Day 8 Holiday Card Inspiration!

Hello my Crafty Friends!  Hope your day is going great!  Today I am back with Day 8 of my Holiday Card Inspiration!  I am using my Taylored Expressions Nativity die, so love that die!

Of course I made 4!  I used paper from Simple Stories Handmade Holiday and the sentiment is from Hero Arts Greatest Blessing!

Tomorrow is the craft sale that I am doing.  I have a few wreaths made (so busy with etsy and custom orders!  yay!) And have a bunch of cards to sell!  Hoping it goes well!  No table fee so it's all a bonus!  I plan to make as many cards tonight and finish up two wreaths tonight too.  Well hope to, I actually feel pretty horrible right now and feel like I am coming down with something.  The good news is that at least my ankle is better and I can walk!  What I would love to just go and lay on the couch with a good book but did I mention were moving this weekend?  Oh the joy!  :>  So much to do! 

This week I finished off a custom wreath order from etsy, I am so glad she ordered these as I hadn't thought of a wreath like this, oh and she ordered 3 of them:

So pretty hey?  I am going to list one in my etsy shop too!  :>  Well I better go...

Day 7 Holiday Card Inspiration!

Hello my Crafty Friends!  It's Monday and snowing over here!  I am at home with two extra kids today!  Today I have another Holiday Card to share using the Snow Much Joy stamp set by Hero Arts once again!  I can't help but LOVE this snowman!  :>  Don't forget leave a comment I will draw for a winner!

 No surpise that I made 4 right?  How could I not it's so much fun to play with this snowman!

 
 First I heat embossed the sentiment in red scented powder cherry on top by gelatins than I stamped with Frost White by Colorbox the Snow dots background by Ha, I cut out snowhills and added a strip of fun paper by Carta Bella.  I stamped the cute pudgy snowman and die cut him with the matching frame cut!  And I paper pieced him!

Well I am off!  Lots on the to do list and the fact that I fell down the stairs last night and sprained  my ankle at my inlaws doesn't help!  It's sore but not as painful as I am sure it could have been!  I have been hopping, and hobbling around the house! Off to work on some cards for the craft sale on Thursday!  I hardly have any Birthday cards!

Day 6 Holiday Card Insipration!

Hello my crafty Friends remember me?  Not sure what happened to me but this week has been a crazy one!  I have cards to share but can't seem to make it here to blog.  I live blog, not schedule but I may start scheduling posts to  make sure I share with you!

Much is going on over here, more etsy sales (who hoo) and custom wreath orders from friends!  Also next Thursday Chad's grandmother's condo has a craft sale that I am part of.  This will be my third year, and my first bringing wreaths, and of course cards and tags!  So I have been preparing like crazy for this!  I have a lot of Christmas cards but realized I have no birthday!  Yikes!

Today I am here to share Day 6 of my Holiday Card Inspiration!  I actually shared this card on Scrapbooking Cafe's Blog yesterday!  I will be back tomorrow with Day 7!  Remember I will be drawing a winner from one of the posts for a prize! Last Friday I received some new Hero Arts goodies and couldn't wait to play with them:

I used Hero Arts and Sizzix new background stamp and emboss set Snowflake Background!  Oh I love it!  Here is a side view:

I paired it with Hero Arts Very Best Holiday Stamp and used the matching frame cut to cut it out!  (The frame cut only cuts out the outside edge and I handcut the inside)  I figured I needed a wreath stamp seeing as I make so many of them!

And of course I made 4:

Well that's it from me today!  I am off to do some shopping on the other end of the city.  I was supposed to yesterday but it was so icy, I think you could have skated down the street!  See you tomorrow!

Day 5 Holiday Card Inspiration!

Hello my Crafty Friends!  We are at home and enjoying a day off from school, yay for 3 day weekends!  Ariel and Carter and playing SO WELL together today!  I've been enjoying it as I have taken the opportunity to clean the house, stamp and work on wreaths!  

Today I am here with a 5th card in my 12 Days of Holiday Card Inspiration!  Do remember that I will draw a winner for a prize from one of my 12 posts!  I finally got a chance to play with my new die by Taylored Expressions, I love this Nativity die! I truly love to make Christmas cards sharing what I celebrate and believe Christmas to be about!  I love it when paper craft companies bring out products that share the real meaning on Christmas!  And I love that I am seeing it more and more lately!  I paired this die with a great Hero Arts set, Heaven's Rejoice, love the sentiments it has!

