Welcome to the holidays!

Ah, the holidays. The time of year where I notoriously over-extend myself. To add a little extra pressure to the mix this year, we are taking a week and heading to Disney right before Christmas. I will do my best to write blog posts in advance and maybe even blog from Disney.
So, on the crafty front.....

I was honored to be asked by my boss to design our annual holiday card. Suzan is a great designer and has pretty high standards, so I'm doing everything I can to turn out something worthy. Since I can't make 100 holiday cards (and envelopes) by hand by Monday, the card has to be designed digitally. This brainstorm launched me into a search for some digital stamps and other stuff that might be useful, not to mention a crash-course in Photoshop. Let me tell you, I have an all new appreciation for the digital and hybrid scrapbookers out there. Your tools are incredibly complex and the graphics available to you are astounding! In search of 'starbursts' I happened upon Designer Digitals and picked up this little number:

Exactly what I was looking for. Several hours (and numerous expletives) later, I figured out how to make them 'work'. Once it's finalized, I'll share the card with you.

I am so thrilled to be guest designing for Practicing Creativity Stamps in December!.

If you haven't seen Courtney's amazing stamps, you should definitely check them out.  I've been a fan (and collector) for several months now. Reveal of the December sets starts on Tuesday - so stay tuned!

This weekend will definitely be a crafty one. I need to get ahead on all the projects that will be due while I am away. I'll be working on my post for Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's blog. This promises to be a great series of holiday posts:

Making my Practicing Creativity projects. Working on the card layout for work. Making the 100 envelopes. So, are you braving the shops this weekend? Working on crafty projects? Decorating for the holidays? All of the above?

Oh, and be sure to check out the big Thanksgiving sale at Ella Publishing! They've got some cool bundles available!