It is time for Christmas in The Underground!

I am back in The Underground after spending Thanksgiving with friends and family in Texas and attending the Texas A&M / LSU football game (Aggies lostL) Oh, and we went from Kentucky to Texas via Florida. Now why would one do that? Well our granddaughter had the role of Clara in the North West Florida Ballet production of The Nutcracker!  (she was fabulous!) I am now totally ready for the Christmas season, so much more so since I no longer have to plan around a nurse’s schedule!

A couple of weeks ago, my friend, Stephanie, shared on her blog WoolyThyme, her feelings about Christmas shopping on Thanksgiving Day. It gave me pause as I thought about Christmas and what it  means to me. I don’t think of myself as an extravagant consumer; in fact I am pretty conservative. I love the idea of finding creative ways to avoid scanning the credit card and maneuvering through stores. As I thought about this, several things came to mind; I will share these ideas as they materialize.

I certainly prefer spending time in my studio to spending time at the mall. I can’t think of a better stress inhibitor! Thanks to the generosity of my good friend, Tracy Badger , I have an abundance of beautiful Christmas papers perfect for cards and gift tags. (Tracy gave up crafting to focus on her music and I now have her stash!)  Last evening I used my Silhouette Portrait to make tags. (Okay, this isn't a biggie, but one has to start somewhere.)

Using a template from the Silhouette Store I designed the tags to be cut from two sided card stock. After I had my design, I moved the tag template from the work space and used the sketch pens to write To and From. Keep in mind, most text will be an outline but sketch text can be downloaded from the Silhouette Store (Everything in the design store is ½ off through December 8.) After the pen did it’s sketch, I left the paper on the mat in the Silhouette, placed the tag template back over the To and From, after I was satisfied with the placement, I moved the text to the side, replaced the pen with a blade, changed the setting to cardstock and clicked send to Silhouette.

This was pretty easy so I thought I would do another design. Looking through the Christmas paper stash I found this:

A pad with pretty tags just waiting to be cut out! You won't find me standing in line to purchase gift tags!