It's December 27th on the calendar but it's already Valentine's Day up in my craft room. My card swap group skipped our December meeting and in January we're swapping Thank You and Valentine cards. I made 16 of each card. Our "rules" are simple: start with good quality
cardstock and add at least 2 elements. For the Thank You card I started with light orange cardstock and then embossed goldenrod cardstock with Cuttlebug's Thank you embossing folder. I added ribbon and a Prima flower and finished with a rhinestone center. Inside I stamped a message.
For the Valentine I used pink cardstock and a couple of different Valentine papers, one from My Little Yellow Bicycle and another from DCWV. I punched a heart border on the top of the Valentine paper and using the Cricut A Child's Year cartridge I cut out the boy and girl valentine silhouettes and then embossed "be my valentine". Before assembling I added some red glitter to the top of the card to emphasize the heart border.
A Child's Year is one of my recent acquisitions. I got it in the after Thanksgiving sale when Cricut cartridges were $30 each. I wasn't really sure about this cartridge, but I've already used it twice.
Yesterday I bought the Calendar Creator cartridge and started making the sample design, an August calendar. I'm thinking it might be useful for my bulletin board.
Debbie got me one of the seasonal cartridges for Christmas, it's got 45 snowflakes, some 3-dimensional. I've seen them used to make room decorations on www.mypinkstamper.com. They might be nice on my Christmas tree next year.
Christmas was very good this year. Considering that my husband is an "anti shopper" I was well taken cared of and he hardly had to set foot in a store. At Thanksgiving my daughter mentioned a gift that she would have gotten me if she had the money and John told her that he would pay for it if she got it. I think everyone forgot about it except Debbie. December 23rd I was dragged to the store to pick out a present for myself so I got a silver chain for a heart that I had ordered. Then on Christmas Eve I got (myself) a gift certificate for a mani-pedi. I also had bought a ring when I was at the QVC store at the Mall of America for John to give me for either our anniversary or Christmas. The surprise present was a Roku, a device to instantly download movies from Netflix or Amazon. Deb and Jim even hooked it up and showed me how it works. So now when there's nothing to watch on tv we can watch a movie or favorite tv show from the past. My mother got lots of presents for her girls (Bed, Bath & Beyond must have had a good year). I got a very cozy red sweatshirt, gadgets, slipper socks, pop-up books and a gift certificate to the spa.
Rocky got a Babble Ball that was intended for Lucky (Deb's cat) but since it was most definitely a dog toy Lucky regifted it to him. He is crazy about this stupid toy. When you bounce it or roll it (or torture it) it talks to you. Rocky chases it around the house until it gets stuck under a piece of furniture and he cries.
Thank goodness our snow is nearly gone. We've discovered that snowmen bring out Rocky's protective instincts. My normally silent dog barks and raises he hackles when he spots snowmen in our neighbor's yards. He's also not sure about men in snowsuits.
For more of my Christmas pictures go to www.nerisews.smugmug.com.
