Still here

Just a quick note to say Happy New Year Year and I'm still around. We have been on vacation in PA with the in-laws and I will be back tomorrow with pics and this weekend with projects. Hope everyone has a wonderful and safe New Years!

Christmas Lights 2009

Every Christmas the local fire department escorts Santa through the neighborhoods to spread cheer and throw candy canes to the good little boys and girls lining the street. Here the boys are on our front porch anxiously awaiting "Santa" to make it down our street as we listen to the sirens and horns getting closer.

And here are a couple of shots of the Christmas lights that my husband did such a wonderful job on.

Thanks for stopping by!

Last Minute Gift Idea

I so love the holiday season, but I can not believe that Christmas is in 5 days! I really look forward to it all year, and then it feels as if I blink and it's gone. But if you love to savor every moment of that warm fuzzy holiday feeling, then no doubt you are still busy shopping and baking and wrapping...and of course, crafting! If you still have a few friends to make/buy for, here is a very cute and inexpensive gift that looks (and tastes) like you spent hours slaving over it! Shhh...we won't tell anyone.

Candied Pecans
Now I can't give you my recipe, as my dear friend would choke me. I promised her that I would not tell anyone her secrets if she gave me the recipe years ago. But I can give you a link to some that are similar and very good. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/sugar-coated-pecans/Detail.aspx

Now, of course you have to have a cute little package for gift giving, and there are tons of ways...but this year I made these little guys.

Now these are super fast and let's face it...the faster the better these days. You will need the following supplies:

Supply List
1 6x6 piece of patterned paper
sticky strip
12 in. disposable decorating bags (the ones used for cake icing)
and your choice for embellishing: ribbons, buttons, twine, etc...

Cut off the top inch or so of the decorating bag and fill with pecans. For embellishing I kept it simple as I was giving these as office gifts for myself and my husband. I just tied the bags off with ribbon and then added a button with baker's twine.

Now certainly this could stand as is, but if you wanted to up it a notch, wrap it with designer paper. I turned the paper so that the points were at the top and bottom (like a diamond). I put sticky strip down the lower left outside of the diamond, and another strip on the lower right inside of the diamond. Then I folded the right over the left into a cone shape. This is much better visualized than explained. LOL See pic below.

Now all that is left is to slip the bag of pecans into the cone sleeve! I told you, easy and classy. I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend, I will be back soon with some pics of our Christmas lights. We were suprised with winning the Christmas Spirit Award for lights in our neighborhoood today and my hubby is so proud. He works so hard on them every year and he loves doing it. I told him it was the 30 something poinsettias he added this year that did it! LOL Have a great night everyone.

Double Duty: Mr. Twigster

I finally decided on the design for my Christmas cards this year and sat down last weekend to crank them out.

OK, so I actually decided on two...but they are the same layout, so mass production was still super easy. I used my Circle Scissors Plus to cut out all of the circles for the matting for the images, and my paper trimmer for everything else. Once I had everything out it was time to start stamping.

I used PTI's Polka Dot Basics II in SU!'s Whisper White for the background panel, and a couple of the images from SU!'s Mr. Twigster set for the focal images. I just love this set, I forgot how fun that little snowman is. Here I used the tree image from the set, stamped first in Whisper White, and then again in Close to Cocoa (both SU!) and punched them out.

Then I stamped the "joy" sentiment from PTI's Signature Christmas in SU! Real Red, inked the edges of the circle, and added some SU! glitter in red with a Martha Stewart glue pen.

After they were all glittered and matted, I matted my polka dot background with matching cardstock and tied Martha Stewart baker's twine around the lower half. If you have not discovered this stuff yet...get some! It has become a staple in my stash. I find myself turning to it again and again.

And last, just assemble. So quick and easy. I kept them simple and flat for mailing, much better to make sure they arrive in one piece. I was able to crank out about 10 an hour (that includes stamping and cutting). That's an average of 6 minutes per card. Not too bad, huh? Or is it. Hmmmm...LOL. Here's a shot of the finished card and a close up of the snowman...isn't he too cute!?

As always, thanks for stopping by! Hope you are caught up on all of your holiday activities and are enjoying your time with loved ones. Cause lord knows I'm nowhere near caught up! ;o)

Mini Tags (xmas) Template

I finally found the file! Sorry it took so long, and I guess that means I really need to clean up my hard drive. So here is the pdf file for the mini tags featured here and here.

