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Addicted to CAS: Red

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A quick post to enter this week's challenge at Addicted to CAS. 

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Red is my favorite color, so I wanted to play along. I started with a Paper Source tag and envelope that's been in my stash for a long time. 

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I cut some Amy Tangerine "Plus One" patterned paper with Papertrey's Phrase Play #5 die, backed it with a strip of paper from the scrap dish and some white card stock. I cut a second Phrase Play die from gray card stock, cut out the "happy" and layered it over the original. The stamp was also Phrase Play #5. Three Jenni Bowlin rhinestone stars (also in my stash forever) and some silver thread finished it off.

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I love the silver envelope, and am glad I still have a couple of these tag sets left in my stash.

SNAP Week 3: Fresh Produce

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We make an effort to eat and purchase locally three seasons a year, but during the winter it would be slim pickings. I'm so grateful that one of the best grocery chains in the United States makes its home in Rochester. The flagship store is Pittsford is actually a tourist destination, and it's my go-to grocery store along with Trader Joe's. I had a couple things in mind for SNAP this week, but after several gray, snowy days here, when I walked into Wegman's this morning I knew right away I wanted to feature the bright colors of the produce.

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At least half, maybe more, of my grocery cart each week is produce (except in the summer when I shop at the local farmers' markets). It's not inexpensive, but I figure it's part of our health plan! Linking to Helena's meme SNAP, and off to see what other finds folks have made this week.

Memorandum Monday

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A good part of our weekend was spent unpacking, getting groceries, and organizing. We did take time to go see a movie that's received multiple Oscar nominations, The Big Short. It was both a fascinating and infuriating movie about the financial collapse in the mid-2000's. One of the most interesting things the director did was to have several of the actors speak directly to the audience. It was effective and instructive, especially for someone like me, who didn't understand the financial trickery that was really going on!

I needed a few more thank you cards, so here's the "new" for the weekend. When I was at Whim-so-Doodle in St. Petersburg, I picked up a new die by Technique Tuesday. I'm guessing it will get a lot of use, since I make multiple thank-you cards every year. There were also two small open leaf dies that came with it, which I didn't use this time. After taking the photos this morning, I realized I need to up the aperture on the camera.

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The cardstock is Papertrey Ink's Tropical Teal and the patterned papers are from a 6X6 pack by Amy Tangerine called "Rise and  Shine." I have a collection of these little clothespins, but have long ago lost the tag that tells me who made them. The little enamel heart is from another new goodie by Shimelle.

Here are two more thank you cards that I made yesterday afternoon as well.

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I love the Block Talk Thanks die by PTI, and found this pretty patterned paper in my scrap tin—have no idea where it came from!

Since I had the Block Talk die out, I thought I'd try a variation of a card I pinned some time ago by Sheri Carroll.

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I love the bright colors against the black background, a very different look from the inspiration piece.

Waving to everyone on this cold, windy, wintery day in western New York! Hope your week is a good one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Ombre

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Having been on the road, I'm taking a quick and easy route to entering this week's Wednesday Challenge, Ombre, at Simon Says. Papertrey Ink recently introduced a new paper pad called Ombre Stripes, and I snatched up a set. I'm always in need of a thank you card, and this was a quick one to create.

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Among the many things I love about Papertrey Ink is how the products coordinate with one another. The ombre striped paper is a variation on New Leaf card stock, so I trimmed off one edge of the paper so there would be a border on the side. The sentiment is from the Wet Paint series of dies, and the enamel dots are My Mind's Eye.

I have a whole list of crafty projects I'm hoping to get to now that we're home, so hopefully, the blog will be a bit busier.

Five in Five

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I've been following Miriam's Five in Five posts for some time, and decided this might be a good year to join in with Sandie's meme. Since I'm not doing a Project 365 this year, I'll need some motivation to keep the camera at hand. We're on our way back to the sub-zero cold, so I decided to start my year out with five photos in five minutes on Fort Myers Beach—a much more pleasant outdoor environment than I'm likely to find at home. (Although Sandie's "5 in 5" of her art journal page is fabulous, so I guess I can't use the weather as an excuse!)

