... just Laura

Kerri Bradford Studio: Holiday Cards

Hey everyone! I have a few new cards up at Kerri Bradford Studio and wanted to quickly share them here as well. I've been really into card making these past few weeks, so when I saw Kerri's new Christmas stamps, I knew they would be great for whipping up some simple holiday cards. 

 

 

My style of card making is pretty clean and simple. I love a good white background for my cards, and will usually either run them thru an embossing folder or add a white die cut background on top of the card base for texture. I used a few stamps from the new Merry News and The Holidays stamp sets to create strips to go across the width of the card, adding in a small piece of diagonal striped patterned paper as well. 

 

 

I added a few of the fun wood veneer pieces that Kerri designed for Jessica at Color Cast Designs to each card, as well as a few black brads, to finish off these quick and easy cards.

 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Hey Beautiful Cards

 

Hey everyone! I had a few new cards go up at Kerri Bradford Studio last week. How gorgeous is the huge floral stamp in Kerri's new Big Blooms stamp set? As soon as I saw it, I knew what my first project would be with it. Cards.

 

 

I have never gotten into coloring when it comes to stamping, although this large floral stamp could be fun to color! Because it's such a large stamp, I knew simply stamping the outline in black ink onto patterned paper would work out great. 

 

 

I picked out several tone-on-tone polka dot patterned papers (all from Sunny Studio Stamps), stamped the floral image, and then fussy cut around the edges. I added a simple black and white patterned paper to my card bases, before adhering the floral pieces.

 

 

The black and white patterned paper did have a few ink splotches printed directly on the paper, but once I cut it down into smaller pieces, some of the cards didn't show any of the ink splotches. So I pulled out Kerri's Inked stamp set and quickly added a few stamped ink splotches of my own.

 

 

I used Kerri's new Jordan Lower alphabet stamps, along with a "beautiful" stamp from her Around The Block stamp set, to stamp my sentiment onto white tags and adhered them in the lower right corners. 

 

 

I am a huge fan of creating multiple cards at once, and it's something I do regularly, just to add to my card stash. I actually created these five cards for five special friends in my life that are always there for me, and I'm always there for them. I've relied on these amazing friends more than usual lately, so I wanted to send them a little something to let them know how much I appreciate their friendship. The Big Blooms stamp set made creating these cards a breeze and I love how they turned out!

 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Baby Bear Cards

 

Hey everyone! I had a new project up at Kerri Bradford Studio last week and completely forgot to hop over here and share. When I saw Kerri's new Hello Baby stamp set, I knew exactly what my first project would be using them. Baby cards. I don't have any baby cards left in my card stash, and knowing that I have several friends and family members due to bring their new babies into the world over the next few months means that I want to have cards on hand for when the time comes. 

 

 

My card making style is pretty simple, and I almost always mass produce cards when I do sit down to make them. It just makes sense to me to duplicate all of the steps several times while I have all of my supplies and tools out - and then I assemble them all at the same time. 

 

 

I started by picking out a few patterned papers - pink for girls, aqua for boys, and a neutral yellow for those that choose to wait to find out the sex of their babies. After creating the base of my cards, I set to work on the stamping.

 

 

I used Kerri's new Jordan SM alphabet stamp set to stamp "baby" several times onto white cardstock, using my three colors (pink, aqua, and yellow), and then I used my scissors to cut apart each letter individually.

 

 

I inked the edges of each individual letter using black ink, so that they would stand out against the white dry embossed background. 

 

 

I stamped the adorable bear and the "sweet little face" phrase onto squares of white cardstock, and inked the edges of each with my coordinating ink colors, matting each square onto a piece of patterned paper. 

 

 

These cards were simple to make, and perfect to have on hand for when those precious little ones make their way into this crazy world.

 

Kerri Bradford Studio: You Can Count On Me Cards

 

I have a few new cards up at Kerri Bradford Studio this week. I just love the large number cluster in the new A Numbered Account stamp set, and how it can work for so many card sentiments. For these two simple cards, I paired it up with the "you can count on me" from the same stamp set.

 

 

I stamped the number cluster onto white cardstock using black ink, trimmed it into a block, and distressed the edges using an edge scraper. I also stamped the number cluster on a scrap piece of cardstock and trimmed around the edges of the stamped image. I laid it over the top of the stamped image on my card, and used it as a mask when it came time to stamp my ink splatters, using the awesome Inked stamp set.

 

I love to use my misting sprays, but you just never know where those sprays are going to go. Lol. I love that with the Inked stamps, you have full control over where you put your ink splatters. 

 

 

I used Kerri's Label kit to print out the black labels, and stamped my sentiment onto the one that fit the best size-wise. After assembling my patterned papers (all from the Crafty Girl collection from Simple Stories) on the base of the card, I adhered my number cluster block using dimensional adhesive and adhered my sentiment label below. 

 

I think I'll use this same design to create a handful of birthday cards next :)

 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Everyday Cards

Hey everyone! I had a new set of cards up at Kerri Bradford Studio last week, and wanted to share them here with you all. I'm still working on upping my card stash these days, as I love having cards on hand for any and all occasions. When I first saw Kerri's Label kit, I knew all of those little labels would be awesome for holding my stamped sentiments for cards. 

I'm definitely a simple card maker, and usually aim to keep my cards fairly flat for easy mailing. While my design is basic - a piece of patterned paper on top, a stamped background pattern on the bottom, and a label holding a stamped sentiment in the middle - it's one that is easy to duplicate and mass produce, which is something I love to do when making cards. 

I printed the sheet of the navy labels, and stamped three different sentiments using the Happy Mail #1 and Happy Mail #2 stamp sets in black ink before trimming them apart.

I then picked out a few patterned papers that coordinated with the navy and added them to the tops of my card bases. All three of my patterned papers are from the Turn The Page collection by Paige Evans, for Pink Paislee.

I used Kerri's new Spot On background stamp for the bottom part of my cards, stamping it in coordinating colors onto white textured cardstock, which I then cut down and adhered to my card bases. 

I actually meant to use two of Kerri's other background stamps, but once I got stamping with the dots, I totally forgot and stamped all of them with the same background stamp. Lol.

I think this would be the perfect design to mass produce, and have sentiments for all different occasions. I can picture turning them into sets to give as gifts too. Hmmmm. Might just have to do that ;)

Kerri Bradford Studio: Happy Birthday Cards

 

Hey! I had some new cards go up at Kerri Bradford Studio a while ago and I'm finally getting around to sharing them here.  

