Tea light houses and Celestial Cards

When we lived in Germany I loved going to the Christmas markets.  We went to many of them and I started a collection of these tea light houses made by a company called Leyk Lichthauser.  Each house is based on an actual building in Germany.  I haven't added to this collection for many years.  The number of houses I have just fits nicely in the bookcase top of this secretary desk in our family room.  I used to use candles but it took a long time to light them and put them out so for safety and convenience I use strings of white lights to illuminate them now.  If you'd like to know more about these houses, here is a LINK to the English language site for the Leyk Lichthauser company.  There are many more styles available now.  The lichthauser shelves will have some greens added to make them more festive - I use fresh greens so I will wait until we are closer to Christmas to add them.

We were gone most of the day - first to the special music church service to hear my husband's parents and sister singing in the choir and then to our nephew's 8th birthday party.  The music was beautiful and the party was chaotic but fun (triplets, twins and birthday boy all 11 and under).  So I didn't get much done here but we did sneak in a quick stop at the mall between church and the party and checked a number of gifs off our list.

I did get my third swap finished and in the mail yesterday.  The swap was for A2 notecards and the theme was "celestial."  I had a few different ideas but ended up making these cards with some swirls of stars from Joys of the Season which I adapted in Design Studio and a large star punched with a Martha Stewart punch.

I used some Creative Memories shimmer paper to cut the star swirls and metallic gold for the punched star.  Unfortunately, this paper is no longer available.  It was one of my favorites and I save it for special projects now.  Each of the four swirls of stars is in a different color (it may be hard to tell from the photo - it is even a bit difficult to tell two of the colors apart in person).

Here are all my cards before I sent them for swapping.  They have plain white paper inserts so they can be used as notecards.  They are not quite what I had envisioned - I hope my swapping partners like them...

I have lots more decorating to do tomorrow.  I'll be away again for three days at the end of the week so I have to  make a big push to get it mostly done before I go.  I know I am behind on answering email and comments - I will try to catch up tomorrow (does anyone else need more hours per day right now?).  I will also try to add another video as promised.  A few people have had trouble hearing the videos - I am not sure why.  I have tried it from several different computers and the sound has been fine.  You can adjust the sound on You Tube and on your computer so please check to be sure you have it high enough to hear.