It hasn't been as warm here as it has the last couple of years, but we've managed a long walk every day even though we're in jeans and sneakers instead of shorts and sandals. Here are five shots in five minutes—lots of birds, of course. They're my favorite subject when we're here.

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I'm happy to have a new project to add to my list for 2016.

 

SNAP: Week 2

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Here's another photographic peek into our road trip from Rochester to Florida. We always make a stop in St. Petersburg to have lunch at The Red Mesa Catina—one of my favorite Mexican restaurants. I once had a special posole there that I've managed to replicate with some success at home, and their chicken quesadillas are the best I've ever had. This time I had the Cuban torta which was wonderful, and big enough for two lunches. Our other stop, Whim-So-Doodle, is just around the corner. It's the best scrapbook/stamp/stationary store I know. Tracy entertains himself with Facebook while I shop.

This weekend, after our lunch and my shopping, we went to see the Chihuly Collection. We've seen one of his garden installations in Atlanta, and a fabulous show at the deYoung Museum in Golden Gate State Park, so we were really looking forward to seeing some new and different pieces. It was, however, a bit of a disappointment as the collection is much smaller than we anticipated. Many of the larger sets are ones we've seen elsewhere, although there were a few new pieces I liked a lot, including the white one below. If you don't know Dale Chihuly, it's definitely worth a look at his site.

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Check out Helena's blog for more SNAP collections this week. We're on our way back to the cold, and evidently very snowy, northeast tomorrow. Although I'll miss the mild Florida weather, I'm very ready to settle in at home after having been on the road since Christmas. 

 

Memorandum Monday

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I'm joining in with Sian's Memorandum Monday which encourages you to share something you learned or someplace new you visited over the weekend. I managed both—a new place and lots of new information. Over the weekend we were on the road from Rochester to Fort Myers Beach. To break up the long days of driving, we try to make a stop along the way. Last March someone recommended the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, North Carolina. The weather was so bad that trip that we didn't get to Raleigh in time to visit the museum. This trip the roads were great–no weather to contend with at all, and I'm now glad we missed the museum last year since the special exhibit on now is one of M.C. Escher's work.

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What I knew of M.C. Escher's work were his fantastic woodcuts of patterns and designs where one image merges into another, or his explorations of space. I didn't know he had also created wonderful drawings and woodcuts of landscapes, particularly of Italy. The exhibition hung his working drawings, the actual wood blocks, and then the final woodcuts side by side. It was a fabulous exhibit; the largest exhibit of his work ever mounted. Some of his works involving geometry were really beyond my ability to comprehend, although I stood in front of some of them trying hard. I should have known better, since geometry was possibly the most difficult course I ever took! (My mother was the teacher which made it even worse. I just didn't get it.)

Clearly, I needed some help with this:

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 Here is another photo (photos in the exhibit were, not surprisingly prohibited) of the striking graphics designed for the exhibit.

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And a fun selfie we took on our way to the cafe for lunch.

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We'll definitely come back again since we didn't have time to see the permanent collection which is housed in a beautiful modern building. 

 

SNAP 1 and Winter Scavenger Hunt

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Helena has come up with another great photography meme for 2016. I knew I wanted to start with one of the Winter Scavenger Hunt items, and thought I'd post the rest of the items I've found at the same time.

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A wreath is #8 on the Winter Scavenger Hunt. The first is over our fireplace, the second hanging above the chapel door at our church, and the bottom two were on the wall at the Chicago Botanic Garden as part of a wreath making competition. I'm quite fond of the rectangular one with the bright red cardinal.

Tinsel is #2. I was beginning to think I'd waited too long for this one, but in the entryway to a restaurant on Sunday I found this tree with silver tinsel.

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A star is #4. 

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Number 5 is a snowman. I'm pretty sure I'll find one made of snow before winter is over here, but there hasn't been enough snow in Rochester (thankfully), and the snow in Chicago wasn't the right kind for making snowmen (much to Caleb's disappointment.)

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Driving to Whole Foods in Evanston, I passed this park, hopped out of the van, and took this photo of #6: puddle(s).

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And last, for now, is #15: candlelight on our dining room table.