 

 

When I saw the flowers on the new Plant Life stamp set, my first thought was that it would be fun to create my own "patterned paper" using the digital version of the set.

 

 

I used two digital flower stamps to fill a small canvas within Photoshop, varying the sizes and orientation of the flowers so that they didn't all look the exact same.

 

 

My plan was to use this floral "patterned paper" as the background for cards, so I created the canvas in the exact size that I needed for my cards. 

 

 

I decided to keep the flowers black, although it would be fun to add color to them as well. Once I was happy with the design, I printed them out onto white cardstock. I wanted to soften the look a little, so I also layered a dry embossed piece of vellum over the top of the floral "patterned paper". 

 

 

I used Kerri's Happy Mail #2 stamp set to create my "happy birthday" tags, matching the ink colors for each stamped sentiment to the colored cardstock die cut frame that I used on each card.

 

 

Simple metal brads in each corner helped secure the vellum to the card, and a coordinating piece of ribbon helped embellish the sentiment tags. 

 

 

 

Jillibean Soup: Hello Card

Hello! I apparently took a two week break from blogging without really realizing it. That happens sometimes I suppose. Lol. I was on such a good roll with my Project Life album, and so close to finishing up 2018 - and then I got totally side tracked with a new album project, and threw myself into that for a good week. 

I did jump back into my PL album late last week and finished up another four weekly spreads, so I'm going to share those this week. And I know I've said this before, but my goal is to finish up the last five weeks by the end of this week. I'm so ready to have 2018 done, and start on my 2019 album. Ya know, before June starts ;) 

As for the card. I've shared this on Instagram, but I realized I never shared it here on the blog. It was one of the last cards that I created for Jillibean Soup and I love the simplicity of it. I'm a sucker for easy peasy cards :)

Kerri Bradford Studio: Happy Mail Cards

Hey everyone! I had some new cards go up at Kerri Bradford Studio the other day and am excited to share them with you all today. One of the to-do's that has been on my crafty list for a while now, has been to create more cards. Specifically, I've had this idea to dig thru my stash of older supplies, and make it a point to use up a lot of the embellishments and papers that I never seem to use - but also, can't seem to get rid of. 

When I saw Kerri's new Happy Mail #1 and Happy Mail #2 stamps, I knew they would be perfect for this very project. Between the two Happy Mail sets, there are so many awesome sentiments to make a wide variety of cards for any occasion. And how can you not love the Outnumbered (Two) XL stamp set! My first thought when I saw them was that they would be perfect for making birthday cards, and that's exactly what I used them for first.

Product tidbits: Square chipboard frames from my stash (I think they're Simple Stories, but don't quote me on that). Making Memories metal flowers, which had already been painted and distressed and already had coordinating brads in the centers - and they just happen to match my frames and papers.

I started by picking out a few embellishments that I thought would work well on cards - a variety of chipboard frames in varying sizes, a few colored tags, and some metal rimmed printed tags. I then picked out a sentiment to use along with each embellishment.

Product tidbits: Small square chipboard frames (again, I think they're from Simple Stories, but again, don't quote me on that). 3D flower embellishments from American Crafts, which included the buttons.

And the last step was to pick out two patterned papers to go with each card. I limited my paper choices to my 6x6" paper pads, looking for patterns that would match/coordinate with whatever embellishments I had chosen for each card. 

Product tidbits: Printed metal rimmed tags from American Crafts (I added a simple silver accent to each tag to cover the hole where you would add string). Colored tags (not sure where they're from, but they matched perfectly). 

I created my card bases, using the same basic design for each, adding a little misting and a little machine stitching to each card. I added my stamped sentiments, either directly onto the card itself or onto a scrap piece of paper to add behind the chipboard frames.

Product tidbits: Chipboard frame from Basic Grey. Gold glittered accent dots (not sure where they're from).

For the birthday cards, I fussy cut around the stamped numbers before adhering them to the cards. Once the embellishments were added on, and the sentiments complete, I added any little finishing touches, like the little silver accents, the metal flowers, and the enamel stars. 

Product tidbits - Enamel stars from Bella Blvd.

I can't wait to create even more cards with these fabulous stamp sets! I think I need to make it a goal to use each and every sentiment on at least one card ;)

Jillibean Soup: Happy Freaking Birthday Card

Hey everyone! I've got a quick card share today, with a birthday card that I created for Jillibean Soup. This card came together without much effort at all, which is totally my kind of card! 

I had just finished creating a layout, and I had several squares of patterned paper that were left over from some frames I had die cut with my Silhouette machine. I would normally just toss them back in with my patterned papers, since I save decent sized scraps. But since they were out, I figured I would build a card around them. 

I picked three of the squares to use and added some machine stitching around the edges. I adhered a neutral patterned paper onto my card base, and then layered the squares across the center of the card, trimming off the excess from the two sides. 

I adhered the "happy" die cut, which came from one of the Pea Pod Parts die cut packs, and completed my sentiment using some tiny alpha stickers. A few die cut stars and some enamel dots were all that was needed to finish this card. 

And the timing was perfect, since Sarah's boyfriend just celebrated his birthday last week :)

Jillibean Soup: Be The Sunshine Card

Hey all. I've got a new card to share that was up on the Jillibean Soup blog last week. It's a fairly simple card, as are most of mine ;) I incorporated five different patterned papers, from two different collections, into this little card. I pulled the "Be The Sunshine" card from one of the Bite Size Bits patterned paper for my sentiment. 

I shared a few other Jillibean Soup cards that I created last week, and mentioned that I fussy cut a ton of these gorgeous flowers from one of the sheets of patterned paper - and then used them on the majority of my projects for the month. I arranged a few in the bottom right corner, and I love the way they look. A few quick tiny staples were the only embellishing I added to this card. Easy peasy!

Jillibean Soup: Hello & You Rock Cards

Hey all. I've got a few new cards to share that were up on the Jillibean Soup blog last week. I tend to keep my cards pretty simple, and while I think these two cards are on the simple side, I love that they're full of layers and texture. 

I fussy cut a ton of these gorgeous flowers from one of the patterned papers in the Garden Harvest collection, as I also used them on one of my layouts (I'll be sharing it soon) for the month. I ended up using them on not only my layout, but four cards - that's how much I love them! 

