Mojo Monday 473 Christmas Joy

I've been absent too long creating for our community's craft fair, then recuperating afterwards! This was the 25th craft fair and so many craft-loving people came! Now I'm having to make Christmas cards like crazy because we had to fill our card rack four times. The second day I had to take cards I'd planned on keeping because we sold so many this year. This is the first year I wondered what to do at the end of the first day when our tables and racks looked half-empty. I'd prayed that God would bless the sales because the proceeds were going to Him and an area charity. Sales were beyond my imagination. I may show photos of our booth later.

Here is this week's Mojo Monday card using CTMH City Sidewalks paper. I usually find it more difficult to know how to use paper with a scene, but the square in this sketch gave me a chance to use it. The holly was cut using Cricut City Sidewalks. The "slit" was filled with green glitter glue and the berries were coated with a little Liquid Glass. I love using the Ranger Princess Gold embossing powder that CTMH sells!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:
Bitten By the Bug2 - Nature/Christmas - my holly from Cricut City Sidewalks.
Mojo Monday #473 - sketch

To make Christmas cards more quickly I've made several from each pack of paper using simple designs, duplicated stamped parts like the "JOY" on the first card assembly-line fashion, and printed multiple inside sentiments I keep on my computer or stamped the same sentiment inside multiple times.

 Here's another one using the same gold-embossed sentiment and some older CTMH White Pines paper begging to be used up!

Here's another using the same White Pines background with some strips of Frosted and a snowflake cut using Cricut Flower Market: I'm sharing it with Heart to Heart Challenge - Christmas but no Red or Green. How about blue, white and chocolate?

I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever use up the Christmas paper packs I've hoarded over the years!  May God bless you as you craft and bless others with your own cards!

Pink Christmas Gifts Greeting

 

This is Breast Cancer Awareness month, so pink is in! Jingle Belles challenge ladies donate $2.00 to the Breast Cancer Research Fund for each pink card entered in their challenge! When I saw the color dare at Color My Heart Color Dare I envisioned Christmas gifts all wrapped in pink. The color dare is to use only White Daisy, Pixie, and Cotton Candy, so I pulled out those inks and some retired paper fundamentals that matched those colors. This was so fun and easy I made more than one.

The gifts are each 2" square so the card is 6.5" x 5."  The sentiment was stamped with Cotton Candy, a recently retired ink.  It's one of the small stamp sets that's only 2.95, perfect for small spaces. I used the CTMH Snowflakes Embossing Folder for the background, White Twine, White Glitter Paper under the sentiment.  The Pixie Twine was also recently retired. Since I'm trying to use up my retired CTMH papers I decorated the insides as well:

(Sorry, CTMH friends. I just had to use this verse by Dawn McVey from Papertrey Ink because it emphasizes the best gift - Christ's gift of salvation. Thank you, Dawn!)

Thank you for visiting! I hope you'll consider entering some pink cards in the Jingle Belles challenge and help support research for curing breast cancer!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:
All Sorts #385 - Let's make it PINK
Color My Heart Color Dare #215 - White Daisy, Pixie, Cotton Candy ONLY

Crafty Catz #342 - all tied up
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas #303 - cute or anything Christmas goes
Daring Cardmakers - seriously monochromatic
Jingle Belles Challenge - Pink Christmas

Autumn "Forever Blessed" Display Journal

Fall is such a beautifully colored time of year. Here's a great fall color inspiration from the current (Pin)spirational Challenge that got me into the mood to use some great fall papers.

Then I found this base for a card. A couple of years ago I had started to make a fall card using a 6" x 6" kraft card that had a scalloped flap. I put on background paper but didn't get any farther because I lost my inspiration. I really don't like to send square cards because I have to drive to town to the post office to pay extra and get it stamped for special handling since U.S. post offices aren't set up for square cards. Today when I came across the unfinished base I had a much better idea. I kept thinking it would make a nice mini-album, but with Thanksgiving in a few weeks I thought I would make it into a small display journal for listing BLESSINGS. With that idea the rest came easily. I stapled some folded (slightly trimmed)  6" x 12" papers inside with two stamped verses about God's blessings and left plenty of room on multiple pages for people to write what they're thankful for.