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I'm linking this with Helena's meme, SNAP, and to Joy and Eileen's link-up for the Winter Scavenger Hunt. The only item I'm a little worried about is pudding. I think there's a broader definition in Europe, and I need to do some investigating. 

 

 

One Little Word: 2016

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Sometime in the middle of December, I start thinking about my One Little Word for the next year. This year I listed three possibilities and let them rest. Suddenly one of them began to speak to me and seemed like a word that would encompass most of the intentions I’ve set for the new year.

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(photo: Johnson Lake, Banff, AB)

I want to be mindful of my relationships with others.

I want to be mindful and attentive to the activities I engage in.

I want to be mindful of my body and how I treat it.

One of the pleasures of being away from home is the time to surf around the internet, and do some research. I’ve done a lot of reading about mindfulness in the last couple of weeks. It all started in November when I attended a Sunday Seminar on Mindfulness. I’ve tried and failed to start a meditation practice over and over again, but the professor presenting the seminar led me to believe I was being far too hard on myself. So, yes, I’m interested in the study of meditation and mindfulness in the more traditional sense. In fact, a friend gave me a wonderful set of books by Thich Nhat Hanh for Christmas.

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But I look at this word in a more global way for my OLW. The best explanation I’ve found for my intentions was on Mindfulnet.org:

Mindfulness is a way of paying attention to, and seeing clearly whatever is happening in our lives.  It will not eliminate life's pressures, but it can help us respond to them in a calmer manner that benefits our heart, head, and body. It helps us recognise and step away from habitual, often unconscious emotional and physiological reactions to everyday events. It provides us with a scientifically researched approach to cultivating clarity, insight, and understanding. Practicing mindfulness allows us to be fully present in our life and work, and improve our quality of life.

I think it will help me with the intentions I’ve set for 2016. I limited myself to ten this year. Some are more specific than others, and some you’ll recognize from my 2015 recap. Liz Steel commented in a recent blog post that her “intention becomes a motivation,” and that’s been true for me.

1. Establish Morning and Evening Rituals:

    Morning: An hour to read and reflect: I have a list of reading projects that are perfect for this.

    Evening: Short daily recap; keep a daily gratitude journal.

2. Work to have a fitter, healthier, and trimmer body. I’ve joined Cheri and Melissa in Cathy Zielski’s FIT class, and want to continue the menu planning and food tracking I began in the fall.

3. Block out one day with no commitments/week.

4. Complete five sketches/week.

5. Read three books/month.

6. Complete one online class/month.

7. Purge: craft closet (again), digital folders, and attic.

8. Participate in Helena’s photography meme, Snap.

9. Catch up and continue with Project Life.

10. Work through my stamp collection when making cards; purge those that don’t work for me. Aim for one challenge/week.

We’re home for a brief stay to get Christmas put away, unpack, and repack in order to drive Tracy’s mother’s van to Fort Myer’s Beach for her. Once we return, I can set my focus on making 2016 the year of MINDFULNESS.

Less is More Challenge

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This week's challenge at Less is More is NEUTRALS. I rarely create a sympathy card with much color, and this one is all neutrals. It might be one of my favorite sympathy cards ever.

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I started with a Fog card cut with Simon Says "Stitched Rectangles," embossed the sentiment from Papertrey Inks "Botannical Silhouettes" and then arranged a group of die cuts from PTI's "Spruce and Sprig" cut from a variety of patterned and plain vellum. The silk ribbon bow is also Papertrey Ink. They no longer carry the ribbon, so I use it sparingly. The fog card was then attached to a card of Fresh Linen (also PTI.) Here's a closer look:

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The first challenge of 2016. I think I'll try to keep track of the number of challenges I enter this year. I'd like to do one once a week, so 52 by the end of the year would be awesome. Most likely they won't be week by week, but that's OK too.

2015 Recap

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It's the last day of the year, and time for a little assessment of the intentions I set last year with my OLW: Simplify. It was the second year for Simplify, and although I hadn't really finished with it, holding on to a word for a second year didn't prove to be very helpful or inspiring. Lesson learned. A year ago I typed up a document outlining my intentions for 2015. I found it this week, and it was fun to see exactly how well I’d done with them. I’m putting them out here as a way of being accountable, but fair warning, it’s a pretty long post.

