Wreath overload....

Happy Black Friday gals !! How many of you got up at midnight or 3 to go shopping ?? This was the first year in a long time that I decided to sleep in and work on some Christmas stuff instead of shopping. I did miss the rush, but also got a lot accomplished today : )

This wreath (one of like 6 in the house) was inspired by the Starbuck's wreath from last season. There are two different sizes of red ornaments and two sizes of green yarn balls (thanks to my hubby who wrapped them all for me !!)

A close up:

This one is on the fireplace, it was too bulky to add to the front door.

That's all for me tonight.....got lots more crafty projects to get makin' !!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello friends! I want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. Mike and I have so much to be thankful for this year. First and foremost, each other. We celebrated our 11 year wedding anniversary last Saturday and we're still going strong. It's hard to believe that a 21 year old girl and 23 year old boy could get it right...but we did! We're also thankful for our two sweet, healthy little girls, our fantastic family, jobs which provide food, shelter and clothing and good friends who are always there for us when we need them the most. I hope you all have a great day and take a minute to remember what you're thankful for!

Grandma's Glittery Birthday!

Greetings and salutations! I come to you with a quick post this evening as I'm up to my elbows in Christmas decorations. I've gotten the second floor done, after an accident involving a broken snow globe and some mildewed ornaments. So this evening, I've moved on to the first floor, which I've begun but am no where near finished with!

If you remember, a few weeks ago, I was going to my Grandma Mary's 80th birthday party. She was joking around that she was turning 40 and made a big deal out of no one mentioning that it was her 80th birthday. So, to honor her wishes :), I made her a 40th birthday card. I tried a few new things on this card, for starters, I used my Top Note die to cut out that orange felt. It went through my Cuttlebug like butta! Then I adhered some wide brown lace to the bottom and adhered the entire piece on the front and over to the back of the card. I had an old Prima flower I wanted to use but it was too peachy for that orange Top Note, so I smothered it in Martha Stewart glitter! For the 40, I trimmed those out with my Alpahlicious cartridge and smothered them in gold Martha glitter. I used sentiments from PTI's Life and hand wrote the "th".

Here's a (blurry) close up picture of the card. With all that glitter and bulk, I actually gave the card to Grandma in a cellophane bag.
All right, I'm off to decorate some more! Have a great night:)

For my baby boy.......

Happy Monday everyone !! It's a holiday week and I love the fact that I only have to work 3 days lol

I am a very lucky mom. I have two beautiful girls and an adorable little boy. I never thought that I could have such a different bond with a son, but he definitely is the light of my life !! There's just something so special about a momma and her boy.

I was cruisin' the net the other day and stopped in on the goddess of all things crafty.....Martha ! lol Martha had some pics of a tea towel pillow and I thought it was such a cute idea. I decided to take mine one step further and embroider blue trucks on mine. Isn't he just the cutest ????

For the top side I used a tea towel and for the backside I used flannel. Nothing fancy here, just a run through the machine and there it is. I have to tell ya, the reason I made the pillow......Ryan likes to sleep on a stuffed crocodile toy and I felt so bad !!

Thanks Martha for the inspiration.....you rock !!

Flower Hair Clips

Well, Stacy and I are on craft overload! We've spent the last few days pouring over websites and magazines and we're officially filled to the brim with craft! Has that ever happened to you? We are so inspired and have so many ideas that there just aren't enough hours in the day to create them! We both have long lists of things that we're trying to get done for the holidays so if we don't post every day you know why! :)

My project for today is one that was super simple but that turned out so great I'm sure to make it again and again. At the beginning of the school year I bought a bunch of clothes for the girls at Children's Place and their "theme" for fall was green, orange and brown. I made these little hair clips for them, and they perfectly match their clothes! I started with a Sizzix flower die and cut out four brown and four orange flowers, in four different sizes. (is that confusing or what?) The die has four different sizes on it so I just ran it through my Cuttlebug twice. Once for the orange and once for the brown. Then I layered two of the flowers together and sewed on a PTI New Leaf Vintage button with some brown embroidery thread. To finish off the metal edge of the clips, I glued on a little piece of brown satin ribbon. Then I simply adhered the flowers to the clips! These took no time at all to make and I can't wait to make more!

BTW, sorry about the picture. I was trying to focus in on the clip in my hand and it ended up flip flopping on me! Still, I think you get the idea. Have a great night!

Becky

Merry Christmas Teacher

Howdy gals !! I hope everyone enjoyed the weekend !! I woke up to the news that we may get snow today......I'm not a cold weather creature and hate driving in bad weather ! So, to say the least, I was on edge all day. Luckily, it's been too warm here, so no snow....just rain !!

