Christmas Cards

I wanted to share with everyone one of the smartest things I decided to do this year. Each year, I scramble at the last minute to put together the "perfect" handmade Christmas cards, and each year the cards go out (sometimes the day before Christmas) and I spend so much time working on them and worrying about them that I don't enjoy the Holiday season with my family. This year I decided it would be different. My problem was I couldn't bear to buy generic cards at the store. Then I found Cardstore.com

They sell personalized Holiday Cards as well as birthday & all occasion cards and the sweetest notebooks that you can add pictures too. I knew I wanted to use my little guys school pictures because they turned out so perfect. I picked this design but was very tempted by this one and this one. I added my pictures and put my order in. It was extremely easy to do and my order arrived in THREE days. This gives me plenty of time to address and mail out with no stress.

When they came I was even more pleased. I expected them to be printed on the photo paper like the ones you order from Costco or Walmart, but no. They are printed on high quality 100% recycled card stock. They are high quality cards.

And the best part, they are still stinkin' cute and personal without the work. My only warning for you if you decide to try this (and I think you will love it if you do) is that you might want to center the pictures towards the center of the card. I centered the pictures in each of the boxes and it seemed to cut off the edges of the card (see the right side.) But all and all, I highly recommend!!


UPDATE: The kind people at Cardstore.com are offering all my readers a 20% discount on your first order. Enter the code CSHOLIDAY20 to take advantage of this special. If you decide try this, I would love to hear about your experience.

Calendar Frame

The first thing I decided to work on for my Command Center mentioned in this post was the Calendar frame. I started with this.

I got the certificate frame at the Dollar Tree (one of my favorite craft shopping haunts.) It was the 8 1/2" x 11" certificate frame.

I lightly sanded the frame and painted with navy blue paint. I have decided that the colors I am going to use for my Family Command Center are Navy Blue, Yellow and Sage Green.

Next step was to lay the backing of the frame on my fat quarter of fabric. (in this case Moda fabric in all the colors I was looking for.) I cut the fabric about 1 1/2" wider than my frame backing.

I folded

in each side starting with the shorter sides. I used regular tape to tape the fabric to the cardboard backing. They folding in the corners on the long side I taped this as well. (Think wrapping a present.)

I put this fabric backed wrapper back in my frame without the glass piece.

I printed the calendar in Publisher and sized it to 5 x 7 to fit on the frame. I love how it turned out and I especially love the price (about $2). Next up will be the Menu Chalkboard.

A Family Command Center

When I opened up the September issue of Better Homes & Gardens, I fell in love with this concept. Always looking for a better way to organize my family, this seemed like a brilliant idea to have everything in one place. Behind the doors, there are drawers to hold kids art & school supplies, a small shredder, magnetic strips to hold keys, a place to sort bills etc. The drawers store office supplies and a charging station for cell phones. Plus I love that it is stylish, useful and keeps the clutter out of sight.

Enter my little buffet that I found at IKEA but have never been able to figure out how to use. Seemed like a perfect fit. It opens up and has three shelves inside and a great little shelf on top. And the space above it is perfect for a calendar and weekly menu board.

So the first project I will share with you tomorrow is my version of the sweet calendar frame and how I made it.

I'm Back!

Ok, so I realize I have been MIA for a long time, but I have a good excuse. This is what has been keeping me busy. This is my little guy Danny. He is now 15 months old and a little whirlwind. He wants to be a big kid like his brother Scott who is 4. I have been trying to cherish every minute of their little lives, keep my house clean, and work full time so unfortunately my blog has taken a back burner, but I am going to try and keep it more updated. I have actually been pretty creative, just didn't have time to put e everything online, so I am going to try and catch you up.

Here are a couple of things that I have done over the course of the last year. This is a purse that I made my mom for her Birthday. The outside fabric was taken from a shirt I loved but never wore.

The flower was done using a tutorial from wisecraft. So easy and what a cute finishing touch to an sweet but simple purse.

And because this purse was such a hit with my mom, I made a similar one for my mother-in-law. This was was a little bigger. My mother-in-law is a big reader so I needed to make this big enough to tuck a paperback into.

Special Christmas Wrapping

Here is a little box/bag I put together to wrap my husbands secret Santa gift. It was very quick and easy but made a much more dramatic display than just throwing it into a gift bag. I love how the tag came out. Hope she likes it!

Stuffed stockings

Here are some stocking stuffers that I made for my brother-in-laws co-workers. They are stuffed with a starbucks gift card and some chocolates. I had to keep the design gender neutral, so I kept the colors very Christmas-y. Design cardstock was from a pack I got last year. The pattern for the stockings is from Papertrey Ink. By Lauren Meader. I like how they turned out so much I am going to make a couple for my son's teacher and speech therapist. Just a small little something to say thanks. Hope you like!

