Hurry! Before the candy canes are gone....

Stock up on some little candy canes! Look what you can do with them!

I apologize...I cannot find where this photo came from, but I had it saved on my computer and just love this idea...wouldn't these be fun for teachers for Valentine's Day? Yes, Christmas just ended and I'm already thinking about Valentines Day. :)

To make these, place 2 small candy canes on aluminum foil or wax paper facing each other. Melt Baker's chocolate or chocolate bark in a double boiler. You can also use white almond bark. Spoon chocolate in between the candy canes, filling up the nook and crannies. Top with sprinkles and let harden. I usually put mine in the freezer for about 10 minutes to speed up the process!

Twine snowmen...

Thought I'd pop in and share a couple of Christmas photos. How was your Christmas?

Thank you for all of the holiday wishes! We had a very nice time! I think Taylor's favorite gifts were the Rip Rider from Santa and the portable DVD player. Kati's are definitely the Pet Shops, the mermaids and the Tinkerbell fairies. Today we are relaxing and taking it easy after all the hoopla the past couple of days! I'm tired! lol

(left: Kati and Taylor in their Christmas PJ's, right: Kati and I on Christmas eve, below: Taylor, dad, and Kati being goofy)

This week we hope to spend a lot of family time together, as my husband has the week off from work. On our list to do....going to the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, bowling, and spending our gift cards/money that we all received...not sure what else! I hope to get some good deals on Christmas decorations for next year...could sure use some new ones!

Speaking of decorations, you know my love for twine....and you have to see these twine snowmen by David Stark....so cute! I'm going to make some of these trees with the twine wrapped around them ASAP and put them out now! Aren't they neat? He took wire to create the stars and words, and wrapped twine around the wire to shape the words. I actually did this a few years ago in Taylor's room when she had a love affair with horses...and I created the word "cowgirl" with wire and twine to hang in her room. But I love the holiday use of this idea and the "earthy" feel.

I'm very excited to be able to scrap again and can't WAIT to show you what I've been making for CHA and the catalogs this year. Soooo so so excited! I love the anticipation of seeing what's new that is coming out and seeing everyone's creations. What are you looking forward to? Do you have a favorite company that you are anxiously awaiting their new products? Just a few more weeks! :)

My little elves...

...have been baking and baking. But we had a little bit of a cookie mishap...I found a sugar cookie recipe on-line, so we mixed it up, rolled it out and made our own dough...
Here are the cookies before:...and this is what they looked like after...
They look like normal cookies, right? (well besides the stained glass effect..ha) The only downside...was that they tasted like playdoh. I'm not kidding! It was a cookie recipe that I found here...but man, these were gross! I had to run to the store to get some pre-made sugar cookie dough, and we ended up making more and had to throw these away. I know, all that hard work. I am wondering if it was because I used whole wheat flour? That's all we had on hand. Oh well, the kids had fun and it kept them quite busy! **This is why I don't cook!**

Check out these yummy creations I found ~ if only ours looked that good! :)
Mitten sugar cookies:
Meringue snowflakes:
Sparking linzer stars:
Cookie forest:
Chocolate reindeer cookies:We are celebrating Christmas eve with the in-laws and trading gifts on Christmas eve, and then opening our gifts here from Santa on Christmas morning. The girls are SO excited! I can't believe it's here already. This month has flown by. Have a Happy Holiday and if I don't get back before Christmas, enjoy your time with family and friends! I am so thankful for all of you!

Nine favorites of 2009...

Last year I posted 8 of my favorite creations that I had done in 2008, and since I don't have anything new to share with you right now (I've been busy designing for the Craft and Hobby show in California this week), I thought I'd TRY to choose 9 of my favorites from the year! Please feel free to do this also, and link me to your favorite creations of the year that you've made! I would love to see them!