I am definitely putting my Silhouette to good use lately, after not using it for several months. I used a few cut files from Jillibean Soup for these cards - the circle background, and the sentiments.  

I die cut the circle background from white cardstock, and adhered it to my white card base. Love some good white-on-white. I spritzed on a little misting ink, and then started planning out my flower placement. Once I was happy with the arrangement, I adhered them in place, trimming any excess off the edges of the cards.

I picked out two sentiments, and die cut them from patterned paper. I sized them pretty big, so they would fill the front of the card. To add some simple and quick embellishments to the cards, I added a few grey adhesive sequins to the centers of the smaller flowers. 

Jillibean Soup: Some Card Shares

Hello my friends! I have a few Jillibean Soup cards that I've been meaning to share. I created these for their booth at Creativation. Just like the layout I recently shared, I was asked to focus on their 6x8" All About Dots and All About Plaids paper pads, along with their Alphabean alpha stickers. 

It's probably evident that I'm more a fan of polka dots than I am of plaids, by the looks of these projects. I did sneak in one of the plaid patterned papers for the base of this first card, adding an embossed piece of white cardstock on top. 

I originally had little squares of the orange and blue dotted papers going down the side of my card, but they asked me to change them to another shape. My punch supply is limited, so I ended up doing some simple flowers. I crinkled them up a bit to add some texture and added a navy blue enamel dot to the centers of the orange flowers. 

I combined the grey Alphabean stickers with a stamped "hello" for my sentiment. The stamp is from the Garden Harvest clear stamp set. 

While I had to stick to only the two paper pads for my patterned papers, I was allowed to use some of the embellishments from the latest collections for these projects. I pulled out this cute house die cut from the You Make Miso Happy collection to start this card. 

I used some green cardstock for my card base, and then added a grey dotted patterned paper on top. I adhered the house die cut with pop dots to a strip of white cardstock, adding little strips of dotted patterned paper along the top and bottom. 

I was able to fit the Alphabean letter stickers to spell out "congrats" across the card for my sentiment, and added the "feels like home" sticker along the top of the card, along with two heart enamels. I also added a torn piece of washi sticker to each side of the white cardstock, which mimics patterned paper to me. 

For my third card, I pulled out the floral cluster die cut to create my card around. I wanted to arrange my Alphabean sticker sentiment, "thanks", so that the colored half of the stickers fell along the top of my green strip of cardstock. I stuck the white half of the stickers down on the green cardstock to start, and then cut down the other patterned papers and white cardstock to my liking. 

I tied some white string around the card, creating a small little notch on each side of the card to keep the string in place. I pop dotted my floral die cut in place, adding a few small colored flower enamels to the centers of the flowers on the die cut. 

Jillibean Soup: Christmas Joy

Hey all! Just popping in with a quick card share today. I created this simple card for Jillibean Soup. While they don't have an actual Christmas collection, it's easy enough to pull patterned paper and other elements out of their collections that will work for holiday themed cards. 

I like to keep my cards fairly flat and simple, so they're easy to mail. I added a few die cut stars, cut from white cardstock with my Silhouette, and a few enamel dots. Easy peasy. 

Which is exactly what I need during the busy holiday season ;)

Jillibean Soup: Everything Is Going To Be Ok Card

Hey all! I have a new Jillibean Soup card to quickly share with you today. And I say "quickly", because I feel like I'm drowning in scrapbooking projects/assignments these last few weeks and I'm having a hard time keeping up with things. Luckily, my cards are pretty straight forwards, so they don't need much explanation ;)

There's a patterned paper in the Farmhouse Stew collection that has all these fun quotes and saying on "letterboards". I knew right away that I would be cutting into that patterned paper to use these individually. They'll work great on layouts, but my first plan was to use one on a card. 

I picked out two coordinating patterned papers to create the base of my card, and matted the cut out quote on a piece of brown cardstock. I stamped some flowers, using the Bowl Of Dreams clear stamp set, and arranged those behind the cut out quote. Easy peasy. 

Now back to juggling all of the stuff that landed on my plate this week ;)

Jillibean Soup: Thanks & Hugs Cards

Hey all! I have two new Jillibean Soup cards to share with you today. And yes, I do realize that I've made quite a few cards lately ;)

So, I started these cards with a totally different idea of what they would look like. See that paper along the top of the card, with the three colors? That's half of a 3x4" card that I cut out of the Bite Size Bits patterned paper in the Shades of Color collection. The other half of the card has the three colors on my second card. 

My thinking was to have that 3x4" card in the center of my card, and all around the card I would have these stamped and fussy cut flowers from patterned papers that matched the colors on the card. I picked out all of the patterned papers that I wanted to create my flowers with, pulling papers from several different collections, and used the Flower-Bloom stamp set to stamp a flower on each paper. 

But after fussing cutting out all of my flowers, and playing around with my original idea, I realized it wasn't going to work the way that I wanted. Which turned out to be totally fine, since I like the new idea I came up with much better. 

I decided to cut the 3x4" card in half, and use three colors for one card and create a second card with the other three colors. I always like when I can create two cards at once, so that was a happy bonus. 

I adhered the halved card to the top of each of my cards, after spritzing on a little bit of black ink to the white card base. I then adhered my flowers along the bottom of the halved card. 

I decided to add a little easy texture to my flowers before I adhered them. I simply crumbled them up and then flattened them back out. Not all the way out, but enough that I could adhere them with a few glue dots on the back of each flower. I also added a small wood veneer flower to the center of each. 

For my sentiments, I combined a script word sticker ("thanks" and "hugs") with a stamped "from me to you" (using the Souper Celebration stamp set). 

Doodlebug Designs: Quick & Simple Cards

Hey everyone! I'm back to share a few more projects I created as the recent guest designer for Doodlebug Designs. There are so many cute die cuts in the Odds & Ends package, and I just knew they would make for some fun quick and simple cards.

I started by pulling out some of the larger die cuts - the house, the typewriter, a phone, bouquet of flowers, vase of of flowers, a bike, and a scooter.

I then matched each die cut up with a sentiment from the Chit Chat die cuts.

I had intentions of using a few of the Doodle-Pops stickers, which are their 3 dimensional stickers, on a few of these cards. I had the house and the typewriter set out - they look exactly like the die cuts, but in 3D. But I got so busy assembly-lining these cards, that I forgot to switch these out to the Doodle-Pop stickers instead. 

