Christmas 2012

Another Christmas has come and gone.  I love that the whole family shows up every year.  Our biggest surprise was my nephews who recently moved to Colorado, were able to come home for Christmas thanks to Auntie Caroline and Uncle Ben.

Here are all the grandkids...  Nine in all.  What a great looking family! 

My mom and sister, Sherry made the most beautiful quilts:

And now from Sherry:

There was one more from Sherry but for some reason I didn't take a photo of it.

Little Gift Bags

I just finished these cute gift bags for the girls in my family.  We don't exchange gifts for the family members who are 18+.  Instead we play the white elephant game but with $25 gift cards.  We started this tradition probably about 5 years ago and it's been a lot of fun.  But we like to give little gifts to members of the family too.  As you know, I sell Avon so I purchased a few items to bundle together for the "girls".  The girls are:  Carly, Sherrise, Christine, Melina and Jori.

Thanks to my buddy Nancy and her posting about gift bags, I realized that these were the same instructions as the lip balm purses that I made for the craft fair but a bigger version.  I had to make the dimensions a little larger than Nancy's but here's what they look like:

I wanted to use as many scraps or underused items as possible.  I love how they have sort of a vintage feel. 
Supplies:
Paper Pack:  Textures & Finishes Stack by DCWV (bought about three years ago)
White Doily:  Wilton (bought earlier this year for my parents 50th anniversary favors)
Mini Clothespins:  given to me by my mom.  She purchases them from a yard sale.  I adhered gold glitter on them (glitter also given to me by my mom from an old friend of hers who was giving supplies away)
Tickets:  you guessed it - the back of old tickets that I collect when I don't win a raffle prize.  I stamped the word "JOY" on the tickets. 
Letter Stamps:  JOY is used from a letter set from Stampin' Up! and black ink
Snowflake confetti:  Yes, I'm a gatherer...this was probably from some party years ago.  I knew I'd use them one day :)
Die cut letters:  I keep a container of letters that I cut and don't use either because they are the wrong size or color or who know what exactly...but they sure do come in handy!  I did however had to cut an additional "C" and use my Mini Monogram Cricut cartridge.
Rolled Flowers:  Although they were already rolled, I inked them to give them an old look.  They were cut using my Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge.

Directions:
10x11 sheet of cardstock
Score on the 10" side at 2" and 8"
Score on the 11" side at 3/4", 4 1/2", 6 1/2" and 10 1/4"

Fold all score lines.
The diagonal fold is a little hard to explain so hopefully this link will help.

Normally you adhere a "topper" on both sides of the edges, but I was being lazy and decided to put a topper over the entire top and just staple it on.  Then I prettied it up.

The bags include:
makeup remover, mascara, hand lotion, lip balm and a nail file
Except for Carly and Jori's.  Carly's does not have mascara nor the make up remover but instead a nail polish and Jori's only has the hand lotion and lip balm (she's 7).

I hope they enjoy them!  

Holiday Decoration Challenge

Only one day of vacation and I'm already on a creative mission!  OMG!  Look at this wall hanging...

I don't know if these photos do it any justice, but this just might be the cutest thing I ever made.  There's a lot going on so here we go...
Papers:  Union Square Paper Pack from Recollections (base and all layers); Heirloom Paper Pack from DCWV (holly leaves); Recycled Pages from an old paperback (paper cones)
Cricut Cartridge:  Joy of the Season (holly leaves)
Bird Sticker:  Heidi Grace
Background Stamps & Ink:  Stampin' Up!  (you can't really see them in these photos but I stamped the words "Wish, Cherish and Joy" on the music notes paper)
Pearl and Rouge Glimmer Mist:  Tattered Angels
Snowflakes:  Give to me by a friend
Chunky Silver Glitter and Green Glitter and a Glitter Button w/Twine:  From my stash

The whole thing is about 9".  I'm hanging in the middle of my Christmas wreath.

I'm entering this holiday decoration on the Decorate to Celebrate challenge blog.  Find the link HERE.

Upcycled Gift Card Holders

If you know me at all, you know I love to recycle and use what I have to make new projects.  Well...look at these cool gift card holders I just made for my kiddos.  The base is a toilet paper roll.

