4 More Christmas Cards to Share...

As promised, here are a few more Christmas cards to share with you...these aren't quite as "cutesy"...but a bit more on the elegant side (I guess?). 

Each of these 4 cards are made with my "leftover" scraps from the Jillibean Soup "Christmas Eve Chowder" stuff I made for Craft Warehouse.

I would not have thought of using a butterfly on a Christmas card, but fellow design team member Andrea did that on one of the cards she created, and I loved it, so thought I would try it. I just wrapped the middle with some red twine. 

This one is super similar to the one I made for Craft Warehouse, but I love the simple design, and decided to make another one. This time I added tiny "bling" to the trees and stamped the sentiment (from Studio G/Hampton Arts).

This one is really similar to the card fellow CW Design Team member Gina Hanson created. I actually like her card more...but I decided to just let mine be:o). The sentiment stamp is from Studio G/Hampton Arts (can find it in Craft Warehouse's $1 bins right now!!!)

The ribbon on this one is from American Crafts.

A Card-Making Weekend & Some Cute Christmas Cards

This long Thanksgiving weekend, I have been on a card-making mission to re-stock my parent's jewelry store with the handmade cards I sell there...my mom called me a few weeks ago, and said they were running really low on some (which is awesome because it means they're selling!:o))...and so I made a bunch. 

Since Christmas is just around the corner....here's some "cute" Christmas card inspiration for you...

Everything here is Doodlebug (the paper and sticker are from the new Santa's Workshop collection), except the stamp (which is Studio G/Hampton Arts)

Red and blue paper and elf sticker are from Doodlebug's Santa's Workshop collection

Green paper is from Authentique

Stamp is from Studio G/Hampton Arts

Paper, sticker and green ribbon from Doodlebug (older collection)

Patterned Paper is from My Mind's Eye 12 Days of Christmas Collection

Penguin is fussy cut from Jillibean Christmas Eve Chowder paper

Ribbon is from Doodlebug

Stamp is from Studio G/Hampton Arts

*Tomorrow I'll have 4 more Christmas cards to show you*

Our Thanksgiving

Pete's mom always come over for Thanksgiving...and in the past we've done various things (sometimes maybe a bit unconventional..soup anyone?;o)), but never as full-blown or "fancy" of a dinner as we did yesterday. Because Pete and I went to our friend Denece's cooking class last month (she is such an awesome cook!) and she showed us some easy, yummy side dishes, we decided we could do it this year. So yesterday Pete (the head chef) and I (the sous chef) slaved away in the kitchen all morning and afternoon long and made: Turkey (in a crockpot (thanks for the suggestion Mom!!)...and it was fabulous...so moist and yummy!!! See recipe below), dressing with sausage, apples and cranberries, cranberry sauce, sweet potato biscuits, garlic mashed potatoes and gravy and pumpkin cake. 

Carol (Pete's mom) provided the cute "turkey" place cards...

(stamps and dies by Paper Trey Ink--she's a Paper Trey junkie:o))

I added our names using my Cricut machine.

SLOW COOKER TURKEY 

(using 6 lb turkey breast--perfect for small family)

Layer bottom of crockpot with 3 cut up celery stalks, one diced sweet yellow onion, 1/4 cup chicken broth and 1/2 Tbsp minced garlic. Rinse turkey and pat dry. Cut off any excess skin, but leave skin covering the breast. Rub 1 packet dry onion soup mix all over the outside of turkey and under the skin. Put in crockpot. Drizzle with 1 Tbsp melted butter. Cover. Cook on high for 1 hour...then on low for 7 hours. 

A Couple Christmas Multi-Photo Layouts

Here are two more of the layouts that I made at the retreat (again, quite a few photos on these too). I obviously have a thing for kraft paper;o).

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Both of these were made with Echo Park's new Christmas line. 

The alphas are Thickers from American Crafts.

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And some close-ups...

A Couple Multi-Photo Layouts

As promised, I wanted to share a couple more layouts I finished at the retreat that each had quite a few photos on them. Although I prefer making layouts with 1-3 photos, there are just some occasions where you have more photos than that. 

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These photos were from Ellie's (last year's) preschool field trip to the Farmstead Pumpkin patch. I love the look of banners, and with this many photos decided to keep it nice and simple with a bunch of hand-cut banners at the bottom. I really like using foam mounting tape behind plain old stickers (these were from the dollar bin at Target) to give them dimension. The cute little pumpkin is a "doodle pop" from Doodlebug's Halloween collection. 

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While we're not big Halloween fans, we do help out at our school's Trunk R Treat event (these photos were from last year too), and so I was able to use a few more "pieces" from Doodlebug's Halloween collection (they make Halloween "cute", which is right up my alley:)). I used my the "Cuttin' Up" Cricut cartridge to make the title letters. 


Also...I have to admit that this is the first time in a very long time (other than the very first 6x6 baby scrapbook I made when Ellie was born) that I have used my own handwriting on my pages. I just never liked how my handwriting looked...I always thought the computer fonts looked so much better and more professional. BUT I didn't have a computer at the retreat, and I really wanted to complete the pages I was doing...so I bit the bullet, and just did it. Do I absolutely love it? No, but it looks better than I thought it would, and it was very liberating, and I think Ellie will appreciate having some pages that have my handwriting on them, making them a bit more personal.