I then set to work picking out two coordinating patterned papers for each card. For a few cards, I added a smaller piece of patterned paper along the bottom of the card, and a larger pieces along the top of the card, with a strip of white cardstock between the two to hold the sentiment. 

For a few cards, I started with a larger piece of white cardstock to hold my die cut and sentiment, and then matted that piece onto two different patterned papers. 

I added a little machine stitching to each card, and adhered all of the die cut pieces with thin pop dots for a little dimension.

For these two horizontal cards, I separated my patterned paper pieces with a scallop edged piece of white cardstock, created with my favorite border punch. 

Once I had my die cuts, sentiment pieces, and patterned paper pieces all picked out, these took me no time at all to assemble. 

I still have quite a few pieces left that I want to use on some additional cards. I love that I've got a super cute batch of cards in my stash, ready to send out at a moment's notice. 

I'd like to thank Doodlebug Designs for having me along to guest design this month. It was a true pleasure to play with one of your newest collections and I had so much fun creating these projects!

Kerri Bradford Studio: Thank You Cards

Hey everyone! I have a few new cards up at Kerri Bradford Studio today. I realized a while ago, that with all of the handmade cards that I have made over the last year or so, I don't seem to have any "thank you" cards. I thought it might be a good idea to create a few, so that when I have someone that deserves a special "thank you", I'll have cards ready to go. 

I picked two different designs to use for the backgrounds on my cards - a circle design from the Background Basics #2 kit, and a leaf design from the new Leaves kit.

I die cut each one several times from white cardstock, as I planned to layer them over patterned paper.

For the leaves design, I also took the time to remove all of the inside cut lines from each leaf, so that I could have a solid piece to layer behind the intricate design. 

 After assembling the base of my cards, using patterned paper, and the die cut backgrounds, I adhered a die cut "thanks" to each card.

I used two different "thanks" designs, both cut from black cardstock - one from the Hey Mama kit, and one from the Design Team Picks kit. 

For my patterned papers, I turned to my 6x6" paper pads. I love using these smaller papers for cards, as the designs are usually scaled down for smaller projects.  

I used a mix of Studio Calico and Amy Tangerine patterned papers for these cards. 

As always, I like to keep my cards fairly flat in design, to make them easier to mail. I don't tend to add many embellishments to simple cards like these, as I think they're just fine on their own. 

These cards were quick and easy to create (other than waiting for my Silhouette Cameo to finish cutting these intricate designs), but full of texture and interest at the same time. 

Jillibean Soup: Congrats On Your Special Day Card

Hey everyone! I've got a new card up on the Jillibean Soup blog today. I'm sure you've seen all of the super fun shaker cards that Jillibean has to offer. A wide variety of card bases, shaker inserts, stamps, dies, and fillers. I had every intention of trying my hand at one of these shaker cards when I started creating my projects for this month, but time got away from me with SOOOOO much going on in May. 

So I decided to keep things a little simpler for this card. I used one of the shaker card bases, but not in the way it was meant for. I realized that the card with the large circle cut-out was perfect for using along with their felt flowers from the Mix The Media collection. 

These felt flowers are just gorgeous. While this may be too bulky for mailing out to someone special, it works just fine if you're seeing that loved one in person. Which I was, as I created this for one Amanda - who was one of my very first daycare kiddos forever and ever ago, and who graduated from high school a few weeks ago.

I added a piece of patterned paper from the 2 Cool For School collection to the front of the card, after cutting a circle out to match up with the cut out circle on the front of the card. I then used the Flower Bloom stamp and die set to create my sentiment and stapled it under the cut out circle. 

The card base is more of a cream color, and I had stamped my sentiment on white cardstock. To make the inside of the card match with that, I simply adhered a piece of white cardstock to the inside of the card. I then picked out one of the yellow felt flowers and adhered it to the inside, positioning it so that it peeks out from the circle cut out on the front of the card. 

Jillibean Soup: 2 Cool For School Cards

Happy Monday! I had two new cards up on the Jillibean Soup blog last week. One thing that I have been doing when I set out to make a card, is to look thru the Pea Pod Parts package and see if I can find a die cut or two that would be a good starting point for a card. These two corgi's, from the 2 Cool For School collection, were too cute to pass by. Personally, I can't see myself using these adorable corgi's on a layout, but they work perfectly for cards. 

I picked out a few patterned papers to coordinate with the cute corgi's. I created 2 layouts and 3 cards for Jillibean Soup for this month, and somehow I used the same main colors/papers on most of them. It wasn't planned, but just sort of happened. Two of the patterned papers here are from from the 2 Cool For School collection, and the woodgrain patterned paper is from the Farmhouse Stew collection. 

For this first card, I wanted to incorporate a stamp, and the "Hello" stamp from the 2 Cool For School stamp set seemed like a good choice. I stamped it with navy blue ink next to the corgi die cut, and then added tiny little alpha stickers below to complete my sentiment. A few puffy star stickers finished off the card. 

Since there were two die cut corgi's in the Pea Pod Parts package, I figured I might as well create two cards at once. If you've got all of the coordinating supplies out, why not knock out two cards (or more) in one sitting. 

There were several little phrase/word die cuts in the Pea Pod Parts package as well, and this aqua "good times" one was the one that matched so well with the corgi's bow tie. I played with this card, over and over, trying to decide if I should add a different sentiment, or maybe stamp another sentiment below the "good times" die cut. But I kept coming back to what I have here - it's simple and I like it. I added a few adhesive sequins to finish off the card. 

Jillibean Soup: Hello Card

Well, hello my friends! I've got a new card up over on the Jillibean Soup blog today. I guess quite a few of us had "hello" cards on our minds, since there are a few others on the blog today as well. 

I used the Bohemian Brew collection for this card. I have been drawn to the aqua patterned paper with all the adorable little vases of flowers, and the red polka dot of mine because ... well, because I LOVE polka dots! 

I wanted to use the floral cluster die cut from the Pea Pod Parts package, and decided to "tuck" it down under the top of the polka dot patterned paper. I then machine stitched along the edge of the paper, and added a few tiny staples to each side. 

I adhered the "hello" die cut tag to the top of the card, and added a few small flower die cuts along the top as well. I used a few of the adhesive sequins to embellish the centers of the flowers. 

I know I've been kind of quiet on my little blog the last few weeks. And I haven't shared a "what we ate" post in several weeks (I honestly haven't tried any new recipes in quite a while). My focus has just been elsewhere, which means that I haven't made time to create very much these last few weeks. 

