Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Hello my blogging friends!

Well December came and went and once again I had a million ideas for projects, but only accomplished one.  Oh well!  Full time work, school, and family leave me little time to indulge in my hobby sometimes.  So my friends, I hope you all had a great Christmas, and of course I wish you all a prosperous New Year!!!

 My gift from my husband- Tickets to Disney on Ice (Disney Nut here)

 Cookies on Christmas Eve at my dad's house

 My nieces and my grand-niece on Christmas Eve at my dad's house

 More Christmas Eve shots of my nieces

I love that my brother and my husband are BFF's.  At my grandma's Christmas Party.

 Finally Christmas Day- time to watch Ralphy and relax.

Fall is flying by too fast

Is it just me, or is Fall flying by fast?  I know it is only November 6th, but as soon as Thanksgiving gets here, BAM! It will be Christmas time, which means it will be Winter.  This past weekend I sadly packed away all my Halloween decorations (in 10 totes, seriously 10 totes of Halloween goodness) and brought out my one sad little Thanksgiving/Fall tote.  I am not sure how many people have seasonal decor, but slowly over the years I have collected enough items to need a tote.  So this is what I came up with:

I know it is not a lot, but I actually love the way it came out.  The little Indian Figures come from Hobby Lobby a few years ago, but I still have not found the two Pilgrim people.  After I took the pictures I went back and tweaked the wreath because it looked a little wonky, so now it is perfect.  So that is all. What do you think? I know most of us decorate for Christmas as soon as Thanksgiving is over, but for the few weeks between Halloween and Christmas I didn't want to have naked space.  I hope I have inspired some of you to decorate your space for the Thanksgiving season.  Until next time my friends, have a great day. 

I didn't make it...

Challenge accepted, but mission failed. Oh well!  My 13 Days of Halloween was such a good idea, but I just didn't make it. What can I say, horrible hard Accounting class, week long conference away from home, sick husband, and life just stood in the way.  Even though I didn't make it, and I still have so many good craft ideas floating around in my head, they will just have to wait until next year. 

Anyway, today is Halloween, my favorite holiday ever, and my 14th wedding anniversary!

This is us in at Cowboy stadium in Texas this past summer, and then us at La Boufador in Mexico, 1 year ago today. 

Well my friends, that is all for today.  I have tons to do today, work, trick or treating, and then I am finishing off my day with a few drinks and dancing the night away with my love.  Happy Halloween!

Project life?

Ever since Project Life hit the shelves, it seems every company has released their version of journaling cards and pocket page inserts to try and stay competitive. I am sad to admit that I have fallen into the trap and have a small collection that has been wasting away in a tote. What can I say? I'm an impulse shopper. Anyway, last night I was cleaning and I decided that I needed to start using my stash. I decided that I was going to pull out this little crazy tote of goodies and start working on actually scrapbooking my pictures. Well before I could start working, I realized that a little organization was in order first. Immediately I ran across the street to Bed Bath and Beyond and hit the aisles looking for something, anything to organize and corral my mess. There were a few good contenders, but I decided on this:

This little cosmetic organizer looked like the perfect "station" to house my goodies. Without any measurements, I took a leap of faith and it turns out I was right! If this was to house my makeup, I would need 10, but for my stash, 2 is the perfect amount. I'm still working on sorting and categorizing my cards, but I was so eager to share- I just had to post this as soon as I could. So what do you think? 

Personally I love it. It's small enough to be portable, yet big enough to give me a great staring point. So that's all for now my friends- I'm off to get some pages done...finally. Until next time, have a great week!

Halloween Day #9

Originally I had a deadline of October 13th to have all my challenges done, but life got in the way. Work, school, conferences, illness...I'm tired. So, I am extending my deadline to Oct 31st. It's my blog, it's my rules. 

So anyway, for project #9 I am bringing you a project I completed at work. I work in a typical government office and for my project, I decorated our employee break room bulletin board. It's not much, but it really was a fun way to boost employee morale with fun memories of the past. 

For this project I printed out pictures from the past 10 years of us all dressed up for Halloween. I matted the pictures with Halloween scrapbook paper, bordered them with washi tape, used foam pumpkins to randomly fill in blank space, and punched spiders out of polka dot paper to make the board just a tad spooky.  

