Rudolf and Polka Dots

It's Monday morning and all of my company has left. I realized yesterday that I did not post a Christmas Inspiration this past Saturday. What a bad blogger I am! It has been a crazy week, but I am so grateful to have my family visit. Here is a fun card I made with Jingle papers and the Heartfelt Christmas stamp. The reindeer is really so much fun to shade with colored pencils like they did on the CTMH TV episode. Add a sparkly red rhinestone and you've got Rudolf!


I also wrapped up a gift for friends using polka dot cellophane and some ribbon. Just a fun way to dress up your gifts!

Thanksgiving Blessings

Here is a little gift I created for some dear friends of ours that we met last year. They are always so gracious and generous. They have a large family and welcome others to their home so often. Recently they held a gathering in their home and I wanted to bring something special to them as a hostess gift. I thought that this banner with "blessings" on it was perfect for Thanksgiving. It happens to match their license plates as well! They appreciated it very much, but I figure its the least I can do for such a giving family. They represent what this season is all about, giving to others.

Christmas Tags

I enjoy creating Christmas tags for my packages. I always try to make them match or coordinate and I had some fun wrapping paper from last seasons clearance section. Making tags is also a great way to use up some of those scrap papers we collect from other projects.

You are probably thinking that it's awfully early to have packages wrapped. Well, would you believe these gifts have already been opened and the recipients are playing with them right now! My nieces are visiting me this weekend and we will not see them again for the Holidays, so I thought it would be fun to have Christmas gifts early. They liked that idea too!

Spare scraps of cardstock in Cranberry, Heavenly Blue and Sweet Leaf were used to make these. The stamped sentiment if from the Just for the Holidays stamp set.

Sweet Brown Bag

Just a sweet treat to share with you today. I love all the fun projects and ideas out there using cupcakes. This is just a plain craft bag dressed up with some Bella papers, cardstock and the cupcake stamp of course.

Christmas Pillow Mug

Instead of a Christmas Card today I have this fun container. It is made from pillow boxes and some extra cardstock. You can find similar ideas on Split Coast Stampers and instructions. After assembling the container from 3 pillow boxes I added a handle creating what looks like a coffee mug. On the inside are strips of 1" pieces of cardstock bracing a circle of cardstock for a base. It won't hold anything of substantial weight, but will definetly hold smaller gifts or gift cards. The entire mug was created from a Colorbok Holiday packet of die cut boxes and tags.

Sparkle and Jingle

Have you seen the latest CTMH TV episode? If not I highly recommend it. There are some clever ideas to inspire you. I can't wait to dive into my Jingle papers and glitter rub~ons!

Merry Gifts

I won't be able to update the blog-a-rooni tomorrow so you get your Christmas inspiration a day early. Don't you love early gifts? Speaking of gifts... this card features a row of presents in classic black and white. I paired it with an unusual color combo of heavenly blue and tulip. A simple and clean card. It would be great for holding some Holiday cash or a gift card too!

Festive Frames

I saw this idea in a recent Holiday publication and wanted to give it a try. It will also be the project for my November Club. Would you believe that the base for this frame starts with a light switch cover found at your local hardware store! I found these white plastic covers for a dimmer switch/dial and thought it would be a perfect frame for any picture. They are also very inexpensive so I can create a few of them to give as gifts this Holiday season.


I covered the entire frame with some B&T paper from the Jingle paper collection leaving the center circle open. Using the existing hole I added an eyelet for strength to hold the frame with grosgrain ribbon. A few embellishments and a Holiday sentiment and it's ready to be hung on a tree or anywhere within your seasonal decor.

Just for fun I grabbed this metal frame to decorate too! This one is a little bit more pricey, but looks so elegant. It's reflective quality makes it fabulous, but not too easy to photograph. Imagine it hung from the branch of your Christmas tree with white lights dancing all around it!

What awesome projects for just a dollar and change!

A Very Happy Halloween

I woke up this morning with Michael Jackson's Billie Jean song stuck in my head. Why? Because, I was subjected to some really bad karaoke last night at the Halloween party. We had a blast though and the kids begged for candy up and down the neighborhood streets. Here is my crazy family just before heading off to the festivities. My husband and I dressed as members of the Caddy Shack famous Bushwoods golf club! So preppy we are!

My daughter the adorable detective. We nicknamed her "Shirley" Holmes.

In honor of our favorite summer movie Harry Potter, my son went as a Dementor {or death eater}. "Oooh so scary... look at those cute freckles... I mean YIKES I'm so scared"

Gotta love argyle and plaid!

Festive Frills

Today's Christmas inspiration is a sweet pink and chocolate moving card. It uses the Wrap it Up template from the Wishes card program. I like that it does not open in the usual way, but rather it slides out of the sleeve to reveal the message. I used a stamp from last year called Festive Frills. The wreath is dressed up with some pink glitter. The background paper with the words on it is actually from the new Grace paper collection. Finally the round sentiment stamp is from the Vintage Christmas stamp.

When slid open the message revealed says: Thinking warmly of you on this cold winter night.

I hope this card inspires you to use different color combos and to create movement in your cards.

Frightful Friday Finale!

It's the final Frightful Friday before Halloween day. Saying that this month has been exciting seems to be an understatement. Earlier this month while moving my mom we took a lunch break at this wonderful village. It is a shopping center with the cutest little shops, a few restaurants, petting zoo and pumpkin patch. It was decorated with a "Witch" theme. We spoke to one of the shop owners and she told us that they do this every Halloween and decorate for Christmas too. It was fabulous and festive and inspired me to make the most of the Holiday. Here are some scrapbook pages I created to remember the fun. The colors are somewhat inspired by Jeanette's color challenge this week, but also work with the colorful photo's.


