There is only one "C" in Christmas!

I think the ‘C’ in Christmas stands for crafting, not cooking or cleaning. (Cookie baking is a form of crafting so that’s allowed too.) I’m almost finished crafting everything I planned to make this year, except for two bracelets and an album. My Christmas cards will have to be Season’s Greetings again so I can include a family newsletter (not yet written) along with a New Year's wish. Happily, I was able to wrap up everything and get the packages mailed out before the post office’s recommended deadline. One of the gifts I am giving is fragile so I found a great wooden box (Sierra Pacific) at Ben Franklin Crafts. They have lots of shapes and sizes of good quality wooden boxes at very reasonable prices. Anyway, I liked the look of the unfinished wood surface and wanted to simply wrap it to let the wood grain show. Martha Stewart’s wood grain wrapping papers and ribbons gave me the idea to just paper the top of the box and tie the wide wood grain ribbon around it. (See photo. Click to enlarge.) By adding a few golden sprigs and a tag made from a Sizzix ornament die cutter, I think the wrapping is not only simple but elegant. Use double stick tape or sheet adhesive to adhere the paper to the top of the box. Spray adhesive also works, but don’t use a liquid glue as it will wrinkle the paper.
Now that I can emboss paper with stencils and the Big Shot, making cards is really easy. The cards photographed use two stencils from Dreamweaver, the poinsettia and one with four Hawaiian quilt squares. I found that by stamping a collage design (Hero Arts, Season’s Greetings collage) on white card stock first and then taping the poinsettia stencil over it (use removable tape), I could run it through the Big Shot to emboss. I chalked the poinsettia with red and gold powder before spraying it with a fixative. Then this embossed paper was taped to a dark green card and gold ink was lightly stamped around the edges. Both of these cards were quick to make because of the time saved not having to emboss by hand. If it’s too late for Christmas cards, you can use these techniques for New Year’s cards and thank you notes….

just like me,
Lynn