Mail Those Words of Hope This Season

With the year we've had and the increased isolation that many people are facing for this holidays this year, I think that there's a much stronger reason to send out Christmas cards this year than in recent years. 

I'm also encouraging people to send cards to strangers - especially to those who may be in isolated communities. 

I've seen several groups looking for cards to be sent to long-term care facilities or the military. If you find yourself with some extra cards and are looking for an address to send them to, please let me know! I will be happy to share with you! But the time is running out to get those in the mail if they're going to be sent overseas and have them be received in time for Christmas.

This card made with the Dove of Hope bundle is exactly the sentiment that I'm feeling on this snowy Saturday.

Santa's List Day

Have you ever heard of Santa's List Day? Observed today, December 4th, it's the day where Santa is making his Naughty and Nice lists. I don't need you to tell me where you fall on that list, but I can probably guess 😉 The Don't Stop Believin' stamp set fits right into this theme with some silly Christmas sayings and fun images designed to help you share a laugh with your like-minded, humour-loving friends.

Gingerbread House Paper Pumpkin Alternative

For today's project, I've got a cute little card using pieces from the November Paper Pumpkin kit, using alternative Christmas colours. That's right, it's all about alternatives today ;)

Who says you need to follow the directions? This little card is inspiring me to go find some bits and bobs of candy and decorate a gingerbread house (or maybe a log cabin).

Do you decorate/make a gingerbread house as an annual tradition? 

Quite Curvy Christmas

Deck your Christmas cards with pine boughs and mistletoe using the Curvy Christmas Stamp Set. 

You can mix and match the gentle sloping images and greetings and layer them up to create backgrounds ... or simply layer the papers to create depth in your design.

The Classic Christmas Designer Series Paper stack is perfectly sized at 6x6" to work well for those layers and as layers on your cards. Add homemade to the season with traditional Christmas colours (Cherry Cobbler, Sahara Sand and Shaded Spruce).

These paper images include quintessential Christmas must-haves like pine trees, holly berries, and snowflakes. The geometric designs recall wrapping paper patterns and candy canes. With 48 sheets (4 each of 12 double-sided designs) you'll have an ample supply to make tags, cards, treat packing and more! 

Or, you can get the whole Quite Curvy Variety Bundle (available only until January 4th)! It includes everything you need to create one-of-a-kind crafts. The whole bundle is designed for a variety of special occasions. Don’t let stress steal your spirit—get ahead and order this exclusive bundle for a festive and frenzy-free season!

Countdown to Christmas

Here goes nothing! Once again I'm kicking December off with a series of posts counting down to Christmas - hopefully to help inspire you with your Christmas crafting and to inspire you to create something for this season of giving! It has been a hot minute (or three) since I've committed to doing this, and I wasn't also working on summative assignments and final exams, so we'll see how it goes!

As in previous years, I will kick it off with an advent calendar. Check out the advent calendar I made (several years ago) if you'd like to marvel in its glory ;)

This Christmas Countdown Project Kit contains everything you need to create impressive handcrafted advent décor. You can fill the mini boxes with treats (or ridiculous things like bread tabs 🤣) and let the countdown begin! Adhesive sold separately.

Kit includes:
* Enough supplies to decorate 25 mini boxes and an outer box
* Outer box: 11-3/16" x 11-3/16" x 2-3/16" (28.4 x 28.4 x 5.6 cm)
* Mini box: 2-1/8" x 2-1/8" x 2-1/16" (5.4 x 5.4 x 5.2 cm)

Product colours: Cherry Cobbler, Early Espresso, gold foil, Mossy Meadow, white

Paper Crafting Blog Hop: Brightly Gleaming

Hello and Welcome to our November Paper Crafting Blog Hop, showcasing projects focused on December Holidays. Our group of Global Demonstrators are hopping ‘round the world to bring you inspiration using Stampin' Up! coordinating products. 

If you have just joined me from Terri's blog or as one of my followers, I’m so happy you stopped by!

For my project, I've created a super easy, but yet oh-so-stunning Bridge fold, that was perfected by Lyssa Zwolanek. I’ve used the Brightly Gleaming Specialty Designer Series Paper, and the Christmas Gleaming stamp set for both the greetings as well as the holly and berry that I fussy cut to add just a little bit of added interest to the front of the bridge piece.

The really cool thing about this stunning card is that not only will it literally stand out for the lucky recipient, but since the base paper is 4.25" x 8", it will also fold up nicely to fit in a standard sized envelope! 

I love the new Banners Pick-a-Punch that really allows for flexibility in creating layered banners. It makes it really easy to use up those last 1/2" pieces of cardstock that always seem to end up as scraps. They make the perfect size for a greeting (or journaling strips for scrapbookers). And since they're already 1/2", they slide right into the punch without any additional trimming. 

For the Bridge card itself, you'll start with your base paper at 4.25" x 8" and will score along the long side at 1.25", 2.5", 5.5" and 6.75". You'll want 4 one inch strips of Designer Series Paper to add to the back panels.

Your front bridge piece will be a coordinating cardstock piece that's 1.25" x 5.5". After adding any embellishments as desired, you'll adhere only the very right side and the very left side to their respective panels as shown below:

I hope you enjoyed this mini-tutorial and are inspired to create your own super simple bridge fold card! Thank you for joining me this month! Now click on the image below to hop to Julia's blog to see what fun project she designed.

