Homemade Holidays

After working my fair share of time in retail, more specifically a toy store, I am becoming increasingly more aware of the over-priced garbage that is pushed upon us as soon as October hits us. Everything from the "hottest kid's do-dad gadget" to seasonal decorations, even seasonal groceries, get a huge mark-up. This country has moved from holidays being centered around family, and warmth and well being. Now, our kids "need" toys and video games to stimulate them enough to even sit in a family room with their older siblings, parents and other relatives. Where am I going with this? As many of you know, we are heading to NYC the weekend before Christmas. This is will be a huge budget suck for us. As a result we looked for ways to made a homemade holiday season.

First project: Handmade Greeting Cards! It was a long road but we finally got them done. Our design was based on a something I saw a while back in a crafters' community using paint chips. I didn't like the original idea for us. So we did some experimenting. The trees themselves and the backgrounds were made completely from paint chips! We found a few templates and I cut the pieces out from different chips.

We arrange them all playing with different shapes, colors and textures. Each tree was attached to the paint chips of different colors. BK stamped the stops of them with "Happy Holidays". I stamped snowflakes on plain ivory cardstock. Some got glitter ribbon and others didn't. That is the short and sweet of it. Feel free to ask questions about them.