Oh Christmas Tree

Well this year we finally did it. We bought a fake tree. I love the smell of real trees and I love to take my 5 year old to the tree place to wander around and pick out the "perfect" one (in a 5 year old's eyes) and bring it home. However it is getting more difficult every year to have one so we went fake. Besides, they actually are better looking and easier to put together and take apart then they were years ago. The bonus is that it's pre-lit, no stringing on lights and all the frustrations with that! Yippeee that in itself sold me. Oh and not having to water it twice a day helps. Oh and not having to vacuum and sweep every day helps too. This one is 9 feet tall and the star barely made it on top. It is a slim one which as you can see we don't have a lot of room anywhere in our house so it fits wonderfully and doesn't look stupid (as in it is still cone shaped, not cylinder shaped like some slim trees). OK I have sold you the virtues of this tree, right? LOL! On to other things...



This is a little photo holder I made out of coasters, I used hinges to hold it together similar to one I saw in Paper Crafts. I love this, I actually made this for the gal that placed the order but one of the hinges is stiff and it pulls the paper on the back and she didn't like that so she didn't want it, which made me happy because I wanted it! I am going to put a picture in it and sit it on my desk :) That's all for now!

Whew, what a week!

Last week was crazy! I was gone Monday and Tuesday, Tuesday night we spent 4 hours in the E.R. as my son got bit by the foster dog and had to have 4 stitches, Wednesday I had to grocery shop and clean for Thanksgiving and Thursday I cooked Thanksgiving dinner and had family over. Friday we went to our friend's house to decorate her tree and have dinner and then Saturday I had to make an order from the craft fair to deliver at church on Sunday! Then (I am out of breath now!) Sunday after church my 5 year old and I decorated the tree and house for Christmas! I didn't get the outside decorations up, those are going to have to wait a week or so. Now today I spent most of the day Christmas shopping online. I was going to do it anyway so why not take advantage of free shipping on Cyber Monday? That being said it is past 9 pm and I finally can post to my blog :)

So what to post? I haven't made anything in over a week (other than the order which was a duplicate of what I already showed here...) So here is a picture of dog bite, not too bad but a scar on his face :( I know, I know, it shows character. He has 4 stitches and they are blue. I will post pictures of the tree tomorrow and maybe I will get to make something.

Short Update

Here are the pictures from the Craft Show and a nice picture of the view from the Blue Ridge Parkway where we just went. Gorgeous views up there! Anyway I had a goal for the craft fair and I exceeded it by half again! I basically wanted to break even in my trial run and I did more so I am thrilled! However, I can't do this more than once a year, if that. It is way too much work. What I love the most about it though is talking with people. I am a people person and I loved chatting with everyone! So it is more fun for that than it is to make money as far as I am concerned. I used to go around the country working at trade shows and really liked it, this reminded me of that. I was there for 10 hours and it flew by and I wasn't even tired until I got home.

Quick Note!

Craft Fair was awesome! I did well, better than expected! I have pictures of my booth I will share when I get back Tuesday night. I didn't have time to prepare for going to Boone so I will give a full update when I get back :) My in-laws will be here to watch the kids but I will quickly say hubby and I are going away for a "Romantic Weekend". First time in a LONG time! yeah!
Bye for now :) Details later! (Well not all the details!)

Getting down to the wire!

This is going to be brief and I won't be doing much here for the next few days, Craft Fair is Sat! Here are two more things I am having there - the card set is inspired by a set Mary Jo Price-Williams did. The Bandaid Tin was all mine :) I used Basic Grey paper, a clear button and a few punches, that is Wild Wasabi ribbon by the way. Amazing I did one all by myself, huh? :) There are 10 gift tags inside. I will give you a big update once it is over and let you know if it was worth all this or not!

Christmas Cards

Here they are! The snowman pocket card is straight from the SU catalog, isn't it cute?! It is one of my all-time favorites now. Now several of these are CASEs and some are modified from an idea on SCS which is basically the way everyone does it. I am wasting a lot of time this morning on the web and must turn off the computer so I can get some work done on my craft fair stuff! Enjoy the cards :) try some yourself! And if you do, let me see them, post them and comment the link to me, I love to see everyone's work!

