Outdoor Nativity Set: Product Review

I was provided with a wonderful opportunity to set up, display and review this beautiful outdoor nativity that you see pictured.  Now before I tell you about the nativity I want to apologize that my yard isn't as well manicured as most but seeing as how I have massive oaks, grass that never wants to grow because of the trees, dogs and children, I have what I have.  lol  Even still this nativity puts the focus where the focus needs to be.....

So who made this little beauty and where do you purchase one?  Well let me tell you.  Outdoor Nativity Sets is a  child company of Teak Isle Manufacturing - a marine supply company.  In 2010 they faced the possibility of having to lay off some of their workforce due to the economic challenges.  Instead of doing so they listened to an employee who recommendation that they try building nativity sets for the holidays as they had done in the past and the rest as they say is history.

Made of a marine grade plastic this nativity is different than any I have ever seen.  It's simple in design, and as I said earlier leaves the focus where the focus needs to be - on our Lord.  The set up was amazingly quick and easy.   And when the season is over everything will be able to be stored in one box thus minimizing space unlike the plastic or inflatable type nativities.

Now all I need to do is start purchasing the add-on pieces such as the angel, wisemen or shepherds.  And you need to "run" on over to Outdoor Nativity Sets to purchase yours today.  What are you waiting for?

Coming Down the Chimney Tonight

Hello fellow bloggers.  I hope that everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving.  We spent our Thanksgiving in Alabama with family and had a wonderful time.  But now that I'm back I figured I'd better get back to making my Christmas cards since it's almost time to get them in the mail.

So today I wanted to share my Coming Down the Chimney Tonight card.  I made this one with the Jolly Holidays card.  It's another quick, easy card - just set your cuts for 4 1/2" and have at it.  I originally cut the house and door in other coordinating colors but it just didn't look right so even though I wanted something other than black for the house I thought it looked best.

And now that I have shared my card I guess I best get back to the unpacking and getting ready to go back to work tomorrow......

Say it With "S" Challenge

I hope that everyone has enjoyed the cards I've shared over the last couple of days.  Today's card was created for this week's Cricut Cardz Challenge.  Our directive this week was to create a card using any image that started with the letter 's'.

For my card I chose:

Snowflake - cut from Accent Essentials embossed with the snowflakes folder and then lightly inked with broken china distress ink

Santa hat (and bird) - cut from Jolly Holidays

The words Merry Christmas were also cut from Jolly Holidays.

And now that you've seen my take on this week's challenge be sure to check out the other fabulous designs our team created.  Then create your own and link up to play along with us.

Here We Come a Caroling....

Hello fellow bloggers.  Today I would like to share another card in what seems to be becoming my "Winter Frolic line".  And this is another card that was inspired by the background paper.  I have this paper in my stash for a couple years now - patiently waiting for the perfect card........

I cut the carolers at 4".  Since I didn't have a paper print that would work for creating the song book I decided to emboss it with the script folder and lightly ink over the embossing.  The music notes were cut at 1".

And remember how I mentioned the other day that I've been using clip art on the inside of my cards to help "finish" them off?  Well today I wanted to share a picture with you.  It's very simple but yet effective, and I love how it looks.

Old Fashion Santa

I love the way that this card turned out and wish that you could see it in real life because I promise that it looks better than the picture.  I made this one using Christmas Solutions/Noel, Accent Essentials and George (for the ribbon holes).

I chose this particular Santa cut because I thought it was perfect for the paper - another Tim Holtz Seasonal mat stack selection.  On the inside of my card I even printed one of the clip art pics of Santa under my sentiment to help finish/compliment the card.  And because I like the look it gave I decided to start doing that on the inside of all my cards that I don't actually scrap.

So what are you doing for your Christmas cards this year?  Are you doing just one design or are you designing a different card for each person on your list?  I'd love to hear how you're doing yours.......

A Child Is Born

This a quick and easy card that I put together this afternoon.  It only required one cartridge - Winter Frolic.  The cuts were done at 3" and the top star was coated with a yellow glitter to add some bling.

Since I wanted some hills I started looking around on some of my other cartridges but then remembered My Cut Search and completed my search there.  However, I was unable to find a cut that I wanted and had yet another recollection.  A while back I purchased one of those Fiskars paper edge guides, found and used it to create my hills.

All in all I was able to get four cards designed, cut and put together today.  Hopefully this means I'll be okay with getting all the cards made that I'll need this year.  lol

Christmas Light

I was looking through one of my card magazines and saw an advertisement that had this card layout in it.  I loved it so much I just had to scraplift it!

I used:

Christmas Solutions/Noel for the street light cut at 6 1/4" and then stretched to widen just a bit
Accent Essentials for the scalloped oval and oval - both of which were circles that I skewed into the oval shape

The paper is from Tim Holtz's Seasonal mat stack.  Don't you just love all things Tim Holtz?  I know I do.

My First Knifty Knitter Scarf

I made this scarf for my little sister who's adoption into the family was finalized this week and has a birthday coming up this week.  She'll be 5 and is all about the princesses and anything dress up so I hope that she'll like this scarf.

