Blessings of the Christmas Season

This has truly been a month of celebrations. The Lord has brought many blessings and surprises into our lives this month.  The first event was a Christmas Ballet Celebration which was produced by the daughter of dear friends from our church.

The next night we drove to Northville for a Christmas concert by David Britton and Jean Watson. You ask "Who is David Britton". Well, he was our son, Daniel's very best friend growing up. David trained as a classical vocalist at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. Our granddaughter, Sarah, is a freshman at Westmont College in Santa Barbara. Daniel's son is named Alex and David's son is named Alex. It had been almost thirty years since we had last seen David. We were truly blessed to spend a few moments with him.

Next, we attended the fall drama production of "The Miracle Worker", at Lumen Christi High School here in Jackson. The students did an awesome job with such an emotional story.

Then there was a Christmas party for volunteers of the Henry Ford Allegiance Health Hospital. Our Quilting group comes under the volunteers for their Hospice program. Sunday night there was a Christmas event at our church which we were able to attend.

During all these events, I have been trying to work on my Christmas cards. I still need to do a few more; it feels good to be almost done.

I ended up doing two cards. I used Spellbinders dies to create the front of the card. Punches were used to make the flowers. I spritzed the layers for the flowers with a spray from Tattered Angels before gluing them together.

The second card was done in white and SU's Pool Party card stock and ink. To create my background I embossed my white card. Leaving the card stock attached to the folder, I brayered the Pool Party ink on the top of the folder and ran it through the Big Kick again. I love the icy look of the Pool Party ink and card stock. Instead of using rhinestones, I punched 1/8-inch circles from glitter paper and added them to my card. I achieved the same effect. This made the card more mail friendly.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Christmas Celebration

Christmas is a time to celebrate our faith, our family and our friends. I am part of a group of ladies who love to get together, create cards and to encourage one another. Each December, we get together for our Christmas celebration at the Olive Garden restaurant here in Jackson. After enjoying a delicious dinner, we exchange gift tags and a Christmas card with each other. We bring a Christmas tag for each one and then one Christmas card to be exchanged.

Here are pictures of the Christmas card and gift tags that I made for the event. I love to use the "nine-patch" quilt block for many of my quilting projects. That inspired my Christmas card. Even though I used non traditional colors ( Pool Party and Early Espresso) for my card, I love the result. The pool party color is so cool and icy. I used my 1 1/4--inch punch to create my squares.

The inside greeting was created on my laptop.

For the gift tags, I cut navy blue card stock into circles. Then using a die from Memory Box and the same circle die, I made the accent piece that I glued on top of the first circle. I found the marbled color card stock in my collection which was perfect for that snowy look.
 

Celebrating A Coming Baby

Welcoming a new baby is always an exciting time. I was invited to a baby shower on Thanksgiving Day while the extended family was together. We were celebrating the coming of a little girl in January, 2017. I had just purchased a charm pack (5-inch squares) while in Shipshewana, Indiana that I thought would be perfect for a baby quilt. I was not disappointed. The fabric was so bright and cheerful. It is from Moda called "Brighten Up". I followed a video I saw on the Missouri Star Quilt Company's web site. They called the pattern "The Window Panel Disappearing Nine Patch".

Here is my finished quilt--

I added a label to the back:

And this is my card.  I used the stamp set from Stampin' Up called "Love You Lots". It is a hostess set from the 2016-2017 catalog. I used copic markers to color the image and the "welcome baby" is from the set "Petite Pairs". The size is 4 1/4 x 4 1/4 -- inches. I seem to making this size a lot lately.