about a 1/2″ thick.  I want to add big bows and little jingle bells and lots and lots of pop dots.  And the post office does not seem to appreciate these extra, special little touches.

So this is the challenge I gave myself this afternoon.  To create some fairly easy, fairly flat cards that I could quickly get out in the mail.  I only allowed myself the use of pop dots, and used up some scraps of Making Memories Mistletoe papers and remaining embellishments to create 2 sets of 2 cards.

Same card base, just a different felt embellishment.  The Happy Holidays greetings I cut directly from the patterned paper.

Again, the same card base.  I cut the tree images and greetings from the paper.  And on this set, I used the Mistletoe cardstock stickers behind the trees.  I also added a little extra detailing with some machine stitching and touches of Stickles glitter.

Making multiple cards from the same basic design is a trick I utilize often when trying to make many cards at one time.  Why keep re-inventing the wheel?  And besides, this saves my brain cells.

Thanks so much for stopping by everyone!  See you all tomorrow!

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