*Christmas Ideas*

I found an hour today to play and was inspired by some designs on other websites and blogs. I created three different Christmas Card ideas to use for classes and workshops.

This first card I created from a layout I saw on Splitcoast Stampers. Not sure how I feel about the tone on tone with the silver... it does really look better in person than it does in the scan. I sure with SU had come out with the silver ribbon again in the Holiday Mini as I think that would look better than the silver cord. The blue ribbon was too much blue. I also wonder if it would look better in shades of greens and reds. Will have to play with this design a bit more. I absolutely LOVE the layout though!

This card was inspired by a design I saw on Heather Nichols' blog. I didn't have the reindeer stamp that she used and nothing else seemed appropriate other than the Make it Merry tag from the new tag set. I absolutely LOVE the Christmas Papers in the Holiday Mini. Love it so much I just ordered 3 more packages of it! And I used that word window punch again. It sure is versatile once you start thinking outside the box and play with it.

I love the simplicity of this card. Once again, I was inspired by someone else. Debbie Olson had a card very much like this on her blog. I took one of the square punches from Stampin' Up to create a template for dry embossing a square behind each of the three snowflakes. The card itself is done on the Stampin' Up shimmer paper so you'll have to believe me that it looks so much better in real life. The ribbon is from the Holiday Mini. I love the idea of red and blue snowflakes (instead of only blue, white or silver). I love the simplicity of this card... it makes my heart happy to look at it.

I thought it would be more difficult to get into the Christmas Card Making Spirit but you know what? I truly loved it! I forgot how much I enjoy Christmas stamping. It's usually my favourite thing to stamp.

Now that I've started the Christmas Creativity I need to let it start to blossom and grow on it's own and hopefully come up with a few of my own designs. And I need to find that perfect card that will be the one I send out this year.

Tomorrow night is the first meeting of a new stamp club in Calgary. Hopefully this one isn't cancelled... we tried to meet two weeks ago but a bad accident on a major route to the north end of the city prevented most people from being able to get up here to the meeting. Lucky for me, I live only a few minutes from where we'll be meeting.

I gotta figure out something to take to work on while I'm at stamp club tomorrow. I keep hoping my friend Mona has her baby before tomorrow night so I can take her birth announcements to work on. I have the template done but don't want to make them on the off chance the baby is not a boy (the ultrasound said it was so it probably is, but...). If that fails, I guess I will take an assortment of Christmas stuff and play with some new ideas.