Here they are with a bit of assessment:

Sketches

One sketch a day. I didn’t come close to meeting this goal although I did completed one sketch a day during the month of May and again in October. I filled more than one and a half sketchbooks with finished sketches, and have another book nearly filled with experiments with different media and efforts to master a certain technique. There’ll be some kind of intention around sketching for 2016 as well.

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Project 365 with the iPhone. Yes, I did take a photo every day with my iPhone. The intention was to learn how to use some of the many apps I had on my phone. I used Collect to organize the photos every month. I played around with a lot of editing apps, and have settled on Afterlight as the main app for editing photos. I also use SKRWT to correct images with distortions, PicTapGo when I need a good overall filter, & Retouch to get rid of elements I don’t want in the photo. I also like LetterGlow, Waterlogue, and HDRPhoto, although I don’t use them often. So I accomplished what I set out to do. This is the second Project 365 I’ve completed, and I don’t think I’ll tackle another one in 2016.

Participate in Helena’s meme: Pairs. Every week. Loved it. Looking forward to Snap in 2016.

Photography project: master back button focusing and panning. Nope. Not either one.

Read three books a month. Yep, exactly. I could certainly read more books if I read fewer blogs, but I get a lot of inspiration and information from blog reading, so I’m satisfied with this one. I also subscribe to and read three periodicals.

Project Life

Organize and catch up with Project Life. In June I was all caught up, and I do have an organizational system set up. But being away a good part of the summer put me way behind again. I have four months (July is nearly done) to complete once I finish my Christmas Journal. (There’ll be no December PL pages.) Even though it’s hard to keep up, I love this system of memory keeping, and plan to keep at it.

Participate in one card challenge/week using a different stamp set each week. Not really. I did, however, make well over 200 cards this year. It’s still one of my favorite hobbies.

Purge and organize the basement. Done.

Purge and organize the attic. Not so much. On the list for 2016.

Organize art materials on IKEA cart. Yes, one of the best purchases of 2015.

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Exercise: two spinning classea/week; three weight-training sessions; average 5,000 steps/day. Pretty inconsistent. We never got back to spinning class after our summer vacation. Weight training comes and goes. I was doing great this fall until Thanksgiving. I average 5,000 steps a day, sometimes it’s 12,000+ and others less than 5,000, but it averages out. Tracy and I hiked 76 miles on our vacation this year—a record for a three-week span. My friend and I have walked 5.5 miles once a week all fall and up until Christmas. If it’s not too snowy, we’ll be back at it in January.

Food

Continue with no preservatives/whole food eating. Yes, we’re good about this, and I enjoy cooking. One of my best Christmas gifts was The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking with Science. It’s huge, but I already know I’m going to love reading it and trying out the recipes.

Practice portion control. This is probably my biggest deterrent to weight-loss. Once again it’s inconsistency that’s the problem.

Continue with volunteer commitments. I sit on four committees (three church-related, one mission center), volunteer at an after-school program once a week, cook meals with a Dining Room Ministry Team, and provide dinner for families staying at our church with the Rochester Interfaith Hospitality Network. The last two are rotations that come up every two or three months. I plan to continue with all of them next year, and don't anticipate adding any new ones. We're away so much, I have to be careful what kind of volunteer commitments I make.

Make photo book of our trip to Istanbul and Greece. This has been on the list for two years now. I’m not sure why I’m avoiding it, but obviously I need to get some help with it.

Voices

Participate in Voices every month. Voices is a noon-time discussion group at our church focused on a reading we get in advance. I’m there every week I’m in town. There is a core group of us (12-15) who are there every week, and it’s become a wonderful community.

Last, but not least, I had a long list of online classes I wanted to complete. I made a dent (a little one) in the list, but it will continue into 2016. I did complete several sketching classes (two by Liz Steel that were intense and wonderful), several Online Card Classes, and have been working on Cathy Zielski’s Clean and Simple: The Workshop over vacation.

I’ll be back soon with my One Little Word for 2016. I've been living with the new word now for over a week, and think it will serve me well. We’re still in Chicago visiting Sarah, and will only be home two days before we leave to take Tracy’s mother’s van to Florida. The schedule doesn’t lend itself to blogging very well.

