Christmas Cards - Surrounded with Music

I've been considering how to share the many ideas that flooded my mind when I saw the challenge at the Path of Positivity: Surround Yourself with Music. I especially identify with the idea of "surrounding myself" when it comes to music. I've worked on several Christmas cards to express Christmas joy using a music theme because singing carols was always a big part of my life.

As a child we would have a children's choir to sing in church Christmas programs. In Girl Scouts, we sang carols and served cookies to elderly folks in nursing homes. As a teen I sang in school choirs and learned I could sing alto to the familiar carols and popular Christmas songs. My mom would have my friend who lived next door, a soprano, come over so the two of us could serenade her acappella with Christmas songs. Our amazing music teacher taught us so many songs with a Christian message back then. My friend became a music teacher and greatly influenced my music choices. While living there I fell in love with classical music and keep that on in my car to relax me and in my craft room  to inspire my artwork.

In college, a professor convinced me I was a soprano and taught me how to stretch my vocal chords, which helped me in the years I taught in Christian schools. I was the teacher who led the children's singing in Christian programs in two of the schools.
When I was a teacher in public school, we would put classical cd's in our computers to play soft classical Mozart to help the kids calm themselves and focus. It really worked! It does the same for me, now, too!

It's probably no surprise, then, that I keep a separate box of just music related papers and embellishments to use on crafts.  Here are two cards I made celebrating music and Christmas! This first one uses CTMH Beary Christmas paper and an old carol from the back of a Graphic 45 paper I had cut up. Since it was called "The Holly and the Ivy," I embossed the top with a holly embossing folder.

The second one uses papers from long-retired Mistletoe papers and a more recently retired PML card of carolers, all from CTMH.

I hope you, too, find that music uplifts your spirit when you need it and find wonderful ways to enjoy Christmas carols this season as we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I'm sharing this post with the following challenges:
Aud Sentiments #194 - Christmas + A Sentiment (2nd card)
Heart 2 Heart Challenge - Anything goes with a CTMH product
International Art & Soul Challenge #22 - Buttons and Bows (first card)
Moving Along with the Times #59 -  Christmas Animals (2nd card)
Path of Positivity Challenge #53 - Surround yourself with music (optional)

A Craft Fair or Christmas Present Idea

I usually spend my crafting time making cards or scrapbooking, but this is the season for giving! For me, it's the season for making! I love using scrapbook supplies for gifts when I can get a good idea. This project post is the result of the post I saw today at the challenge at C.R.A.F.T.

Here's an easy gift I made one for a relative that likes seasonal decorations and candles.

I added a fragrant candle inside a mason jar, layers of burlap and antique and lacy ribbons, stacked Petaloo flowers and some Christmasy pine cones with berries attached to doubled thick jute.  It was easy and fun to make! I don't think she'll look at my blog post before Christmas so I hope it will still be a surprise!

I'm sharing this project with the following challenges:

C.R.A.F.T. Challenge #444 - Christmas Present
Crafty Creations #355 - anything goes
The Merry Christmas Challenge #45 - anything goes + Christmas

Christmas Presence

Did you take advantage of Thanksgiving or Black Friday sales? I've finished shopping for a few of my kids and grandkids.  With the emphasis on gift-buying, it's easy to focus more on the presents than in the "PRESENCE" of the one who gave His name and life to Christmas. That's why I chose to white emboss the Verve sentiment: The magic of Christmas is not in the presents but in HIS presence.

This Christmas card is a quick and easy one I made using scraps of Basic Grey paper and a lovely PML card from the retired CTMH Pear and Partridge collection.  I popped up the main panel, sentiment and a couple of squares wrapped in twine to represent gifts to give it a little more dimension.

Thank you for visiting! May you enjoy the PRESENCE of Christ as you make preparations to celebrate His Christmas birth!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

Challenge Up Your Life #80 - Trees
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge #361 - anything Christmas
Crazy 4 Challenges  #413 - Christmas card
Daring Cardmakers - Trim the Tree
Winter Wonderland - traditional Christmas colors - red and green

Thankful

I've been really thankful today! Since I'm allergic to eggs I can't take the flu shot and several days after meeting lots of people at a craft fair I got the flu, then my auto-immune thing started and left me with lots of muscle spasms. It's been four years since my leg muscles were so contracted that it felt difficult to walk. That time it had lasted for about a year, so I've been praying and resting a lot, taking the extra magnesium and other nutrients my doc at KUMC wants me to take.  Today I can tell I'm getting better, so you can imagine how thankful I am that it's only been a week instead of a year!

Here are two versions of a Thankfulness card I made using the Cricut. I used brighter fall colors for the first.   I chose a leaf cut that had some vein details cut into the center. I inked the edges of the cut out leaf and backed the negative leaf space with some old Pomegranate paper from my stash.

My second one with more subdued colors and I think I like it even more.

Inside, I printed a lovely Thanksgiving Prayer I found all over internet. I saved the inside pages as jpgs if you'd like to use them. On the left inside I printed:

On the right inside I printed:

Thank you for visiting! I hope you'll have many reasons to be thankful and to share your thankfulness with others!

I'm sharing these cards with the following challenges:
Crafty Calendar November Challenge - Autumn Colors
Dragonfly Journeys #105 - Glamorous gold
Dream Valley #168 - Add texture
International Art and Soul #21 - Autumn Colours
Use Your Stuff #289 - Thankful

Ingredients:  CTMH cardstock, retired Enchantment Fundamental (Pomegranate), Falling for You designer paper, Gold Glitter paper; CTMH Goldrush and Pomegranate inks;  Cricut leaf cut from A Child's Year, CTMH "Leaves" embossing folder, CTMH "Thankful for You" thin cut; retired CTMH buttons, fibers and ribbon from my stash

Craft Fair and Christmas Cards

I ignored blogging for an entire month while I made more crafts for the largest craft fair in our area. My friend that usually helps with our booth had surgery, so two other stamping friends came to the rescue on short notice. They brought 350 cards, individually packaged with the inside sentiment rewritten/stamped and in view on the back of the package and manned the booth with me! I knew they were overachievers, but they certainly exceeded my expectations. I was afraid they'd go home with too many cards, but yesterday customers also exceeded purchases of previous years buying LOTS of cards! It really helps having card racks full of unique handmade cards!

I learned years ago that I needed a wide variety of papercrafts to appeal to a wide variety of customers. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take photos of some of the items that sold out quickly. Later this week I'll take and post photos of a few that had some individual items left.

Here are black and gold Christmas cards that I shared there, thanks to a workshop shared by Jaime Llewellyn. I changed a couple of sentiments and embossed all of them in gold.

Thanks for visiting!