All bloggers in this month’s hop:

Shirley MerkerTracy Held
Annette McMillan

Sue Boerner

Terri Stewart

                        Amber Meulenbelt (You are here)

Julia Mazur
Sandra Roberts

Sue McDonald

Carol Payne
Sandy Ward

If you are in Canada and do not have a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator, I would be thrilled to help you get started ordering your favourite supplies. Whether you are shopping as a customer, wish to host your own virtual workshop, or are interested in joining my team to buy your own craft supplies at a discount or as a small business, I am happy to help you out!

Twas the Night Before

There's pretty much 0% chance that we'll have a white Christmas this year (it reminds me so much of Florida where we've spent the past couple Christmases), but that doesn't mean we can't appeal one last time to 'Let it Snow'!! 



Supplies Used:

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Silent Night, Longest Night

Remember that snow I was talking about yesterday, yeah. It's long gone, replaced with icky rain. Not really the kind of weather typically associated with the first day of winter, that's for sure. Happy Solstice!

This beautiful card made by Jean K is reminiscent of the Solstice for sure! Enjoy!

Supplies Used:

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Let it Snow!

It's doubtful that the snow we have will last until Christmas, but it's really been nice this weekend with that little dusting covering the ground. Just enough to put my household into the real Christmas spirit. So today's card is asking for more snow!

Supplies Used:

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Softly Falling Glitter

The Softly Falling embossing folder really looks like falling snow - and seems appropriate for today. If you've never used the Heat & Stick powder before, I recommend it for adhering glitter to your project (and doesn't every project require glitter!?). 

To use it, first stamp your image with VersaMark® (any craft or pigment ink will also work). Then apply Heat & Stick powder to the inked image. Shake off excess powder. Heat the image with the heat tool just until powder turns to liquid. And now the fun part: pour glitter onto the inked image, making sure that the image is coated completely. Shake off excess glitter, and then heat again briefly to set. Voilà!

Supplies Used:

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Warm Wishes

I'm sending out warm wishes tonight as we have (finally) hit a cold-ish day ... and it's snowing!! This card was designed by Samantha Forrest and I just love it! I love the snowshoes and the toboggan in this stamp set so much. And it's a great use of the label framelit, which I seem to have forgotten all about with all the new dies recently! Keep warm :)

Supplies Used:

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Silent Night

I love this stamp set - it's got to be one of my favourites from this year's Holiday Catalogue. The trees are so pretty even in blue! This was another beautiful card I received in a swap at OnStage this year. 



Supplies Used:

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Joyful Season

I love the way the background paper is off-kilter in this card. This is another one that I made at our Shoebox swap; it was designed by Vanessa. 

I had originally thought that she had coloured in the bird, but then realized when the supplies came my way that the bird's body is actually one of the stamps in the set! 

Supplies Used:

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Glittery Delicate Ornament

This beautiful card designed by Jennifer was one we made at our Shoebox swap a couple weeks ago. It uses the Delicate Ornament Thinlits, which are stunning (especially when they're all glittery!). These are cut out so much easier with the use of the Precision Plate which is included in the Weekly Deals this week.

Supplies Used:

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The View from Outdoors - MojoMonday427

It's been forever and a day since I've done a sketch challenge, so I thought I'd try one today .. and I was inspired to use my new Hearth and Home Framelits. I was stumped a little as I wanted to use the Brick Wall embossing folder, but that meant that we were looking *in* the window, and not *out*. Completely changed the vision I had initially, but I ran with it :)

Clicking on the sketch on the right will take you to the MojoMonday challenge page. Note that most of the stamps I used are retired: Scentsational Season and A Cute Christmas. It's pretty hard to see the detail on the window sill, but I also used a 'Sneak Peek' stamp set from the upcoming Occasions catalogue: Happy Home. This set has a lot of spring images that will work well with the window frame! 




Current Supplies Used:

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Year-End Sale!

The Year-End Sale is here! It's the end of the year, so we're cleaning our inventory and making room for new products -- and we're offering you some great savings while we do it! Note that items offered during the Year-End Sale are while supplies last. So, even though this sale goes until January, you’ll want to hurry to grab the items you love before they are gone!

Most of the products used on this cute card are included in the sale offering!




Supplies Used:

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All is Calm, All is Bright

I love the simplicity of this card. And the awesome collage of the gold cording and the snowflake embellishment just finish it off so elegantly. If you are planning to mail these, you should plan to pay extra postage just to be safe. 



Supplies Used:

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Embellished Ornaments, and why you need the Precision Base Plate!

I love these stunning ornaments, especially in the shiny red foil paper! If you're thinking how hard these Framelits will be to cut with the Big Shot, you need to be introduced to the new Precision Base Plate. This plate will allow you to cut out intricate designs like never before. Check out the video to see it in action!



This week, the Precision Base Plate is part of the Weekly Deals! Such a great time to see it on special for only $23.25!

Supplies Used:

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Beautiful Birch Background

Today's card was made by Debbie Prins - by inking up the Woodlands embossing folder (with Soft Sky) before running it through the Big Shot, she was able to 'colour' the sky a nice blue, and leave those beautiful birch trees white. And lining the torn snowbanks with silver - great idea!

Supplies Used:

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Christmas Cheer!

This is a great super fast card made by Diane Hilborn. Its design is simple enough that it can be customized to use whichever Framelit dies you have available, and it looks sharp! The glimmer paper star just adds that bit of necessary bling :)

    

Supplies Used: 

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