Sunday, November 28, 2010

Quick and Easy Gifts

I have been admiring all the cute gifts that Candace from Paper Crafts by Candace has been creating. These Post-It note holders for my coworkers are modeled after one of her ideas.

The pictures are a little dark, but the paper is Recollections Purple Daze in Lava Lamp, Flashback, and Seafoam that I picked up from Michaels. The purple cardstock is Grape from Creative Memories.

I welded a scallop circle from Gypsy Wanderings and a narrow rectangle from George to make the strip for the monograms. (I love the features of my Gypsy!) The monograms are from a variety of carts - I couldn't find one font that was perfect for all the letters. The holder itself is an acrylic 4x6 frame from Walmart.

I've got some other gift ideas in the works that I'll be posting later this week. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your Thanksgiving weekend!

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Stylish Blogger Award

I'm so excited, just before Thanksgiving I received my first blog award! Even more exciting was the fact that I received it twice from two other bloggers whose work I really enjoy. Thank you craftymrs and Pigtails and Paper Trails!

The rules for accepting this award are:

1.Thank and link to the person who awarded you this.
2.Share 8 things about yourself.
3.Pay it forward to 8 bloggers that you have recently discovered.
4. Contact those bloggers and tell them about their award.

So here are eight things about me:
1. I am happily married and we have two beautiful little girls.
2. I am a middle school teacher.
3. I have lived in three different countries.
4. I love Creative Memories products and adore album making.
5. I won a Gypsy a month ago and am having fun learning all that I can do with it.
6. I wouldn't have dreamed of having my own blog if it wasn't for a dear friend and fellow crafter.
7. My husband helped me set up my crafting area, and we even included a lower table for my girls to use for their projects.
8. I was trying to get a plum Expression from Walmart on Black Friday, but missed out.

Here are the bloggers that I would like to pass the award on to:

Paper Crafts by Candace - She has fantastic ideas and is so wonderful about sharing them.
You Had Me At Craft - Great ideas for cards and home decorating.
Brown Paper Packages - So many great ideas on this blog for making gifts and she provides the links or PDFs so that you can make your own!
Craft Junkie - Great ideas for cards and more.
Teach Mama - Wonderful ideas to use with your children.

I really appreciate our blogging community. It's amazing all the wonderful ideas that everyone has to share.

Easy as Pie (or at least as easy as eating pie)



I recently went to a dear friend's house for a Jolee's House Party. We had a great time making jewelry, but my favorite part was a little extra something that my friend had planned for us. She had some beautiful cardstock colors, her Cuttlebug, and a set of monogram stamps. With just those supplies, we were able to make some beautiful cards. I used the paisley Cuttlebug folder to emboss the card fronts. Then the leftover paper from cutting down the cardstock, became a ribbon/stripe on a different color card. The last step was using a 1 1/4 circle punch to stamp on the monogram.

These are going to be part of my mom's Christmas present. She asked for a set of cards for all occasions. Hopefully these will be a nice start...only 28 crafting days left until Christmas.

Monday, November 15, 2010

A cure for the challenging family Christmas card picture...

If your family is anything like mine, we have a terrible time getting a picture where everyone is smiling and looking good all at one time. This makes it very difficult to get that perfect Christmas card picture. Well, this year, I think I've found the solution, Shutterfly has some beautiful collage frame cards that allow me to choose everyone's best picture! You can check out the choices by following this link.

I'm also a fan of sharing a little bit about our family events during the year, but I have to say that the idea of writing a full letter holds little appeal for me. So Shutterfly comes to the rescue again. They now have these great Holiday Story cards. You can see them here and then click to get a closer look. You can also see all their beautiful photo cards here.

I have often used Shutterfly's photo prints service and have always been very pleased with the quality of their prints. I've also ordered their photo books which are easy to make and beautifully bound. If you're interested, for the next two days, you can save $10 of a $30 order. That's in addition to their sale prices. Just enter the promo code YFM6-7WBM-WFF7-GPK9VO at checkout.

I'd love to see what you create. Please post a comment with a link if you decide to take advantage of the Shutterfly offer.