Sock monkey baby shower favors

Here are some shower favors I made for my sister's baby shower. She loves sock monkeys and bright colors. The sock monkey is from the stamping up set. The paper is called " Monkeying Around" by Recollections. Perfect for this project. I also made her a scrapbook using other paper from this set that I will show you soon.

New Baby Card for Baby Anthony

Here is the card I made for my sister Melody who is anxiously awaiting the birth of her little boy. (The same one I did the baby shower favors for here.) She loved these colors, Bashful Blue, Certainly Celery and Close to Cocoa.

I pulled out my "So Very" set from Stampin Up. I loved so many of the words and thought they fit so well for a new blessing, that I used the sweet, loved and blessed words to create a background and chose "Cute" for my final So Very sentiment. I very rarely do square cards, so I started this off as a 5 1/2 in square card. The ribbon was found in the dollar bin at Michaels.

Case of the Card Class

Here is the card I cased from the card swap. (The last one.) I loved the flower line background and created with this flower from Inkadinkado. I pulled the colors, So Saffron, Not Quite Navy and Chocolate Chip from the ribbon. The flower is a prima, and the brad in the middle came from Hodgepodge Hardware. I really like the color scheme and how it all came together.

Stampin up Card Class

Here are a few cards I did today at my friend Suzanne's card class. I love that most of them are very versatile (male or female.)

The first card we made used the Branch out set to make this beautiful tree in Chocolate Chip and Red Riding Hood. The card base is Kraft paper. The Sentiment is from Sweet Little Sentiments (a Hostess gift). I love the striped ribbon on the side.

The second card is a top fold card. The top panel in Artichoke was run through the Big Shot texture plates. I love how understated it is. The curly label was cut out using the Curly label punch and center in the Big Shot die cut out. It is tied with twill ribbon. I love that this could be for a guy or gal.

The third card is a cutie that would even work for a kid. It is using the Wild About You set. The colors are Kiwi Kiss and Chocolate Chip (Although you couldn't tell from the picture). What I love best about this card beside the simplicity is that the circle goes off the edge of the card. I always seem to stick to perfectly balanced cards, so it reminds me to have a little fun.

This is the fourth card that we did. It is very simple and neutral. The leaf design was cut using the Big Shot die cut in Night of Navy. This plus the kraft and white give it an elegance. I opted to use a Father's Day sentiment (planning ahead). I a little extra piercing along the top left corner of the card for a little something extra.

The Final card is definitely the most elegant. We made this one a birthday card, but it would make a beautiful wedding card as well. The flowers were stamped in Kiwi Kiss and the bottom black panel was run through the texture plate. The Riding Hood Red ribbon was run through a ribbon slide. I liked this one so much, I ended up casing it with a little one of my own. I will post more tomorrow.

A Berry Sweet Birthday Gift!

This is a gift bag that I made for my good friend and co-worker. She is "Berry Sweet" so I thought I would make her a berry themed gift bag and card. (Not to mention I love these strawberry stamps from Papertrey Ink!) The Box in a Bag template from Splitcoaststampers.com and adapted the size to fit the book that I got her and a couple of these adorable strawberries filled with strawberry candies. I added a little vellum pocket to the front of the bag to put the little 3x3 card in so it wouldn't get lost in the bag. The paper used to make the bag was hand stamped on white paper using Real Red and Wild Wasabi (why oh why did they discontinue this color!!!)

Fishy Baby Shower!

My little sister is due to have a baby in the next couple weeks. We threw her a "Fishy" baby shower to match the nursery. Here are some pictures of the fun stuff we made for her.


The First picture shows the adorable cupcake decorations we made. I used the fish from the Animal Kingdom Cricut Cartridge. We sandwiched a toothpick between the front of the fish and the shadow and stuck them in the cupcakes. They were a big hit.

The Second picture is the diaper cake we made her. The Froggy topper is a Ty Baby animal and we added some squeezy bath toys and a couple of Pacifiers along with ribbon. I love the colors. Her room is green and blue so this was perfect.






The third picture is one of the favors. We made a party mix with goldfish crackers. The topper was run through the cuttlebug and then we added the ribbon and the cute scalloped circles with Fish and the Thank you.



The last picture shows the letters that I made for my soon to be nephew's room. The letters are cuter close-up but I didn't get a great picture before I gave them to her. (By the way, the fish border below was painted by my mom and myself to match the bedding she picked for the nursery.)

K Werner Design Color Challenge #50

Here is my entry for the K Werner Design weekly color challenge. I love this color combination (and Boy do I want that pincushion. How stickin' cute!!)

