Jesus Is The Reason For The Season!

Welcome! We are delighted to have you with us as we celebrate the Good News of our Savior's birth! We are a small band of blogging crafters who love God, and in the midst of all the seasonal festivities, we wanted to take some time to focus on the real meaning of Christmas: the birth of Jesus Christ. Of course there's nothing wrong with hustling and bustling about to find the "perfect gifts" for our loved ones. But when you stop to think about it, there will never be a gift more perfect than the gift God gave us in Jesus.

If you started at the beginning, you arrived here from Stacy's blog. But if you just happened to pop in for a random visit (aw, thanks! ), you'll want to go back and start with Heather's blog, because you won't want to miss a thing!

So why am I participating in this hop? Because I believe that Jesus is my savior and my salvation, and without Him, Christmas would be just another day off from work! Don't get me wrong - I love the festive holly and silver bells and reindeer and Santa and cookies and sparkle and lights, but as I've grown up and matured and as I've experienced the power of my faith and that of my priceless friends during the most sorrowful times in life, I can only now fully appreciate and focus on the wonder and joy that Christ brings to Christmas. So I am thrilled and honored to be a part of this glorious chorus that is shouting, Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born!

So about my card for the hop! I tried to keep things simple so that the first thing to catch your eye would be the Nativity. I used a very subdued color palette with pops of gold to emphasize the sentiment and Nativity scene, both of which are from the "O Holy Night" set by Inkadinkado. And I'm happy to say that the only element I purchased for this was that stamp set. Everything else, and I mean *everything*, came from my stash! Hope you enjoyed my card!

Your next stop and the end of the hop is Catherine's blog!

The hop will remain open through 11:59 EDT on Friday, December 3. And, what is a hop without prizes! We are very appreciative to the following sponsors who have generously donated prizes for us:
•Fresh Brewed Designs: 4 Christmas/Faith digital images plus 2 of winner's choice
•Simply Betty Stamps: Jude & His Shenanigans Crew Christmas Collection (6 digital images)
•The Stamping Boutique: 2 Faith digital images plus 4 images of winner's choice

THREE winners will be chosen (one for each prize) from comments selected from random blogs!

AND, we'd like to invite you to join us in celebrating this season of hope! So if you have a new project of faith to share with us, there will be an InLinkz at the bottom of Catherine's post that will be open for a week, so get crafting! :) As a thanks for participating, Catherine will have a prize up for grabs, too! (This is a separate prize in addition to the Hop Prizes and any personal hop candy that gals are offering!)

In case you missed one, here's the hop order from beginning to end:
Heather
Kadie
Karen
Kelly
Lori
Lorie
Maria
Paola
Sammi
Stacy
Susan - You're Here! :-)
Catherine

Thank you so much for hopping along and remembering that Jesus Is The Reason For The Season!

Have a blessed and happy day!

Susan :-)

It's Christmas in August!

I think all of us over in The Sisterhood knew it was coming; we just weren't sure when. But Sister Carol took care of that mystery when she issued her hostess theme to be Christmas in August! I was excited because Christmas is one of my Top Three holidays, and thinking "cold" was a good distraction from the sweltering heat. (Can you guess my other two favs?)

I knew I wouldn't be using the traditional red-n-green combo, and these papers from My Mind's Eye were just what I had in mind. I finally got around to cling-mounting the stamps I won from Copic Creations, and it was a no-brainer to use Winter Susan by Elisabeth Bell for SCACD.

It was a little nerve wracking trying to color her detailed Nordic-style hat and to add the white dots, but I only ruined two, and I think the white dots made all the difference. I was completely stumped for a layout, and finally decided to wrap the polka-dot panel as a present with some sparkly-edged ribbon, then added a punched sentiment tag. And there you have my Christmas in August card!

Wow, the kiddos are already heading back to school, and that means it's time to start thinking about my cookie baking list. I like to bake lots and lots of cookies, to the protests of The Man who thinks it's too much work:
"Why don't you just buy them?" he says.
"What? I can't buy them!" I gasp. "I'm the only one who inherited the baking gene!"

*sheesh* Silly, silly man! He does have my best interests at heart, as I'm often up until 2 AM baking. But it's worth it, because it reminds me of helping Mum when I was little, and it's really satisfying when someone says they're *almost* as good as hers. Hey, I'm happy with *almost* - hers were cookie nirvana!

This year, I'm going to try making pizzelles. If I start practicing now, I should have the technique perfected by mid-December. Maybe.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful day!

DETAILS
Image: Elisabeth Bell Winter Susan
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Cardstock: Stampin Up, Georgia Pacific
Patterned Paper: My Mind's Eye Bohemia "Bliss" collection
Copics: 0,BG10,BG72,BG78,C2,E000,E00,E35,E40,E57,R29,W3,Y26
Accents: white pen (Sakura), tag punch (SU), ribbon (Michael's)