1.
Baby Topiary made for Dream Street.
I covered these empty ribbon spools with patterned paper,
and was so proud of myself for thinking up this wacky idea. lol

2.
Destination Home. This one really speaks for itself. My husband works an hour from home, so the girls are thrilled to see him when he gets back each day. I love this pic and the natural elements of the page.

3.
Baby Hanger.
Who can resist pink and babies?
I can't believe it's been 4 years since Kati was that small.
4.
The Greatest Love (being a mother).
The little tags open up and I wrote the girls each a note to read when they get older.
Love this technique on the top tag....
5.
1.2.3. Whee! These photos still crack me up! Such cute expressions.
Man, her hair was so curly and out of control when it was short! She makes me laugh every day.
6.
Fairy in Flight. She's still making me laugh...putting a spell on me. I don't know....something about this page makes me happy!
7.
Grateful.
Love the contrast to this page, and of course the family photos!
Never did I think 10 years ago that I'd be so lucky to have all of this.
8.
Moving Up. I just adore this page, it's shabby yet colorful at the same time, right up my alley.
Taylor is one cute girl and so smart. Don't forget sassy! I love her spunk - she looks so innocent in this picture and I wish she could stay that way forever.
9.
I Exist to Cre-8. This one was straight from the heart, just doing what I love!

Be sure to share YOUR 9 faves with me! Now go and CRE-8 something special for someone you love, or something just for yourself!

Quick, simple gift wrap...

If you are anything like me (little bit of a procrastinator - oops, did I admit that?) or you just don't have enough time in the day, then you probably still have gifts to wrap for Christmas! Don't spend money on those expensive gift wraps and tags from the store...use up your stash! (God knows I have enough to last me a lifetime!)

Here I've decorated a box with black cardstock as the base. I cut a piece of Pink Paislee's Mistletoe North Pole paper to wrap around the center, tied a ribbon around it in a knot and added a Mistletoe brad to the center with a glue dot. Then I just cut a piece of the Mistletoe borderline sticker to add to the patterned paper.

I love how popular "banners" are these days, so I thought....how about a little banner to adorn my gift? I applied 3 of the tree rub ons from the Mistletoe Press Ons to white cardstock, cut them out, punched a hole in each one and strung them onto twine.

I always have fun making packages look special...something about the wrap that makes the gift that much more exciting!

And just a quick page that I made for the Dream Street blog with their Merry and Bright line of papers, chipboard letters, rub ons and chipboard. My older daughter is always trying to steal a kiss when the younger one isn't expecting it, like here when we were taking some holiday pictures! I journaled on the back of the snowflake tag (which is from Target... love that store). I added a red chipboard piece from the Merry and Bright collection to the center.

Well, I've been shopping, wrapping and mailing, and writing out photo cards like crazy. Next is baking, the girls and I are going to do some sugar cookies and such. Also working on some things for the Craft and Hobby show, can't wait to show you!! Busy, busy time of year!

Reflecting...

It's almost the end of 2009, and I wanted to create a page about the highlights of our year. Do you look back and reflect about the events of the past year? This was the first time I have made a page like this, but I had a lot of fun making it, jotting down all of the things that happened during the year and then choosing the ones that I thought were most important to our family. I actually went through and looked at the photos I had taken each month to see what we were doing that month. I save my photos by month, so I have a folder for Jan., a folder for Feb. etc.
I know I've scrapped this photo before, but it was on my desk (ha) and I really love it this picture of the girls from this summer.

I love these brads, so I found some stick pins from the craft store that have small yellow heads on them and attached the brads to the heads of the pins with glue dots. Then I used the pins for my journaling lines.

Everything here is from the Cupid line by Pink Paislee, except the stamp which is a stamp from the Amber Road collection.

I have been loving doilies lately on pages and cards and found these at the craft store in the baking section. They came 30 to a pack and were only about $2. There are so many different ways to use them!