Hmm what am I doing posting on a Sunday?

So here I am getting caught up since I wasn't all from 11 yesterday morning until 11:30 this morning (the longest span of time my computer has been untouched other than vacation or broken hard drive...LOL) and seems I have so much email that I felt the need to get away and do my blog! So here I am, with nothing to post. Well actually I will show you pictures of the foster dog. Not very Chihuahua in my book, mostly Italian Greyhound looking and definitely the size of one. She just needs love. Really, the poor thing. I feel so bad for her but I will say she is doing better. Other than the occasional "petrified of stairs" issue she is at least, house-trained. That in itself tells me she is not Chihuahua. She also sits on command to come in from outside and a few other things, also sign of not being Chihuahua. While my dogs will go potty outside every time you let them out, if they feel the desire while inside they will also go. UGH! Sit? Ok one of them does sit on command, the other one, let's just say every command to him sounds like "roll over" which is what he does. No matter what. But I love him! But he is the cutest!

I went to an all day and all night (just about) Stamp-a-Stack yesterday that was so much fun! I spent all day making Christmas cards! I will have to post some of them here, I have to find my stuff. I came in at 12:30 last night and was so tired everything just sort of landed in a heap on the floor and I went straight to the couch and passed out. I need my sleep! Somewhere around 5:30 this morning I got my pajamas on and dragged myself to bed. I will find them soon and take a picture and post! My boys have moved my stuff.

Off to do laundry now. Oh and read all those emails :)

So not original

I LOVE this! It is so pretty in person, bright and Christmassy. I CASEd it of course, I am in a hurry and do not have time to think up original things right now so I just used what I had in place of what the original was. I am kind of at a loss here to who the person who made the original is, I am sorry! I used to save everything to my hard drive and name it the person's name so I could give credit but now I am putting them in a Word document and printing and not saving so I will have to rethink this. I never want to take credit for someone else's original idea!

These are 4 x 4 blank coasters with last year's Basic Grey Christmas collection, Blitzen I think. Then I used Old Olive (yes!) River Rock and Real Red. I printed the letters from my computer as I didn't have time to get out my foam stamps and the stamp for the O is from an SU set (retired). I used my daisy punch and punched two flowers in red and put them together so it looks like a poinsettia. The other two little diagonal squares are SU stamps too and I used brads and Stickles on them. Fun! All this while cooking homemade meatballs (2 pounds mini, took forever ugh!) and Chocolate Chip Cranberry Orange Oatmeal Bars (Kraft recipe if you want it I will give you the link) which turned out awesome by the way. So it was an interesting day cooking and trying not to get food on my craft project LOL! The food is for the Stamp-a-Stack my SU demo friend is having today. It is so much fun and kind of crazy with 12 women trying to make 800 cards or something like that! I can't wait :) All I can say is this year will be better now that she added on a huge room to her house for this (well, things like this and her craft stuff)! Woo Hoo!

A little confession

I am posting these each day but I am not working on these each day! I did a whole bunch last Saturday and am posting them this week. I so wish I had time to do this every day! I used to, then I got involved in too many things. I have worked on finishing a couple more this week, the stamping was done I am just doing the paper gluing on the card part. I did cut some of the card stock for one of the sets I am selling at the craft fair while at church volunteering. I went in twice this week to answer the phone and brought some paper with me. That is one busy phone though! Not a lot of time but that's ok. I love my new church :)

So this is the card I am making a set of 10 of, I hope someone likes it! The colors are striking together, the copper is very pretty. Not sure why SU discontinued it but in person it is gorgeous. I copper embossed on it. This is almost the same card I made last year at my SU demo's Christmas stamp-a-stack. I just changed it ever so slightly to be able to make it for a pack. I am going to try a couple of options for this stamp set with these same colored card stock papers. I am going to her stamp-a-stack again this year and it is on Sat. which would be the day to work on these. I have not made time to work on the craft fair again and I only have a week left! Rut Roh! (as Scooby Doo says!)