I used paper from Very Merry Christmas by Echo Park, the die cut paper is a backside, I like the look using a bit of a patterned paper brings as opposed to cardstock.  I love this nativity silhouette! This die cuts so well!  Even that staff the Shepard is holding! 

I added another new wreath to my etsy store today you can find it here.

Well I am off to make some Honey cookies with the kids, it's a Croatian recipe that my mom made all the time I was growing up and it's my first time making them with the kids!

Hexagon Gift Bag!

Hello my Crafty Friends!  Hope your having a great night!  We just came back from dinner with Chad's grandmother!  She invited us over as she wasn't able to make it to Ariel's family party, she had her Wii Bowling League that night!  :>  She is 89 and lives in a beautiful condo with other people her age!  We had a great night with her!  She made for dessert a coconut cream pie!  I've never had a homemade coconut cream pie, it was so good!

I am taking a break from my Holiday Card Inspiration and today I have a gift bag to share that I shared on the Scrapbooking Cafe Online blog!  I actually made this gift bag for the May/June Paper Crafts call, it wasn't picked up but I did have two other wraps picked up so that's okay!  I still love and enjoyed making this gift bag:

For more details about the bag please click here.

Well that's it from me tonight!  I am bushed!  Busy day!  Looking forward to cuddling my sweetheart on the couch while we watch some really good Thursday night tv, oh you know Big Bang Theory, The Office (this season it's good again) Glee, and Scandal (we love that show!) Not sure if we will actually make it through all those shows but that's what a PVR is for!

Day 4 Holiday Card Inspiration!

Hello my Crafty Friends!  Hope your having a great Wednesday!  This morning Carter and I went to his weekly stay and play drop in at our church.  It's great to get out and see friends!

I am here with another Holiday card to share! Please remember that I am offering a giveway to a random commenter on one of my 12 Days of Holiday Cards! It's so sunny outside today (which is fantastic after dreary weather) so I was able to get really good photos of my cards!  I used my favorite snowman from Hero Arts set Snow Much Joy!  The matching frame cut makes him so much easier to use!  

 

I paper pieced the snowman with paper from Simple Stories Simnple Handmade collection.  The sentiment is from one of my favorite sentiment sets this year, Miracle of the Holidays!

I actually made 4 of this card!  Two of each style here is the other:

 

  Can you see all the snow we have?  Over the weekend they called for a blizzard and luckily it didn't come!  It did snow a lot I think something like 25 cm but it snowed for 2 days on and off so it wasn't as bad as it could have been!  So on Friday we had no snow and no we have this!  We are thrown right into tons of snow and winter driving!  On Sunday we were running out of time so Chad decided he would shovel when we came back from church.  Came home to a cleared driveway, what great neighbors! 

Not sure if you saw this but I am thankful for Jennifer McGuire for sharing about my wreaths on her blog here.  I can see that a lot of people have come from her blog to see my wreaths!  I've been quite busy with etsy sales, custom orders and local orders too!  One of my friends yesterday shared with her friend who ordered 3 wreaths!  I've employed Chad too!  LOL Well I work on wreaths whenever I get a chance and often he is home.  He did a bunch of circle die cutting for a few wreaths (a lot of flowers I cut by hand but a few I can die cut instead)  Here is my newest Holiday Wreath that will go into my shop later today:

That's it from me today!  I shall be back soon!

Deck the Halls Blog Hop!

Hello my Crafty Friends!  I am here as part of a blog hop as part of the Freckled and Fun Fabulous Four!  Today we are sharing projects featuring Beth Silaika's set Deck the Halls!  Please join us in this hop as I have seen some of the projects and they are inspiring!  You can find the hop here.  

Today I have a tag to share!  I really love this set and really enjoy creating with it!

 I used Echo Park's Very Merry Christmas 6  by 6 pad for this tag, the papers are so easy to work with and I think it compliments this set so well!

And that's it from me! Thank you so much for stopping by!

Day 3 Holiday Inspiration!

Hello my Crafty Friends!  Happy Monday!  I am here with Day 3 of my Holiday Card Inspiration!  I apologize for the lack of blogging, last week was a crazy week with Ariel's birthday (her birthday post is below if your curious) and other things, like A LOT of etsy wreath order sales!  Still working on a lot of wreaths but the good news is that I am making progress!  I've gotten a lot of local custom orders too!  So happy to see my wreaths being popular and successful!

Today's card I actually shared last Thursday on the Scrapbooking Cafe Online's blog!  But I wasn't able to share it here so today I am.  I used Hero Arts Heaven's Rejoice stamp set for this card along with paper from Simple Stories Handmade Holiday collection!