Doing a page like this really makes you reflect and think about life....what's important to you and what you want to accomplish. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. Do I want to go back to work? Continue to stay home with the girls?
I'm fortunate that my husband wants me to stay home with my girls, because that's so important to me to be able to raise them myself and not by someone else. I'm glad to have the chance to have developed that close bond with them. Of course we could all use more money, but what's the sense...you make more and then you spend more, that's just how it goes. I'm thankful to have what we have and be so fortunate! Some days as a stay at home mom, you wonder what you accomplished that day. But all of the days put together reveal that we've had a very happy, healthy year, and that's what matters the most!

Joyful...

Christmas is getting closer! Are you ready? I still have a lot to do. I finally ordered my Christmas cards - I did make them, but just a photo card this year, just waiting for them to arrive. There is a site called Scrapbook Pictures that lets you upload your own creation and even mails envelopes out with them for a terrific price. Love that!

I have to get my family's gifts out in the mail soon to S.D. I feel so far behind this year. I was planning on finishing my shopping today, but we ended up having a snow day, school was called off and we were all home together! Sometimes it's nice to have a relaxing day like that!

Can I share some excitement with you? I was asked to be a guest blogger this month for Jenni Bowlin and oh how I adore her products - one of my favorite companies, so I was thrilled when they asked me to be part of the blog this month! Keep checking back to see more creations by several others that were asked to take part in the blog this month!

This card was made with Jenni Bowlin's Die Cut Circle Label Mini Papers MP478, Christmas Tickets TK 453, Clover Vine paper PP487, and Cardstock Alpha Stickers SK362. Other: resin frame, ribbon, brad, pearls, and machine stitching.

Click here to see the rest of my JBS projects! Thank you for visiting!

Snow is glistening...

We finally had snow on Saturday, it was a welcome site as it came down so gently! The girls ran out there in all their gear to enjoy it that afternoon, as they've been wondering when it would arrive. Me, I'm not quite as fond of the snow and cold...it's beautiful, but only if I don't have to go out in it. I'm much more of a warm weather person!

Today was my day to post for the Tattered Angels blog and I was to work with the Frosty Glimmer Kit and to use only what was in the box, unless they were household or vintage items. (I added the pearls, bells, sheet music that I found on-line and little snowballs to the front cover.) All of the chipboard pieces, snowflakes, brads, hinges, mists, sayings, blue paper, stencil and album come in the kit!

First, I misted the entire book with the Denim Blue Glimmer Mist. It's so sparkly in person! The book comes in a creme color, so I changed the pages to blue. After adding the sheet music and saying on the cover, I laid the snowflake screen down onto my book cover. I mixed up some Delta Texture Magic dimensional paint and used an old credit card to smooth it on over the stencil, then lifted the stencil off and let it dry. This gives you a negative print of the snowflake. The paint is pretty thick, almost like a paste. I added a little bit of white paint over the top of the dimensional paint, so it would show up better and some Diamond Dust to make the snowflake shine. (Click on photos to see up close.)
If you don't have dimensional paint, I'm sure gesso or spackling would work just fine. Here is a little tutorial on this dimensional paint technique that I've done in the past. You can use any sort of stencil.
On the inside pages, I just chose some photos taken last Feb. of my girls playing in the snow. I misted the some of the sayings with the Creme De Chocolat Mist from the kit and punched the paper from the kit into circles.
On this page, I did the dimensional paint technique again, then added my photo over the top...
These 2 pages were misted with the Denim Blue over the snowflake stencil. I can't get enough of this snowflake! LOVE it! I also painted the silver snowflake brad that came in the kit white, and added twine to the little hinge from the kit.
This page has a piece of vintage sheet music (the title from the sheet music page). I found this image on-line, cut the title off and tied 2 pieces of twine on before adhering it to the page. The girls were starting to make snow angels when I took this photo. I punched some of the sheet music into circles and sprayed with the Creme De Chocolat Mist from the kit.
I have only begun this album, but am loving how it's turning out. It has so many pages inside, that I could add a ton of pictures. Love that! I hope my girls will cherish this when they get older. Thanks for stopping by,