Celebrate!

Today it's time to CELEBRATE! It's not only New Years Eve, but it's also my birthday! We were out last night for a bit & I mentioned to my husband that I needed to go home and finish a card for today's post. He suggested that I find a picture of a birthday candle and tell all of you I was taking the day off. Nice try honey!


Well I do actually have a card to show you today using this great set by Our Craft Lounge called Cheers! ~ it's perfect for New Years, it's also great for birthdays or any party celebration.

Have a safe and Happy New Year!

Very Thankful Friendly Flower

Here's a sweet image from the January Monthly Mix (From the Heart) by Lizzie Anne Designs. I decided to paper piece the center of the flower to add a little more interest to the image vs. just coloring it in a solid shade.

We've had a fun but busy few days with with my brother and a sister & all of our families. Thankfully, I only live a few hours from my sister, so we see each other often. However, I haven't seen my brother, sister-in-law or their kids in about 5 years. On Monday, we all met up at my Dad's house in Michigan and had a wonderful time. Then on Tuesday, on their way back to St. Louis, they stopped here to spend the afternoon and night so we had more family time. It was great to have all the cousins together watching movies, playing games, looking at old pictures and just laughing at funny stories from the past.

I hope you were able to spend some quality time with family this holiday season!

Valentine Trees

You know I MUST paper piece when a get a new Unity tree image ~ I just can't resist! This cute image is from the Unity store kit available at i{heart}paper ~ super fun!

Supplies from i{heart}papers: Stamps ~ Unity January Store Kit, Unity December Store Kit; Pattern Paper ~ My Minds Eye (Love Me Do); Nestabilities; Ink ~ Palette, Copics, atyou Spica glitter pens.

Cup of Love from Unity

I don't know about you, but I couldn't wait to stop making Christmas projects! Woohooo ~ it's time to move on to something else! Valentine's Day of course & Unity's January Store Kit available at i{heart}papers has some super cute Valentine images. I had lots of time off from stamping and feel a bit refreshed so I know I'll have lots and lots of new projects coming up to share with you each day!

Supplies from i{heart}papers: Stamps ~ Unity January Store Kit, Hearts of Old Background; Pattern Paper ~ My Minds Eye (Love Me Do); Ribbon ~ May Arts; Nestabilities; Ink ~ Palette, Copics, atyou Spica glitter pens.

It's Your Day!

Here's another cute little image from the Lizzie Anne Monthly Mix for January. The variety of images in this set ~ OUT OF THIS WORLD!


Sorry my post isn't longer ~ it's movie night with the family & I'm off to watch a new one we got for Christmas.

Photo Flower

The day after Christmas ~ it's good to have the holiday over & in our house, a huge success! Everyone had a wonderful day and just a few minor returns.

My project for today is from the January Monthly Mix (From the Heart) from Lizzie Anne Designs. This stamp is something new where the image was taken from an actual photograph ~ pretty cool!

Christmas is all about LOVE...

Christmas Wishes to you today! I hope your day is filled with good food, fun presents and the love of family and friends. We will be snuggled in all day for a relaxing day enjoying our annual traditional breakfast of ham and cheese Souffle with coffee cake, playing games & watching movies, opening gifts and then having a wonderful ice cream sundae bar to end the evening. It's exactly what we hope for each year ~ fun with family.

On my stamping spree the other day, I made this fun gift bag and matching card with the new January Monthly Mix by Lizzie Anne Designs. I was thrilled with the result and think it would be perfect for Christmas, a winter treat, or Valentine's Day ~ just all around fun!

Once again, I wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Supplies Used: Stamps ~ Lizzie Anne Designs (January Monthly Mix ~ From the Heart); Pattern Paper ~ Colorful Christmas (My Minds Eye); Heidi Swapp clear acrylic snowflakes; Stickles; Nestabilities; Palette Ink.

Thoughts and Prayers

Just wanted to share a pretty little card I made yesterday ~ YES, I finally STAMPED!!! In fact, I spent a good part of the day stamping & finally found a little bit of mojo! Anyway, these images are from the January Monthly Mix by Lizzie Anne Designs.

Merry Christmas Eve!

