Classroom Christmas Favors

Good evening fellow crafters, how are you doing? Are you enjoying the first day of winter? It has been windy all day today, which makes our 42 degree weather seem even colder. We are not used to this type of weather, we hardly ever get snow here and if we do, it usually only lasts about a day or two!

The girls are enjoying the start of their winder vacation, and are definitely excited for Christmas. Although, I have to admit it really doesn't feel like Christmas time. I still have a ton of presents to wrap and need to get some things prepared for our families Christmas Eve get-together. Sadly, this year I was chosen to work on Christmas day. We spent Christmas last year at Disneyland, and although it truly was an amazing experience, we did not have a Christmas tree or any family gatherings, so I was really looking forward to it this year. But since I work, I just can't bring myself to get into the Christmas spirit! I sure do miss Disneyland though, isn't Cinderella's Castle beautiful during Christmas time?

Freshly Made Sketches #115

Man, I am on a roll! I don't think I have ever had the time to post this many projects at one time ever! I am so blessed to be able to have some extra time this week to myself to just sit down, relax, and finally create!

This card is for the Freshly Made Sketches #115 challenge. This is the first time I am joining one of the FMS challenges, I see their challenges all the time but have never participated in one! I love these sketch challenges though, it is so nice to have someone else decide how they want you to make the layout of your project!

I used a digital stamp from Whimsie Doodles, love all their Christmas images, they are adorable! I colored in my image with some Prismacolor markers: Crimson Red, Dark Brown, Blush Pink, Process Red, Apple Green, Dark Olive Green, Light Peach, and Raspberry. I sure do love my Prismacolor markers, although I do hope to one day invest in some copic markers. I have had my Prismacolor Markers for over 5 years now and they still work like a charm. The only one that is just now starting to run out is the Crimson red. I love the way these markers blend together to create a nice, clean colored look.

My sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's Boutique Borders: Christmas Stamp set. I had a left over snowflake cut out from PTI's Fancy Snowflakes Die set, so I glittered that up and placed it behind my digital stamp. I embossed my red panel with clear embossing powder after stamping it with Hero Arts Snowflakes and Edges Cling stamp. The only thing I would change on the card is the red panel, I think it is too much red against all the red in my digital image, but I still like the card anyway.

Thanks for stopping by again, bye!

Christmas Card Set

Good afternoon fellow crafters. Happy Friday! Hope you are all having a great start to your weekend! I go in to work in a few hours, but I did spend the entire morning finishing up the cleaning of my craft room and I am so relieved that I am finally finished! Don't you just love the look of a nice clean, organized craft space? I know I sure do, I can find everything I need faster and hopefully I won't be throwing away any more die sets! :( I didn't have any luck finding my One Liner Die set, as I mentioned previously I misplaced it and I think I may have thrown it away in the trash. Anywho, here is how my room looks now:

There are a few more areas that I would like to organize, so hopefully I will get to that next week. Yesterday night while in the middle of all the cleaning madness, I was watching some Christmas youTube tutorials by Amy over on Prairie Paper and Ink and she had made this really nice, clean simple card with my favorite Kraft cardstock, and I really wanted to make a similar card set.

Since I can't use my Big Shot right now, I really liked the simplicity of this card. I used Kraft cardstock and patterned paper from the Paper Studio's Santa and Friends 6x6 paper pack. The stamp sets I used are Hero Arts Joy to All and a Recollections Christmas Stamp set which unfortunately doesn't have a name listed on it. This was very fast and simple to put together, and I just love it.

Thanks for stopping by, I need to stop by the post office before picking up the kiddos from school and heading off to work. I hope you all enjoy your weekend!

CAS(E) this Sketch #56 and colourQ #218

Hello again, this is my second post for today and if this is your second time here today, thank you for stopping by again, I definitely appreciate it! Earlier today, I showed you my card for Papertrey Ink's Make it Monday Challenge #143 and you may have read about my Big Shot dying out on me. Well, since I had the day off today I definitely wanted to try and enter a few more challenges around the blogging world, even if I didn't have any way of using my Big Shot! Crazy how much we rely on our die-cutting machines!

