Which holiday is it?

Have you started decorating for Christmas yet?  I know ... we just had Thanksgiving.  I love to celebrate both holidays.  I started decorating my studio on Sunday afternoon, the 22nd of October - the day after my October Saturday Stampers class.  Even then, that gave me just 2 weeks to clean, decorate the studio for Christmas and get ready for my Open House/Christmas party.  At first, it felt a little silly and kind of strange.  But, in no time at all, it because quite fun and I was instantly into the Holiday spirit.  The fun and crazy part of it all is that my house was half and half, with the downstairs being Christmas and the main floor being Fall/Thanksgiving.  That way, Thanksgiving is never neglected.  The day after Thanksgiving, I started turning everything into Christmas.  I love decorating for the holidays, making special gifts and decor to add to my growing Christmas collection.  I'm starting to see houses in our neighborhood showing Christmas tree lights through their windows and garlands on their porch railings.  I'm now nearly finished with the upstairs, except for the Christmas tree.  That will have to wait until they finish cleaning our carpets.  It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.  Trust me, there is a real Spiritual feeling to the entire season for me, as well.  That's what makes it the most wonderful time of the year.  Stay tuned ... they'll be lots more to come!  The fun has just begun.  And, without further ado, here is today's project I'm sharing.

If you remember when the new Annual Catalog came out, I used this frame to introduce and show off our newest In Colors.  Here, I'm displaying a sampling of DSP, some stamps, and our super fun Christmas embellishments.  I forgot to add our charms, but I think I showed pretty much all our other new embellishments.

The 'Merry Christmas' stamp is from our Merry Mistletoe stamp set in our Annual Catalog.  The other stamps are all from our Holiday Catalog.

I love the little elf holding the 'Happy Holidays' sign.  I later went back and gave him a tiny pom on top his hat.

 ... and here are some gift bags I made for our children's Christmas Shoppe at our church. 

The Latest Scoop:
I STILL HAVE 2 REMAINING KITS FROM OUR CHRISTMAS RETREAT. / EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO MAKE 18 CARDS! / $40.00 

December 11 -- Scraps and Prayers Class:
     5:30-7:30 / $15.00 / Christmas Cards and Tags
It's going to be a party atmosphere at our last class for 2017.  I've even been working on a hand made present for you!  The class is filling up fast, so be sure to reserve your spot right away!

I'm nearly finished with next year's tentative classes and events planning, so you'll see news of all that very soon.

- Thanks for stopping by my corner of the blogging world.

- Come back often for more creative inspiration.

- Let's create something beautiful today.

Four Gifts Each... Want... Need... Wear... Read...

In an effort to make Christmas preparations a little more sane, I decided right after Christmas 2014 to go with an idea that many others have been using and it's working great.  The idea is that each grandchild gets 4 gifts ... Something you want... Something you need... Something to wear... Something to read.  

I decided to make giant tags for each category for each of our 3 oldest grandchildren.  Joey is a bit too young to start this.

See what I mean?  Big tags!!!  Joey, Papa and my son had some separate gifts in bigger boxes, so I just made them a name tag, using our foil and alphabet dies.  On the tags for each category, I used their first initial. 

Here's what I like about using this system.  By telling the 2 oldest boys how this was going to work, it kept them in focus on choosing the very highest priority on their wish list.  For me, it helped me focus on 'keeping with the system' and making the very best choices for each child.  It really simplifies shopping and I'm incredibly excited to see the kids open their gifts.  I think I did pretty well with it all.  Maybe I'll share what's inside in another post... after Christmas.

Let me know if you've used this system already or if you plan to try it... maybe next year.  It is actually quite fun. 

- Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the blogging world. 

- Click on the tab at the top of the page to see my class schedules and registration policies or look on the left for sneak peeks. 

- Come back soon and come back often for more creative inspiration.