Christmas...already???

Wow!! Has time flown by or what??? Can you believe Christmas is only ten days away?
Every year I tell myself that Thanksgiving is Christmas...because you think "I have a month"...then you find out how short 30 days really is!
It is really hard for me to get in the mood for the holidays when it is 85 degrees. With each passing year I seem to lose my enthusiasm for all the holiday festivities and it has become more of a chore than anything else.
I used to love to do mountains of baking and decorate the house and wrapping presents was my forte...the wrapping and bows were at times nicer than the gift inside...LOL...But , alas...I am just not in the mood for quite so much.
Also...what do you think my kitties would do to the tree?? OMG!!! "thanks Mom...toys!"
When Sammi, my chocolate Lab was a teenager he decided we put up the tree just for him. I left for just about an hour and when I came home he had the tree and it's finery strewn from one end of the house to the other. My beautiful tree was everywhere. And of course Sammi ran to greet me with a big doggie smile from ear to ear saying "look what I did". I couldn't be mad at him...he had so much fun. I just left the mess for his Daddy to see when he came home and then he helped me pick up the tree and we cut a hole in the bottom of a large garbage bag so we could pull it up over the tree and hauled the whole thing...decorations, lights, ribbon and all out to the trash...D.O.N.E.! It was all worth the smile on the puppy's face and his tail wagging his whole body.
I don't really want to see what the cats would do!

I did manage to get my Christmas cards done and they will get in the mail in the next few days. Some of them I am afraid to mail. I know they will not arrive in good shape. I will make sure they more fragile ones go in the gift boxes..
I will post some thru the week on here. I don't get a chance to do much crafting anymore so this was a treat.
I have also been hunting down some new and exciting products for you all. I am excited about them and I hope you will enjoy them. As soon as they get delivered I will post some tutorials and projects for you to try...so keep checking back...

Here are a few of my cards....

                                                 

On this one I used the Taylored Expressions Holly Background die, I just love these die plates. They are perfectly sized for A2 cards. The deer and Cardinal are form the Birch Elements also by T.E..
I stickled the whole background but it doesn't show.


                                                    

Here I used the Birch Background and Elements from Taylored Expressions. I wish I could get the glitter to show...I love glitter!

                                           

This is the cute little bear from The Homemade Gift set. I took the Holly Branch from Cottage Cutz and die cut several pieces than cut the leaves apart and layered them for the wreath. You can do this with just about any leaf die cut or punch. I will try to photograph it for the depth and dimension.
This technique looks really great with the Branch punch from Martha Stewart.

Keep checking back...tomorrow I will post one of my favorite recipes. Keep sending us your favorites too.
Good nite all.
Sweet dreams,
Barrie & Carol