Making Greetings

Iam in love with these new - well, new to me - scrapbook greeting cards kits by Basic Grey. Each kit includes everything you need to make 8 cards, plus extra pieces to use to embellish the insides or to use on any project of your choosing. All of the pieces are numbered so they are so simple to put together. Maybe a little too simple for those of us who love to get the creative juices flowing, but sometimes it is nice to not have to think and for perfectionists like my daughter, it is so beneficial in reducing the stress factor. Remember the old paint by numbers sets? Well, this is basically scrapbooking by number. There are even black-and-white detailed instructions and the packaging is a full color display of all the completed cards. So no mater what your style: like to read and follow instructions, like to follow a color sample, or like to just figure it out buy punching out all of the numbers - this card set seems to work for everyone.

I was lucky enough to be able to take a class with a close friend at a local Archivers. While putting together our cards, I thought what a fun activity it would be to do with our two teenage daughters. Well, we have not been able to work out the timing on that, but I was able to set aside a day during our break this week - a wet and blustery day - and do a kit with Sierra. I had another kit I got at the clearance scrapbook place for under $2, so I set Chloe up to work on that one. Of course, she ran with it and used all of her extra pieces to make several cards of her own - she is just bursting with creativity. We all had a lot of fun. There is nothing better than being creative and encouraging it in others. Plus, there was ice cream as a reward for all of our hard work.

The kits are $14.99 at Archivers. If you use there 30% off coupon, which why would you not, cuz they email them to ya almost every week, it runs about $1.31 per card excluding tax. I know I pay way more than that when I get cards, and let me tell ya, we have a lot of cards to get.

Gingerbread Drama

Gingerbread house in January, you may ask. Why not?

We actually made a gingerbread house when we did our gingerbread school. There was a slight problem, however. My husband took the wheel last Christmas and decided that he would purchase two gingerbread houses - one for Chloe to decorate and one for Sierra to decorate. Well, Sierra never got around to putting hers together. We joked about assembling it in the middle of the summer before it expired, but once summer came it no longer seemed quite as fun. So, by the time December came around again it had expired. What could be wrong I thought? It is not like we are going to eat it.

Well, the frosting, of course. It had separated. I attempted to knead it back together before I cut the bag open. I should have just scrapped it all then, but no, I was committed and so was Chloe. The frosting was so thick we had to smear it on with our fingers, which it would much rather stick to then the silly gingerbread house. *sigh* Of course the candy kept falling off. I broke down at one point and used some Elmer’s glue (I was all out of hot glue sticks).

*I will be paying for the therapy this lapse in judgment will surely bring about in dear Chloe's future*

Nonetheless, it will be a gingerbread house we are not likely to forgot, but not necessarily in a positive way.

So, on with the story . . . we purchased a new gingerbread house, but never got around to putting it together before Christmas. Better late than never, we broke it out and set to decorating . . . today. It turned out cute, I think, but once again I was not pleased with the frosting. It was not separated, but it was not easy to work with by any stretch of the imagination. Perhaps this is what I get for buying cheap gingerbread house kits.

*hmm . . . pondering that for a minute*

***Chloe told Rudolph not to worry because she would not eat him. He was just too cute. The abdominal snowmonster, however, was told something not quite as reassuring.

Well, regardless, I have decided that we will no longer purchase pre-made gingerbread houses. Next year we are going to make the graham cracker style houses with our own homemade frosting and leftover Halloween candy. I mean we end up using the leftover candy on the other houses anyway, so why not just make our own frosting to go with it. We could make an entire village of little houses, varying size houses, or one large house. It will be a challenge, I am sure, and I know, that nothing will turn out the way I envision, but it is the time spent together that counts.

*making mental note to repeat that to myself over and over when we embark on this project next winter*

Stay tuned to see if I actually follow through.