White Christmas

Classic Red Truck with Christmas Tree

/ Jodi / 52 Comments
Classic Red Truck with Christmas Tree Watercolor - 11x14 - 140lb Fabriano Artistico

Classic Red Truck with Christmas Tree Watercolor – 11×14 – 140lb Fabriano Artistico

Classic Red Truck with Christmas Tree.

Is anybody else starting to think about Christmas?

When my boys were young, I loved getting ready for the Christmas holiday.  I would often start playing Christmas music in October… much to Hubby’s dismay.

We prepared letters to Santa, and I shopped and put carts full of toys on “lay-away” months ahead of winter.

My best friend and I went to craft shows and stores and bought santas and snowmen and other holiday decorations, as well as things to make decorations – often while pushing strollers and carrying diaper bags.

I would prepare for “Sammy” the elf to make his arrival at our house and plan out his adventures each night when the boys went to bed to surprise them in the morning.

I created homemade Christmas cards for the boys to color (and later they drew them) to send to friends and family.

I stocked up on sugar and flour and baking supplies when they were on sale and collected festive tins to make hundreds of cookies and dozens of sweet breads and nut rolls to share with friends and neighbors.

As the boys got older, the excitement of Christmas dimmed a bit.  We still enjoyed it, but the excitement leading up to it was not the same as when they were young and the magic existed.

But now….. I’m a grandma!  And that just makes me absolutely giddy for Christmas again!

And since my daughter-in-law, Colleen, and I have created our McKinneyX2Designs Etsy shop and have started also selling our art at a local gift shop, Berry Vine Gifts, it is so fun to get excited about preparing for Christmas again.  And it seems there are others like me out there, because holiday cards and paintings have already sold!

So I’m having fun creating Christmas and holiday art… like this classic red truck with a Christmas tree.  Doesn’t it just make you so nostalgic about Christmas?

So even though we are still experiencing 80 degree Autumn days, I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.  It’s so fun to dream!

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

White Christmas Shaker Card

/ Jodi / 14 Comments

White Christmas Shaker Card

It’s the day after Thanksgiving…

What a wonderful day we had sharing with family and friends.  I hope all of you that celebrated did also.  We are STUFFED to the gills with turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie, and we have lots of leftovers to continue the feast for at least a few more days.  I hope to share some more about that later, but for now I wanted to share another Christmas card I made, since we are now in full fledged Christmas season!

I made this SU White Christmas Shaker card after Linda Heller from Where the Rubber Hits the Road was kind enough to send me some SU shaker frames (from our #FreebieFriday random drawing contest).  For this card, I cut and pieced two of them together to create a larger shaker to contain this scene that is reminiscent of this time of year – getting the annual Christmas tree.  I stamped it all in Memento Black Ink and then colored in with SU Stampin’ Write Markers.  I filled it with some sequins, wrapped it with SU DSP and sponged the edges to vintage it up a bit.  Finishing touches were a linen thread bow and brown metal brad.

The SUO Challenge SUO#110 this week is “Marker Fun,” and this one was fun with markers, so I am sharing there.

I know just who this card is going to, and I hope they have as much fun shakin’ it as I did coloring it!

White Christmas Shaker Card

Cheers & Thankful Holiday Hugs,

Jodi

 

Gearing up… for Fall & #Writing101

/ Jodi / 28 Comments

white christmas fall hello ppa219

I know – for all of you literalists out there – it’s not officially Fall until September 22 (at 10:29pm)  – (remember – we already talked about this here?!) – still 8 more days of “Summer.”

But will you indulge me to share one more Fall card – BEFORE it’s officially Fall??

I had so much fun on Saturday just “goofing around” at home.  We had no plans this weekend, and I told Marty I just wanted to “craft,” especially since the weather was so Fall-like.  🙂

I made a few cards, and I wanted to share this one that I made for the Pals Paper Arts Color Challenge (PPA219). 

PPA219

The challenge was to use these three colors:  Crushed Curry, Always Artichoke, and Cajun Craze (Fall colors – right?!)

I used the SU White Christmas stamp for the trees and sponged a combination of only the three challenge colors to create other hues of oranges through blending.  I used the fun Flower-Soft again for the Fall leaves and a Wplus9 framelit for the “hello” greeting.

I’m really happy with how the card turned out, and its vibrant colors are helping me in my quest to embrace Fall!

white christmas fall hello ppa219 2

Tomorrow I begin a WordPress #Writing101 Challenge.  It will be a 30-day challenge that provides a daily topic and a twist to the topic to challenge a blogger’s creative thinking and writing.  I’m looking forward to sharing with all of you.  Not sure where this will take us, but glad to have you along for the journey!

Another new adventure at life in between.

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi