Blue and Silver Snowy Winter 8 by 10 Framed Art Gift with Squares

Happy Holidays everyone!

Now that Christmas is over, I finally am starting to get my life back, which means I finally have some time to blog- it has been a CRAZY December- doing a show, Christmas parties, work and family visiting, so I have kind of been neglecting the blog-o here (I apologize profusely!).
I had wanted to share this a while ago, but with the December madness, I never got a chance.
For some family and a few close friends I decided this year to make some papercrafted framed art.

I got inspired after making this one at a Stampin Up! class by Jill Hilliard at Crop Pink this year:

Now square frames are EXPENSIVE, so I decided to make a version that fit in a standard 8x10 frame.
Can I just say, cranking out 14 of these was a huge undertaking! The class was very quick, so I thought, "Hey, I can do this for gifts in a snap." What I forgot was that the class had everything already cut, measured, designed and punched- so of course it didn't take that long. lol

After making 14 of my framed art pieces, I was dreading making my Christmas cards (all 80 of those I had to make), but I stuck with it, and finished both the frames and my cards before Christmas (sent them all out the Friday before Christmas, but hey, beggers can't be choosers!)

I used Papertrey Ink's Tiny Treats Christmas Set for the little characters, Papertrey Ink's snowflake additions set for the words, Stampin Up!'s snowflake stamp set (Festive Flurry) and punch for the large snowflakes and their sparkle paper on the edges and dressing up. I also used the dot embossing folder on a few of the squares. The paper and other stamps are ones I had from a long time ago, so honestly I couldn't tell you what those were. lol. I sparkled things up with stick on gems and Stickles added more sparkle to the tiny characters, snowflakes and ticket.

I think they turned out pretty in the end, they just ended up being a LOT of work to make 14 of them. If I only had to make a few, it wouldn't have been so time consuming!

Have a great day and stay tuned for me to post my belated Christmas cards for the year. ;)
Laters!
-M