I used Real Red, Tempting Turquoise, Chocolate Chip, So Saffron and Whisper White. I used Stampin Up's Cause for Celebration and Papertrey Ink's Mixed Message for the sentiment. I don't normally do square cards, but I really like how this turned out.

Stationary Box

I made this stationary box for my sister for her birthday. I used paper from the Fall Flowers Stampin up collection. Matching colors are Really Rust, Kraft, Soft Sky and Old Olive. I really like this collection of colors and could kick myself for not ordering another set of the papers. :-)

I included 4 handmade cards in the back pocket, a decorated post-it note holder and 4 tags (you can see these closer below).

My sister loved it and I love how neat it looks all closed up.

Snowman Soup

I love how these turned out, but I couldn't seem to get a good picture of them. I used the treat box pattern to create these little boxes that have a pocket for the "Snowballs", "Snowman Kisses" and cocoa along with the tag that has the cute little poem.

I used the cute snowman from Deer Friends with a snowflake that came in one of my Hero Arts sets. I used a couple different patterns of paper. This one I believe is from Making Memories. I put the Kisses and Marshmallows in little ziptop bags I got in the candy section at Michaels.

I am starting to get excited about my first craft fair. If you have done craft fairs I would love to get some pointers.

More Christmas Cards

Here are the other three cards that I promised. To make 2 each of all five cards took less than 3 hours.

I love this card. The colors are so classy and current. The blue panel is made from the Sizzix top note die. We stamped the snowflakes in versamark so they are very subtle. The snowflake is another Sizzix die. The "ornament" is popped up off the page and tied with the brown ribbon.

The next card is a beautiful Christmas tree from the Snow Swirled. The gold accents really make the whole card pop!

The last card is this cute little reindeer from Merry & Bright. The colors used are Real Red and Certainly Celery. The snowflakes are stamped in Bordering Blue. This little deer always makes me smile.

Come back tomorrow and I will show you another of my projects I am working on for my craft fair in two weeks.

Some Stamp-a-Stack Cards

My friend Suzanne is a Stampin Up Demo and invited my mom and I to her stamp-a-stack this last weekend. Here are a couple of cards that we made.

This was the first card. The snowflake is a Sizzix die from Stampin Up. We stamped the background images and added the sentiment. It is hard to see in the picture, but the center of the snowflake is a silver brad.

The second card is stamped on kraft paper. The second layer is bashful blue and that is mounted on a craft card base. The tree is stamped in white, while the rest of the stamps were done in Versamark ink. The three flowers have silver jeweled brads in their center. I like this card because it is very soothing to look at.

Three more cards to post tomorrow!

Neutral Birthday!

My brother's birthday is Thursday!!! He is feeling a little homesick, so I wanted to make sure and get a card in the mail to him even though he will be home for Thanksgiving next week.

I have the hardest time coming up with neutral cards (What can I say? I love my ribbon, flowers and glitter.) So I tried to bring some bright colors. I had a really hard time with which stamp to use. I got this set at Archiver's during a recent trip to St. Louis, MO, and decided to use it. The greeting is stamped directly on the patterned paper. I them took a white pen and colored in the dots inside the "Happy" to make it POP! The birthday was stamped on a punched out word window. Hope my brother likes it!

Another Batch of Nugget Wraps!

Here are a couple more nugget tags. The blue one was run through my Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots folder. I added silver ribbon and this cute snowflake. (The inside nugget is wrapped in snowflake designer paper.)

The other one is done with the cutest Poinsettia paper. I wrapped the nuggets inside in red polka dot paper and tied it with green ribbon. Then added the Poinsettia to the front.

As my craft fair is getting closer, I am getting more worried I won't have enough to sell, so you should see lots of new stuff coming in the next couple of days.

Merry Snowman!

As soon as I saw this cute snowman, I knew I would have to use him in blues. I added the silver and snowflakes and love how it turned out. The snowflake backdrop is actually embossed on vellum. I used silver brads to attach it to the card. I also added the panel of silver to match the silver in the ribbon. The snowman looked so happy, I had to use "Be Merry" for the sentiment.

Ghiradelli Cuties!

I made these cuties for an upcoming craft fair. I really love how they came out and will be making some more in a different design soon. The dotted paper came from Making Memories. The other paper is Old Olive and Whisper White from Stampin Up. The stamp is from the Circle of Friendship set and the snowflakes are a Martha Stewart punch. I found the ribbon in my stash.


Inside there is a little slip in pocket that holds 1 Ghiradelli square. Just the perfect nummy morsel to give as a stocking stuffer, or a gift for co-workers.