So I started with the never ending supply of empty toilet tissue rolls and smashed five of them (one for each child and Kenny).  Then I cut scrap Christmas paper at 4 x 71/2" to cover the roll.  At first I thought I'd punch holes at one end and either lace ribbon or put in some eyelets, but then I thought nah, I'll just staple one end closed.  So at each end, I stapled two to close it.  I downloaded this free file from Stampin' Up! "Even Naughty People Deserve Something Nice" tags.  Absolutely LOVE them!  Put a line of glue around the edges and put some chunky silver glitter.  Tied some white kite string that I've had forever and there you have it!  I love how they turned out!

Close up...

I thought about adding little jingle bells to the string, but decided not to.  I definitely need to make these next year for my craft sales.  I think they have the potential to be really cute!!

Wine Train Layout

Another sketch challenge at Let's Scrap!  I love these photos!  We had a great time on the Wine Train.  My sister, Caroline wanted to treat me and my other sister for helping her with her wedding a couple of years ago.  We just never got around to finding the right date.  We went a couple of days after my younger sis' birthday so it was a great gift when she won the free wine tasting tickets.  Can you believe wine tasting is NOT part of the ticket price for the wine train?  I thought it was pretty funny.

Here's the sketch:


and here's my layout:

Check out the above link to Let's Scrap for more layouts and of course many, many more sketches!

Jingle Bells

I feel like I haven't been doing any challenges lately so I went on the Fantabulous Cricut Blog and decided very last minute to put in this entry.

The theme...Jingle Bells

I made this gift tag for the challenge.  I had bought this sentiment stamp years ago at a yard sale and never had the opportunity to use it yet.  I loved it but you know how that is...

I used my Joys of the Season cartridge for the tag base and layer plus the different size snowflakes.  You can't really tell, but there is some glimmer mist on the entire tag as well as the snowflakes.

Check out the challenge blog at Fantabulous Cricut Challenge

Secret Santa Sister

Woo Hoo!  Thanks Maggie, my secret sister who sent me not one but two packages to open today!  I realized when I took this picture I didn't include the CUTE red cardinal bird wearing a cowboy hat and boots and a bandana & leather vest.  It's adorable and I'm guessing since Maggie is from Texas, this is a cute little Texas item in my stash.

Look at all my goodies!!!

and here's a closeup of the cute tin she made:

and here's the cute little birdie:

Thanks Maggie!!

I was fooling around in the Command Center and grabbed my bag of yellow scraps and decided to make this:

I found an old mat board and drew a circle with the lines on it and then gathered scraps to fit inside the lines.  Before putting down the solid yellow circle (the one with the stamp), I stamped a French Script background stamp (Stampin' Up) and sprayed some red glitter spray and a few other random stamping in a tone on tone color.  If you look real close you can see the birds and two clock faces.  The birds and clock face and the main stamp are from a Tim Holtz set that Carly bought.  Punched two holes with my Crop-a-dial and then added some ribbon/twine/string.  Not bad for a bunch of scraps...I included this little gift (it's about 6x8) with other goodies for my Secret Santa/Sister exchange.  It thought it'd be cute in her scraproom.

Christmas Cards

It's been a couple of years since I made Christmas cards.  I made one of each of my friends at the Paper Pajama Slumber Party group.  Here's what they look like...

Carly and I bought this beautiful paper pad called Union Square from Recollections at Michaels.  I used scraps from another project and cut out Santa hats from my Joys of the Season Cricut cartridge.  Stamped "Be Merry" from a stamp from Stampin' Up! and punched with two punches also from Stampin' Up!.  Some of the scraps already had a glittery red on the corner but the ones that didn't, I stamped and embossed a little something on the corners.  On the single card above, I used a stamp from Close To My Heart.  Very simple but cute.  I believe that's called CAS card (something like that).  My son, Tony bought me the red embossing powder (brand new) at a yard sale for a buck!  Great find Tony!!

Merry Christmas!

See this Link for the challenge I entered this in.  Exploring Cricut