My crafty friend Audrey and I did an ornament swap this year. I always make two sister ornaments, one to give and one to keep. While I was conducting an FBI-level search of my craft room for a collection of vintage tart tins (more on this another day), I found this pair of vintage Santa boots. I knew they would be perfect for my ornaments!

One of the boots was missing it’s white band of plastic “fur” at the top, so I replaced it with vintage tinsel trim.

I added a bottle brush tree that I glittered and topped with a Tim Holtz mirrored star.

The angels are also vintage. Audrey’s is holding the music book and mine has a harp.

Vintage bead ornaments and a small vintage ornament decorate the front.

Their sweet faces are just too perfect!

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Back in November, I taught at The Crafty Scrapper’s Christmas Carousel event. It was an all-day event, where I taught this 1-hour class five times. It was an exhausting day, but a lot of fun – especially for all the women who were crafting.

I used Prima’s “Sweet Peppermint” collection to make this Santa’s Visit gift card holder. We started with plain chipboard that we cut and scored into a little sleeve and drawer.

We decorated the box inside and out.

Some embellishments from Maya Road (bottle brush tree) and Tim Holtz (mini reindeer) are decorated and blinged to make Santa feel welcome.

I wonder how many of the crafters are going to give away their boxes? I don’t think I could part with it!

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I love the idea of making an advent calendar. I just never get around to doing it. But this year is different. I bought the bare frame from Sa Crafters at the big scrapbook convention last summer. I spent Thanksgiving weekend putting it together, painting, and decorating.

I used images from Graphic 45’s Nutcracker Sweet collection (from a few years ago). I embellished with some new and vintage Christmas items from my collection.

The drawers are covered in vintage sheet music with numbers embossed with red glitter embossing powder.

The tree is a craft store bottle brush tree that I bleached a light green color, and then decorated with alcohol ink-dyed beads and tinsel trim. (Did you notice the snowflakes, a nod to the Waltz of the Snowflakes? And the candy canes for the Peppermint?)

I fo...

Each year, I make a new batch of Christmas cards. They are usually a vintage style and almost always feature an image that evokes memories of Christmases past.

This year, I decided to use up some of the supplies that are hanging around the craft room. I combined the new Prima “Sweet Peppermint” papers with some older Bo Bunny, or whatever I had on hand.

I usually make one style of card and then create a pile that are all identical. This year, I used a similar style on all the cards, but each is different. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Each card has a vintage book page, various patterned papers, and a beautiful vintage image as the centerpiece. Some of the images are from patterned papers and others are printed from vintage postcards.

Die cut greenery is layered with a shiny die ...