It could be passed around on Thanksgiving for each one to add something and then bring out each year with the other decorations for everyone to read what had been written. I keep a Thanksgiving scrapbook that everyone enjoys looking at each year, but the journaling is always mine. This could be everyone's "journaling." The inside pages are ombre colored cream, yellow, and orangish, but the lighting doesn't really show this. The back sides were white, so I added 3/4" strips of the leafy paper along the outside edge to decorate.

Both of the verses I used inside are from Our Daily Bread Designs Scripture Series 2 stamp set. "From the fullness of His Grace we have all received one blessing after another." John 1:16 and "God richly gives us everything to enjoy." 1 Timothy 6:17. I could have put in more from other sets, but I mainly wanted to leave lots of room for people to write.

All of the papers are from an old Close To My Heart 2010 paper pack, "Olivia." The copper word charm was from an old CTMH set called Harvest Charms. The die cut oval is from Spellbinders and the word die is from Simon Says Stamp. The leaves and flower are Michaels Recollections. After I finished I decided to make a few more to share at our local craft fair next month.

Thank you for visiting! May you be ever thankful for your many blessings and find ways to share them with others!

I'm sharing this project with the following challenges;
Craft for the Craic - Autumnal Twist with Kraft
Crafty Enjoyments #10 - anything but a card
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper October challenge - anything with patterned paper
Dies R Us Challenge #59 - Fall
Let's Craft and Create #118 - Halloween/Autumn/Fall
Not Just Cards #37 - anything goes
Ooh La La Creations #215 - Shades of autumn
(Pin)spirational Challenge #176 - photo inspired colors and texture

Cricut City Sidewalks Blog Hop

Welcome to our blog hop featuring artwork we've made using the new Close To My Heart City Sidewalks Cricut cartridge. You're on the right path if  you just came from Gina's blog. To find the complete list of participants you can go to Melinda Everitt's blog post here.

I'm sharing a double z-fold Christmas card that I made using the cartridge. (The card is a 5" x 6.5" base. I will give details on making a z-fold card at the bottom of the post.)

Here's the front when it's closed:

I wanted it to look like someone driving from the woods to their house, so the first panel has birch trees from the Oh, Deer! paper pack. The other large panels have the blue dotted paper from City Sidewalks paper pack looking like snow beginning to fall. I added a few bitty sparkles to add to that impression along with some shine on every roof, sidewalk, and the tree and gifts on the car by using the Shimmer Brush.

I used only the red portion of the sentiment. and left a panel blank so it can be signed.

Now you're ready to visit Judy's blog to see her lovely creation!

Double Z-fold details: You can make any sized card into a double z-fold. Since mine is 6.5" x 5" I scored the front side of the card in half at 2.5" then I cut a 1.5"  x 10" strip  (could be any heighth) and scored it at 2.5" and 5" but turned it the other way so the folds were on the opposite sides. I covered all the panels twice, each mat 1/8th inch smaller each way than the previous mat. When I attached the small strip to the main card, I only put adhesive on the area where the two touched.

Cricut City Sidewalk details: I knew the dimensions of my panels before selecting the sizes of my Cricut pieces. That was important in selecting the width of each piece. The row of four houses was 5" because I intended to cut it in half. I also trimmed a little of the sidewalk off on each end and in the middle where I cut it in half. I had new mats, but possibly needed a newer blade since some of the details were so small. I added a small strip of paper to the back of the tree and gifts on the car where they stuck out from the card since they were barely overlapping. If you'd like to use my cut file you can find it here.  I used cardstock from the City Sidewalks coordinating cardstock along with White Daisy and Whisper.

Thoughts and Prayers for Amazing Grace

It wasn't until I was 29 that I gave much thought to the concept of God's grace and how it applied to my life.  I was practicing a duet to sing in church on Sunday, "He Giveth More Grace." The first verse burned into my memory and returns when I need to hear that little voice playing in my head:

He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.