 For instructions to this card please check out the Scrapbooking Cafe's blog here.

On Saturday it was Ariel's 7th Birthday!  We spent the morning at home just hanging out playing with Ariel's new toys.  And in the afternoon we went to see Wreck it Ralph as a family!  We loved the movie!  It's a great movie for families of having both girls and boys!  Than we went for supper at Boston Pizza, at school they have a reading program that if you read so much you get a free kids dinner at Boston Pizza, and Ariel read so much she got two!  So the kids meals were free and she wanted to go there!  We had a really lovely time as a family!  Than we went shopping for Ariel's present and she picked out an easy bake oven!   Tonight were going to bake something with it for the first time!

Well I am off to work on felt flowers!

Happy 7th Birthday Ariel! (Party Photo and Info)

Hello my Crafty Friends!  Today is my daughter Ariel's 7th Birthday!  I can't believe that she is 7 already!  I still remember the day she was born and her being our baby!  Yesterday was an inservice from school so we had Ariel's birthday parties!  In the afternoon we had her friends 12 girls!  And last night we had family over to celebrate her!  

Happy 7th Birthday Ariel!  I love you so much and God really blessed us when he gave us you!  Every moment with you is a delight!  You show God's love to everyone in all sorts of ways!  You are so sweet!  Your an amazing sister, loving your brother and playing with him all the time!  You are such a good friend being friendly to everyone you meet.  I remember asking you who you played with at recess and you said a boys name I asked you oh why?  And you said Because he asked me to!  You are a great kid and everyone always says that!  Your teachers always have the best to say about you, how hard of a worker you are and they describe you as sweet too!  When I had you and Daddy said you were a girl I never imagined how amazing it would be to be your mother (and I thought it was going to be pretty great!)  We love you so much!  Thank you for being our daughter!

I do want to share something that just happened the other day my arms were full and I was quickly going to run into the house and put the stuff down and come back for Carter.  He got upset and started to cry.  Ariel whose arms were full too with her backpack and a bag opened his door climbed over him and undid his seat belt and helped Carter out of the car!  She didn't just leave him or stand there while he cried!  She went above and beyond!  Constantly she does things like this showing love and acts of service!  

As I mentioned yesterday we had Ariel's parties.  We did a crafty party!  Ariel really wanted that!  For the invites I printed out:

Paint, color, cut, and glue

these are Ariel's favorite things to do!

Please join us for Ariel's 7th Birthday

Arts and Crafts Extravaganza 

Than I cut them small and stamped them in pink a Pure Innocence stamp over top.  Than I glued with a white glue stick cellophane.  Than I painted over top with 2 parts paint and 1 part dishsoap to  make it a scratch off!  For more details on how to do this please click here.

Like how I didn't scratch the personal info?  

This past week has been crazy and I may have waited till the day before to really plan out and get ready for Ariel's party.  Yes crazy woman I know!  But I knew in my head what I wanted to do I just had to figure some stuff out and actually do it!  Oh and bake all the goodies needed too!  LOL  Luckily on Thursday Ariel was in school and Carter was at a playdate at my SIL!  So I made all the decorations the night before:

I made the pom pom's out of tissue again this year but used a different tissue paper and while it worked it didn't work as well!  I also punched out circles and adhered them to ribbon and had them hanging!  I love the chalkboard banner!  I actually won them from Holly over at the Say Hello Etsy Shop!  They are wood and I painted them with chalkboard paint!  Love it as I can reuse it!  Not sure if you can tell but I tied them together with twine, I used purple so I hope Carter doesn't mind when his birthday comes and it's purple twine, lol! 

Ariel really wanted a pinatta.  The thought of spending $15 to 20 on something that gets crushed in minutes was too hard to handle so I went to pintrest to see if I could make one!  I saw so many ideas and started, I filled up a cereal box with candy and tied a ribbon through it and than wrapped it with mailing paper.  I than planned to decorate it with tissue paper.  But I ran out of time!  At the last second I thought to myself hey it's a crafty party so I am going to put it on the living room table with markers and stickers and have the girls decorate it when they first come!  It was a HUGE hit!  The girls LOVED IT!  And the mom's thought it was super clever!  Don't worry I admitted that it was a run out of time idea, but hey it really worked out well!  Here's a few of them doing it:

 

