Christmas Recap...

Ok, so I know that today is December 29th, which means that Christmas is in fact over, but I wanted to share some nuggets of Christmas cheer that I enjoyed this holiday season. First, I'll show you a couple of videos that I particularly enjoyed. Thanks to Carolee Wells and Rebecca Campbell for showing me these two.

Butterfly Boucher's version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."

"The 12 Days of Christmas" sung by Straight No Chaser - a former Acapella group from Indiana University


Ah, doesn't get any better than that!

Ok, now for projects. This year I tried to make several of my Christmas gifts. I think it's always a gamble to do this because I know I've gotten hommade gifts before and I think, "Oh great, what am I going to do with this?" So, I tried to make things that I thought my friends would use. Hopefully, they liked them. Even if they didn't they're still fun to look at. :)

The first pictures are of a series of clipboards I made for various people.

This was actually a set of office supplies for an office Christmas party I attended. I started with the pencils and notepad and tried to find papers, stamps and ribbons to match the colors in the other items. I stamped a set of 6 folders, each one with a different pattern. Also, I found notepads that came with clear labels. I stamped on these labels and attached them to the top of the notepad so that it would match the clipboard and file folders.

The next set I made were for a couple of dear friends that I've known since high school. I added a monogram sticker to these since I knew exactly who the recipients were going to be.

The "A" is for Amy and the "B" is for Brandi. Love these girls!

I have a couple more that I made for birthday gifts. I'll post those as soon as I give them to their future owners. These little clipboards are so easy to make and they turn out to be really cute gifts. I used scrapbooking paper to cover the boards (Since I've been doing a few, I made myself a pattern). I adhered the paper with Sobo glue and then sealed it with Mod Podge. The ribbon on the clip makes a nice little finishing touch.

Finally, I made this candle for a college friend of mine. It's actually a really neat technique I found of the internet. You stamp you art onto tissue paper, and then using an embossing heat tool, you heat up the wax on the suface and it absorbs the tissue paper so it looks like you have stamped on the candle. This project was a little more challenging as I had a hard time keeping the melting wax even. But the finished product had a nice texture to it that was unexpected.

I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas! I know I did.

Ready, Set, Blog!

I am starting a new blog to help me begin the new year. For this space, I hope to find another outlet of creativity. Sometimes I find it difficult to put my thoughts into words, so this should be good practice. While I realize that there will not be any readers at first, except for maybe the obvious (hi, mom), I do hope that in time, I too can become a vocal member of this World Wide Web. Hello world!

I painstakingly set up the title picture you see above you. I am fairly happy with the result, but playing in Photoshop made me realize how rusty I am becoming. Must remember to find time to work on that soon.

Christmas 2007 has come to an end, and New Years is fastly approaching. In my next post, I will try to have some photos of gifts I made this year. Get excited, cause I am!