A little more Christmas

Just 2 more sleeps until the big day & here are a few more cards using a few of the Christmas sets from Our Craft Lounge ~ Jolly Ornaments & Purr-fect Wishes.

I'm think I may be about done showing you Christmas creations ~ in fact, this may be it. I'll have to dig through my files and see if there are any other stragglers...

Have a great day & happy pre-Christmas Eve!

P.S. I love you!

Is anyone else tired of making Christmas cards, gifts and decorations? Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas! However, I've been making Christmas projects since July or August & it's really getting old! So I'm just taking a little break and making some fun Valentine's Day projects. I actually had some mojo today, so I just went with it!

For both projects today, I have used the January Monthly Mix (From the Heart) by Lizzie Anne Designs. Once again, the images in this Mix are so fun and there are lots to choose from!

Oops...

My internet was wonky last night so I didn't get my blog post scheduled until now. I guess that's what I get for waiting until the last minute! Sorry for the delay...


Well it's the first day of winter break for my kids... ahhhhhhh! I'm ready for Christmas, family is here, and everyone is sleeping in ~ gotta love breaks in the normal schedule. Since I was so busy getting things done before the kids got out of school, I seem to have lost my mojo along the way. I haven't stamped in the last 5 days ~ which for me, is pretty shocking! Add to that ~ my in-laws sleep in our finished basement (which is where my craft area is), so getting down there has been a challenge. Thankfully, I had some things already prepared to share on my blog.

Speaking of my craft area ~ I've had requests in the past to show you what it looks like so thought I would share a picture of that today. This is a picture from a year ago & it's not really that clean right now! So that's where I work ~

Supplies Used: Stamps ~ Lizzie Anne Designs (Way Up North); Cardstock ~ PTI; Pattern Paper ~ Imaginsce; Ink ~ Palette, Copics, Spica glitter pens; Edge Punch ~ Fiskars; Nestabilities.

Jolly Ornaments

A little Christmas Cheer for you today as we are just a few short days until the big day! I hope you are enjoying all the holiday preparations this weekend.

Supplies Used: Stamps ~ Our Craft Lounge (Jolly Ornaments); Cardstock ~ PTI; Ink ~ Palette, Copics; Glitter ~ Our Craft Lounge (Irish Green); Nesties; Cuttlebug Embossing Folders; Hero Arts Gem; May Arts Ribbon.

Which Way?

To the North Pole? Here's a cute little card using my favorite image from the Way Up North set by Lizzie Anne Designs.

Have fun getting ready for Christmas. After my kids piano recital today, we are actually celebrating with my husbands side of the family ~ busy, busy, busy day!

Bright Snowflakes

Just a fun bright card to share today with a super quick post. I hope you are enjoying the Christmas season ~ it's so busy, busy, busy. Are you finished shopping, wrapping and baking? I finished my shopping on Tuesday and wrapping gifts on yesterday. I wanted to be all finished before the kids finished school today ~ whew! As for baking ~ I don't do a bunch of that (just when I need something for a blog post ~ JK).

Have a great weekend!

Supplies Used: Stamps ~ Lizzie Anne Designs (Way Up North); Pattern Paper ~ My Minds Eye (Colorful Christmas); Ink ~ Palette, PTI Snow White; Gem ~ Kaiser; Edge Punch ~ Martha Stewart.

Cocoa To Go

This year I made a bunch of gifts to have on hand so I could give them out as needed. A few months ago, I found these fun hot/cold cups at Target. THEN... about a month later this great stamp came out from Lizzie Anne Designs in the December Monthly Mix. Oh My HECK... can you even believe how well they match?

Inside each cup is a hot cocoa packet, a little bag of marshmallows and a little bag of mint chips ~ perfect for those cold winter days. Just add hot water, stir, and top it off with the sipper lid! There ya go ~ it's hot cocoa TO GO!


I stamped the cute tag with the Deck the Halls set, edged the bottom with my EK Success scalloped scallop edge punch and then added some white ric rac for a fun touch.

Supplies Used: Stamps ~ Lizzie Anne Designs (Deck the Halls, December Monthly Mix); Ink ~ Palette, Copics; Cardstock ~ PTI; Tag Die Cut ~ Sizzix; Edge Punch ~ EK Success; Ric Rac ~ May Arts; Paper hot/cold cups ~ available at Target.