My oldest daughter, Alyssa, graduated from college this past weekend!! Such a proud moment and I'll share more about it soon. Leading up to graduation, we went and took a ton of graduation photos on two separate weekends - so LOTS of editing going on here. And now I have LOTS of graduation photos to sort thru and edit as well. Sarah's in her last week of school, so she'll be finishing her first year of college after finals next week. Joe's been crazy busy with umpiring high school baseball, and they're starting playoffs this week. Daycare kids have kept me insanely busy, as they're all at that age where they get into anything and everything - All. Day. Long. 

I'm hoping I can get back into a creative routine soon, and then I'll have more to share. And maybe when things quiet down with the rest of my family's lives, they'll be around more to where I'll get back to cooking more ;)

Jillibean Soup: Happy Mother's Day Card

Hey all! This week, Jillibean Soup is teaming up with Therm O Web, and I had a new card that was shared over on their blog yesterday. We were sent a bunch of Therm O Web's fun DecoFoil products to play with, and I used them to create this fun little Mother's Day card. 

There were some foam sheets that I thought would work really well with the Jillibean Soup dies, so I picked out a simple label die that I could line up repetitively across the front of my card. I die cut the label from the foam, over and over, to create a large amount of them to work with. I picked out three of the foil colors that worked well together, and then picked out a few patterned papers that matched those foil colors. 

I'm not super knowledgeable about the foils, since I don't own a Minc or anything (the main tool/machine I think of when I hear "foil"). But I had seen a quick demo while at CHA this past January, about one of the simple ways to use it, so that's the technique I went with. Since the foam pieces have adhesive on both sides, I simply placed one side on the back of the foil, and rubbed the foil onto the foam shape. 

Then I lined up the die cut labels, both from patterned paper and the foil covered ones, along the front of my card, until I was happy with how they looked. I won't lie. This part took me forever. Lol. Once I had them arranged to my liking, I started adhering each label. I started with the foil labels, since they all ended up down the center part of the card. Once those were adhered, I was able to adhere all of the patterned paper labels, trimming off the excess that hung over the edges of the card. 

I also left an empty row along the bottom of that card so that I could add my sentiment. I ended up adding a small strip of white cardstock, and machine stitching along the top and bottom. I then used some small alpha stickers, and a "happy" word sticker to complete my sentiment. 

I hope you'll stop by the Jillibean Soup blog this week to check out all of the awesome projects that the rest of the team has created using Therm O Web's fun products!

 

 

 

Jillibean Soup: A Few Card Shares

Hey all! I had a few cards that I had created for the Jillibean Soup design team call that I wanted to share with you today. This first card started with the gorgeous floral die cut. I had the perfect card design in mind as soon as I saw it. 

I picked out a few coordinating patterned papers, and created a grid-like background by piecing together three small pieces of paper. I left a little space between each of the papers, as well as around the outside edge of the card, to add a little white to the card. I also did all of my machine stitching before adhering the papers to the front of the card, since it's just easier to do them first sometimes. 

I adhered the floral die cut using pop dots, and added a few brown enamel dots to the centers of the flowers. I used some dark brown corrugated alphas to add my sentiment. 

For my second card, I went with a birthday card. The word "party" fit perfectly going across the card, using the die cut alphas, so I adhered them using pop dots to a ruled patterned paper. I played around with different patterned papers, a few die cut phrase pieces, and some puffy stickers until I was able to get all of the colors distributed around the card to my liking. 

I added some yellow patterned paper along the bottom of the card, with a few scalloped edged pieces of navy blue cardstock (created with a border punch) added along the top and bottom of my ruled patterned paper. The grey gear patterned paper felt like a good "boy" paper, and went well with all of the colors I had going on. 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Celebrate Birthday Cards

Hey all! I've got a new project up over at Kerri Bradford Studio today. Once a year, I like to create a new batch of birthday cards to have on hand. I never seem to be prepared for birthdays, so I like having a stash of cards that I can pull from that will work for family, family, or anyone celebrating their special day. As much as I would love to create a wide variety of cards, I'm a big fan of creating just one simple design - and then mass producing that one design for all of my cards.

I usually pick 2-4 different patterned paper schemes, making some fitting for the boys/men in my life, and some for the girls/women in my life. For this round of cards, I picked out some patterned papers from Amy Tangerine. I will most likely be making more of this same exact design, but with another assortment of patterned paper. 

I started by die cutting a circle background, from Kerri's Life Additions: Background kit, from patterned paper, and then adhering that to the front of my card, layering it over a white grid patterned paper. I decided to go with a simple "celebrate" for my sentiment, found in the July Four kit.

I added a die cut flower to the girl cards, using the Funky Flower cut file, and a star to the boy cards, using a cut file from the This & That: Family [just shapes] kit. I like to keep my cards fairly flat, so they're easy to mail, so my only real embellishment was adding a black enamel dot to the center of the star and flower.

I never seem to have much to write in the inside of birthday cards. Please tell me I'm not the only one that keeps by birthday wishes simple. Lol. So I stamped a birthday message on the inside of the card using Kerri's For You stamp set. This still allows me room to write the recipients name at the top, and a quick message below. 

I love a great design that's easy to replicate, and mass produce assembly line style. And I think this card works perfectly for just that. I'm so glad my birthday card stash has been replenished for all of the upcoming birthdays on our calendar! 

Sunny Studio Stamps: Social Media Coordinator

Hey everyone! And happy Monday! Hopefully, you all had a great weekend. Mine was super productive, which always feels good. I didn't do a single crafty thing, which is totally fine with me. Sometimes, I just need to focus on stuff around the house, so that I can start the week knowing I'm totally on track of things. Anyways. I've got a little news to share with you all today.

I have recently joined the Sunny Studio Stamps team, as their new Social Media Coordinator! I have known the owner, Mendi, for years, through the industry and as a designer. We started talking a little shortly after I had left Bella Blvd last year, and she invited me along to CHA with her, to help her out in her booth. She officially asked me to join her team about two months ago, and I've been working behind the scenes since.

While I'm not officially designing for her (she has an amazingly talented team of stampers that you should check out on the blog), I'm hoping to play with her stamps and dies from time to time. While I would never claim to be a "stamper", I do want to learn a bit more about it. I'm what you'd call a very "basic" stamper. Meaning when I stamp, I simply stamp. One color, nothing fancy, and I am not really into coloring. At least, not yet ;) Mendi sent me some of her stamps and dies, so I could create a few cards for the announcement on the blog. 

