It's Christmas Eve!

Good morning, everyone!

It's Christmas Eve! 

Aaaaaaand:  I'm at work.  Sitting in the office in a close to empty building.  Wondering why I'm here-  I'm not doing anything except 'playing.'  I've been entertaining a few coworkers with jokes and stories.  I've been designing layouts on my brand new graph-paper-pad (Thank you, STAPLES!) and a bit of coloring some images I stamped on cardstock and brought to work with me-  so all in all, it's pretty much like I'm a pre-schooler sitting in an office. 

A moment ago, I was taking a trip down memory lane in my little lounge act on a file cabinet that I perform, daily, for coworkers.  I picked up the big plastic spoon that I use as a 'microphone,' and was remembering one of my favorite Christmas presents.  I was 11 years old.  It was a PXL-2000 from Fisher Price.

Do you know what a PXL-2000 was?  It was a little movie camera made for kids.  It recorded sound AND VIDEO onto normal little audio-cassette tapes.   You do remember cassettes, right?   Well, it could record about 5 or 7 minutes worth of sound and video on a 90-minute cassette tape.  The footage came out black and white, and fairly grainy.  But to a kid, it looked amazing.  I had my own CAMCORDER! 

You gotta Google it to get the full idea, if you don't know what I'm talking about-  I just did, to see pictures of it- and wow, even seeing a picture of the BOX brought back a heap of good memories.  And now I see that the format has been 're'adopted by filmmakers, using the cameras to create weird little movies.  There's even been film festivals devoted to short films made on the little toy camera.  Oh what I'd give to still have mine!  (If I remember correctly, it finally stopped working after much, much use...)

I've gots three more Christmas cards to share, today.  I can't say I won't be back tomorrow with more Christmas cards- I've just grown so addicted to making them.  I don't know what it is...  I've never loved making Christmas cards more than I have this season.  (And I've been making Christmas cards since kindergarten, when I sat next to a kid who would try to eat all of my paste.)

Up first is the card that I made for my great friend, Carolyn.  She's such a classy lady that I tried my best to make a classy card.  I used papers from the My Mind's Eye ALL IS BRIGHT 'Accessories Pad.'  The cream and deep red background has been one of my favorite papers from this pad and I'd been dying to use it- but it was bigger than any of the card bases that I had laying around.  I didn't have the heart to cut it smaller, so I made an A7 card base with a 12X12 sheet of thick kraft cardstock.  With the matching ALL IS BRIGHT stamp set, I stamped the '12.25.' pennant with Iced Spruce Distress Ink and cut it out.  I embossed a strip of kraft cardstock (left over from cutting the card base) with the chevron border strip embossing folder from Cuttlebug.  I layed a couple of pieces cut out from other pages in the ALL IS BRIGHT pad and layered them on with the stamped pennant and topped with a brad from the 'Decorative Bads' pack. 

Normally, I don't buy SO MUCH of one set.  Yeah, I did buy nearly two complete sets of BasicGrey's CLIPPINGS, but that collection was too great to NOT buy two sets!  But it seemed as if I had the entire ALL IS BRIGHT line sitting around!  Then I remembered- when I was at the Creating Keepsakes Convention last summer, I bought a very nicely priced package of stuff, just to get the three rolls of washi tape- and it had the rest of the set in there, too!  All for 7.00! 

More KRAFT!  I'm sorry, I don't know if this love affair will ever end.  No, no- I'm NOT sorry.  I love KRAFT and I'm PROUD, dammit!!! 

I used the Studio Calico 'Wonderland Star' pattern mask and Mister Huey's 'Calico White,' to spray the star background.  Then I just picked up random scraps and layered them on-  a dictionary page label cut from a Spellbinders set, a creamy cardstock I'd once cut out with the Spellbinders 'Lacey Circles' set, a pine branch left over from using Mr. Holtz's pinecone die...  I topped it off with my favorite HAPPY HOLIDAYS stamp over a stamped light gray chevron.  (I think I love that Happy Holidays stamp so much because of the font- doesn't that look great?!)

On my third card, I couldn't resist another of my favorite stamps- the man with the crown and a circle around his eye.  I don't 'get' this stamp, but I freakin' love it...  I colored him a bit with some Distress Inks, layered on my favorite Happy Holidays (again: THAT FONT!) and two My Mind's Eye '12.25.' banner stamps.  The retro-ey looking snowflake is from QuickKutz.  When I was at Staples, yesterday, buying anything and everything that caught my eye, I stocked up on blank tags, too.  You can't beat the price- a box of 500 for 5.97?!  Yes, please and thank you!  I stamped the tag with a woodgrain stamp (Stampabilities) and distressed it a bit.  The striped paper is from 7gypsies 'Postale' collection and the light blue paper that I used as a mat is from Carta Bella. 

I'm gonna try to get a little work done-  hopefully I'll get to leave early and go home to get ready to leave for my Aunt's home, for a little family Christmas party time. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone!!!

-kory