Please excuse my "not so brilliant" photography, as it is not so easy to capture a great photo with the page protectors on. I had to do it that way though because I incorporated a Flip Flap photo protector on the left page. Under the photo of my daughter standing outside of "Witchy Poo's" outhouse are additional photo's.

I normally would not make such a busy page, adding 12 photo's, but it truly represents our experience at the village. There was so much going on, decorations everywhere you looked and children dressed in costume too! Including all the photo's in just 2 pages reminds me of the excitement we experienced while there.

And more SUGAR! Yes, I'm still in baking mode. My daughter's class had their party yesterday so our contribution were same scary eyeball cupcakes.

We started with some red velvet cake mix then decorated with white icing, piped with red blood shot veins and a Hershey kiss eyeball, YUM!

Tomorrow is Halloween. The kids are excited to Trick~or~Treat and attend a Halloween party. I hope all of you have a safe and Happy Halloween!

Sugar Rush

What a crazy week and it's not over yet! Take a look at just some of the goodies created in the kitchen this week. My daughter's school hosted a "Boo" night with carnival games, costumes and a bake sale. I made caramel from scratch and covered some apples. I also dipped half of the apples in semi-sweet chocolate and then drizzled them with white chocolate. They were very yummy. One of the parents who bought five of them said they looked gourmet! What a great compliment to hear after all the hard work :)

Just for fun I used some of the left over caramel to make "Monster Mashed Up Popcorn Balls"! They are made with a kettle korn pop corn, pecans, chex cereal and creamy caramel. They will be a perfect snack while watching Halloween movies!

Do you remember my post a couple weeks back on the Apple Pocket Pies? I have the pumpkin shaped molds too & knew they would be perfect for a bake sale item. Well, these babies went like hot cakes ... or should I say pocket pies! The rafia and ribbon tied them up beautifully and I stamped a little pie from the Recipe Box stamp set.

With the left over pie filling I whipped up a couple of morning muffins. I just added a few more ingredients including chocolate chips and walnuts. The kids loved them.

Here is my daughter enjoying one of the muffins in the morning as she gets ready for Pajama Day at school. She was dressed up in Halloween PJ's complete with wild socks and crazy hair!

I just love that she still allows me to dress her up and fuss with her hair. How "spooktacular" are her locks? We decided that crazy bun~buns all over with fantastic halloween ribbon would do the trick. She really enjoys being different and having fun no matter what anyone else thinks and thats pretty cool!

I'll be back tomorrow with some more creations I've done this week including your Frightful Friday project!

A Fabulous Christmas

Yesterday's Halloween projects had fun bright colors, so I thought I would keep today's Christmas inspiration just as fun and bright. The color combo is a deep topiary green, honey and a fabulous hot pink!! Lots of glitter and bling make this card a bit glamorous. Enjoy!

Frightful Friday Fun!

Today's projects are just plain fun! I used an uplifting bright palette of colors which include: Dutch Blue, Citrus Leaf, Honey and the crisp contrast of black and white. I have seen many owls out there this year in home decor, art projects and craft items. Here is my owl, whoooo is wishing tricks and treats!

I also used a bat to decorate this cute little tags. They are oh~so easy and fun to create and the bling adds that little extra something.

Finally, my fingers are so tired from tying ribbons. I packaged up some little goodie bags filled with either Halloween trinkets or candy. These will be given out to the students at my daughter's school as a prize. I love the fun bright colors of the toys and candy wrappers so I used various colorful ribbons to tie them up. Little ghouls and gals will love to get these as a prize!

Coordinating Card

Do you ever create a card to match the gift bag or wrapping paper? I enjoy creating coordinating cards with the packaging. It makes gift giving fun and shows the recipient that you truly care. I used dutch blue, citrus leaf, and ocean to match the colors in the bag. I was even able to find some tissue paper to match as well.

On the card I used the On the Edge pattern from the Wishes book. I used the It's Your Day stamp set which happened to have a 'burst' star shape that matched the image on the gift bag. I finished off the card with a bit of ribbon and tiny sparkles on the candles.

Sketch Challenge 27 {and pancakes!}

This week over at Unscripted Sketches they had a nice clean sketch and I thought I'd give it a try. I flipped the sketch to fit my image from the Childhood Portrait stamp. I've been wanting to use this stamp set for a Christmas card. The sentiment is perfect for the image as well. In case it's too hard to read it says: "At Christmas, play and make good cheer..." and the inside: "for Christmas comes but once a year." You must go see what the other talented artists created, I especially love the Christmas page created by Sarah.

I also wanted to share one of my favorite Autumn breakfast treats. These are Spiced Pumpkin Pancakes with toasted pecans. They are so easy to make and go perfectly with a Pumpkin Latte!

Spiced Pumpkin Pancakes

1 cup buttermilk pancake mix

1 cup cold water

1/3 cup canned pumpkin

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

(opt. items)cooking spray, butter, lightly toasted chopped pecans, maple syrup, whipped cream

Mix all ingredients in medium bowl until just blended. Spoon 2 tablespoons of batter onto 300~350 degree griddle sprayed with non-stick spray. Cook about 2 minutes on both sides until done. Transfer to plate and top with butter, toasted pecans, syrup and whipped cream. Enjoy!

Joy to the World

My Christmas card this week is a nativity scene. The stamp is new to CTMH called Christmas Story. It does require a bit more time to fill in the image, but is really a beautiful stamp. To fill in the image I used a waterbrush pen with the ink pad. For Joseph's head band I used a chocolate marker to make it stand out. I also chose a soft neutral color palette of lilac mist, chocolate, desert sand and just a touch of creme brulee.