Gingerbread Christmas cards.

“Gingerbread” girl cards

“Gingerbread” boy cards.

Made using Sizzix Doll dies, Sizzix girls clothes and Sizzix boy clothes dies,  Sizzix girl hair and boy hair.  At the end of this post is a video featuring a tutorial on how I made these cards.  Oh, and there is a reference to “Hydrophobic Faces” in the video.  That is for the mouths on the dolls I made.  They all look like they are foaming at the mouth :D.

These cards were inspired after I walked through the doors at my local Hobby Lobby on Thursday afternoon.  The store is stocked with all sorts of Christmas decorations and home decor.  It has been many years since I have had the quickening of my heart at the sight of all the Christmas stuff.

As I walked to the back of the store toward the greeting card and scrapbook paper area I just had to take a look at all the festive holiday offerings.  Nostalgia took hold of me and has not loosened her grip on me.

The second year that Joe and I were married I had made it my mission to decorate the public areas of our home for Christmas.  After Thanksgiving was over I began baking cookies.  Massive amounts of cookies.  One Friday afternoon I made a huge batch of gingerbread cookie dough and put it in the refrigerator.  Saturday morning I rolled the dough out and pressed cookie cutters to work.  One tray went in the oven while another came out to cool the fragrant cookies.  Transferring the cooled cookies to a large platter I then called all the kids to the dining room table.

Laid before them were bowls of frosting in white, red, green, yellow, and blue.  Little shaker bottles of colored sugar, multi colored sprinkles, and the silver nonpareils littered the table top.  Each child was given a table knife, several toothpicks, wads of paper towels, and were told to decorate the cookies any way they chose.

For the next four hours the kids laughed, made snarky and funny remarks about each others art work, spoke of their Christmas wish lists, talked about school, friends, and a myriad of other subjects.  Their busy hands went to work on 72 gingerbread cookies.  Some cookies were eaten as they worked away.  Tongues licked colored frosting from fingers stained by the food coloring which, in turn, stained their tongues which caused more laughter.

Of all of my Christmas memories, this one is the most poignant and tugs at my heart strings.

The next year I made more gingerbread dough.  The kids were gathered around the dining room table with bowls of spice gum drops, round peppermint hard candies, colored licorice pegs, orange sliced gel candies, and tons of frosting.  I had the kids each be architects of their gingerbread houses.  We cut the shapes of walls and roofs from cardboard then transferred the patterned shapes to the raw gingerbread dough and put in the oven to bake.  When the pieces were baked and cooled the kids began work on their very own gingerbread houses.

I hope these Christmas cards I have made will jog the memories I hold dear in each of their minds of when they were children.  That time in their lives is gone forever, as it is in  mine, and they are all adults with jobs and lives of their own.  Growing families of their own.  This is a time for me to reflect on just how much I love each and everyone of my kids.  Some may be Joe’s and some may be mine, but honestly they are ALL mine and I am very thankful for each and everyone of them.

I have been, and continue to be, blessed.

I hope you have enjoyed this video.  Maybe it will spark a little creativity in your soul.

Leslie

Here’s a “Cheap Trick” – Jumbo Card Stock.

Are you starting your Christmas projects?  Have some ideas rolling around in your head?  Discarding some really fun ideas because you don’t have enough paper?

On your next trip to Michaels head on over to the artist section of the store.  Generally it is located in the back with the canvas frames, colored poster board, paint brushes, and other non scrapbook and card making related stuff.

I will be making a number of “Mileage Books” and sell them at my long unused Etsy store.  These books I have made for Joe and I in our Drive-Away business.  They come in really handy for us.  Plus I got to play with my papers and supplies when I was home for a couple weeks at a time.

Take a look at the video I created showcasing the JUMBO card stock I purchased from Michaels.  The sheets normally sell for $2.29 each but you can sometimes find them, as I did, for $.99.  The card stock has some bends, folds, and marks on them.  There is some damage to the pieces but I can use them for my book covers.

This card stock measures 20″ x 26″.  The color selection is not quite as diverse as you would find with regular card stock in the scrapbook and greeting card section.

I am home now.  I have retired from my truck driving “Day Job” and will be puttering around in my craft room creating things.  I have to put in my time for doing the paper work for a few hours daily first, then I can play.  Right now I am awaiting the arrival of a special cord thing to connect one of my storage drives back to my computer.  That should arrive on Monday.

I hope this video and information helps you with your Christmas projects….or any other large project you have going on that needs a continuous length of paper.

Leslie