As for crafts I was horrible and didn't take photos of this part!  What was I thinking?  Well I did have 12 little girls doing crafts!  I was really lucky as 3 of the moms stayed and were such a help!  My wonderful friend Lynn sent me 20 pink die cut PTI Wine Bottle papers!  What a blessing she was to me!  I never would have been able to have bought and got the die here in time!  The die is great as a door hanger!  I "taught" the girls how to stamp and they made the door hangers and cards at the same time!  I so wish I took a photo but I was sorts stuck in the dining room!  I had rhinestone strips, feathers, markers and markers, pencil crayons, stamps (all the cute ones) and me and one of the mom's put there names on a clear block with a HA letter set and than they stamped there names too!  I also had them decorate a kraft gift bag, for them to take there crafts home in!  Than we went and hit the pinatta, and THEY LOVED IT!  Since it was a cereal box it was super hard to break and each girl got to hit it probably 5 times!  It was so funny!  We kept asking them if they wanted us to break it open since it was taking a while but they didn't!  They loved hitting it!  LOL  

I am thankful while we did this the mom's cleaned up the table and it was time for food!  I had bought a cupcake corer and had sent to school for Ariel's birthday chocolate cupcakes with vanilla pudding inside!  I came up with the idea to core the cupcakes and offer fillings (vanilla pudding and cherry pie filling) and icing and stuff to decorate the cupcakes the day before!  They loved it, I made cherry chip cupcakes and chocolate and each girl got one of each:

Before I fed them we made headbands! I had planned to make hair pins like Leigh did but found three nice headbands for $1 and it was much cheaper so I went with that!  I emailed Leigh the day before to ask her what glue did she use for them?  I was unsure and she shared with me that she hot glued them for the girls.  Leigh actually lives about an hour and half away from me and I run into her from time to time at our LSS!  She is so great and I hope one day to get together and craft with her!  :>  Chad die cut all the flowers just before the party started and I put them all in a big bowl and sent them around letting the girls pick and also let them pick which headband they wanted.  And sent out buttons if they wanted it and told them to stack the flowers how they wanted it (with a circle on the bottom) than I handed out food.  And two of the mom's hot glued them while the girls ate!  It worked so well!  You can see above some of the headbands...

Here is a photo of Ariel:

Here's a photo of Ariel and her friend they both have the headbands on:

After Ariel opened gifts!  It was so sweet to see the girls all line up in a line with there gifts ALL EXCITED to give Ariel her gifts!  After gifts it was free play and the girls ran around and had a blast.  It got loud again (it has been loud before when they decorated the pinatta but during crafts and everything else it wasn't too bad!)  I was really happy with how the party went!  

Later that night we had the families over here's a few photos:

What a great day!  And today is actually her birthday and we are planing family fun!  Luckily it's not a blizzard outside like they had predicted!  :>  Sorry for the super long post!  And I hope to be back with Day 3 of my Holiday Card Inspiration!  I am sorry I got tardy with that, what a week!

Day 2 Holiday Card Inspiration!

Hello my Crafty Friends! Hope you are having a great Monday and start to your week!  I am here with Day 2 of my Holiday Card Inspiration!  I am really glad that I am doing this as it's keeping me blogging!  In case you didn't know I am doing a 12 Days of Holiday Card Inspiration! I've been busy with making Holiday cards so I figure why not?  If you comment on all 12 Days you will be in the drawing for a prize!  Here is day 1.  I hope tomorrow to share the prize!  

Today I am sharing a card I made with a new Hero Arts stamp set Heaven's Rejoice!  I love this set, I think it goes great with on of my other favorites Greatest Gift!  I love to create cards that share what I believe is the reason for the season!  Today my card is CAS:

I made two of this card! Had I had more dark blue cardstock I would have made more!  Today I went to my LSS and they didn't have any either!  I stamped with versamark and heat embossed with white powder these lovely wise men!

Well that's it for me today!  Yesterday I shared that I had 3 wreath sales through etsy!  Well last night I got another so 4 over the weekend!  And than today I got a custom order for 3!  Wow!  I love making these wreaths and am so happy with these sales!  See you tomorrow with Day 3!

October Publication!

Hello my Crafty Friends! Here we are on Sunday close to the end of our weekend!  If you are looking for the Caring Hearts Blog Hop please click here or scroll down.  Today I wanted to share a published card from CARDS October!  I am very blessed to have a card in the thank you section! 

Here it is in the magazine (love seeing how they photograph it)

For more details about this card please check out the CARDS October 2012 issue!

