I really didn't plan to start my Christmas cards this early, but I'm sure that in December I'll be happy that I did.  This is my card for Gerda Steiner Designs challenge.  The challenge image is the little sleeping dog and mouse.  Gerda mentioned on Facebook that she had moved many additional image into her freebie section.  I had to check them out.  When I saw the little cat and bunny, I knew they would make a great combined image of sleeping "creatures."  

Faith at From the Heart Stamps is doing a personal project to design 100 snowmen before Christmas.  She calls it Project 100 and says, "The purpose is to get into good habits of drawing daily and pushing through creative blocks." Anyone who is creative has experienced those times when it just doesn't seem to flow.  I wish her well in her project.  The great thing for crafters is that the 100 project snowmen are just $1 until she finishes them all!  Last time I checked, she was up to snowman 12.  They are all different and all darling.

Although the challenge stamp for August is a snowman, it isn't part of the Project 100.  However, you can get it for free if you spend $10 bucks.  My challenge card has inspired me to check out more snowmen.  Maybe I'll have a snowman theme for my Christmas cards this year.

 Here's my card for Deedee's Digis.  I tried the pyramid technique that's I've seen in many British card magazines.  I wasn't sure it was what I wanted so I also tried a 3D version.  It was a LOT of fussy cutting & the pieces were so very small!  I asked Damon's opinion & he liked the pyramid better, so that's the one I posted on the link at Deedee's.

This is my card for the Your Scrapbook Place challenge for September.  The image is from SLS Lines. They have quite a variety of images and digital scrapbook kits.  I thought this quirky house would be great to announce a move, welcome a new neighbor or send congrats on a new house.

Before I start posting the challenge pictures for this month, I need to catch up with a few family and personal cards.  Somehow I missed posting the card we sent when Micah was born.  I chose this design and saying because the shower was a "Twinkle twinkle little star" theme.  It seemed "A Star is Born" was continuing the theme.

This is Elaine's birthday card.  It was the first time I tried a "screen" card.  Of course most of them are made with three panels so you can use a single 12 x 12 page.  I needed four panels for the four seasons, so I had to accordion-fold two sheets.  That made the finished product pretty bulky.  However, it does stand up really well!  Here's the sentiment side.

I told Damon I would make cards for the veterans in the Labor Day Parade this year.  I made a couple of prototypes that he could take to the 912 Group as samples:

I thought they would select one design, but they wanted them both.  They also wanted a printed message inside that was fairly long, and they wanted all the group members to be able to sign the cards individually.  That just wouldn't be possible in the 4.25 by 5.5 size, so I modified the design to a 5 x 7.

We have potentially 40 returning Honor Flight veterans this year.  The 912 Group will include the cards in the goodie bags they have for each vet.  The bags also include a miniature flag display suitable for a desktop or tabletop display with an American flag and a flag for the vet's service branch.  I finished up all 40 cards in time for last week's meeting so they could be signed there.