Well, it's time to get ready for . . .

that most wonderful time of the year.  I love to craft and make things that make people smile.  But in this day of money means all, it is hard to change people and their thoughts/wants/desires.  What do I want for Christmas?  To make people happy, to share a legacy with family who care about who we are, not what we can give monetarily.  So this year I have decided to begin making products that share my heritage/ancestry.  My grandmother left all of her recipe's behind in an old dinged up metal recipe box.  I have kept everything the way I received them years ago, but have decided to make them into something that hopefully one of my children will see and appreciate for what it truly is.  You will get to see more of my thoughts on this subject in the near future.  For now, you get to see some of the Christmas cards I have been working on and started sending out today.  For starters, here is the card that I sent to my parents:

My mother is a wonderful down to earth person.  She finds beauty in simplicity.  So my challenge was to make her a simple card that was at the same time elegant.  I seem to find the most elegant cards are those made with whites and golds, so that was where I was going to start.  With a white card base, I looked around for something to add depth for a background with.  As I began looking through my stencils, I found a beautiful ornate vintage medallion stencil from Layers of Color (LOC).  This was going to be my building block.  I layered the stencil outline with  Momento's Galaxy Gold and I liked what I saw.   Then I started looking for something that would be a perfect sentiment that would speak from my heart to hers.  It took a little while, but I found that too.  Embossed in Gold on pearl white Bazzil cs.  I layered that on a piece of matt gold cs and again, liked what I saw, but now I needed to find something that was a simple yet elevating addition that would bridge between the sentiment and base gold medallion.  After playing around for quite a while, I came across Spellbinder's Symbology dies and there found my answer.  The array around the oval is a single die cut ten times and then placed behind the oval so that it would radiate outward. 

I finished off the sentiment by adding in a gold glitter heart that I had gotten with an order from PizzazAplenty, it was obvious it belonged with what I had going on so far, and then I just needed to finish off underneath the sentiment with some pearls.  The card looked beautiful at this point, but it just needed a little bit more so I began to work a small flower corner in the lower corner.  Again, for mom, less is more, so keeping that in mind I ended with this:

A few flowers  from WOC (Wild Orchid Crafts) with a few leaves, all lightly spritzed in Lindsy's Cactus Gold Glitz Spritz.  Snuggled nice and neatly in an open corner gracing the bottom of the card.

  

Well, that's it for tonight folks :)  I will be back tomorrow to show you some of the other cards I've been working on. 

Blessings,

The above card will be entered into the following challenges:
Fab N Funky Challenges: Anything Goes, Paper Crafting Journey:  Anything Goes;