So what do you think? Simple, yet festive and fun. So that's all for today. I will be back soon with day 10 of my thirteen day challenge. Have a great weekend! 

More of our decorated kitchen! 

Halloween Day #8

I am back with another super simple project for project #8 of my 13 days challenge. For this project I made a personalized gift bag filled with halloween candy, gum, and other seasonal goodies. 

For this project I used a plain handled craft bag I bought in a bulk pack from my favorite craft superstore, Halloween paper pad (Teresa Collins), Inkadinkado stamps, American Crafts Rogue ink pad, orange tulle, and ribbon from my stash. To begin this project I used the blood splatter stamp with red ink and randomly stamped all over the bag. After my ink dried, I cut out pieces of the paper pad to make a label and then layered the label over a bigger cut out from the pad. To finalize this personalized gift bag, I tied a bow with both the tulle and the ribbon on the handle. 

So what do you think? I really like the way this gift bag turned out. It's so simple- yet so fun. 

That's all for now, I will see you soon as I continue on with my 13 days challenge. 

Halloween day #7

Super, super simple Halloween craft project today. For this post I made a tag to attach to some Halloween candy for my friend and co-worker. 

For this tag I used craft paper, close to my heart Wicked stamp set, black ink, corner rounder, left over ribbon, and paper from Echo Park Chillingworth Manor 6x6 paper pad. 

On one side I used the sentiment stamp on orange paper and then used pop dots to attach it to patterned paper to give it more dimension. I hot glued the ribbon to the paper between the layers and them stamped the witch on the craft card stock. I used some remnant ribbon and I will use this to attach the tag to the candy. It is just that easy.

Making tags is a perfect way to use up scraps and at the same time make your little gift look so much more thoughtful. I often use this like these for Christmas when sending baked goods. 

So that is all my friends- stay tuned for the next project which will be day #8 of my 13 Days of Halloween Challenge. Have a great day! 

dimension, dimension, dimension! 

Halloween day #6

I am back with project #6 from my 13 Days of Halloween challenge. For today's project I strayed with a paper mâché witch hat I picked up at my local craft store. The hat is 10 inches in diameter by approximately 10 inches in height

To start, I painted both sides black with some basic black acrylic paint. After the paint was dried, I used paper from Echo Park's Apothecary Emporium paper pack to Mod Podge to the hat. 

I started working on this project around midnight (I had the longest day, but that's a story for another day) and I let the hat dry overnight. Once everything was dry, I trimmed the paper around the hat brim and inked the edges with black ink. 

Now was the fun part! To decorate the hat I hot glued some puff ball trim around the hat, used some crystal flourishes to dazzle it, hot glued a Prima bat stem to the front, used a handmade paper rosette I had left over from my wreath, and glued a witch potion paper to the rosette. So what do you think? 

I toyed around with adding more layers, but I think anything else will make it look too bulky. So that is it for today, I will be back soon with project #7 and continue with my 13 Days challenge. 

My creative chaos! 

Have a good week my friends! 

 

Halloween day #4

Uh oh! I was just reviewing my blog and I realized that I am missing project #4.  I just skipped right ahead and went from day 3 to day 5.  Goodness, I must make this right…so here it is: Day 4 of my 13 Days of Halloween projects.  For Day #4 I am revisiting a project I have made numerous times.  This is my Halloween wreath made with handmade paper rosettes. 

 For this project I used some Halloween paper from my stash (My Mind’s Eye), black raffia, circle punch, hot glue, and black ink.   

So for this project I made a bunch of different sized rosettes.  Rosettes can be made different ways and even can be cut using dies, but I made mine the old fashioned way.  I cut strips of 12x12 paper different widths, scored them every quarter inch; fan folded them and then hot glued the ends together and secured the center with either a circle punched paper or cut out image from the paper pad.  After all the rosettes were made, I used black ink to ink the edges and then I used a piece of card stock and cut out a circle to make my base.  I hot glued the rosettes to the base, cut out a haunted house from the paper pad, and tied the raffia to the base so I could use it to hang the wreath.

So this is my wreath:

So what do you think?  This was a super easy project that I completed in front of the TV.  I encourage you to try your hand at this and make a wreath for your home, office, cubicle, or wherever you feel might need a subtle touch of homemade decor.   

That’s it for now my friends.  I will see you soon with my next project to complete my 13 Days Challenge. Bye, and have a great week.