Operation Santa Thank Yous

This is the beginning of craziness around here. For the next 6 weeks or so I will be heading the Postal Service's Operation Santa program for the Sierra Coastal District. This includes opening thousands of letters, weeding out the needy from "I wants" and coaxing willing coworkers to help write back to kids. This is on top of my already busy work day....so by the time I get home I am utterly exhausted so my posting will most likely be very erratic.

Last year I co-headed Operation Santa and wanted to give a "thank you" to helpful Postal employees and wonderful people who helped needy families. I never got around to making them and promised I would this year. I needed something easy, not too difficult to mass produce and most important, cute!

I used my Scallop Santa from last year HERE and made 30 so far. I've been lucky and have received great response from employees willing to lend their time to keep the magic alive for children writing to Santa.




Ingredients: All SU!
{Paper} Whisper White, Real Red, Basic Black, Blushing Bride, (DCWV peach color)
{Extras} 3/4" circle punch-hat, mustache; 1/4" circle punch-eyes, mouth; 1/2" circle-nose; Flower punch from itty bitty punch pack; Scallop circle die

Scallop Love

I found this awesome tutorial HERE I wish I would have had this a couple years ago for my "Santa" theme. (Yes I do themes for Christmas. It's a sick habit I know) I added glitter to Santa's hat and topper. You can't really tell. He came out cute for a first try, I may try to jazz him up a little before I actually make these for friends =)




Ingredients:
Scallop die: Spellbinders
Circle punches: 1/4" {eyes, mouth}, 1/2" {nose} 3/4" {moustache & hat topper}
Flower punch bought at Target a few years ago
Glitter: Martha Stewart

Little did I plan it, but this was the 3rd year in a row I've made handmade ornaments for our tree. In 2007 we bought a foam box set at Michaels with gingerbready people and houses and glitter glued them. Last year I got the idea from Martha Stewart and made glitter ornaments. Now that was a work of love because it took forever to finish those! This year we just didn't get the Christmas stuff out of storage so I made ornaments with my Cricut!

Nothing special, just put in the cardstock and picked my ornament from the "All Mixed Up" cartridge. At first I made 2" ones because we were just going to get a tabletop tree. Lo and behold we found a 6' one on clearance so I had to make 3" ornaments too =) I also added a Christmas stamp to the inside of the ornament so it wasn't so plain. If I'd thought of this in early December it would have been cute to embellish the ornaments like a red nose on the reindeer. I also made a "Merry Christmas" sign to put above the computer desk.


Have fun and Merry Christmas!

First Post

Well this is my first post on this blog. This will hopefully be my crafting blog where I can share all things crafty that I make. Here's my first....it's my Christmas card for this year. For the life of me I can't remember where I got the sketch for the card.



Ingredients: size 5"x7"; paper: Bazzill, Chatterbox, Recollections; stamp set: Stampin Up! Jolly Holiday, studio G; hole punch; stamp die from Cuttlebug; ink; Doodlebug flocking in cottonball; Martha Stewart glitter & glue