Merry Christmas!!!

Pin It Now!

Christmas Cheer

Hi everyone,
Merry Christmas Eve! We will be over at my parents' house this evening to celebrate with my entire family. To keep the kids occupied, I am taking them to John's Incredible Pizza which is kind of like Chuck E Cheese. I also have to make a chocolate cake!

Today's project is a new ongoing project I hope to continue in the new year and another way that I am using up my Christmas stuff while it's out taking up space on my desk. First, I have a ton of Julie Nutting Prima Doll stamps which I love but I don't really use much. I bought one of the small art journals and will be doing a fun art journal book using the dolls. This is the first page inspired by Nicole Magourik. Her blog and projects are super fab.

The sentiment is from Mama Elephant "The best way to spread Christmas cheer is to sing loud for all to hear." The dog is from Simon Says Stamp. I think it came out cute and who says all new things have to start in the new year!

Thanks for visiting today.

Pin It Now!

Christmas Mini Album 2014

Hi everyone,
Today I am sharing a video of my holiday album in progress. Today, I took the kids to Dave and Buster's and met my sister and her family there. My sister and I used to go there all the time and we have thousands of tickets on our cards each so the kids got to play and then pick out a lot of prizes!

Only a couple of more days left!



Thanks for visiting!
Pin It Now!

Skatin' By

Hi everyone,

I am back today with another holiday thank you card. Before you put all of your holiday stuff away, make a few thank you cards, scrapbook layouts, albums, smash book page and so on. It's a good way to shrink your holiday stash and maybe you will have less to put away. At least that's what I tell myself. My card uses the penguin stamp set from Mama Elephant.

Super easy! I also used a die from Lawn Fawn. I love these word die. Just a couple of words and you can easily snazz up a simple card.

Today, I am going to try and get Tyler some baseball gear, get Lily a hair cut and take her to her private dance lesson. Then take the kids somewhere fun to play. Have a great day everyone.


Pin It Now!

You're Cool

Hi everyone,
I am all done with Christmas cards! Yay! So now I am onto thank you cards. I usually use my holiday paper and stamps to make these. It's a good way to get more use out of your holiday craft stuff. Today, I am using the new penguin stamp set from Mama Elephant.

So easy but so cute. I used my copics, scraps and my wink of stella silver pen.

Today, I plan on taking the kids to a bounce house. They are having a cookies with Santa program. I will of course do non fun things to day like my nemesis laundry.

Have a good day everyone!


Pin It Now!

Meowie Christmas

Hi everyone,
 I have made it to Day 20 of my 25 Days of Christmas. I am in the home stretch. Today, I am sharing a Christmas card for one of Lily's dance teachers. I gave them all giftcards.

I do love my Hello Kitty cartridges. I would love for Provocraft to do another one but they don't seem to be doing too many licensed cartridges anymore, even though they have a Frozen one that will hopefully be available soon to non Explore users. The sentiment is from CardzTV stamps. My paper is from an older MME paper pad.

Today, is dance class and I am going to get Lily a little trim, her hair has gotten very unruly and its time to tame it a bit. Not too short because I need to put it in a bun for dance competitions.

Thanks for visiting today.


  Pin It Now!

Planning for 2015

HI everyone,
Today's post is about planning and planners. About this time, many of make goals to organize and plan. I have always had a paper planner and while my phone can be handy, I personally find old school paper planners just work better for me. I need to see everything in front of me, especially with everybody's very different activities and schedules.

My planner of choice is the Erin Condren planner. Now, this planner is a little bit pricy but there are other planners on Etsy for example that are not as pricy and yet very similar in style. My planner is an 18 month planner as I was coming off of using Franklin Covey and it ended in June.

You might remember my video:



The nice thing about a paper planner is that you can decorate it and use all kinds of fun office type supplies as well as washi tape, stickers and other items from your crafty stash. Here are some pics of some decorated pages.

I have done tons of research on planners and so for now this is working for me. I tweak exactly how I do up my pages. I also have found some really fun planner stamps. The ones that I have purchased are from Sweet Stamp Shop, Studio L2E and Waffleflower.

I also purchased a Hobonichi planner and I hope to use that for journaling which I am committed to doing for 2015 and will show you that hopefully soon as it is being shipped from Japan.

Today, we had our work holiday party and it is my last day of work for 2014! Tomorrow is my first official day of vacation. Yay!
Pin It Now!

Hello Kitty Holidays

Hi everyone,
Today is another barely made it on time post. Today's post uses my Hello Kitty Greetings cartridge which I love.

There was another party today at work, a pizza party. Lily had her holiday party today, they made gingerbread houses and her big sister went. She's going to take one for the team tomorrow and go to Tyler's party too. I have just a handful of little things left to do!

Thanks for visiting.

Pin It Now!

