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.

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.

More Cards for Operation Write Home

I made a few more cards to send to Operation Write Home. I'm hoping that some soldiers may find them useful as Christmas cards to send to their children. They also fit into My Pink Stampers challenge from this weekend to make something for a child.

I made them using the Sesame Street cartridge. I cut the first Elmo a little too big. So one card is a little different from the others, but my daughters tell me that Elmo is cool no matter what.

I can't believe I won such a useful tool!

I received wonderful new this weekend! I won the most useful tool ever. Mixology Crafts was giving away a Gypsy on their blog and I won!!!!

I can't wait for it to arrive. It will save me from the problem that I was having in this picture. I cut the green flower shape card from the Hello Kitty cartridge. I wanted to cut the flower from pink cardstock and tried to size it to fit on top of the card. It took the four tries, and I still didn't get it right. (You can see my three-year old's eager fingers waiting to take the extra flowers to make something with.) I ended up cutting the card out again in pink and cutting out the flower. But...with the Gypsy, I'll be able to size the flower on the screen and get it to the right size before cutting it. My daughter may be disappointed, but I'll save a lot of paper! :-)

Thanks Mixology Crafts!

A Great Sale and an Operation Write Home Challenge

My wonderful friend Jessica (aka CraftyMrs) found cartridges on clearance at Joanne's earlier this week. They were less than $10 each!!! I was able to get Hello Kitty Greetings, Sesame Street Friends, and Base Camp.

So I've been playing with my newest cartridges and using them for a good cause. Christie from Creations by Christie has a wonderful challenge going on right now to create cards for soldiers to send home to their families. I used Hello Kitty Greetings and Creative Memories Candy Cane paper to create these cards. I'm thinking that a soldier may appreciate a Christmas card to send home to a little girl. Check back tomorrow for another card with a purpose.

Chance to Win a Gypsy

Mixology Crafts is offering a chance to win a Gypsy. I'd love to win one!!! If you would like to enter, head on over to their website. Good luck!