Christmas card project...and a surprise!

Last Sunday, Bonnie and Ashley came over so we could work on our Christmas cards for this year. We all decided to make our cards rather than buy boxed ones, so we needed to block off several hours where we had no errands to run, houses to clean, and/or husbands to entertain. Otherwise, we would have never found the time to put them together.

Here are Bonnie and Ashley working on their cards. I won't show their designs so nobody gets a spoiler!




My finished cards:


Once we were finished making our cards, which took forever, I had a little surprise planned for us. A few weeks ago Bonnie had found the schedule for Sur La Table's cooking classes for December, and one of them was a gingerbread design class. We were stoked until we looked at the price...so we decided against it. So I thought I'd try to set up some gingerbread fun. I went to Michael's and picked up 3 gingerbread house kits on the cheap and hoped the girls would be up for making them after spending all day on the cards....they went for it! YAY!

The kits came with gumdrops, little chocolate candies, and some sugar things, but Bonnie scoured my pantry for other stuff we could use. She found mini pretzel sticks, 2 kinds of chocolate chips, and some other things.

Here we are, working hard on our houses:

Nevermind the sour looks on our faces - that is concentration! :)

....and our finished products!

Bonnie's is on the left, mine in the middle, and Ashley's on the right. Love her flower boxes and Bonnie's barn door-looking front! :)

It was a fun day, and by the end of it, we were mostly done with our cards (minus addressing, stamping, and some finishing touches), and we had a gingerbread house to display for the season. Good times!