Run, Run, Run as fast as you can...

Because I am going to EAT these yummy gingerbread man cookies up super fast! I used the super cute Gingerbread Man single stamp from Lizzie Anne Designs for this fun little clear paint can. This holiday gift will be for one of my son's teachers this week.

Supplies Used: Stamps ~ Lizzie Anne Designs (Gingerbread Man single); Ink ~ Palette, Copics; Cardstock ~ PTI; Nesties; Gingerbread Man border (Queen & Co); Ribbon ~ May Arts.

IHP Challenge Day

Today is challenge day for the i{heart}papers design team girls & this month we decided to use this yummy new paper by My Mind's Eye called Be Loved collection ~ or the Love Me Do collection. An additional part of the challenge was do something associated with "eat, drink and be merry" ~ so I made this treat box to go with my sweetheart card. Now I realize it SHOULD have some treats inside; however, do you have any idea how hard it is to find something heart-shaped 11 days before Christmas? I also used the Unity November store kit for the hanging heart image and then paper pieced the hearts on the branch.

Make sure you stop at the other design team blogs to see what fun creations they have come up with.

Amber
Carolyn
Cathleen
Deb
Gretchen
Kate
Lynn
Megan
Tracy
Lori
Merry

Supplies Used from i{heart}papers: Stamps ~ Unity (November Store Kit of the Month); Pattern Paper ~ MME (Be Loved); Ink ~ Palette (Burnt Umber); Nestabilities (Labels 8); Glitter Pen ~ Clear; Ribbon ~ May Arts.

Merry Christmas to all...

WOOHOOO! My Christmas cards for this year are finally finished and they went in the mail today ~ all 90 of them! This is the initial sample card I made, but my final card didn't change too much. I am so thrilled with how it turned out this year.

On the outside of the card, I used the Holiday Script and Fancy Flourishes sets from Lizzie Anne Designs. I also used this pretty paper from My Minds Eye. I trimmed the edge of the card & then used my EK Success scallop punch so you could see the row of photos on the inside of the card.

For the insert on the inside of the card, I used Photoshop Elements for the photos and sentiment & had them printed on a 4 x 8 photocard at an online printer called VistaPrint. The nice part about using photos like this is that we all didn't have to be perfect in the same picture.

And here are a few of my stacks during the assembly process. Thankfully, since the inside was all on one piece, everything went together pretty fast.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Gift Card Boxes and Bags

I was just looking through some old pictures and ran across these cute gift card boxes I made several years ago for my neice and nephew. I knew I had never blogged them & apparently it was before I took decent pictures too ~ so I'll apologize up front for the horrible photos!

ETA: I've been asked for the directions on these boxes; however, I made them so long ago and I gave them away, so I don't have directions for them. Maybe I'll try and recreate them at some point & will include directions if I do.

This first picture is the front of the box & they closed with a magnet.


The next picture is what you see when you open the box. There is a little ribbon tab that you pull to open the entire accordian of gift cards.

Then this shows all the gift cards. I remember when they opened their gifts. They were more excited about the boxes than the gift cards ~ LOL!

Another thing I did that year were some little kraft gift bags for gift cards. Super simple and they turned out super cute!

Have a great weekend!

Birthday Package & Photos

Ahhhhh...the weekend is here. It's been a very busy week getting ready for Christmas and all the kids activities. In addition to all of that, it was my daughter's 13th birthday this week. Even though we had a very busy evening with cub scouts and volleyball practice, we sat down for a very early dinner, had her favorite German chocolate birthday cake and opened some very special presents. Here was one of the packages I wrapped for her using some pattern paper from the My Minds Eye ~ Bloom & Grow collection at i{heart}papers.

On the 3rd try, she finally got all the candles blown out!

Here is my VERY happy teenager ~ she received just what she wanted ~ a purity ring & her cell phone (that she got a few months ago) she was thrilled. Happy Birthday sweetheart!

By the way ~ i{heart}papers is sponsoring today for the 12 Days of Christmas on Paper Craft Planet. There is a fun scavenger hunt and you can enter to win some fun prizes.