Christmas 2018 crafting????

My plan is to make 10-12 Christmas cards each month for the Caring Hearts Card Drive.

As for other Christmas crafts and my personal cards, I'll probably do the usual thing and wait until the week before Christmas and then scramble and stress about pulling something together.

Nope. I usually first start thinking about my cards in late August/early September and most years I've had them done and ready to go by early November. I even find that sometimes that's too early because all the new Christmas releases start popping up in September and, of course, I see a million new things that I "have to have" and wish I had waited so my cards could use the latest and greatest... I don't do a lot of crafty things for Christmas - I have great intentions, but I hardly ever bother to make anything other than cards. I did make a couple of Santa Sacks for my grown daughters that were a HUGE hit this past Christmas. I'll probably make a couple for their boyfriends for Christmas this year, maybe DH and I... maybe I'll actually sew up a couple of wine gift bags... but whatever I "think" I'll do will have to wait until at least late October! I have so many other projects swirling around in my mind that I'm looking for the time to make, I can't imagine putting those ideas aside to work on Christmas when it's so far away!

binkiemonstermom, your stitching is fabulous! Each project is better than the one before.

To answer your question, I've put all my Christmas stamps and dies away. I needed a break from them. By mid-year, they'll look good again.

binkiemonstermom Your bird and pear ornaments are just lovely!

My goal is to bring out the Christmas supplies one week of each month from February through November, and create 15 cards each month. Will it happen, time will tell.

I also want to make some zippered pouches for lip sense for my two nieces. But those might be birthday presents instead. For each family on my side I was thinking some bowl cozies.

So many lovely felt ornaments, and oh my, that pile of gorgeous felt in every imaginable shade! Love the colors. And the little stitched bear. <3

I was very happy to put away my Christmas supplies when I finally got my Xmas Journal done, but it might not be long before I get them out to play again. I have plenty of cards left over in my shop so I won't necessarily have to scramble in July to make a bunch to sell, but I do want to make cards for the Caring Hearts drive, and preferably not at the last minute this year. I plan to try to get my local library on board with hosting card drive maker sessions (they have Craftanoon programs, so I though a card drive would be a good fit for them). And I think I'll participate in the 2Peas exchange again this year, even though I never found a good way to display all the lovely cards I got. I'm still planning to go through them to get ideas for cardmaking.

I bought myself a die cutting machine for Christmas and I have been looking at Jennifer McGuire's videos for inlay die techniques - last weekend I was trying to choose ONE die that I could use to mass-produce some really pretty (but hopefully simple) cards, but of course I couldn't choose just one, and then I forgot about it. I guess I should take another look because she had some really neat designs.

Your ornaments are really cute/beautiful, but I especially LOVE the bears. Something about a bear carrying a gift that kind of cracks me up. The fact that we have had bears on several occasions in our back yard probably make it even more enjoyable.

I don't want to brag, but I just cleaned up my Christmas mess in my scrap room this week. It took a good five hours to get everything back into its happy place. I haven't started creating anything for next year though. My good friend has been waiting about 10 years to have a baby (she's 43), and I am going to make her some pink and grey elephant thank you cards. I'll think about Christmas somewhere between Thanksgiving and New Years.

Omg i love all your felt work. I also make a lot of felt things & i need to order some new felt too. I'm planning on doing a few arts & crafts shows this year & have been planning new designs since the new year.

my plan is to go to HL in November or early December and purchase all the cards, bags, and tags I need.

binkiemonstermom - Those are beautiful ornaments!

 For the next two weeks, I want to clean and organize my craft room and then I want to start making Christmas tags and cards one week a month. So we will see if it will really happen.

i usually start working on December Daily albums in September or October.  Nothing earlier than that for Christmas projects.

You know how people make those monthly, weekly, or daily calendars to purge your house? Someone needs to create one for crafters so they can be ready for Christmas. Not saying it would be easy, but it would be nice to have as a reminder.

I’m going to a 3-day crop at the end of February. I plan to spend at least 1/2 that time making Christmas cards for 2018.

me!  I am!!   

I did the card swap here for the first time this year, and thought I'd be good with making over 100 cards if I started around Halloween... lol-- boy, was I wrong!! I did get them all done and in the mail, but it was a rush and I was pretty frazzled at the end of the whole thing.   Yesterday I started doing some fussy-cutting of images for X-mas cards (Santa heads), and I am going to collect card sketches and papers all year long so I'll have plenty of leisure time to work on them off and on. 

I also want to make some (small) cross-stitched ornaments for giving as gifts.





your felt work is beautiful!!  seeing these makes me want to get out my felt and fabric stash and do some creating with that, too...  that's my problem-- so many ideas, so little time!!  (lol-  so little time--  even though it's only January...)