Merry Christmas Paper Crafts and Printables for 2014

I've finished updating my 2014 Christmas printables collection on the web site this week, just in time for you to print and make holiday arts and crafts galore. Included in this year's set is a printable place mat, greeting card, gift tags, and border papers for family newsletters at Christmas or for the New Year, plus die cut templates for these cute paper garland gingerbread men.

My little paper craft  gingerbread garland was a big hit last year, but I didn't have time to offer it before the holidays so here it is, ready for you to print and cut out, or to use as a color in craft template.

If you have a Silhouette craft cutter, you'll find a freebie .STUDIO file for this design on my web site. The little icing pieces are tricky to get off the cutting mat, but the finished design is worth the effort. One version I made was actually done in two layers.

Printables and Die Cuts for Hand or Silhouette Cutouts

The back/bottom later was all white, with no cutouts (just the outline of the edges) and the top/front layer was cut from brown kraft paper. When I sandwiched the two garlands together the white icing details showed through the kraft paper cutouts

There's a full color printable sheet and a black and white template printable in this set as shown above, or you can download the STUDIO cut file and design your own gingerbread men paper swags.

Merry Christmas!

Winter's Here - Let It Snow Coloring Sheet

In Vermont and most of the Northeastern USA and Canada, we're hunkered down for the first big snowstorm of 2014. This is a true Nor'easter, with frigid cold sinking in from the Arctic and a big, moist coastal storm pushing up from the south. I've already measured 2.5 inches in my front yard this morning.

Snowman family coloring page

In Vermont we expect snow totals from 3 to 12 inches or more from this two day snowstrom, with the most snowfall in the central and southern parts of the state.

It's perfect ski snow with the near-zero F temperatures and for most of us will be easy to shovel or plow on Friday or Saturday. By the end of the weekend we're due to have a "warmup" to mid-thirties for a day or so. That will make the snow sticky and just perfect for, yes, snowmen!

Our state depends on tourism and winter sports enthusiasts for a significant part of overall income, so when it snows, Vermonters do the happy dance and say, "Let it Snow" ... then just get on with life.

If you're trapped indoors from the storm or any reason over the next few weeks, print off this snowman family coloring page and make some art. Little ones will like coloring the snowman hats and sticking cotton balls or silver and white glitter on the snow people.

You could experiment making paper crafts using this snowman line art (printable available from my web site  winter coloring pages). Use the trace, print and cut features with a craft cutter to make a cutout for a mobile - combine with snowflakes and hang in the window.

New Look, More Clip Art and Borders in 2014

I've decided to expand this blog in 2014, to include all my thematic clip art, borders, die cuts, digital stamps and craft projects in one place - here! I'll be creating pages on this blog for each of the holiday clip art collections I've shared in my single-holiday blogs. I'll also be making special sections on this blog with downloads for digital stamps, die cut templates and scannable shapes you can use with popular craft cutters.

Turkey Thanksgiving Card Craft

Turkey Paper Craft Card

Gobble up this funny Thanksgiving turkey card craft sheet. It's easy to make a paper craft die cut card for Thanksgiving using this printable template from LeeHansen.com that includes the full color turkey and feathers plus a calligraphy quote for the inside flap.

I used my Silhouette Cameo craft cutter to trace and cut out the turkey and his feathers. He can also be cut out using a craft knife.

Print, cut out and glue Tom Turkey onto your own sheet of card stock. Add some ribbon (I used raffia on mine) and then hand letter a sentiment for the inside or use the presized quote word art (printable also included for this). I printed the quote on vellum, trimmed it with craft edging scissors, then top-glued it on the inside flap of the card.

Happy Thanksgiving!