Another thing for the craft fair

This little tin was one of those empty silver tins you can get now at craft stores, you know the "altoid tin" and since I haven't been to a store that sells altoids in a couple of weeks (yes, I order my groceries online..) I got this at Artist Oasis. I used alcohol ink to color the sides and the bottom and then covered the rest with scrapbook paper. I special ordered this paper last year directly from the company because I loved it so much! No one was carrying it. It is by One Heart One Mind and I think this set it Merry Merry. I used the Creative Memories photo tape as that stuff sticks paper very well to everything. It is also easy to use, a lot easier and thinner than the red line tape. No, not a consultant :) Then I cut out and punched some of the parts of the scrapbook paper and layered it on top. Then the fun begins! I made 10 Christmas gift tags to go inside. I stamped and decorated them to be rather simple, last year I made elaborate tags that no one looked at and threw in the trash so I figured even if these are for someone to buy they don't want to spend a ton of money on them! I have no clue what to sell this for, this whole pricing things is mind boggling. You certainly can't price things on time it takes and cost! No one would buy anything as the price would be outrageous. So there is a balance between not losing money and actually selling something :) Let me know if you have any ideas! Thanks for looking!

One Stamp, many ideas

This stamp just brings out the creativity in me! I have so many MORE ideas swimming in my head what to do with this stamp! I am going to do the cracked glass again (the red one) but in a different color scheme so it shows up better. You can't even tell the cracks in this one. I am also going to make some backgrounds for it, just one of those stamps I can easily see things with. Most stamps I have no clue. I have always found collage easy and a lot of people find it hard. I think it is one or the other for most people! I find clean and simple hard. I have to copy it, I can't make it up on my own LOL! Guess it goes with my clutter :) I will post more as I make them.

Well I am now fostering a dog. They call it a Chihuahua but it looks like an Italian Greyhound and a Chi mix! She is very shy, wow, very shy. My Chihuahuas accepted her right away without even a sniff, so she must be part Chi! I hope she will relax and learn to trust people, she would make someone a nice pet. She is a good size, not too big but not too small. So my goal is to get her to relax and enjoy life! I will post a picture of her later this week.

Another Calendar

My mom told me she wanted a calendar with pictures of the family. Does this sound like a Christmas present? I think so! I went to Archiver's calendar class and made this wonderful calendar and all I have to do is put the numbers in and the pictures on and done. The blank spaces on the calendar page are where you put your photos. OH great, if she reads this blog she will know her present! Hmmm she usually doesn't unless I tell her to look at it for some reason... Do I chance it? LOL! I have posted a couple of the months, no pictures on them yet and some do not have the numbers. So don't tell her about this my wonderful and sweet family members who look at my blog!

A White Card

I rarely use white card stock showing on the card front any more! So I thought I would make this card as I saw one similar and loved it. I am pretty pleased with how it turned out! Just have to get over it being "different". I added one of my old punch flowers too, I have all these new punches and die cuts with the Cuttlebug that I never use my old things and you know me, practical as ever I HAD to pull out something old to make it worth the purchase still LOL! I put one of those "old" jewel prong-types on it which I will use them up until they are gone. SU has come out with them as brads, much easier to use. By the time I use these up to get those there will be something new out I am sure. Funny how the styles change just often enough for you to have old things left over. Or maybe we buy too much of the old things or maybe we buy too much period LOL!

I am always berating myself for my purchases but I make myself use them, I will not hoard paper or supplies if I can help it! My mom instilled that in me, we had to watch every paper towel, piece of toilet paper and piece of Kleenex we used when I was growing up and I drive my husband nuts when I take him to task every time he takes more than one paper towel! Oh, and I was at someone's house a few weeks back and I had to bite my tongue and look away as she pulled out a piece of aluminum foil and it was too small so she threw it out and got another one! I cringed, literally! Arghh I would have folded it and put it in the cupboard for use on a smaller item. Do we really live in that much excess now? All this being said, you have seen the pictures of my craft room so I certainly have more than I need so I can't talk, huh? I do try to be good, really!!!