Let the Christmas cards....begin!

I would like to start off today by apologizing for my infrequent posting lately.  I am living in temporary, rather cramped circumstances right now while we go through the process of purchasing a home that is a short sale.  If any of you have been through this, you know that it can take a long time!  Thankfully we are pretty far along and there is an end in sight.  But in the meantime my family and I are rather squashed which makes living, let alone crafting, a rather laborious process.  I miss my craft room!  It makes a big difference in my ability to create when my supplies aren't as accessible and I don't have a clean, quiet space to work in.  Hopefully, in a few weeks we'll be moving into our house and I can get my craft room established - just in time to need to start producing in earnest for the holidays!

Did someone say holidays?  This past weekend I brought out some Christmas card samples and asked my husband which one he liked the best, and he responded, "You're making Christmas cards already?!"  To which I replied, "It is a crafter's prerogative to start start the holidays early!"  Especially when there are classes to teach, deadlines to be met, swaps to complete...

So this week I will be showing some, what I would call, intermediate level cards.  These are pretty simple designs, with some slightly time consuming details.  If you want to make cute Christmas cards my best advice is to invest in some good paper, and add a little bling.  Here is my husband's favorite:

Stamp:  My Pink Stamper Christmas Wishes
Cricut Cartridge:  Christmas Solutions
Embossing:  Cuttlebug Winter Wonderland set
Paper:  Roberts Crafts (silver), Coredinations Gemstones (Pearl), Stampin' Up! (brocade blue)
Edge Punch:  Fiskars
Embellishments:  Silver cord (Stampin' Up!), gem, Silver embossing powder

For those of you who got all those free cartridges when you registered your Gypsy, if you haven't already, make sure you check out that Christmas Solutions cartridge.  There are some really beautiful designs on there!  I think the best thing I did to prepare for the upcoming Christmas crafting season was spend some quality time with my Gypsy.  Oh the possibilities!