Well, this is it! We are well and truly into December. We got our Christmas lights operational on the weekend! (Notice I didn't say up. Don't tell anybody, but they never actually came down from last year!!Very handy, really!) Then we put the tree up Saturday night. Here's how it looks:
About a week and a half ago, I was in total panic mode as I thought about the impending holiday hurtling toward me like a freight train and me without any Christmas shopping done at all. But one night on the computer with Amazon and Etsy and a couple of others and it was almost done, except for stocking stuffers, which I still have to take care of and one trip into town to the toy store and the children's wear store. Now, it's time to wrap and ship as all of my kids and grandkids live out of town. Luckily, Amazon Prime was doing free shipping when I used it, because we'll be paying that much and more to mail these gifts off to the kids! Oh, well, it's just once a year, right?
Speaking of wrapping, I assessed what I had left from last year and the pickins' were slim! So I set out to make some gift tags to go with the wrapping paper I had. I had a lot of red paper and some red and craft paper, so I made some Crumb Cake and Cherry Cobbler tags, which I'll show you another day. I also had some blue paper and since As You See It Challenge current challenge is this beautiful colour palette, I thought I'd take advantage of it to make some more tags.
Here they are:
I learned a few things from my friend, Susanne, from Sunn Stamping, who just did a video series on Christmas tags, that you can get 10 two inch wide tags from a sheet of 8 1/2" x 11" cardstock, and if you set up like an assembly line you can make a lot of tags in very little time. Two inch tags are just the perfect width to fit in the Scallop Tag Topper Punch and so you can very quickly cut five 2" strips from your cardstock along the 11" side and then cut each of them in half for the 10 tags.
- I used the Sheet Music background stamp to emboss the musical score in White Stampin' Emboss Powder on the Pacific Point background.
- I die cut 5 big and 5 small snowflakes each from Flirty Flamingo and Pool Party cardstock backed with Multipurpose Adhesive Sheets, which are in stock now after being back ordered for awhile. The snowflake dies are from the Seasonal Tag dies which are on the Carry Over list, meaning you will still be able to purchase them during the coming spring.
- The sentiment, which is stamped in Flirty Flamingo, framed by Pool Party using a stamp from the Labels to Love set, is punched out using the Everyday Label Punch, another carry over, as is the Labels to Love.
- I used the Pool Party Shimmer Ribbon and the Whisper White Sheer Ribbon for the top of the tags! Later, I just stuck to the Pool Party ribbon for the rest of the tags, as it was so much faster to do with just one ribbon to fool with!
On an aside, I was so gratified to see that I had chosen wisely when I went for the Labels to Love set over the Merry Little Labels set, which was the one that was actually bundled with the Everyday Label Punch. There were a few times when I wished that I had chosen differently, mostly for the Let It Snow sentiment! But it was Labels to Love that was carried over rather than Merry Little Labels, probably because of its versatility, which is why I chose it in the first place. Now I don't have to retire it or the punch! Yay!
The Year End Sale continues to the end of the month with the retiring items from the Holiday Catalogue and a couple of other items from the Annual Catalogue, which are NOT retiring. I don't know that I would actually describe the savings as BIG, but they are savings. I guess every little bit helps. The best way to check out the deals is to click on this link, where you can see exactly what's available, updated in real time. When you see bundles on the retiring list, keep in mind that it might be just the bundle itself disappearing after it's one catalogue run. The components may still be carried over. Check the stamp set or the dies separately to see if they are going or staying.
These are the retiring products from the Holiday Catalogue that are on sale:
There is really good news about the next reservation window for the Stamparatus, which opens up tomorrow, Tuesday, Dec. 5 at 2 pm MT or 1 pm here in Pacific Time. Instead of closing the window when a certain number of reservations have been made, as happened last time, when a window that was supposed to be open for 15 days was full and shut down in 15 minutes, this time the window will be kept open for the full 25 days and they will continue to take reservations throughout that time for as many as want to reserve. Limit = 1 per person. So we can relax about being able to get a reservation. The price by the way is $65 CAD.
There is some need to be fairly quick however, because Stampin' Up! will be filling the reservations in the order in which they were received and they won't all be able to be filled Mar. 19, most likely. They will be filled as the manufacturer gets the lots into Stampin' Up!'s warehouse. First come, first served, unless you don't care when you get yours as long as you get one.
If you do care, the best thing to do would be to go to my On-Line Store and make sure you have a Customer Account. If not, open one up before Tuesday. Then on Tuesday, have your trusty credit card by your side when you go back to my On-Line Store to access the Stamparatus reservation page.
I hope that's all clear for you. Please contact me if you have questions. I cannot reserve for you. You'll need to do that yourself. I have a limit of 1 as well as you.
Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today.
Great tree and the tags are superb!
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