I created a very simple, 2 card set today for CAS(E) this Sketch #56 and colourQ #218. This is only my second colourQ card and this is actually my very first CAS(E) this sketch challenge! I have been following their blog for a while now but have never entered a challenge. In fact, I do a whole lot of Papertrey Ink challenges and I decided it was about time I step out of my comfort zone and check out some other blog challenges for once!

I guess the good thing about not being able to die-cut anything right now is that I didn't have to over-think my card today. It was fairly simple to put together since I already had a sketch prepared for me and a color combo as well! I used a Kraft cardstock base and Papertrey Ink's Happy Harlequin Stamp set, along with the Stampin' Up Colors Real Red, Cool Caribbean, Lucky Limeade, Bermuda Bay, and White. I added some Crumb Cake ink as well to match my Kraft cardstock. I used Early Espresso ink to stamp my sentiment, which is from Hero Arts Joy to All stamp set. Very fast cards to put together, I love this color combo for Christmas, it is so pretty!

Again, thank you for stopping by, enjoy the rest of your day!

PTI Make it Monday #142

Hello again, fellow crafters! This is my second post for this evening and also my second (and probably last) entry for this weeks Make it Monday challenge for Papertrey Ink.

This time, I made a set of 10 treat bags using Kraft bags and Glassine bags purchased on Etsy from sweetideasbyjanet. The Glassine bags measure 2¾" x 4¼" and the Kraft Bags measure 3¼" x 5¼". I cut the Kraft bags down to 4" and used a 1¾" circle punch to punch a half-circle into the top of each bag. I used Hero Arts Holiday Background Cling stamp to stamp each Kraft bag in Old Olive and Cherry Cobler ink from Stampin' Up. I used Papertrey Ink's Boutique Borders: Christmas stamp set and die to make the die-cut for the front of the card, with the sentiment stamped in Crumb Cake ink.

The Glassine bags slide perfectly inside the Kraft bags, making them easy to add a Holiday treat, such as a few Homemade cookies! These would be super easy to use for a grab-and-go snack at a Holiday party! Thanks for stopping by again, enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #142

Good evening fellow crafters! Can you believe it?! Tomorrow is DECEMBER 1ST! How was your Thanksgiving? Are you tired of eating turkey yet? I'm not, in fact, I wish I had MORE turkey! My sister made the turkey this year, and I was given a little to take home, but I sure wish I had decided to make my own this year too just so that I could have some to make other yummy recipes! Did anybody get sucked in to the Black Friday Madness? I usually venture out to a few stores, but this year I decided to just stay home. There were way to many stores open early on Thanksgiving day this year, it really cuts in to family time! I did do a little Online shopping, but I am going to wait for Monday to see if anything else catches my eye that is worth splurging on.

I wanted to share with you my Kraft Paper Bag project for this week's Make it Monday Challenge for Papertrey Ink. The challenge is to decorate a Kraft paper bag. Few people posted earlier in the week, I suspect because everyone was getting ready for Thanksgiving, and I didn't think I would have time to participate either, but with the weekend almost over and now everything nice and calm, I found some time to make this adorable Gift Bag.

I cannot even begin to describe how much I LOVE this bag! It is so cute! I don't even want to use it for a gift bag, I just want to display it somewhere in my craft room! And now I just want to make a whole bunch more! HeeHee :) I started with a regular size Kraft lunch bag, and I used the Limitless Layers Square dies to cut the "window" in the bag, first cutting one square, and then moving it up a smidge to make the window a little bigger. I used some Paper Studio Snowflake patterned paper I had laying around for the background, and added some white cardstock to make the snowy hills. I added some glitter to add some sparkle. I used Papertrey Ink's Polka Dot Parade #9 for the Christmas Tree, and the Hello Foxy Stamp Set for the Fox. I also used the Fancy Flakes die set to cut the snowflake out of Silver Glitter Paper. The Happy Holiday Sentiment is from the Boutique Borders: Christmas Stamp Set. I added some acetate to my window and then added some red/white twine to the top of the bag to finish is all off. I was inspired to make this bag after seeing this super cute bag here and I wanted to make something just like it. Mine didn't come out nearly as good as Yainea's did, but I still love it!