I quickly realized that I would be better off focusing on the dies, since die cutting is one of my specialties. For this first card, I knew that I wanted to use the Vintage Jar set (stamp and dies), as I love jars! I used a little flower die (it's actually a freebie with any order), and die cut a ton of flowers from patterned papers. All of my papers on these two cards are from Close To My Heart. 

I layered the flowers above the jar, adding stems to some and doubling up the flowers on some as well. I added coordinating enamel dots to the center of each flower. I intended on stamping my sentiment, but decided to use tiny alpha stickers to add my sentiment to the jar. 

For my second card, I wanted to use the Family & Friends Word dies. I settled on the word "friends" and die cut a ton of them from white cardstock. I adhered them on a piece of white cardstock, cut slightly smaller than my card base. I then misted the entire piece with some purple, aqua, and pink misting sprays. 

I stamped my sentiment on a white office tag, using the Friends & Family stamp set, and added it to the front of my card. I had some flowers left over from the first card, so I added some of those to the card to embellish it. 

I'm excited to be working with both Mendi, and Sunny Studio Stamps, and they've all made me feel right at home. I hope you'll stop by the blog and check out the awesome collections of products that Mendi has created (visit her store HERE), as well as the fabulous designs that her design team have been sharing on the blog (visit the blog HERE). 

Buttons Galore: November Guest Designer

Hey all! After a short little blogging break, I'm back with a few new projects to share. I was asked to guest design this month over on the Buttons Galore & More blog, and I jumped at the opportunity. Buttons are one of my absolute favorite embellishments! I have a massive button collection, and yet I can never pass up adding more colorful buttons to my stash. They just speak to me!

I was able to pick out a selection of buttons to work with, and without really knowing what I would be creating, I choose fun shades of Sky Blue, Candy Apple Green, Cotton Candy, and Lemon Yellow. When I had the buttons in front of me, and started to think about what I would do with them, these photos I took of my cousin's baby girl were the first thing to pop into my head. That photo on the left is one of my favorites of her!

One of my favorite ways to incorporate buttons onto my projects is to add them to the centers of shapes. I tend to use a lot of flowers, circles, and stars on my layouts, and buttons are the perfect addition to any of those shapes. For this layout, I started by die cutting a floral background piece from white cardstock, using my Silhouette Cameo die cut machine. I love that it had lots and lots of flowers to embellish with my buttons! 

I wanted to add some subtle interest to some of the flowers on the background piece, and vellum came to mind. I was able to find an individual flower cut file that matched one of the flowers on the background piece. I sized the flower numerous times to match up with the flowers on the background piece, and then cut them all from a sheet of vellum. To add some texture, I ran each vellum flower thru a dotted embossing folder before layering them over the background flowers. 

Personally, I always thread my buttons when using them on layouts and cards. I don't like to have any "naked" buttons on my projects ;) My go-to way to adhere my buttons, is to thread my string through the button holes, and then laying the string ends flat against the button, I add a glue dot (or sometimes two if it's a larger button) right over the string. This holds the ends in place, and I can them simply adhere my button to where it needs to go. 

The exception to this rule, is when I'm working with clear buttons. I don't want those strings and glue dot to show through the clear button. So for those buttons, I will take the extra time to use a needle and stitch my button directly onto the page. 

I tend to be a more simpler scrapper, in that I keep my embellishments more on the simpler side. So I am always turning to buttons, as well as basics like brads and enamels. Oftentimes, they are all I need to finish off a project mostly made up of photos, cardstock, and patterned paper. 

I wanted to whip up a quick card to share with you as well, using the same idea of adding buttons to the center of flowers. This is actually a lift of a card I created for Bella Blvd years ago. I searched my blog high and low for the card, but I never did find it. So I may not have ever shared that one here. Anyways. This time I fussy cut some flowers from a sheet of patterned paper to create this easy birthday card. 

A fun, and super simple, way to add texture to paper flowers (whether die cuts or fussy cut from patterned paper), is to crumble them up really good. You can even lightly mist the paper with water to make it easier to work with. Then you simply un-crumble your flower, flattening it out as much or as little as you like. Add a threaded button to the center of each flower, and you've got the most adorable little flowers to add to your projects!

I had so much fun creating these projects, and I hope you enjoyed them too! Thanks Buttons Galore & More for the opportunity to guest design for you and create with your colorful buttons!

Bella Blvd: Happy Birthday Cards

Hey everyone! I'm talking about birthday cards today over on the Bella Blvd blog. I don't know about you, but the cards that I need the most seem to be the cards that I never have on hand when I need them. At the top of that list is birthday cards. Once we hit May and June in this family, there are birthdays left and right, and I knew that I needed to replenish my stash if I was going to be prepared. When it comes to making birthday cards, I love coming up with a design that I can use for multiple cards - cards that I can mass produce and create assembly line style. I also love to keep these cards simple, and flat for the most part, since that makes them super easy to mail.

The first step was picking out my patterned papers for each card. I knew that I wanted a set of cards geared towards men, a set geared towards women, a set geared towards younger boys, a set geared towards younger girls, and a set geared towards teenage girls (being that I have two teenage girls myself, who both have lots of friends). I dug through all of my Bella collections, picking out a few patterned papers for each set of cards. 

I love incorporating my Silhouette into the design when mass producing cards. If I am making a single card, or even two to three cards, I don't mind using alpha stickers or chipboard letters. But when it comes to making a large amount of cards at once, using a die cut sentiment, paired with patterned paper or cardstock, is much more cost effective then using alpha stickers or chipboard, where your letters are more limited. 

I die cut the word "birthday", along with a scalloped border (sized for the width of my card), from patterned paper, and the word "happy" from cardstock. I cut enough pieces to make 20 cards, using essentially 4 sheets of paper.

I cut all of the additional pieces of patterned paper needed for each card at one time. I like to think of this as assembly line card making. Doing all of one step first (for all cards), then all of the second step next, etc. I always use textured white cardstock for my card bases, and will often leave the top part of the card as is, adding the patterned paper to the bottom part of the card. But this time around, I decided to use a lined patterned paper and a grid patterned paper for the top parts of each card. 

