My January Class

Well, 2010 is almost here.....are you ready? One of the things I do every year to prepare for the new year is create some kind of calendar. This is my calendar for this year, as well as my class for January. I will be teaching this January 6th. This is my first ever weeknight class. It will be taught open house style. You can come anytime between 6 PM and 9 PM and make one of these amazing calendars for $4. The entire project takes about half an hour, so make plans to come join me. Just let me know that you will be coming. Let's all kick the New Year off right together with stamps!

Final Christmas Post of the Year

I know, Christmas has been over for almost a week now, and I'm still posting Christmas stuff. I'm sorry, but I always wait until the last minute to make things, so I have to show them to you after the fact. I promise that one of my resolutions for the upcoming year is to post items a bit more timely on here. As a matter of fact, tomorrow I'll show you my 2010 Calendar class that will be happening next week. How's that for timeliness? :) Anyway, here is a DE gift that, once again, was made at the last minute. My neighbor had a single Army guy come over for Christmas Eve dinner (which by the way was one of my favorite German meals of all time....Rouladen. MMMMMmmmmm!). We were all exchanging gifts, so she didn't want him to feel left out and asked me to make something for him. I decided to use my Billboard alphabet die and some of the DE sheets to put his name on a little change dish. She also had me make him a Teddy bear card (some kind of inside joke). So, here is what I made for him. My neighbor filled it with chocolate, so we know he liked at least part of it :)

WooHoo!!!!! I'm doing it again!!!!

Can you believe it? I got invited to be a guest designer once again for Ustamp!!! This time it's all about sharing the Love for 2010. And also, once again, I have a FREE PASS to give away. Leave a comment....and I'll choose a winner on Friday January 1st. Can you think of a more wonderful way to start 2010!!!! If you can't wait to sign up, be sure to click the blinkie so you don't miss one wonderful project!

More Extra Special Christmas Cards

I don't mail Christmas Cards. I know, I'm a bad Stampin' Up! lady. I don't know why....I always make tons of cards, but I never seem to get any in the mail. Oh well. This year, I did make a few cards for some extra special friends though. They were all hand delivered, but I think that makes them extra special. All three of these cards were CASEd from some of the wonderful members of my Late Night Stampers yahoo group. Aren't they amazing? Oh, and in case you didn't figure it out, I was all about punches this year. Gotta love that punch art!

Christmas Scene Card CASEd from Jackie TopiaFlower Pot Card CASEd from Susan Timmerman

Polar Bear Card CASEd from Laura Lipe

Katie's Card and a Punch Tutorial for You!

My daughter is a wolf fanatic. She tried to convince us for years that she was actually part wolf! Now that she is a little older (11) she has refocused her wolf love on something a bit more attainable, Huskies. She has been asking for a Husky puppy for the past 4 Christmases. Since we live in Germany, and we already have two pets, that dream isn't going to come true any time soon (Do you have any idea how much it costs to ship a full grown Husky back to the states?!) but I figured I would put a Husky on her Christmas card. I got the idea for his body from Jackie Topia and the hat came from Ellen Kemper, but I put the rest of him together all by myself. Katie seemed to think he was fantastic, and to be honest, I'm pretty proud of myself as well.

Here are all the punches you will need

Wide Oval
Large Oval
Small Oval
3/4" circle
Heart to Heart punch
Small Star
5 Petal Punch
1/8" circle punch or double circle punch or cropadile (for eyes)
Scrap of Black for the Nose

I sponged the white pieces with Going Grey ink before I put them together.
Once assembled your Husky should look like this.

My Husband's Christmas Card

This next card I have to show you was actually already on my to do list. Ellen Kemper posted these beautiful babes (made with the butterfly punch) months ago, and I have been meaning to put one on a card for my hubby. I figured Christmas was as good a time as any, so I gave her a Mrs. Clause make over. Needless to say, he loved his card and she has gotten a place of honor (right next to the Captain Kirk bobblehead and Lego Starship Enterprise...Did I tell you my hubby was a Trekkie?) on his desk.