I'm so excited to share my little creation with you tonight.....I'm in full gear Christmas mode and this is by far one of my favorite things !! I started with a wooden embroidery hoop and inked up the edges to give it a darker hue. My original thought was to put the paper on the hoop just like fabric, but it was way to thick. I ended up adhering it to the back of both hoops.....kinda gives it a shadow box look:

I took a piece of white cardstock and ran it through the bug with swiss dots. I then took the vintage cream cardstock and sewed lines to give it a little dimension. The tree was cut with the bug and I added some flowersoft and stickles. I also added flowersoft to my landscape. Finally I heat embossed my sentiment from PTI and adhered with pop dots. Some red ribbon and lace to top it off !!

I think it turned out absolutely adorable and hope that Maddie's teacher thinks so too !!

Well, I smell popcorn and hear football, so that means the hubby is coming !! Have a warm night and we'll see ya soon !

Christmas Card Gifts

Morning! How are you all today? We're having a lazy Saturday morning here. Except for Mike, who's stringing up the Christmas lights! We picked up some cool new lights at Target last night, ours from the last few years kept burning out and we felt like a new color this year...RED! I really love the classic look of white lights, completely outlining a house but the girls love the different colors. Guess who won that one? :) I'm really in the mood to decorate for Christmas but it's still a wee bit early for me. We put up seven, yes I said 7, different Christmas trees, in the house, each with a different theme, but I just can't bring myself to do it yet. Today looks like the last decent day, weather wise, for awhile so Mike decided to get the outside decorations up, just in case!

I've been busy here, crafting away. I'm making a few sets of cards for gifts this year and decided on a four seasons theme. These first two cards are the winter/Christmas cards for the winter season.

I used my Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder on a white background and simply layered on light blue card stock, winter themed patterned paper, thick rustic looking twine and glittered snowflakes. I love the chunky twine with the delicate glittery snowflakes!










I hope you have a fabulous weekend! We have a busy day tomorrow, celebrating our Grandma Mary's 80th birthday. I'll be sure to catch you on Tuesday, until then...happy crafting!

Polka Dot Birthday Cherries!

Hello ladies! (and any gent who might be reading this!) Happy Thursday to you all. I have a quick post for you tonight, Abie is dying to get outside. So, after she finishes her homework, and I finish my post, we're headed out.

My card today is a cute little 4x4 card I whipped up for Abie's friend Paige who turned 8 this past weekend. Paige is a girly girl and I wanted to make something to reflect that girliness! I started with a black base and heat embossed big clear polka dots on the front. Then I layered on a pieces of Raspberry Fizz Bitty Dots Basics patterned paper. I stamped the cherry stems from Everyday Button Bits in New Leaf Green onto a piece of Basic Grey pale pink card stock which I trimmed into a scallop circle and added two Raspberry Fizz buttons. Rather than stitching the buttons on, I adhered a couple of Kaiser gems in pale pink to the button holes. Next to the stems, I stamped the happy and birthday words from PTI's Let Freedom Ring set. To add a bit of sparkle, I drew around the scallops with my Quickie Glue Pen and sprinkled on some of Martha's Crystal Fine glitter. I popped the circle up with a pop dot and added it to the card front. I punched a hole in the top of the card to run twine through to tie it to the package.






I hope you all have a fab-U-lous evening! Tomorrow is Friday!! Woo hoo!

Veteran's Day...a day early

Hello all! Becky here with a Veteran's Day card a day early. I made this card for my dad who served in Vietnam. If I'm being honest, I never really gave much thought to Veteran's Day until I started my job almost eleven years ago. Our office is closed on this day and for the first time, I realized that we celebrated Veteran's Day to celebrate our Veterans, like my dad. My dad is the coolest guy ever. Strongly silent, funny, heroic, and just an unbelievable man. Thanks to him, I had a great role model to base my husband after. Dad always made me feel safe, secure and I thought and still think he is capable of anything. Through all the pain and emotional turmoil he has endured since he came home, I realize it helped make him the man he is today. Thank you dad, for your service and Welcome Home.












All supplies by Papertrey Ink

Wrappin' gifts already......

Hey gals !! Hope everyone had a great weekend !! The weather was so wonderful here....the kids played outside, one went to a sleepover and the two little ones and I had a sleepover of our own lol

I decided to get started wrapping up gifts and getting ready for all the craziness of the holidays. The tea towels I've been embroidering daily are going to friends and family. I decided on two towels each and wrapped them with twine. I finished them off with top note tags, lace, ribbon and a few holly berries:

I love the way they turned out and hope everyone will enjoy them !