I started assembling the cards by adhering all of the pre-cut pieces of patterned paper to the card bases. Once I had the three pieces of paper adhered (as shown above), I zig zag stitched down the thin strip of patterned paper with my sewing machine. From there, I adhered my scalloped borders and sentiments.  

Here's my masculine card - perfect for dads, brothers, grandpas, or any other guy on your list.

Here's my feminine card - perfect for moms, sisters, grandmas, or any other gal on your list.

Here's my card geared towards younger boys - although I think this could easily work for any age.

Here's my card geared towards younger girls - although I think this could easily work for any age.

And last, but not least, here's my card for teen girls - although this could work for any age as well. It just so happens that with two teenage girls of my own, a lot of teen girl birthdays come up around here.

Because I did these cards in steps - cutting all of the patterned paper pieces at once, die cutting my sentiments and borders at once, doing all of the machine stitching at once, etc - I put 20 cards together in no time at all. I hope you'll try this out the next time you find yourself running low on a card that you know you will need many, many more of. 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Thank You Cards

Finally, something new to share! Actually, I have a layout I should have shared earlier in the week, but I just never found the time to blog it. I'll have that up next week, along with another layout. I hate when I go so long in between posting. Anyways. On to the cards that I have up at Kerri Bradford Studio today.

I recently cleaned out a bunch of my handmade cards, and randomly sent a bunch of them off to friends and family. No sense in keeping them tucked away in a drawer, right? While going through my stash of cards, I came across THIS CARD that I had created over 7 years ago (I searched the card out on my blog to verify that) and decided to use it as inspiration for a few new cards.

I sized the circle border from Kerri's Best Thing Ever page kit to fit the length of my card (these cards are 4" x 9.25"). I tend to cut most of my files from patterned paper, but decided to put some of my colored cardstock to use on these cards. I have SO much of it, and rarely use it. I had my color combos picked out for both cards, so I cut one circle border from purple for one card and from yellow for the other card.

I debated between several of Kerri's flower shapes, but finally settled on the funky flower from the Hello There class freebies. All of the freebies that come with the classes are reason enough to take Kerri's classes, let along the huge amount of knowledge you'll get from what she has to teach! I cut several flowers for each card, all the same size and all from the same shade of green cardstock.

To create my circles, I used one of the backings to an arrow cut file in the Need Directions kit. I know Kerri has a few other kits that have some circle options, most of which are a negative shape or just the backing from something.

I also used some of the simple techniques on my original card, and worked them into these new cards. It was fun to pull out some supplies that I haven't used in a while, like the paper flowers, puffy paint and Stickles. I do actually use my embossing folders quite a bit, but not as often as I should, since I love how much it adds to cardstock with little to no effort.

I knew I would be using some of Kerri's stamps to add my sentiment to the cards. I decided to use the "thank you" from the For You stamp set. Since I embossed my cardstock circles, I couldn't stamp my sentiment onto the circles, which was my plan all along. So I simple stamped my sentiment onto plain white cardstock, and fussy cut each out before adhering to my cards.

 

Summer Thoughts

I know I've been absent from blogging a lot this summer. In fact, I've only blogged 16 times in the last three and a half months. Which is pretty bad. I have no clue what my average was before that. I mean, I could go count, but I'm not THAT curious to know. I just want you to know that I am totally aware that I haven't been around as much as I might have been before.

Maybe that's because I honestly haven't scrapped that much the last few months. I've created a bunch of stuff, some of which I've already shared and a lot of which I can't share for a while. But I know that it feels like I haven't done that much lately, even though there are projects that I really do want to get done. It's that one little thing that stands in the way though. TIME.

My summer months always feel so hectic and busy. But not because we're having tons of fun, going on daytrips and vacations, and just enjoying life. It's because we're working. Well, more so Joe and I, as the girls definitely had some time to relax this summer. Although, in their defense (especially my college girl), I think they needed a decent amount of downtime after the busyness of the school year.

I've had all of these extra bodies in the house this summer. I had three summer daycare kids here with me. Although I did have one regular kiddo gone for the summer, since her mom just had a baby, and she got to hang out at home with them. I had my girls home for the summer, and most days, Sarah's boyfriend was here a lot too. Joe works nights, so he's here sleeping during the day. I'm shushing the kiddos in the morning, since the girls are still sleeping. And then I'm shushing my girls in the afternoon, while the kiddos all nap. I just don't get much done during the summer, since after working an eleven+ hour day with the kids (and squeezing my Bella job in there was well), I have no desire to do much of anything in the evenings.

I can't lie though. It's been nice to step back from scrapping in a sense this summer. I didn't worry about getting stuff done. I wasn't thinking about projects I wanted to work on. I can definitely get caught up in the things that I want to do, and not give my full attention to the things that I need to do. This summer, however, I really do feel like I just enjoyed the moment. Ok, I didn't enjoy every moment (too many little ones takes a toll on my sanity!). But I was present more than usual.

I've juggled a lot this summer, making a full time job and a part time job work, along with some freelance work here and there. We've spend several weekends doing much needed things around the house. We've been working, alongside Alyssa's dad (who honestly, did most of the work), to get Alyssa set up in an apartment across the street from the college for several weeks. And we've dealt with, and are still dealing with, the sudden loss of Alyssa's grandma from a very short battle with cancer.

I've also dropped the ball on stuff, simple because I didn't want to worry about things that didn't have to be done. Nothing of any importance, mind you. Just things that I've been pushing to the side here and there, with the "I'll do that later" mentality. I guess now is about that time.

Sarah went back to school about two weeks ago, starting her junior year of high school. Sigh. Alyssa is pretty much moved out and in her apartment now, and will be starting her sophomore year of college next Monday. Sigh. I have a two week "break" of sorts with the daycare kids. I still have four little ones here, but it's the least amount I've had all summer. I have my previous kiddo coming back in two weeks, and she's bringing her new baby brother! So that will be a big adjustment, I'm sure. Not to mention I have another daycare parent expecting a baby later this year.

Long story short. I haven't blogged as much. And I've missed it. I haven't scrapped as much. And I've missed it. I have a list of projects that I want to do, which includes some 6x8 album projects that I've been itching to start/finish. So I'm really hoping I can get back into the swing of things here, so that I'll have more to share with you all :)

*** And since I didn't even chat about the cards, as they're self explanatory, they were both made for Bella Blvd for their summer release booth at the SPC show in July. Both used the new Fresh Market collection, and you can read about them both HERE.