There are two sizes, the one shown in the examples is the smaller one, and 5 colors; hot pink, maroon, green, brown and blue. Click on the image below to download the file.

Let me know if you have any questions, any problems, or requests!

december 25

So how is your holiday prep going so far? If you are anything like me...you are way behind as usual! I always feel like I'm running full speed and somehow still going backwards. But I do love to put the special touch on everything, so easy cards are my choice of creation for Christmas. Keeping that in mind, here is another simple but fun Christmas card. Again, I am stepping out of my comfort zone and using a colored card base, but I think it's that extra kick of color that keeps it fun.

I won these Hiedi Swapp calendar months stamps over the summer, and actually opened them for the first time for this card. I don't know about you guys, but I wasn't impressed with the stamping of this set. I noticed that the stamps had some bubbles in them that were messing up the stamped impression. I had to go so far as to trimming them down and cutting the tips of the bubbles off with a pair of scissors. I don't know...maybe I had a "bad" set. But in spite of that, I still managed to make it work.

For that delicious candy cane striped paper I used PTI's Faux Ribbon set...again. (Can you tell I love that set? Seriously, if you don't have it...you need it.) I stamped the fat lines in SU! Real red on a diagonal. Then I went between each line with the narrowest line in Versamark, sprinked some SU! Heat and Stick powder, did a little heat tool action...and covered with SU! red glitter. What do you think...are you wanting that set yet?

I will be back later with my Christmas cards that I am sending out this year. I finally settled on a design, and cut everything for mass production. LOVELY! Have a great night!

Project Supplies

Stamps
Heidi Swapp
Ink
Stampin' Up! Old Olive, Real Red; Versamark
Paper
Stampin' Up! Old Olive, Whisper White
Punches
Fiskars corner rounder punch; Martha Stewart border punch
Other
ribbon (Stampin' Up!); Heat and Stick powder (Stampin' Up!); candy stickers (Martha Stewart); Shimmer Alpha Stickers in red (Making Memories)

CARDS Blog Challenge - Tags

OK, I promise, after this tag, you won't see anymore from me for a while. But hey, you know the challenge this week on the CARDS blog is to create a tag...I couldn't refuse, now could I?!

Sorry about the photo quality. It gets dark so early now, that there's no way I can get home from work in time to photograph in the natural light. Bummer, but this little number still makes me smile.

I LOVE the pink...and that brown polka dot ribbon (American Crafts) is one of my favs. I can't get enough of it. I used a lot of Stampin' Up! on this one. Super simple, but I like how the ric-rac ribbon ending up looking like the wavy lines from a postmark. It plays off of the "sending you love" sentiment nicely, don't you think?

I know some of you would like the pdf for the little tags, I have misplaced them on my mess of a laptop. As soon as I locate the file I will post it here. Sorry about that and thanks for your patience. Hope you are having a wonderful week. And a great big thank you for all of the wonderful comments, it really makes my day!

Inspire Me Challenge #4: CASE

Wow how the time flies when you are under the weather! Sorry I have been away so long, I was sick all week. My husband knew it was bad when I did not blog or craft at all! I meant to post this earlier this week...but now I am finally feeling better and just had to get back to my crafty buddies!

I loved looking at all of the tags and pulling bits and pieces from them. Seriously, I could CASE everyone of them. However, one really spoke to me in terms of inspiration.

CASE Card

Inspiration Card

I loved the tiny tag that Laurel added to the front of her card. And it caught my eye, so off to Photoshop I went to create a little tiny tag and added my sentiment while I was at it. I used PTI's Giga Guide Lines set to create the background paper and American Crafts ribbon for the bow. Does that ribbon look familar? It's the same ribbon that I ruched to use on the Christmas wreath for this card. I LOVE that ribbon.

There were 2 others that I just have to highlight as well. Lynn used a tag in a way that I had not ever thought of...as a gift card holder! And Elise's...sweet, crazy, chatty, lovely Elise, paper pieced the heck out of some tags! You just have to look at them if you haven't already.

I printed out the little tags in two sizes and a few colors...so you just might see more of 'em on here soon. ;o) If anyone is interested in having a set, just leave me a comment and I'll post a pdf that you can download and print your own.

Thanks for stopping by tonight, I'm off to catch up on all I let fall behind this week. (Like the giant 9 foot tree waiting to be decorated!)