Christmas Cards for my Family

A few days before Christmas, as I was in a stamping frenzy in my stamp room trying to get all my last minute gifts put together (why do I do this to myself?!) my son approached me and asked why I never made a card for him. As I thought about it, I realized my poor children never even got a home made birthday card from me. So, just in case I didn't have enough to do already, I decided to make a special card for both of my children and my husband. I know that Christmas is over, but I had to make sure they opened the cards before I showed them to you. This first one is the one I made for my son. He's six and absolutely enthralled with Batman. All he asked for from Santa was Batman toys. Even Santa wrote him a letter telling him all the elves were running out of ideas for new Batman toys! So.....here comes Mom to the rescue. I never thought Batman looked better!

Merry Christmas from the Mayous!

Hope your day is filled with friends, family, and joy that carries on into the new year!

Final Christmas Present

I know I know....nothing like waiting until the last minute. Well actually, this wasn't my procrastination. This was the procrastination of one of my co-workers. Her neighbor, who is an avid baker, brought her over a ton of cookies and other treats as a Christmas present. My co-worker felt badly about not having anything to give her back, so she asked me if I could whip something up. I figured every cook needs some recipe cards. Luckily these were already made up for some other long forgotten project, so I just added my Chef and Belly Band and Voila'......Instant Christmas present!

Rude cards take 3

Today is the final day of the Unsympathy cards. While these were the only six that K Werner offered as a download, I have a feeling that there will be more. The soldier that got these cards in the combat gift exchange has already asked me to make more. So, any ideas for some more unsympathy cards? Please let me know!

If you didn't read yesterday's post...

Stop right here. I don't want you to be offended, but these cards I am about to show you were for a combat gift exchange. If you don't know what I'm talking about check out yesterdays post. If you do know what I'm talking about you obviously thought they were as funny as I did and you want to see more. So, here you go! Don't forget, if you are having trouble reading the inside sentiment you can click on the pictures to make them bigger!

I don't want to offend anyone....

so, please take what I am going to show you over the next few days with a grain of salt. First I need to explain. My husband, who is active duty Air Force, had to have a combat gift for his Christmas party this past weekend. A combat gift is part white elephant, and part rude, crude, humor. Since we knew the unmentionable types of gifts would abound......we wanted to do something a bit different. One day a few weeks ago I stumbled across K Werner's Design blog. On there she had this great template you could download called Unsympathy cards. My hubby and I thought this would be the perfect gift for one of his coworkers, so we decided to use them as his combat gift. Now they aren't dirty, and they shouldn't harm anyone's sensibilities, but they are extremely rude.....since everything around the net lately seems to be all Christmas and good cheer....I thought it might be a nice change of pace. I promise, it will be over before you know it. So, without further ado...here are the first two of my Unsympathy cards. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you...the little inset is the inside sentiment. Ok....now, I hope you get as good a laugh out of these as we did!

Office Gift Exchange Present

Well, after all my Customer Appreciation jars, and Teacher jars, I must have had jars on the brain. So, when I got the last minute notice (literally....they told us on Monday that we would be exchanging gifts on Friday) I immediately thought....Jar :) I took another one of those wonderful jars they had at the Tedi (aka German "Dollar Tree") and used some of the white Flurry Decor Elements to decorate the Jar. I put a big one on the front and then 3 smaller ones around the sides. I filled the jar with two bags of Hershey's kisses and then tied some retired Baja Breeze ribbon around it, but it just didn't look right. I decided instead to make a bow and hot glued it to the front. It still looked a little plain, so I took a crystal snowflake ornament and hot glued it to the top. I really love the way it turned out. I do think I'm going to take a break from jars for a while though :)