Merry and Bright

Hi everyone,
I made it to Day 17 of the 25 Days of Christmas. I am in the home stretch now. I only need a handful of Christmas cards for Lily's dance teachers so cards for them will be next and I have a few ideas for how to handle the last few days and then I will probably take a short posting break after Christmas to recover from the holidays.

Yesterday, I had lunch with the Librarians' from the other school. BTW, have you guys watched the Librarians' TV show? Totally cheesy but I like it! It makes us look a little less dorky which is nice. I also took my kids over to play with their cousins and took their picture for their families Christmas card.

Onto my card today, I used Polar Pals and I promise this is the last of them. When I have a stamp set out or a paper pad out, I tend to make a bunch while they are taking up space anyway on my desk.

Thanks for visiting today!
Pin It Now!

Scandinavian Christmas

Hi everyone,

Welcome to another Pause Dream Enjoy linky party. The challenge this week is North Pole. I used the Scandinavian Cricut cartridge.

 Here is my project:

I hope that you all are able to join in the challenge!
Pin It Now!

More Polar Pals

Hi everyone,
I am posting this in advance and I know tomorrow I will feel great that I am not rushing around at 10:30 at night trying to post a project. I am using Mama Elephant's Polar Pals again with more Pinterest casing. Here is my project:

I tried to use Distress markers but they didn't really do the job for me so I used a combo of Copic markers and watercoloring using SU ink pads. Topped off with some stickles and sequins and I think it turned out so cute!

Thanks for visiting.

Pin It Now!

Polar Pals

Hi everyone,
I made it again just under the wire today for my project. I had a little holiday party with a few friends from work. I cooked lunch, we ate cookies and had a white elephant gift exchange. They we gossiped and hung out. It was super fun. Lily had a dance holiday party but came home around 5:00 so my time was taken up until Tyler came home and both kids were hungry so I had to feed them a light meal and then of course they wanted to try some of the cookies my friends made. They were happy to be home I think especially my boy who has been having a really hard time lately, especially with anger. So I bought him a journal that locks and gave it to him when I saw him yesterday at Lily's dance class. He told me today, that his father took it and then his father said he forgot where he put it and couldn't find it so he didn't get to finish writing his feelings and he was so upset that he didn't come home with it. I won't tell you what I think happened.

Anyway, they are happy that it is the last week before break and so I got to get on the ball and organize what we are doing next week.

Now onto my project. I used Mama Elephant stamps and I did some casing on Pinterest.

Isn't it just the cutest? The stamp set is called Polar Pals and I also have the dies which go with it. Thanks so much for visiting today.
Pin It Now!

Quick Snowman Card

HI everyone,
I barely got this card done today. Yikes. Super busy. I went to Lily's ballet class and then to Ulta and signed up Tyler for baseball. Then I went with my sister to the Scholastic Warehouse booksale. Oh, I forgot to mention that I also went to Barnes and Noble at 9am before I did anything else. Plus laundry and I did some cooking prep as I am having a small party tomorrow.

It's not my favorite card but sometimes you just got to go with what you got!

The snowman if from the Creative Memories Christmas cartridges
Pin It Now!

Christmas Album #1

Hi everyone,

Today, I have an album that I made for fun, to try out a pattern in Kathy Orta's book. I don't think that this is the one that I am going to use for my holiday pictures so I will have another album to share with you later in the month.

Pin It Now!

Santa Paws

Hi everyone
I have a quick post today. Another Christmas card for my 25 Days of Christmas countdown.

I used Create a Critter 2 cartridge and Elegant Edges. It's a simple card but I like it! The sentiment is from CardzTv. Thanks for visiting today.

Pin It Now!

Baby it's cold outside

Hi everyone,
As I type this, I have to the realization that I am sick. I have been telling myself all day that I am not sick but a I sit here not able to breathe, I realize that yes I am sick and its the worst time of the year to not be feeling well. Last night, I met up with my friend from Grad school and her husband for dinner. They live in Arizona but come to So Cal once or twice a year. We had a great time catching up. Now on to my project.

I mad an S card and used my Bo Bunny paper that  I got on Small Business Saturday. My cut is from Create a Critter 2 and I also Elegant Edges. The sentiment is from CardzTv. I also used some stickles. I might add a few snowflakes too.

Thanks for visiting.

Pin It Now!

Sparkle On

Hi everyone,
Welcome to another installment of my 25 Days of Christmas. Today's project is a new style of project for me anyway. I used iron-on vinyl to make a shirt for my daughter. This weekend she has a dance team holiday party and her team name is the sparkle stars. The hostess' will be supplying a tutu and she is supposed to wear leggings and either a black, white or red t-shirt. I decided to make it a little bit fun by making my own holiday shirt and it couldn't have been simpler.