That winter I also memorized 2 Corinthians 12:9 - "And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for you; for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."  That verse meant so much to me all that winter. I was tired and nauseated all the time during pregnancy, teaching, mothering a highly allergic child, and trying to adjust to a Nebraska sand hills winter. (We had snow on the ground from Thanksgiving until mid-March.) The church provided a parsonage and health insurance for us but only $75 a month in cash.  I had canned a lot of food that I'd raised in our garden and a farmer gave us a beef for Christmas. Somehow it always worked out. We even had company for meals at least once a week.  I always look back to that time in that church with those believers as the most positive days of anywhere I ever lived. God strengthened me, gave me a positive influence, and blessed me as well. What an amazing God we have who sees our limitations and weaknesses and strengthens us with His immeasurable grace!

So I combined the Verve stamp about His amazing grace will bring us through with the the Simon Says stamp to let someone know our prayers are with them:

I combined the color theme from Shopping Our Stash (perfect with CTMH Swan Lake paper)  with the sketch from Paper Craft Crew:

Thank you for visiting! May God bless you with an increasing awareness of the workings of His grace in your life that you may share that with others!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:
Crafting By Designs - add a sentiment
Paper Craft Crew #214 - sketch
Shopping Our Stash Weekly #273 - fall color theme
Word Art Wednesday #252-253 - anything goes that's uplifting/family friendly

Mojo Monday #468 Scripture Display Album Page

Every morning when I wake up I "hear" a hymn in my mind as I pray for guidance for the day. I like to write the words in my planner so that I can see how the Lord has used that during the day to guide my life. My son is a programmer who seems to work about 90 hours a week. This week he was sharing with me how he gets the best ideas for resolving programming problems early in the morning when he's in the shower. I shared with him that we should acknowledge God's leadership in our lives because this is one of the ways He leads us. I chose Proverbs 3:5-6 for this page in the Scripture Display Albums that I'm making:  "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." This comes from the Our Daily Bread Designs Scripture Collection 2 stamp set.  (You can see some of the previous pages by clicking on the link in the labels below.)

I used the pink, blue, brown colors from the Our Daily Bread Designs Shining the Light Challenge. and the Mojo Monday sketch that I adapted this week for this page:

I'm making six giftable flip albums that can be set on a desk or shelf to display encouraging verses. On this page I used a Martha Stewart punch for the heart border and Cricut Design Space with the Lacy Labels cartridge to cut the scalloped square with its frame. Here's another  page with a frame I cut using this cartridge. The stamp is from ODBD Scripture Collection 3. This cartridge is full of lovely frames on labels! If you'd like to buy any of the individual frames that are sized for these ODBD stamps, you may use my cut file.

Thanks for visiting. May you find perfect direction in life as God makes your paths straight.

I'm sharing this project with the following challenges:

4 Crafty Chicks #319 - Die Cuts
Aud Sentiments Challenge #165 - anything goes plus a sentiment
Bitten By the Bug 2 - Frame It Up (cricut-cut frame)
Crafty Gals Corner #92 - die cuts/punches
Mojo Monday #468 - sketch
Our Daily Bread Designs Shining the Light Challenge #279 - colors
Word Art Wednesday #250 - 251 - anything goes family friendly

A Cheerful Heart Is Good Medicine - Album Page

I'm working on pages for my Scripture Display Albums this week. I'm making six giftable albums that can be displayed on a desk or shelf. I love the important message and encouragement in each verse. The verse on this page means a lot to me since I get sick more easily than most people. It's also motivation to cheer others when they are sick. This stamp is from Our Daily Bread Designs, "Get Well."

I used the sketch from Always Playing with Paper and Cricut cuts using the Lacy Labels cartridge:

Thank you for visiting. May you find joy and peace in times of illness that speed your healing and may you share good cheer with friends and relatives to help when they are sick!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

Always Playing with Paper Challenge #80 - sketch

Crafting by Designs - October anything goes

My Time to Craft #330 - anything but a card

The Crafty Addicts #25 - Anything Goes/use patterned paper

Word Art Wednesday #250-251 - anything goes family friendly