The Traditions Of Christmas Suite!

I was a kid who loved going to school. I enjoyed everything about it – except for the ugly gym suits we had to wear in PE. Awful! Knowing I was a music teacher, it would be safe to assume my favorite subject was music, and you would be right. But a close second was math. I loved mathematics. I loved the structure, the formulas, and especially problem solving. Nobody liked problem solving, but I did. Warped, aren’t I?

And there’s not a day goes by that I’m not using problem solving skills. A prime example is paper cutting. How do you stretch a limited supply of DSP patterned paper to cover a large quantity of cards??? When you plan a class using Holiday DSP from the preorder, you have at the most three packages of DSP to work with. That’s 6 sheets of the same 12 x 12 inch DSP pattern. When you need 48 mats out of those 6 sheets of paper, one wrong cut could completely mess up the game plan! You measure, you figure, you check your process, then cut.

Thank You Stampin’ Up For Pushing The Color Barriers!

I fell in love with this suite from the Holiday mini catalog – The Traditions Of Christmas Suite that is – and couldn’t wait to design a card with the DSP, the dies, and the gems. Stampin’ Up’s artists and designers keep us thinking outside the box with the traditional holiday colors. The traditional colors of red and green are visible in the pattern above, but they take backstage to Secret Sea, Pool Party, Basic White, and Gold foil. My card base is Cherry Cobbler with a Secret Sea mat, and to help pull out the Pool Party I added an additional mat. I honestly wouldn’t have thought of those colors working together, and it gives a fresh look for the holidays with our paper crafting.

I turned to another stamp set for the greeting and the stamped branches on the label – Branching Out. This stamp set made my “Gotta Have It” list for sure. It has great greetings and sentiments, love the branch and pine needle stamps to create with, but the BEST part are the dies!!! I love the nested labels included in the dies, AND this die set is one that STANDS ALONE – every die works without needing the stamp set, so it’s a double winner in my books.

Final Thoughts….

We had a fun weekend with Cal visiting Nana and Papa’s house. He keeps us on our toes, but he’s very content staying with us. I posted a video on my FB page yesterday of him helping me prep for classes. Did it slow me down? Of course it did, but it didn’t matter. He was Nana’s helper and the keeper of the trash, AND it kept him busy for about 30 minutes. This boy loves his brownies!!!!

I’ll be back tomorrow with the posting of our next class. Say a prayer for the kids and teachers heading back to school this week. Until next time, keep stamping, keep crafting, and God Bless!!!