Crafty Elves' Countdown - Merry Christmas!

Well!  We made it!!  Merry Christmas!

My friend Debra Davison and I made a pact that we would create a Christmas card a week all year and we've been sharing on the 25th of the month each month of the year the cards we made.  Today is the day!  (Most) of my Christmas cards are in the mail.  I have one more batch to go out Thursday.  Ok.  Yeah.  I had them all made, but still wasn't able to get them all out.  But it's all good.  It's still the earliest I've gotten them out in a long time!

I've been sharing Christmas cards all month again, but I wanted to share something new today so I got a start on next year's batch:

I decided on a quick design for today using some paper from one of my local papercraft stores, The Paper Collage along with some dies from Paper Smooches (also local to me!)  I made four of the same card and it took me about an hour to put them together from concept to complete.

Isn't that cactus paper cuuute and fun?  I picked that up at the Paper Collage (their own design) and decided with all it's got going on I'd let it shine with just a simple die cut sentiment.  I used the Joy Dies from Paper Smooches to create a shaker panel.  I cut my strip of white and then die cut the largest background Joy from it.  Then I cut the smaller Joy from red paper and just added the outline to the window after placing the acetate behind the panel.  Finally I added the strip of plaid from my stash and then just popped the sentiment up over it after adding sequins... easy peasy!  That pretty bow from the Ribbon Dies was perfect to finish it off!

That's me for today!  

I have had so much fun making Christmas cards all year!  And we're gonna do it again in 2020 and guess what!!  We've got a couple more people that will join us too!  So for today, be sure to head on over to Debra's blog and check out what she's got for you!

Now for the winner of some Happy Mail from last month's post:

Whoop!  Meghan please PM me your address so I can drop something in the mail to you!

Thank you so much to those of you who have stuck with me all year!  Leave me some love on this post here and maybe I can send you some Happy Mail next month!

The Cutting Cafe - Folded Calendar Inspiration!

Welcome to some Cutting Cafe Inspiration!  Today we're playing with the 2019 Folding Calendar!  This is a fantastic, easy and fun file to play with!  The size is around 3x8 as it comes, but it could easily be modified to a smaller size if you wanted.  It's the perfect size to throw into a purse or bag for a quick reference.

I cut mine from some heavy kraft cardstock... the perforations that the file creates help this to fold SO easily and lay so flat.  I tried to keep it that way so I chose some pretty Arizona papers from my LSS and simply added the 2019 on the front using some die cuts.  I chose to keep mine closed with some ribbon, although a cool elastic type band would help to make it more purse friendly, so I'm going to see about getting something like that.  But for now, the green ribbon makes me smile!

I decorated the inside calendars using a cactus stamp set and then I highlighted important dates with color coded hearts.

I added my coding on my "Notes" page, but the cool part is I could replace this page any time with a new fresh notes page if I want.

And I printed this cute sentiment from the 2019 Planner file and foiled it to decorate the inside... I love this saying!  It's a good reminder...

 

These would make fantastic gifts too!  You could make them in any color and decorate as much or as little as you want!

So fun!

Now!  Head on over to the Cutting Cafe to see what everyone has created using this Folded Calendar!  Be sure to comment on the Cutting Cafe Blog for your chance to win three files of your choice and then hop around to check out all of the details!