Hope your having a great weekend!  We sure are!  Yesterday after swimming lessons the kids and I went to my parents and we learned how to make perogies!  It's been a long time since I've made them so I needed a refresher.  My mom makes cottage cheese ones and cheese and mashed potato ones.  The kids and I love cottage cheese ones but Chad does not he loves the cheese potatoe ones!  Of course I find it a lot easier to make the cottage cheese kind!  I kept screwing up the cheese potato ones!  I really think that Chad should just start liking the cottage cheese kind, so much easier!

This weekend has also been great because I sold THREE more wreaths on etsy!  Yay!  One on Friday, than Saturday and than today!   And I made another new Holiday one and added it to my shop, so love it!  You can find it here in my shop.

Well that it's it from me!  I shall be back tomorrow with Day 2 of my Holiday Card Inspiration.  Remember I am giving away a prize to someone who comments on each of the 12 days.  You can find day 1 here.

Caring Hearts Blog Hop!

Hello my Crafty Friends!  I am delighted to be here as part of the Caring Hearts Blog Hop!  You should have arrived here from the talented Karen Baker!  I love that Vera does this card drive for elderly people in nursing homes!  The Holiday time can be a very lovely time for some of them and I do believe that our handmade cards can bring them so much joy!  For more information about the Caring Hearts Card drive please go here.  For more information on the blog hop please go here!

Here is my card that I created for this hop!  I am pretty sure this is my third year taking part of this hop!  :>

Don't you just love this cute snowman?  I sure do!  He's from the Snow Much Joy set by Hero Arts!  I also used the matching Frame cut to cut him out!  I paper pieced him and added jewels to his hat!  I used paper from My Mind's Eye Winter Wonderland collection!  The snowflake is a die from My Favorite Things!  I really enjoyed making this card and I hope you like it too!  

What's a blog hop with no prizes?  Prizes have been generously provided by:  Bella Blvd, Hero Arts. Lawn Fawn, Avocado Arts, May Arts, Two Peas In A Bucket and Jennifer McGuire offer 2 online classes. 
We will pick winners randomly from comments left on participants blog. The more blogs you left comment on the better your chances. 
People have the whole weekend to leave comments (till Monday, 11/5/2012 midnight CST)

I am also hosting here on my blog a 12 Days of Holiday Card Inspiration!  You can check out my first card here.

Thank you for stopping by today!  Your next stop along the hop is my friend Virgina Lu!!!

12 Days of Holiday Card Insipration Day 1!

Hello my Crafty Friends!  Well it's the 1st of November ALREADY!  November is an awesome month over here as we celebrate Ariel's birthday in 10 days!  I am busy preparing for her birthday party!  BUT I have also been making tons of Christmas cards and have been finding myself not being the best blogger about them which is why I have decided to do a 12 Days of Holiday Cards on my blog! It's a way to keep my blogging them and do something fun!  Leave a comment on each of the 12 posts and you will be in the drawing for a prize from me!

Today my card is also on the Scrapbooking Cafe Online's blog!  I am really enjoying being part of this team.  And I love the Scrapbooking Cafe's online store, they always have the hottest products and will order in for you what you want!  Here is my card:

I used Memory Box's Leaping Deer die, and Simple Stories Handmade Holiday paper pad!  I don't know if you can see but there is a faint white line around the deer, it's because I cut him out with Hero Arts layering paper (it's white on the back) I really like how it turned out!  As you know I enjoy creating more than 1 Holiday card of the same style, I've figured out that 4 seem to be not too much of the same card that I enjoy making 4 same cards and have enough of the same product to actually make 4!

I have a cute photo of the kids dressed up from yesterday to share with you:

 This bride costume Ariel has been wearing since she was really little where she had to pick up the bottom because it was too long!  She really loves it and really wanted to be a bride!  I tied her hair up and pinned her veil in behind and placed the crown on her head!  She was so excited!  Than I offered her these flowers that I have on my nightstand and boy did she get excited!  It was a little unsettling to see her dressed like this though!  As for Carter well he wears this costume around the house all the time too!  He seems to think though that he can climb up walls and all sorts of other things!  Actually in August Carter fell headfirst on the basement concrete floor and got a concussion later when he explained it he said "I was trying to grab the wire on the wall like Spiderman"  oh boy!  Not sure if I ever did share that, we spent the night in the ER and he did have a concussion but thankfully it wasn't serious. 

Well that's it for me!  I will be back tomorrow with Day 2 and I am taking part in the Caring Hearts Blog Hop!