Christmas Scrap Strips

It's good to have a little external motivation to really get things cleaned up every once in a while.  My external motivation--having my husband's boss' boss came from Ohio to our house to meet with him last week.  Unfortunately that getting things cleaned up meant putting my stamp stuff away (and leaving it put away) for a few days--which would be the reason I haven't posted for several days.  You see, a couple of years ago I had a nice stamp room on the main floor of my house and it was out of sight and my things could always be out (I could just close the door).  Then baby #2 came along and I decided to give him that room so off to the storage room went my stamp things for a while.  Our basement renters moved out shortly after and so we decided to stop renting and convert the basement into our own living space.  After a few months of remodeling, I again had a nice stamp room, this time in the basement, where I could leave things out and close the door.  A year later my husband got a new job and he now works from home.  This is a good thing, but he needed an office, so once again I no longer had a nice little room where I could close the door.  I won't complain because I still have a stamp area and now it is even bigger--it's the old kitchen area of our basement.  I have cupboards and counters and room for tables for classes.  I just don't have a place where I can close the door.  That means when the boss came over to meet with him, he has to walk through my house and through my basement to get to the office.  Translate that to mean things REALLY have to be cleaned up and put away (no pressure on me--yeah, right).  So, instead of spending my little bit of free time last week stamping and creating, I spent it cleaning.  Now that is all over and I finally was able to pull out my stamping things again.  It's funny how fast things can get messy when creating :)

Now to the stamping!  I made this fun Christmas card to go along with the current sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches.  This would be a great use for scraps of paper, although I actually cut up some designer series paper to make mine.  Each of the strips are about 1/2" wide.  I used Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla, and Gumball Green on this card along with the Be of Good Cheer dsp.  I tied some Gumball Green stitched satin ribbon around the card before adding my image.  The stitched satin ribbon is FREE with a $40 order this month and you can choose between the 5 In Colors (or spend $200 and get them all).  My Christmas tree stamp is from Scentsational Seasons (in the Holiday Catalog) and the Merry Christmas comes from Embellished Events.  I didn't realize how much I'd use the words from Embellished Events--they sure are a great size and come in handy a lot!  I punched my image out with the 2-1/2" circle punch and put that on the top.  Have you started working on your Christmas cards yet?  We have just over 3 months to go!