Stitched Stocking Christmas Banner

  I hope everyone had a great Halloween!  My pumpkin carving with Ryan's kindergarten class went well.  Our pumpkin had at least 466 seeds....yes we counted!  They were practicing counting by 10s so this was perfect.  The kids in my group were totally cute and very excited for the big day of candy.  We had fun trick or treating with our next door neighbors too.  It started to rain partway through the neighborhood but that certainly didn't stop the kids from enjoying themselves.  We knew it was time to head home when Alex couldn't even carry his candy bucket because it was so heavy!  Here are my little rugrats all dressed up!

  Well now that we've moved past Halloween we can really start concentrating on Christmas things!  52 days and counting!  But that is plenty of time to design and begin making your Christmas cards.  Some people feel that they have to design a different card for each person and I'm here to say...it's OK to mass produce a card for Christmas.  You're still hand making the card and that doesn't take the thought away at all.  Just think you're still way ahead of those people who will send an e-card through e-mail on Christmas Eve!!

  Here is a quick and easy Christmas card to get the creative juices flowing.  We made this one last week at my Stamp-a-Stack.  The coordinating Stitched Stocking stamp set and stocking builder punch make fast work of this card!

  The base is Cherry Cobbler and is stamped with the Simple Snowflake stamp.  We used Riding Hood Red for the snowflake so there wouldn't be a backup waiting for the Cherry Cobbler so you can use either red for the same effect.

  Isn't that little banner adorable??  Banners are hot these days so I thought I would jump on the bandwagon too!  The Always Artichoke banner is run through the Big Shot with the Houndstooth embossing folder.  To make the banner ends you can do it 2 ways; first you can just hand cut it with scissors.  The second way you can use a square punch and angle your cardstock end diagonally across the punch and just put it in halfway into the punch.  Go ahead and punch and now you have a banner.

  We made a fork bow (click HERE for the tutorial) with Very Vanilla seam binding and just wrapped the loose ends behind the banner.

  Next, the stocking is stamped with Cherry Cobbler ink onto Very Vanilla cardstock and then punched out.  We used the adorable little mini brads to attach the stocking to the banner.  You get a ton of the brads for a great price and they are perfect for smaller images as sometimes the regular size brads are just too big.

  One last thing....Stampin' Up! has extended the Free Big Shot promotion until November 11 so if you were on the fence and ran out of time on the 31st don't fret...you can still join and get the Starter Kit & free Big Shot (all that for just $175!!).  You can sign up right on my demonstrator website HERE.

  Thanks for looking! Did you stamp today?

  Stamps: Simple Snowflake, Stitched Stockings

  Ink: Cherry Cobbler, Riding Hood Red

  Paper: Cherry Cobbler, Always Artichoke, Very Vanilla

  Accessories: Very Vanilla seam binding, mini brads, Houndstooth embossing folder