Just an hour and a half until we usher in the New Year in Chicago! Not sure I'll still be up, but I am wishing all of you the Happiest of New Years. I hope yours is filled with many blessings!

Pairs: Portraits of the Birthday Boy

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Today is the last week for the wonderful Pairs meme hosted by Helena. It's been a lot of fun and I've managed to come up with a pair every week. I'm looking forward to next year's meme, Snap. You can check out the pairs for this week and some information about Snap at Helena's blog.  A huge thanks to Helena for making this possible all year long. 

Today is also one little boy's fourth birthday. We've been opening presents little by little all day long. As I type this his dad and Grandpa are putting together a big boy bed. The double bed is going to be a big change from his less-than-single sized bed he's been in for the last couple of years.

We started the morning with pancakes.

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Chicago has gotten some snow in the last few days, and Caleb couldn't wait to get outside with his sled. They have a flat yard, but somehow his dad managed to get the sled to slide across the yard by itself. But it was throwing snow at each other that proved to be the most fun.

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So my final pair is Caleb:  INSIDE and OUTSIDE on his birthday.

I forgot to take a photo of his birthday card before I left, and he's saving his cards and one last present to open after dinner. I'll be back eventually (finding time to edit photos and post is proving tricky) with that and posts from Christmas. I still have quite a few pages left to do in my Christmas Journal once we get back home, so it's likely you'll be seeing Christmas here well into January.

DECEMBER 2015 Papertrey Ink BLOG HOP CHALLENGE

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Today is the Papertrey Ink December Blog Hop. It was the colors of the inspiration piece that got to me, and I grabbed a few minutes when I first saw it to create three tags. I didn't have anything specific in mind for them when I made them.

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The tags were premade by Graphic 45, and then stamped and embossed using Papertrey Ink's  Spruce and Sprigs, the Holiday Folk Mini-Market kit, Rustic Wreath,  and Believe. The "joy" is from WPlus9's Hand-lettered Holiday set. Here's a look at them side-by-side.

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Then just this week, I needed two quick cards, so two tags were quickly adhered to some Paper Source 4-Bar cards. I had time to grab a shot of just one of them.

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The last one was used on one of the Christmas presents. I ended up switching out the plaid ribbon for some gold thread.

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We're on the road today, but Tracy assures me I'll be able to link this up to the hop when the time comes. When I get to our destination I'll be checking in on the rest of the blog hop projects which you can find here.

Pairs: Christmas Cookies

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We got some fantastic help this weekend making Christmas cookies. Skylar came on Saturday, and we rolled out both sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies. Then on Sunday, she returned to help us frost the cookies. She caught on to the rolling pin right away, and really enjoyed cutting out the cookies. 

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Baking

Although she liked frosting the sheep and adding coconut for their fur, she was quite sure she didn't like coconut and wouldn't like eating one. The regular frosted cookies were just fine, though. She was back again tonight for our Christmas dinner (we celebrate early with Matt, Betsy and the girls), and was eager to have a frosted snowflake for dessert.

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Frosting

I doubt there'll be another post before Christmas, but you never know. Just in case, I hope all who celebrate have a wonderful holiday!

Elf on the Shelf

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Needless to say, we aren't doing an Elf on the Shelf project, but Sarah and Adam do one with Caleb. When I saw what Nicole Heady did with the Holiday Pin-ups kit, I asked Sarah if she were interested in anything similar. I started with the card. Sarah asked that I make it possible to change the notes each day, so there's both an outside and inside.

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Sarah's intention was to put a piece of velcro on the elf so they could stick it up somewhere. I used Papertrey's Pure Poppy and White patterned paper for the background, and added stamps from Postmarks and City Scene Sentiments (all PTI). The little elf was pre-printed in the Holiday Pin-ups kit and the pieces only had to be die cut and glued to the clothespin.

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I used a new Reverse Confetti "Gift Card Holder Tag" to die cut the slit for the cards and the cute little banner. Sarah has a set of 25 cards she can slide in and out of the slot.

While I was at it, I made three other clothespin cuties. They'll probably go on Christmas packages for the grandchildren.

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This has to be one of the most fun projects I've put together this year.