I've been trying off and on for weeks to figure out how to use the long looms and after scouring the net found a step by step pictorial that was more helpful than any of the videos I've seen.  Finally, everything clicked and I was on my way.  So to make this scarf I used my smallest knitting loom and then the 12 peg flower loom for my little flowers.

Now that I have this figured out I'm going to try my hand at making some Christmas bells.  According to the pattern it's supposed to be an easy pattern - only thing is I've got to learn a new stitch.  Shouldn't be too difficult to do after watching one of the youtube videos I found.

I'll let you know how it turns out.  Until then..........

Christmas Squirrels

Now that the Cricut Craft Room is up and running I wanted to play around with my E2 so I broke it out and made this card using:

Just a Note for the squirrels
Cricut Essentials for the scalloped circle
Paper Dolls Dress Up for the Santa hats

I love these little Cosmo Cricket critters on the Just a Note cartridge but I'm saddened that my choice in papers did not help the card pop as I had envisioned.  Guess I'll just have to try a different set of cuts and colors for the upcoming CCC challenge for this Wednesday.

Stay tuned..........

Peppermint Hat

Last week I decided to pick my knifty knitters back up so I could give them another whirl.  The long boards have been frustrating me so I set that aside again and went with my round loom for yet another hat.  I love the way that this one turned out, but I think that the beautiful colors of the yarn is what makes this one look so good.

And after finishing this hat I scoured the net to find even more instructions for long looms and think I finally have it figured out.  I pulled out a play skein of yarn and actually have a scarf going so we'll see what happens soon as I'm almost at the end.

I Heard Him Exclaim

I first made this card three years ago but had lost the file.  Thank goodness I photograph all my cards (even ones I don't like - lol) because I was able to recreate and add a new twist on this one.

For those who would like to try creating this one themselves I used:

Christmas Noel/Solutions for the window (door cut stretched to look like a window and fit my card size)
Christmas Noel/Solutions for the Santa and his sleigh
George for the moon
PPDU for the hair and hand

I adhered the window frame to a piece of an acrylic sheet and then pop dotted that to the night sky so that I could add a little bit of flower soft and MS mica flakes for the snow on the window sill.

Harvest Blessings

It's that time again......Yep, it's time for another installment in the Cricut Cardz Challenges and this week our challenge is all about thankfulness.  Our directive this week was to make a Thanksgiving card using any card feature of our liking.  

I chose to use the card feature from page 35 of the Autumn Celebrations cartridge.  I cut this feature out at 5".  But since I wanted all the colors of the cornucopia I cut the top layer of the card feature at 4 1/8" and hid all of the inside contours on the cornucopia.  This then would enable me to create the cornucopia to fit on the card.

I then cut the top half of the card feature in a colored paper so that I could use that to create the inside of the card.  As for the sentiment, it's in there but I had to use my handy dandy ruler to measure and decide where to place my printing so that it wouldn't show behind the cornucopia.

So now that you've seen my take on this week's challenge hop on over to Cardz TV take a gander at the other fabulous cards our Design Team members have created then create your own and play along with us by linking up.......can't wait to see what you come up with.

Elf Approved

Hello fellow bloggers.  I hope that today's post finds you and yours doing well.  As I sit in my craft room smelling the wonderful smell of Spruce mixed with Apple Cinnamon thanks to the air fresheners around my doorway I'd like to share another installment in my Christmas card collection this season.

Today's card is another that was inspired by one I saw in a magazine.  I don't remember which one but the card had an elf and a little tag that said "elf approved".  I thought it was a great card and chose to re-create the theme (not the card itself) using:

Jolly Holidays for the elf pulling his wagon
Christmas solutions for the bear and the baby doll
Christmas Cheer for the gift
Accent Essentials for the tag (which is pop dotted for effect)

Dear Santa

This is another quick and easy card that I put together last night.  I just LOVE Christmas and have all these ideas running around in my head.  Now I just need the time to start committing them to Design Studio or my Gypsy.

In the meantime I created this card by beginning with my computer to create a couple of letters to Santa.  I found this great font called Darlin BTN which I used because it looks just like a child's handwriting.  The hardest part in writing these letters was deciding which words to misspell.  Well okay, it was also difficult remembering what a 6 and 8 year old would ask Santa for - even though I wasn't sure what parts of the letter would be visible when the card was complete.

Once the letters were printed I cut them down to place on my cutting mat so that I could use Graphically Speaking to cut the paper to look like it came from a notebook of some kind.

I also used Winter Frolic for my Santa and the verbiage.  And I must say that I'm happy that I finally broke down and bought this cartridge.  I've toyed around with that decision for the last year so it was about time that I made one.  lol

Warm and Toasty

It's official.....my Christmas card season has now begun.  And this is my first card - inspired by a stamped one I saw in the current issue of Paper Creations.

For my card I used:

Create a Critter for the lamb

Just Because Cards for the word "Ewe"

George for the rectangles

The lamb's scarf is a scrap of eyelash yarn, and speaking of the lamb - I pop-dotted her layers to give her a little bit of dimension.