Its Officially Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

December 1st, or will be in an hour or so.

Here is a project I finished this time last year. The pattern is by Jan Kornfeind, whose website, http://www.countryappliques.com/ is FULL of lovely applique projects.  This particular St. Nick is "Gift Bringer," from the series "Olde World Santas." I sent the wall-hanging to my sister who lives in the Netherlands (notice the "Starry Night/Van Gogh" fabric in the background!). St. Nick was paper-pieced using double-sided iron-on adhesive, then stitched with a fine zig-zag and a few embroidery stitches on my Janome machine, and finally machine-quilted. As we prepare our house for Christmas, I wish we had kept him, but I'll just have to get creative again next year...

First of Several Batches of Gift Tags...

I organized a gift-tag-making workshop for my quilting friends last year. A couple were kind of skeptical about the whole thing, but we had a great day, and needless to say, they were GREAT at paper-piecing!
Sadly, we cannot do so this year, as they are in Milwaukee, and I am now in Canada. But I'm trying to get some friends and family up here interested.
This first batch is using Stephanie Barnard's Penguins4Christmas set from The Stamps of Life: http://www.stephaniebarnardstamps.com/products.htm . I am a Club-member, but now that I'm living "up North" the stamp-of-the-month arrives a little later, so I haven't had an opportunity to use this set until now.  Love the penguin! He is so easy to stamp (just black ink) with a little colour on his beak and toes.

I used some old Christmas-themed patterned paper from Reminisce (Christmas basics) http://designsbyreminisce.com/, some twine from the Twinery http://www.thetwinery.com/ (the colours all seemed to go so well), and of course a little glitz from Stickles here and there. Cute and satisfying! The attempt at using Flower Soft's http://www.katysuedesigns.com/ Polar White for snow wasn't so successful, but I'll keep experimenting... I have time--winter lasts a long time up here...

Another "Amazing Folded Card"

Here is another card design, adapted from Teresa Welch's "Amazing Folded Cards" DVD http://www.paperwishes.com/products/4101515.
It is a flip card: you mark the center of your card-front vertically, trace a shape, centered on the fold, then cut out only half of the shape, and fold the remainder of card-front back, leaving the shape free to flip back and forth, as you open the card.
The owl stamp and sentiment are from Stephanie Barnard's Stamps of Life "owls2love" set http://www.stephaniebarnardstamps.com/products.htm., with the birthday greeting from the "happy2becircles" set. The tree trunk is a Sizzix die, which I cut in half and used on the inside and outside of the card.

The patterned papers are from the retired"Olivia" collection, from Close to My Heart. The leaves were cut using the Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge, and stamped with the "Harvest Happiness" clear stamp set, also from CTMH.
The card was for my 4-year-old niece, Rachel, who decided she didn't want a Disney princess-theme for her party this year, but an autumn one.  Her cake, made by my talented sister and brother-in-law, was covered in edible leaves, made by "painting" real leaves with tinted white-chocolate. It was gorgeous and delicious!

Never-ending Card

My nephew, Cameron, 14, is a gadget-guy. For his birthday, I thought he'd get a kick out of an "engineered card." The original design was created by Teresa Welch, who designs for Hot Off The Press http://www.paperwishes.com/, and can be found on her Amazing Folded Cards DVD. You can see a tutorial on how to cut and fold the card by visiting the PaperWishes site, and looking up the Webisode for May 16, 2011, entitled Amazing Folded Card-making (or use this link) http://www.paperwishes.com/webisodes/?id=347. I should have reviewed this before starting my card, as I got a little ahead of myself, and goofed on the orientation of the lettering on one of the faces... ;$

I used the Steam-punk papers and Dazzle-stickers from PaperWishes (lots of gears, metals and Victoriana), and letter and sentiment stamps from Close to My Heart.  He loved it, and the enclosed $$ towards purchase of a new cymbal (he's an awesome drummer). And the adults at the birthday celebration couldn't stop playing with it!  Try it for yourself!

Hallowe'en Idea for NEXT Year...

As I put away the Halloween decor, I thought I'd share a banner I created, especially for a visit by my young niece and nephew. It was done kind of last-minute, and might have been more embellished if I'd had more time, but then, less is more, right? I used shapes from the Cricut "Art Philosophy" cartridge for the banner and letters, and the spider is from "Doodle charms".  The jack-o-lantern is a Sizzix die. The fuzzy fibers, Stickles accents and themed buttons from JoAnn's, completed the project.