Have a great night....see ya soon !!
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Fall Thanks

Good Saturday morning friends! How are you today? Things are great around our house. It's going to be a beautiful day, Mike is getting out on the Harley with our neighbor and I'm heading down to the school so the girls can play in this awesome weather! Last night our sweet new neighbors had us over for dinner and I made this pumpkin bread to give them as a thank you. Of course I couldn't just hand them the bread, I had to make a cute little tag to go with it. You should have seen me last night, I rushed downstairs and was trying to whip this tag out before we had to be at their house by 6! The end result...I love but it looks like a tornado blew through my craft room! LOL!

On to the tag! I used some older My Mind's Eye two sided patterned paper and trimmed out a rectangle which I then rounded the corners on. Then I stamped the more solid side of the paper with Vintage Cream ink and the smallest script in Background Basics Text. I hadn't used this font yet because I thought it looked too tiny but I LOVE IT and will definitely be using it again! Next I layered on a piece of the patterned side of the paper that measured slightly wider than the tag and I punched the edge with my Upper Crest punch and I tied some Rustic Twine around the other end. While all this was going on, I set my Expression to trim out the leaves and acorns from the Doodlecharms Cartridge in 2". I placed three different colors of paper on my mat and the images were ready to go in a jiffy! After trimming them out, I spritzed them with some Glimmer Mist, which I bought years ago, but had only used once. I've seen a lot of people using Glimmer Mist lately and thought I'd give it a try. You know what? I LOVED IT too! :) I popped up the images with pop dots, after drying the glimmer mist with my heat tool and finished up the tag with a Mega Mixed Messages sentiment stamped in Vintage Cream.

I loved the way this tag turned out, especially on such a tight deadline, and thought it was the perfect tag for a little loaf of pumpkin bread!

I hope you have a great weekend!

Becky

Ornament Wreath

Hey gals !! Short post tonight.....below are a few of the wreaths I made to display Christmas ornaments that the kids have made.........I decided to take back my tree and decorate it mommy's way !!

I'm sorry that I don't remember who's blog I saw this idea on, but thank you !! I've made 3 wreaths and I thought I would let the kids decorate them when it gets a little closer to Christmas.

Have a great weekend !!

Stacy

Last Birthday Card of 2009

Hey gals !! How's everyone doing tonight ?? What a busy day !! Today is my brother-in-law's birthday, so I took the three kiddos out to dinner with his family and my parents.......daddy is at school right now (he missed out on a great meal !!).

I decided to make a card for him that was colorful......I'm already sad that everything around us is turning brown already : ( ......the leaves are falling fast and things are quieting down. So, I needed a happy happy card to celebrate today !!

Started with orange cardstock, 5-7.....the pp on top is from My Mind's Eye (ain't it fun !!). The balloons are PTI along with the sentiment:

All of the kiddos signed the card which always makes it special. We had a great dinner, great cake compliments of my sister and now it's time for baths !! Have a great night girlies !

Stacy

Teacher Gift for Halloween

Well hello there strangers! It's been an entire week since I posted last and my only excuse is that things have been a bit crazy around our house lately! Today's project is a jumbo clothespin I embellished for Abie's teacher. I bought the clothespin in the Dollar Spot at Target, last year. I purchased several of them, all in orange, and used up all of them, or so I thought!

This was super simple to alter. I just trimmed some Basic Grey June Bug paper to fit the front and back and adhered using my Xyron sticker maker. Then I simply created a little tag for the front.

I trimmed out a squarish shape in navy blue and rounded the corners on one end. The other end got the Upper Crest treatment. I stamped some of the flower images from PTI's Green Thumb, using Versamagic ink and then heat embossed with clear powder. I wrapped some vintage trim around the tag a couple of times and tied on a little Kraft colored tag which I stamped the word "smile" on in Orange Zest. I finished off the tag with a little orange polka dotted doggie from some more Basic Grey June Bug, which I trimmed out with scissors and glittered up with Martha Stewart glitter.

I thought this turned out so cute and I'd love to have a little happy note holder on my desk, wouldn't you? Have a fun night!

For Teacher

So earlier in the school year I had made this board for my daughter's teacher. I totally forgot that I had a picture of it !! I thought it turned out so cute (sorry the pic is a little blurry) and wanted to share it with you:

I started with a chalkboard that I covered in gingham paper. I adhered clothespins that I had covered in solid green cardstock finished with red ribbon. The cherries are from Everyday Button Bits. In the lower right corner, I heat embossed her teacher's name (ok....that wasn't too smart !! but turned out cool !!). I hung a tag from the middle pin that simply says "for my teacher".

Have a great night !!

Stacy