Me + You = LOVE

My very first time playing along with Papertrey Ink's "Make It Monday" challenge!!!!  A few weeks back, I saw Betsy's blog post using this chalkboard technique and I fell in love.  When I was in Home Goods over the weekend, their entire wall decor department was filled with chalkboard style pictures.

For the base of my card I used Pure Poppy and for the chalkboard panel I used True Black (PTI).  The stamps I used were:  Gemstone Alphabet (Recollections), Holiday Photo Finishers (PTI) and With All My Heart (PTI).

Organization - Button Storage

I'm a huge Papertrey Ink fan and have mentioned before that I love they way all of their products match.  My button collection (I know, I know craft supplies shouldn't be collected, they should be used!!) is kept out in the open where I can see them and grab them quickly when working on a project.

Like many crafters, I look to Ikea often for storage solutions.  I use their Rajtan Spice Jar to hold my button collection supplies.  To make it easy to find what color the buttons are, I cut a 1 inch circle of the matching cardstock and adhered it to each jar lid.  I keep my jars in a Memories Makers Embellishment Center which I purchased at Michaels.  I removed the two dowels from the bottom sections of the organizer to keep them as shelves.  This system allows me room to grow!

Since I've already shared my ribbon organization in a prior post, here is a shot of the two shelves side by side in my craft room.

Christmas is almost here!!!

A quick post while we are preparing the house for Christmas dinner with our families.  I'm continuing with the snowman theme and using my Snowman die from Papertrey Ink.  I used this die for all my gift tags and thought it would be nice to keep the theme going onto our table as place cards.  I also added little pom poms to the top of each hat and hand wrote the names on his belly.





To keep things easy I kept the same menu card format as I have in the past (if it works for me, I'll keep it).

As I mentioned last year, I wanted to add a tree in the foyer.  Here she is all decorated and ready to greet our family!  Merry Christmas!    

Puppy Pollyanna

 When my DH and I travel and are unable able to bring our 7 year old Yorkie (Piper), he stays at a local pet boarding facility named Best Friends.  Our local Best Friends offers day camp for dogs and we use this service whenever he stays over night and occasionally when we will be away from the house for an extended period of time on a particular day.  It's a great way for him to interact with other dogs (although when we do spy on him via their webcams, most of the time we see him snuggling on the camp counselor's lap).  He really enjoys the people dogs and we are thankful they take such great care of him.

Piper was invited to participate in this years Puppy Pollyanna (say that three times fast!) for day campers at Best Friends.   Pollyanna is the same concept as "secret Santa".   Piper "chose" little Lucy the Cockapoo who likes toys that are not filled with stuffing for his Pollyanna.  It's a secret who picked Piper!

I cut a few doggy images from the Cricut cartridge Create A Critter and affixed them to a clear paint can.  I wrapped the inside of the can with some sheer ribbon attached with glue dots, tied little bows on each side of the handles, and then filled the can with the goodies.

I sure hope little Lucy loves the items Piper personally picked for her at PetSmart.

Snowman Gift Tags

These snowman gift tags were made using the Snowman Shape Up Die Collection and Snowman Accessories Stamp Set from Papertrey Ink.  I cut the snowman base from white cardstock, the arms from dark chocolate cardstock and the mittens from felt.  I wanted his hat to coordinate with his mittens, and for both to coordinate with the great wrapping paper I found at Hobby Lobby.  First I cut the hat base from white cardstock and stamped a pattern on the middle, using the snowflake label stamp from the Holiday Treats Stamp Set.  Next I cut out the trim of the hat with glitter cardstock.  For the words I used the To: and From: stamps from the 2011 Birthday Tags Stamp Set.  As a finishing touch, I used enamel accents as buttons down his middle. 

A piece of score tape on the backs of the snowmen adhere them to the packages.  

Here's a shot of a few of the packages under our tree located in our foyer!  We now have three decorated Christmas trees in our house: this one in the foyer, one in our living room and another in our family room.  My DH has set them all up on timers.  As soon as it is dark outside they automatically turn on...love that!

Peppermint Candy Wreath

 I'm on a candy wreath roll for 2012!  During a recent trip to a restaurant supply store (I don't own or work at a restaurant - I just LOVE finding great basic house supplies there), I came across a huge 5 pound, 650 piece bag of peppermint candies (Hospitality Mints at the restaurant supply store).  This entire bag cost $6.







The wreath form I used was Styrofoam.   Although the color was perfect, I dislike getting flakes of Styrofoam all over, so I covered the wreaths with white satin ribbon first.  Next I unwrapped 250 candies and went to town hot gluing them onto the form.  I love this type of project.  It's easy, fun and now my kitchen smells like peppermint!!! 

Thanksgiving Place Cards

Thanksgiving in the US is a little less than two weeks away.  *insert slight panic here*  Our prep has begun:  we gathered and tested new recipes, made the annual card to send to family and friends, and placed the order from our favorite local, family owned butcher for our center of attention - Tom the Turkey.

This weekend I finished making the place cards for the table.  I enjoy having place cards for all of our large family meals, as I think it is just a small way for each guest to feel a little special and everyone knows exactly where they are sitting when they sit down for dinner.

Papertrey Ink came out with a really cute Shape Up Series in their die collection and this year they introduced the Pumpkin Die Collection.  I used this die collection to create my greeting card as well as matching place cards for the table.

Here's what I did.   First I cut an A2 card base and then aligned it with the dashed line on the die, and ran it through my Cuttlebug.  Next, I used the same die on non-folded card stock and cut the pumpkin followed by the stem.  This collection has a companion die called Pumpkin Sections Die.  I used patterned paper and cut each section in a different pattern.  I inked each of the edges of the sections with some brown ink to make them stand out.  I glued the pattern sections and stem to the solid pumpkin shape and adhered that to the A2 card base.  Finally, I cut brown felt letters from the Modern Alphabet Die set.  Although this pumpkin die collection is intended for a greeting card, I think it will work well for my place cards.