A quick simple layout...and a lesson learned

A couple weeks ago, I got to go to an awesome Scrapbook Retreat in Cascade, Idaho. It was so much fun, and despite the fact that I had just taken a bad fall and fractured my tailbone and the doctor said I probably shouldn't go...I still went, and I'm so glad I did! (my tailbone is healing just fine despite the trip and I got quite a bit of scrapbooking done---I'm now caught up till the end of LAST year).  

Here is one I was able to get done that came together very quickly...

A  Lesson Learned from this Layout:

I've had this photo of Ellie and Loretta sitting in my photo stash for over a year now, and didn't really know how I wanted to use it because although it represents her first day of preschool last year, it didn't really "exude" that moment...so I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted to journal. Then, during the retreat when I was going through my stash of embellishments, I found this "wish" rub-on...and the journaling just flowed from that. Thus, I learned that just because a photo is from a particular moment or occasion, you don't have to necessarily scrapbook it or journal it that way. 

NEXT UP--Many multi-photo layouts! In the next few days, I will be sharing the other layouts I completed during the retreat...all of them have multiple photos on them. 

Two Super Quick Cards...

My stepdad called me the other day and said that he needed me to make him a sympathy card to send to a customer, so within 20 minutes, I whipped up these two cards (so he could have a choice between masculine and feminine). I've basically done the tree one before (just a little different), but the butterfly one is new. 

I really like the way they turned out for how quick they were to make...and well, I guess I just like the look of simple cards too!

Craft Warehouse "Crate Paper" Assignment

This is my third assignment for the Craft Warehouse Design Team. This time we used Crate Paper's Farmhouse Collection...a really cute fall line. Here's the layout I made...

it was a great way to showcase a few of the photos from our recent trip to one of the local apple orchards. 

Then we also needed to make a plaque using some vinyl lettering. My friend Erica gave me the awesome idea to use the lettering as a stencil and try a crackle technique on the plaque. 

I started out by painting the plain wooden plaque a cream color (with Delta Ceramacoat Acrylic Paint). Then I used the vinyl "HOME" lettering that Craft Warehouse sent me. Next I applied the Delta Crackle Medium, and then a coat of brown acrylic paint. After it dried I pulled up the vinyl letter and viola....

I've never done crackling before, but it was easy, and I'm really happy with the way the plaque turned out.

Again...all the papers, die cuts, stickers, buttons and brads are from Crate Paper. I had never made these cute simple flowers before, but I just used varied sizes of circles, scrunched them up for some dimension and layered them (on couple of the pieces I cut out a few notches). So easy and so cute...now I can't wait to try this on cards and layouts. The leaves were also hand cut from the patterned paper and scrunched. 

Harvest and Halloween Fun!

It's been a few weeks since I've posted...and we've been pretty busy and life's been a little crazy.

Here are a  few photo highlights....

A couple weeks ago (wow, has that much time passed already?) I volunteered to be a chaperone on Ellie's preschool field trip to the Pumpkin Patch, and was in charge of this sweet trio of girls...Aviyanah (Avi for short), Ellie and Tillie. Check out those cute little pumpniks (that's what we call little pumpkins!).

Last Tuesday night, my friend Steph (far right) hosted a very fun "Witches Hat" party for a group of her friends...which basically meant we had to wear a witches hat (or a pirates hat?:o)) and she fed us some yummy food, and we got to visit! It was really fun...oh yeah, except for the fact that I look D-U-M ;o) in hats (as can be verified in the above photo---ugh!). Oh well...isn't Steph's little red poodle Jack the cutest thing ever (he's actually "posing").  

See these cool finger cookies Steph she made us...they were actually quite (freakishly!) delicious (the red fingernail is an almond sliver YUM YUM!!). 

Ellie's school sponsored a Trunk R Treat in the school parking lot, so the kids could come "trick or treat "at all the trunks and then go play games too. With much help from our incredibly talented and artistic friend Annie we made even cooler modifications to our last year's design of the  "MONSTER TRUCK" and ended up with this monstrosity this year!! We ended up winning the BEST DECORATED TRUNK award too (pretty cool!)

And this cute litte "Hindian " is Ellie wearing the cute outfit my mom bought her back from a recent trip to India (a new, probably not very politically correct word I made up when I was trying to explain to someone that she was an Indian-but Hindu (as in not a native American)). It was a slip of the tongue, but actually kind describes her well...Hindian...it might catch on? or not? The fact that the top didn't exactly fit her the best (a bit "bunchy" in places) and that we couldn't figure out the floppy pants (still don't know what those were all about---they had the hugest waist ever and nothing to secure them with---because what we thought was a belt was super short, so we used it in her hair instead:o)) Ingenious right?;o)) So though definitely not perfect in costume with capri leggings and flip flops and unique "headpiece", she still made a mighty cute little something:o).  Way cuter than I ever was as a ghost or a hobo (which I truly think was all I ever was in my 10 or so years of trick or treating;o)).

Well....anyway, I hope you all had a happy harvest, happy fall, Happy Halloween, or whatever you called it. Though personally not a fan of some of the evil, gore and scariness that goes along with Halloween, I  definitely appreciate the family fun aspect of this cooler, beautiful autumn season....such as pumpkin patches, corn mazes, hay rides, harvest carnivals, apple cider and hot cocoa, carving pumpkins, decorating with the beautiful white ghost pumpkins, and ummm, I've been known to enjoy candy too. Hope you had a chance to enjoy a few of those things also:o)))).