Scrapbook & Cards Today: Birthday Celebration

I'm not sure if you've heard, but Scrapbook & Cards Today is celebrating their 9th birthday, with a celebration on the blog that's lasting for 9 straight days! Each day they're sharing a project created by one of the team members and hosting a giveaway from their generous advertisers. I must not have been paying attention, as my cards went up on day four (Tuesday).

The one type of card that I always find myself needing more of is birthday cards, which is why I love to mass produce them a few times a year. My Silhouette Cameo comes in super handy for this, as I can cut pieces for numerous cards at once, and then simply piece them together. 

  

Design team member Nicole Nowosad designed a free birthday cut file (containing a handful of different designs), which you can find HERE. We were asked to incorporate one or more of the cut files into a birthday themed project. I picked out a few designs from the cut file and arranged them in my Silhouette software so that I could cut all of the pieces for 6 cards at once.

I picked out a few different patterned papers (one set for girlish cards and one set for boyish cards), and cut strips of each paper to place on my cutting mat: one pattern for the sentiment, one pattern for the scalloped borders, and 3-4 patterns for the little banner flags. So after running my cutting mat thru twice, once with each set of papers, I had everything I needed to make 12 cards, assembly style.

I used white card bases for all of my cards, and also cut a piece of white cardstock for the front of the card, just a little smaller than the size of the card. I ran those thru my Cuttlebug, in a dotted embossing folder. Then I spritzed them with some misting spray - black on the girlish cards and tan on the boyish cards.

I kept these cards very simple and fairly flat, so that they're easy to mail if needed. I trimmed down the scallop borders just a bit, since they were taller than I wanted them, and then added a strip of patterned paper along the top, along with a piece of ribbon. Ribbon? Yeah, something I have TONS of and never seem to use anymore.

I added the "birthday" to my "happy birthday" sentiment using tiny alpha stickers on these two cards. But I will most likely dig up a "birthday" stamp to use on the other cards once I put them together. Just easier than using up all of my alpha stickers.

You'll want to visit the Scrapbook & Cards Today blog and check out all of the other projects that have been shared so far, and get in on the fabulous giveaways. For an opportunity to win each day's prize package, just leave one comment on each day's post before 12:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 4th. They will be announcing all of the winners on Sunday, April 5th.

Last Minute Holiday Card

It's Christmas Eve and I'm blogging. What the heck? This year is a repeat of last Christmas Eve. The girls are with Alyssa's dad, celebrating the holiday with her grandparents. Joe's sleeping and working, as he works the entire holiday week. He'll be working tonight, and Christmas night as well. So I'm just hanging out at the house, wrapping a few gifts, making a few last gifts, and watching Christmas movies. So I figured I would pop in here really quick and share a last minute holiday card idea. It's not too late to throw something together, as I just did this yesterday. 

A bit part of the reason that I fail so miserable at sending out Christmas cards is that I don't always have a good photo to use. With the girls being older, I hardly get any photos of them throughout the year to begin with. So I don't usually have photos on hand to pull together for a fun little photo collage or something. And the only time we seem to get a family photo is when we get together for Christmas. There's always seems to be too much going on in life, that we just put off getting a photo taken for a card, and then before you know it, it's just too late.

The girls went to Magic Mountain (a big amusement park a few hours from here) last weekend, and when I saw this photo they took, I knew it would solve my problem. It's not what I might typically use for a Christmas card, but I thought it was a super cute photo and I figured it was a guaranteed way for me to get a card made to send out this year. 

I browsed the designs online at Costco, which is where I normally order my cards, but didn't see anything that I cared for and that would work well with my photo. I've designed my own Christmas cards before, so I knew it would be super easy to do again.

I dug through my kits from Kerri Bradford Designs, looking for designs I could incorporate into my card design. When you purchase Kerri's kits, you get her designs as PNG files as well as the cut files. The PNG files can be used digitally, which gives you more ways to incorporate them into projects. I didn't start out with all of these picked out when I started. But they're all the pieces I ended up with, including the digital stitches and staple that I pulled from my stash of digital kits.

I started with a sentiment from the Merry Everything kit. I actually started with "Merry Christmas", but since I won't even be mailing these out until after Christmas, I decided to go with the "Merry Everything" instead. I just think it's a cute little sentiment.

The PNG's will often be certain colors (or the standard black) once you pull them into Photoshop. But you can easily change them to whatever color you need by using the "color overlay" option. I went with a dark aqua to go with the ornaments on the trees. I also added a little drop shadow to the sentiment.

I thought the dotted overlay from the Magicalness kit would be fun to use over the entire photo. I layered it onto the "background" layer, so that the sentiment was still on the top layer (otherwise, the title would have been covered by the dots).

I didn't want the dots to cover up the girls, so I used the rectangular marquee tool to select any of the dots that I wanted to remove, and simply deleted them.

I also changed the opacity (down to about 82%) so that the dots were a little more subtle.

I knew I wanted to add a little something to the side of the photo, and that I needed to incorporate a little red into the design. I pulled up the red dotted card from the Hello December kit, and selected just a small strip of it to add along the right edge of the photo (I turned the image here, just so that it fit better on the screen). I sized it to fit, and then changed the opacity so that it had a clearer look to it. Kind of gives a washi tape look to it, right?

I pulled up one of my digital zigzag stitches in grey, and added that along the edge of the red dotted paper, to give it a more finished look.

The upper left corner needed a little something, so I pulled up this cute little tag from the Attach It kit and resized it to fit along the edge of the photo. I changed the opacity on the tag as well, just as I did on the overlay and the red dotted paper.

The tag starts out yellow, but I changed it to the same dark aqua color that I made my sentiment. It's easy to make things the same exact colors, when you use the color code # that comes up once you pick your color. You just copy that color code # into the box on your next item, and it uses the same color.

I used the text tool to add a secondary little sentiment and our names. This is the font that just popped up when I started typing, so I just went with it. The fewer decisions I had to make on this, the quicker I got it done.

The little hole in the tag neeed something, so I added two small digital staples.

And ta-da, the finished card. I spent about half an hour on this, and put my order right into Costco. No overthinking on this, and it feels good to know that after a two year break, I can finally sent out some cards again to family and friends. They might not arrive until after New Year's, but that's more than ok with me!

And with that, I want to wish you all a very merry Christmas!  May your time spent with family and friends this Christmas holiday be magical and full of great memories.