Christmas Hugs Card

The Stampendous monkey cling stamp was purchased at the beginning of the holiday season and I've only now made use of it. Well, at least I have a template for my next year's Christmas cards. The holidays will be here again before you know it so it's nice to know I have a plan started. On this card I again used one of the new Hero Arts/Sizzix stamping embossing sets. The red and green dotted paper started out ho-hum, but once it was stamped and embossed with trees, it became ho-ho-ho holiday. I used the new Sizzix die (from a set) without the word rubber stamp to cut the label shape. There are lots of useful printed sayings that go with the die shapes in this set. I chose to stamp a Dandelion Design Christmas stamp inside the label. To embellish the image of the really cute monkey wrapped up in Christmas lights, I used Martha Stewart glitter glue. These MS glitter glues work as well as the Stickles and they come in a whole compact set. (It would make a terrific Christmas gift!) To give a sparkly evergreen look to the tree I added MS limeade tinsel glitter. The light bulbs were from the Christmas miniature section of the Ben Franklin Crafts store.

Here are a more last-minute Christmas gift ideas. Who doesn't need and love pens? This jumbo set of colorful gel pens (48) is just $19.99 which is less than 42 cents for each pen! Crafters who make notepad sets will find this very economical and a bundle of pens is a great addition to any teacher/coach/office worker gift. The Memento pen sets have pretty assortments and the wonderful Tsukineko technology. Santa, please bring me all the sets because I couldn't choose just one. I also wanted to show you the candy shop gel pens (American Crafts) available singly in mouthwatering colors (some with sparkles) that you should choose for your own stocking stuffers. Yup, if you hurry you can still pick up some wonderful gifts at Ben Franklin Crafts and be sure to check out the special sales on selected Christmas items. There are some really terrific bargains so why not stock up for next year? I'll beat you to them if you don't hurry. LOL!