Thank you for stopping by, enjoy the rest of your weekend! And Happy December!

Papertrey Ink November Blog Hop

Good morning fellow crafters and Happy Monday! Are you all ready for Thanksgiving? I know I sure am, I cannot wait for Thursday! I was so excited when Nichole Heady showed us the theme for this month's blog hop over at Papertrey Ink. I thought, Paper Houses? How easy could that be?! (Can you picture me rolling my eyes here?) This was hard! I couldn't come up with any ideas for the life of me! I wanted to "make" my own windows using the Framed Out Stamp Set and Die sets, but they just weren't turning out right and some were just too big for the size of the template Nichole provided for us. And then I had my AHA moment! I remembered that I had this Hero Arts Simple Things Stamp set and it turned out to be perfect for my doors and windows! Now knowing that I have this stamp set I can't wait to make more of these little houses! My youngest daughter is particularly happy because she loves playing with all things "little" and has in fact all ready stolen my little paper house! Anywho, as I have to be to work in less than 30 minutes, I better make this quick!

I printed the template on Kraft cardstock and cut it out. The only thing I didn't cut out was the bottom line of the house, I cut about 1/4" past that line because I wanted to have something to attach to a bottom piece of cardstock. Then I embossed the house with Paper Studios A2 Stripes Embossing folder. I stamped my windows and Door and colored them in with Prismacolor markers, then cut them out. I adhered the house together, added some scalloped punching to my roof, and then added glitter to the roof and bottom of the house to make it look like snow. My final touch was adding the tiny little Snowman from Papertrey Ink's Tiny Treats: Christmas Stamp set. I really wanted to add some kind of wreath to the front of the house, but I couldn't find a stamp set small enough!

So cute! Even though I know I am about to be BLOWN AWAY by all the talent of all you wonderful crafters out there, I love my little house as it is the first one I have ever made! I cannot wait to see all the other houses you all make! Have a great day everyone, thanks so much for stopping by!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #141

Good evening fellow crafters! How are you doing? I hope you all have a great start to your week. Can you believe next week is already THANKSGIVING?! I've said it so many times, and I still cannot grasp just how fast the year has gone. One of my older sister's is going to be hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year, and I just cannot wait for some much needed family time with everyone!

I didn't think I would have much time to post any more projects any time soon, but I did have a chance to make a couple of cards for another Papertrey Ink Make it Monday. This week, Heather Nichols shows us how to add glitter using Heat and Stick embossing embossing powder.

I used my favorite Kraft cardstock for the card base. My ink colors are Stampin' Up's Indigo Island, Pool Party, and Crumb Cake. My scalloped borders are also Island Indigo cardstock. I used Inkadinkado's Snowflakes A-plenty stamp set and Papertrey Ink's Boutique Borders: Christmas Stamp set. Rather than add glitter to the entire card, I only stamped back over the snowflakes with the Versamark and heat set the glitter back onto just the snowflakes. I didn't want to add too much glitter to the card, I just wanted a very subtle, glittery affect. I added some rhinestones to the snowflakes as well. Overall, I love the way the card came out.

Thanks for stopping by, have a great night!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #138 Inlaid Diecuts

Good evening fellow crafters! I hope you all had a fabulous start to your week! I am completely exhausted, didn't get too much sleep last night and I should have gone to bed early tonight, but instead decided to try and make a card for the Make it Monday Challenge #138 over on Nicole Heady's blog!

When I first saw the tutorial that Betsy filmed for us, I thought, this is going to be easy-peasy. Man, oh, man. This card took me forrrrevvverrrr. I think creating just this one card really made me just a little bit more exhausted than I already was. I had also never tried this technique before, so even though I was getting frustrated and was very close to just giving up, I keep going and finished my card. I started out by using the Happy Hexagons plate, die-cut that and stamped all the pieces using Stampin' Up's Real Red, Old Olive, Crumb Cake, Bashful Blue, and Cherry Cobler. I adhered all the pieces to a piece of Kraft cardstock to have a base for lining everything up.

