Welcome to Wednesday! We’ve been busy here – getting ready for all of the Holiday Activities – and Nadya is enjoying playing with her Little People Nativity – though Baby Jesus spends more time on the roof of the Nativity than her Angel does – she says he can see the sky better from there.

In amongst laundry and last minute creative ventures, I have a little goodie for you. I used these:  to create this: Our family Christmas card for 2009.  Now, I’m hoping ArtsCow and the USPS have them delivered in time for me to mail them out!   I altered the background of our photo using Jodiann’s Snow Styles – as it was rather plain before.  I love how “festive” everything looks! The lovely Kristine of Designs by Kristine has graciously allowed me to offer the 4×8 card as a free goodie for her aptly titled Festive Kit.  So, you get a 4×8 300 DPI PNG like the card above – minus the photo of my cute lil one and handsome hubby! You can get your download here – and leave me comment if you do – I love reading them.

Have a fabulous Wednesday and don’t forget to visit Kristine’s blog if you didn’t arrive here from there, I have it on good authority that there’s a little something there in celebration of her daughter’s birthday (Happy Birthday Julez!!!)

I hope everyone is toasty warm!  We’ve been hit with a lot of cold air – not as cold as some, but definitely cold for us!  For today’s Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff project, I have a couple of cute winter-themed cards and a little treat for you!

But, before we get to the details, I wanted to let everyone know that Lindsay is having a phenomenal sale – buy any 2 kits get a 3rd one of your choice FREE! How awesome is that?!?! That means this is the perfect time to grab her Warm Winter and  Winter Printables kits – and get a third one free (perhaps her new Calendar and Scrapbook Page Toppers?)! Woohoo! Now, for my cards! I created the 5×7 card base in Photoshop! The base layer is filled with dark green followed by having one of Jodiann’s  fabulous Snow Styles applied. The center mat is light blue with the same style applied to it.  Then a burgundy mat was added behind the blue one.  Both mats have small frames added using SuperBladePro filters and presets from Meadows Studio. Once I had created the card, I added the snow people and sentiment from Lindsay’s Warm Winter set. I “pieced” and colored them in Photoshop (I used Di’s new Miscellaneous Textures on the “girl snow person’s” beret and scarf before printing.  After printing, I added Glossy Accents (Ranger) to their eyes, mouths and buttons and Polar White Flower Soft to create snow along the bottom edge.  Here’s a close-up: Now for the next card:I created the card base using the same process as above – with different colors of course!  The fabulous cocoa mug and sentiment are also from Lindsay’s Warm Winter set.  I pieced the mug using an awesome paper from Lindsay’s Winter Printables set  and extended the candy can and marshmallows beyond the frame to added dimension; then printed my card (with an extra set of marshmallows and candy cane).  I cut the candy cane and marshmallows out and adhered them with pop dots for extra dimension and then coated them with Glossy Accents for shine.  The marshmallow bubbles in the mug were created with pearlescent fabric paint while I’m waiting for my Smooch to arrive! Here’s a close-up:Now for your treat – I have zipped the card bases for you and am offering them for free – please enjoy and leave a comment if you download!

Don’t forget to visit Lindsay’s blog if you didn’t come from there – she has a new freebie and the links to the rest of the DT blogs!

Happy crafting and stay warm!

My Father-In-Law’s birthday is this coming week, so in addition to a zillion other things on my list, I needed to create a birthday card for him. I “pieced” this fabulous digital stamp from Dustin Pike using digital papers from Jodiann’s  just released Christmas Be kit – I love the rich colors and textures and thoughtthey’d be perfect with Frosty. Frosty’s hat and scarf as well as his “soaking” mug all feature papers from Christmas Be (which is on-sale right NOW). I used gradient fills and layer masks to “color” the cocoa, marshmallows, carrot, and Frosty’s mouth and to add just a bit of shadow/depth to the paper pieced objects…and I thought blending with my copics was a challenge!  So here’s my digital image, ready for printing:

And here’s what I should have done – instead of leaving the background white, I should have used this fabulous crumpled glitter paper from Christmas Be – like I did for the sentiment – ah well – I’ll save this one- who knows he might appear on a Christmas card or two: Here’s the sentiment – I generated it in Photoshop – man I love that glitter  paper!Here’s the finished “product”: Once I printed Frosty and the sentiments, I used my corner rounder to trim the focal image and front sentiment – then adhered them to red mats made from red mirror cardstock (The Papercut).  My husband likes me to “keep it simple” when I’m working on cards for his Dad, but I did manage to sneak in a little bling.  After attaching everything to a blue CS base (DCWV), I added pieces of “coal”  – Black Bauble Drops from my friend Suzanne at Crafting-Connection and black glitter glue eyebrows (and you thought I just forgot to color those items in!).   I coated the marshmallows and the snowflake in Glossy Accents (Ranger) as Michaels and Hobby Lobby were both out of Judikins Diamond Glaze and highlighted the snowflakes with my white gel pen. Viola – one birthday card complete.

That’s all from me – today is errand day for Nadya and I – so now that she’s awake, I’m gonna give her a bath and we’ll head out!  Happy Monday everyone!