I had to buy my shirt from Joann Fabrics because my daughter will not wear long sleeves and short sleeves are super hard to come by in the winter. The snowflake cut is from the Christmas cartridge and the wording is from Once Upon a Princess. I used Cricut iron-on glitter vinyl. It's expensive but many is it sparkly and cool.

All I did was cut the vinyl using my Cricut. I heat up my iron on its hottest setting and ironed over the spot where I wanted my images. I then placed the images on my shirt and ironed over it. I then peeled off the top plastic layer and it was done. I think it came out fabulous. I hope Lily likes it!

Thanks for visiting.

Pin It Now!

FCCB Challenge #240 Anything But a Card

Welcome to another Challenge Me Monday...

 Happy Monday and welcome to another Monday challenge!

Challenge #240 Anything But a Card

This Weeks Sponsor

 

$15.00 Gift Certificate

 

~This Weeks Challenge~

Create any project, that is not a card!

To qualify for the prize, be sure to use at least 1 Cricut cut on your project and if it's not obvious, let us know what cartridge you used.

Here is my project:

 

So sorry that this picture is not the best but I was under two deadlines to meet the FCCB deadline and my 25 days of Christmas deadline. Hopefully, I can keep posting projects. Today's project is the countdown calendar that I am using with my kids this year. It's a wood calendar from SaCrafters and I love it. I painted it and used Graphic 45 Christmas Emporium. The chimney, stockings, ornaments and trees, lamp and sentiment are also from Sa Crafters. I love the chimney. I used my MFT brick stencil and paste and then painted over it with white gesso. Once that all dried, I sprayed a slate colored Prima Bloom spray over it and it came out great.

 

The only problem that I had was with the boxes. They were cut from heavy chipboard and no matter what I did, I couldn't fold it small enough to fit in the boxes. I couldn't imagine struggling with 24 of these so I cut the boxes with my Artiste cartridge. Inside the boxes are mint Hershey kisses.

 

 

I had the busiest weekend ever and am still recovering. We went to a special Gingerbread event, had ballet and basketball practice and game, tumbling, a birthday party and a Christmas show that the kids sang in all in one weekend! Great fun but kind of glad to be at work to rest. Ha! That's not true because I have so much clean up and end of the semester stuff to do but at least it's reasonably quiet most of the day.

 

Anyway, visit me tomorrow when I will (hopefully) have another project to share with you all.

Pin It Now!

Have a Beary Merry Christmas

Hi everyone,
Welcome back to my 25 Days of Christmas. As I am navigating my first Christmas as a single mom so many emotional layers are being untangled. My 6 year old daughter is very disturbed by the idea that there is now no one to fill my stocking. I have tried so hard to reassure her that I am a grown up and that it's ok but she cried so sadly that I wouldn't have anything in there. So sweet but so sad. She also wants me to take her shopping to buy her father and his girlfriend and her kids Christmas presents. So sweet but I have to put on my big girl pants to help her do this of course.

Anyway, onto the project for today.

I used my favorite little cartridge the Teddy Bear Parade cartridge. I so hope that Provo Craft releases more lites they are some of my favorites and layer so nicely. I used a sentiment from CardzTV called Christmas Critter Captions. I think that it's a fun little card. Thanks for visiting today! Be sure to come back tomorrow for another fun project.
Pin It Now!

Snow One Like You

Hi everyone,
Welcome to another project in my 25 days of Christmas. I count down the holidays with various holiday projects I am working on. Today's project is a Christmas card that I made for Mary's CardzTV challenge but I rejected it because it was just Ok and I really like the card that I made yesterday much better.

I used the doodlecharms cartridge and created a little snowglobe card complete with snow. The rest of the layout is quite simple. I will see you tomorrow will another project!
Pin It Now!

CardzTV Challenge Let It Snow

HI everyone,
My 25 Days of Christmas project today is for the CardzTV challenge. This week's challenge is to use a snowman or snowflake. Be sure to link up your project for a chance to win a set of CardzTV stamps.

I used this stamp set for my project this week:

I just love this stamp set. Great for winter and holiday projects! My project today uses one of my favorite cartridges Hello Kitty Greeting and one of my favorite snowmen. The paper is from Bo Bunny and I got the paper pad for 1.99 as a Black Friday special.

I also cut some sparkly snowflakes. Be sure to join in the challenge!
Pin It Now!

Merry and Bright

Hi everyone,
Today is Day 4 of the 25 Days of Christmas. My project today uses my favorite crafting tool my Cricut. I would so love to get the Explore but I just can't justify it at this time plus I have two Cricuts already my E2 and my Expression. Plus I really do love my Gypsy so as long as that stays alive then I can live without it even though it looks like it cuts like a dream.

Here is today's project:

I used the Winter Frolic cartridge and some sparkly stickles. I think it came out so cute. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another holiday project! Thanks for visiting.

Pin It Now!