Once I finished all the stamping, I die-cut the Joy from the Papertrey Ink One Liners die cut set several times and pieced it all together. The stamp sets I used are Papertrey Ink's Happy Hexagons Stamp Set, Wonderful Words: Joy Stamp Set, and Shape Up Snowman Accessories stamp set. The inside of my card says "May the blessings of Christmas be with you today and always", and that is from Hero Arts Joy to All stamp set.

I did mess up a little aligning everything up on the right side of the card and had to cut it down a bit, so unfortunately, the right side of my card is a bit uneven, but overall I am happy with the way it all turned out in the end and am glad I didn't give up! Thanks for stopping by, enjoy the rest of your week and have a safe and Happy Halloween!

Papertrey Ink October Blog Hog

Good morning fellow crafters! Happy Friday! I hope you have all had a fantastic week and are ready for the weekend! I know I definitely am! The last few weeks have been a busy blur, heck, the last month has just disappeared! Halloween is already next week! There is only 5 weeks until Thanksgiving and 9 weeks until Christmas, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!

Last Friday, the kids school had their Fall Carnival and they allowed a few vendors to set up a table to sell their handmade items. The fair only lasted 2 hours but I am glad that I did it, it was a lot of fun! I made a few goodies along with some handmade cards. My mom and my girls helped me out which was great, the turnout was awesome and we sold a lot. I love doing the little craft fairs like this because we end up making more profit that we do if we were to go to a craft fair at the mall or somewhere else bigger. To see photos of the fair and some of the items I made, scroll down to the bottom of the post!

Before I show you pictures of the fair from last week, I wanted to share with you the Christmas Tags I made for this months Blog Hop over for Papertrey Ink. There are already sooo many wonderful tags posted up, I love all the ideas everyone came up with. Tags are such a great project, they are easy to create and add a wonderful touch to gifts and homemade goodies. I made my tags with Kraft cardstock, and embossed the background with the Hero Arts Snowflakes and Edges Cling Stamp. I used Stampin' Up's Real Red and Old Olive Cardstock and Ink, along with Papertrey Ink's 2013 Holiday Tags Stamp Set. I love this stamp set! I made 8 tags, one for each of the images included in the set.

I can't wait to make more tags and possibly cards using this stamp set, especially using different, more non-traditional colors like Dawn McVey did in the release earlier this month!

As promised, here are some photos from the fair. This was our table, and of course my little helpers. They did a great job helping out all the "customers" look at all the goodies and helped pass out candy.

I made Teacher Cards, as well as a few Birthday and Thank You cards. I also had some Halloween, Fall, and Christmas Cards. We made bookmarks and pencil kits as well. You can also see we made some bracelets and earrings.

Here are M&M Candy Sticks made using White Chocolate Candy Corn M&M's. To make the tags, I used PTI Trick or Treat Stamp set and the candy corn image from Tremendous Treats: Halloween stamp set. There is also the Hershey's Nugget Chocolate packs which each hold 4 kinds of Hershey's Nuggets. I find these sell a lot better than the Hershey Nugget Tins. I made the tags for these from the Nuts for You stamp set and the Mr. Bones Stamp set.

Aren't these Hand Sanitizer holders adorable? I followed Just Julie B's tutorial here on how to make these and added a few of my own special touches to these. I can't wait to make these for Christmas as little gifts!

These Pumpkin Poop treats were a huge hit and we sold old fast. I wish I had made more! The Pumpkin from the Polka Dot Parade #8 stamp set was a perfect little addition to this popular poem!

These didn't sell too well, maybe since the kids were already getting free candy everywhere else at the fair, but I did sell a few. I made these using Stampin' Up's Top Note die, along with their Batty for You Stamp set. I used the PTI Trick or Treat Stamp set again for the sentiment.

Thanks for much for stopping by and checking out all of my projects. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend, I am going to go and do some more blog browsing to see some more wonderful tag projects! Have a great day!