Final Character Box from Customer Appreciation

The final box we made for the CA Party was Rudolph. I had to do some minor tweaking on him since I didn't have the same die Gretchen used to make hers for the tutorial. I think using the Snowflake #2 die worked just as well though. (I also didn't have access to a red pom pom for his nose. Real Red cardstock and a circle punch to the rescue!)
Speaking of alterations....for those of you who have ever crafted with a group of ladies before, you know that there is always at least one that has to change up your project a little bit and make it their own. Well, my customers are no exception. Brenda decided to add a little something to our Rudolph project....she gave him a butt! For those of you who have had someone change up your design before....it usually is a Duh! moment.....meaning you slap yourself in the middle of the forehead and say "Why didn't I think of that?"! Well this is one of those moments for me (and some of the other ladies at the party as well) so we all added butts to our reindeers too!

Frosty the Snowman

The fourth box we made at my Customer Appreciation party was Frosty the snowman. He was a bit more complex, but even my customer who "doesn't really craft, I just like what other people make" was able to get him put together with little problems. I think he is abolutely adorable and worth the little bit of extra work that had to go into him. What do you think?

One of our CA projects

Remember last week when I showed you Santa and Mrs. Clause? These adorable boxes created by Gretchen Barron were suppose to be the projects we made for the Customer Appreciation party. Since I had so many people attending, I needed a little extra help getting all the packets put together. My good friend, and neighbor Ella came over and helped me by cutting out all the Top Note Dies. Well, while she was there she saw the three other cute boxes that were part of Gretchen's tutorial. After much begging and pleading, she finally convinced me to offer all FIVE!!! boxes as Make N Takes at the party. It's a good thing I like her so much :) So, for the next three days I'll show you our other creations.
This first one is probably my favorite. He is jingle the elf. He was suppose to have a jingle bell on his hat, but since I wasn't planning on making him, I never ordered any (yes, even jingle bells have to be ordered from the states. Oh I miss all those open 24 hours-find anything you want- right down the road stores from the states! Anyway, I think he turned out pretty cute just the way he is. Don't forget if you would like to make one yourself....check out Gretchen's tutorial!

My Customer Appreciation Party Favors

Of course I couldn't let my customers leave my party without a little something special made by me. Here are the party favors each customer got to take home. The jar were purchased at Tedi (think Dollar Tree, but here it would be Euro Tree :) ). Then I just added the Jingle All The Way Decor Element to the top and wrapped some of our amazing Real Red Polka Dot ribbon around the side. I just added a little shredded tissue paper and some chocolate and stamps to the jar and they were instant gifts. None of the ladies forgot to take theirs home, so I guess they liked them!

Oh What fun we Had!!!

Saturday was my first annual (yes, I am planning on the craziness again next year) Customer Appreciation Holiday party. Everyone who is a member of my newsletter, has attended a class, held a workshop, or purchased product from me was invited. Unfortunately some of my customers thought a 10 hour plane ride was a little too far to travel for an afternoon of excitement, but I want you to know you were in all our thoughts (You know who you are!). So I thought maybe you would want to see some of the fun we were having.

This may be the only time my house is this clean....Enjoy it while it lasts! We had 11 people attend, but next year I am hoping to have to rent a space to hold us all. It was a little cozy this year.

These are the gifts that were given to all my wonderful atendees. They all contained awesome Stampin' Up! products. We played dirty Santa, but most of my customers were super nice. I think only two people ended up "stealing" from each other!

Here are some group pictures of all the ladies. We all seemed to have a wonderful time.

Just like Santa's elves, we were super busy creating. I'll show you a few of our projects over the next few days.

Of course I forgot to take pictures of the food table....but we had all required food groups for a true stamping party....Chocolate, Chocolate, and Chocolate. Not only did we have chocolate candy, chocolate cookie, and hot chocolate, but we also had some amazing chocolate fondue!!! Yum Yum!

For those of you who missed it, make sure you contact me after the new year to schedule your workshop so you too can be invited to the Second Annual Customer Appreciation Holiday party in 2010!