Welcome to the first day of the 12 Days Blog Hop hosted by Mari Koegelenberg of My Digital Art Studio, Melissa Wilson of Domesticated Lady, Pamela Donnis of Keeping Life Creative and myself, Kelleigh Ratzlaff of Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs. We are all designers in the digital scrapbooking and papercrafting industry and we are SO excited about the next 12 days! We plan to bring you frugal gift ideas, fun tutorials, free downloads and lots of great inspiration to put you in the Christmas mood.

All of our freebies are designed to coordinate with our 12 Days of Christmas digital scrapbooking Grab Bag, which is available at The Digichick. Digital papers come in jpg format, so you can print them out right on your regular ol’ printer at home! You will also find files that come in png format, psd format (for use in Photoshop) and pdf format, which can be opened up using the free download, Adobe Reader.

I’m honored to be kicking this blog hop off with something that is as cute as it is practical!

My regular blog readers know that I am totally down with using CASH to pay for groceries, gas, haircuts, gifts, fun stuff . . . pretty much anything that is not paid through online bill-pay. When we pull out the plastic, it’s easier to overspend, but when we hand over cash, it hurts! It makes us really think hard about each purchase, which makes us better stewards of the resources God has given us. I explained that a little bit yesterday when I released my new envelope template, the Tab Envelope Template Set and Cutting Files.

Today’s FREEBIE is an envelope that was created specifically to help you keep on track with your Christmas spending. I used my brand new template and some digital paper and elements designed by Mari Koegelenberg which is available in the 12 Days Grab Bag.

Click on the image above to download the Freebie, and then make sure you keep reading to see what I did with it!

First, open up the jpg file. You could open it in your preview mode or in a photo editing program, and then just print it out on white paper. I printed mine on matte photo paper so that the colors would be vibrant and I would conserve my ink, however you can print yours on regular copy paper or white cardstock.

Next, I used my ruler and a bone folder to score on the lines where indicated. If you don’t have a scoring tool, just use the dull edge of your butter knife or a single tine of your fork!

I used my craft knife (glorified Xacto knife) to cut the template out, and then I got all lazy and used my 1 1/4″ circle punch to cut the circular portions of the template. Of course, scissors work just fine.

Fold on the scored lines until it starts to look like a little tab envelope. I used my favorite liquid adhesive to adhere the tabs to the inside of the back. Of course, you could always wrap the tabs around the back, too! Do what feels natural to you. A glue stick might not stick very well, but some Elmer’s white glue should be fine if you don’t have “good” scrapbooking adhesive!

Add the little label, and there you have an adorable cash envelope that will hold your Christmas cash! Of course, this would also make a cute little gift all by itself (with cash tucked inside, of course), but keep reading so you can see what else I did with it!

The first envelope is free, but if you want to get serious about managing your Christmas spending, you might need more than one category, so I created an entire printable set which is included in the 12 Days Grab Bag.

Using designs by Mari Koegelenberg, Pamela Donnis and Melissa Wilson, I put together a set of 5 printable tab envelopes that you can slip into your wallet. Let me show you!

First, I printed, cut and assembled all of the envelopes. Then, I used some clips to hold them together on both sides to stabilize the stack.

I cut a piece of cardstock 6.5″ x 3″ and added that to the back of the stack. I used my Crop-o-dile (a super strong hole-puncher and eyelet-setter that can punch through a thick stack) to punch 7 holes across the bottom of the envelopes.

Then, I used some ribbon to “sew” up the envelopes to hold them together, tying the ends in knots. (Which, of course, I did after I took this picture. Just pretend, okay?)

And, here they are slipped into my wallet!

There are lots of possibilities for this little Christmas Cash Envelopes set. I plan on putting the initials for each of my boys on the tabs and slipping our budgeted amount into each of their envelopes. I’ll do the same for my husband, and then have one envelope that is just for Christmas supplies like wrapping paper and tape. The other envelope will be for random expenses like admission to an event or charity giving.

The cool thing is that I have been setting aside money in our “gift” category in savings all year long! I’ll just withdraw some of that cash, put it into the envelopes and have it with me if I come across a big sale. (Don’t freak out, though! It’s not THAT much money! LOL!)

PLUS, I can fit these envelopes right behind the cash envelopes that I use to keep track of my regular monthly budget. Awesome!!

If this whole concept of using cash to help you control your spending, or, to put it another way, only spending money that you have, is new to you, I’d like to invite you to explore my blog a little. I’m a work in progress, so I’m certainly not an authority on the subject, but I’m excited to report that this month marks the 1 year anniversary of cutting our grocery budget down to $200 a month for a family of four using cash and by extreme couponing, thus saving our family over $2400. It’s been SO freeing to live this way so that we can be more generous with our giving, more deliberate with our spending and more intentional with our savings.

Some posts you might be interested in:

• The Tab Envelope Template Set and Cutting Files
• The Free Envelope Template and Tutorial
• You Don’t Have to be a Genius: How I Learned to be an Extreme Couponer
• And, of course there are all of my grocery scores to look at for inspiration!! LOL!

If you like this little template and want to see the rest of my papercraft template designs, go check out my store at The Digital Press.

Above all, enjoy your Christmas season and remember that this holiday is not about spending money and buying gifts. It’s about celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Merry Christmas to you, and come back tomorrow to grab the next freebie in the 12 Days Blog Hop!

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