Baby Cards

  Well, today I'm taking a break from my Christmas posts to share some baby cards I made recently. 

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you know that I love cute owls. 

Because of that, this first one is my favourite.

Do you have a favourite?

Enjoy your day!

Winter Banner

  I've started to decorate our home for Christmas at last. Thanks to all my fans on Facebook who's "likes" showed me that they had already decorated their homes for Christmas! It showed me that I was not too early by any stretch! I've been putting decorations up bit by bit & our Christmas tree will be going up this weekend.

  This being my first Christmas blogging, I thought I would share with you some of my Christmas crafts of the past as well as some of my collections & special decorations.

  Today, I will begin with a winter banner I made a couple of years ago.

Please excuse the plastic coated window! ;)

  I made it with chipboard shapes I purchased from Stampin' Up! I painted the snowflakes & stars silver or white, punched holes with my Big Bite & connected them with blue ribbon. So easy!

If you would like to make something similar, here's what you need:

• Chipboard shapes
• Paint
• A heavy duty hole punch such as a Crop-o-dile or Big Bite
• Ribbon

  And since it's wintery, not just Christmasy, we can enjoy it into January & February.

~~~

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers!

Enjoy your day!

Hanji Card Set

  This fall, I've had a very unique opportunity. A friend of mine who just recently moved to South Korea with her little family asked me if I would make a few sets of cards for her sisters-in-law & her mom for Christmas. She asked me if she could send me some handmade paper (called Hanji) from where she lives & requested that I made her mom's card set with these beautiful papers. I was ecstatic to say the least. When I received the tube of papers in the mail, they took my breath away. Whoever made these works of art is exactly that - an artist. If you look closely, you can see real leaves, blades of grass, & flower petals in some of them. The asian writing on the blue is another favourite. 

  I couldn't wait to start creating with them. But alas, I had other orders that came first. Finally, I was able to work with these papers last weekend. I used lots of earthy tones with touches of blues & rich pinks. Hanji is thin but surprisingly sturdy. It takes some doing to rip it. When you do rip it, it has a beautiful edge as you can see in some of the photos. I kept those edges on purpose. I think they add to the appeal.

  Here are my creations:

  I am loving the end result. I hope you do too. 

Enjoy your day!

Spool Christmas Trees

  It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Most of the stores are decorated for the Season & I must say I'm getting the urge myself! I have a few friends who have put up their Christmas trees & other Christmas decorations. I haven't put any decorations up yet, but I'm busy crafting them!

  I made these sweet little spool trees this weekend. I think they'll look darling in my little girl's room. The colours are perfect.

Supplies:

• Spools - I bought them at Michaels, but you could use vintage ones too. 
• Patterned paper strips
• Twine
• Buttons
• Adhesive & glue - I used glue dots to adhere the paper & buttons. Then hot glue to glue the spools together.
• Die cut stars

I hadn't used hot glue for ages so I got it a little gloppy in places. I got better at it the more I did. :)

Are you getting excited for the Christmas season? I am!!

Enjoy your Monday!

Linkin' Up:

Sumo's Sweet Stuff

Craft-o-Maniac

Skip To My Lou

Everything Under The Moon

Tuesday Talent Show

Mommy By Day... Crafter By Night (my Christmas Banner from last week was featured!!)

The Twelve Crafts Of Christmas

Home For The Holidays

Sweet Little Gals

Holiday Highlights

Let Birds Fly

Crafty, Scrappy, Happy

The ArtsyGirl Connection

The Creative Paige

One Artsy Mama

Crafty Mom's Share

Shabby Art Boutique

Christmas Banner

  It's done! Yesterday I finished making the Christmas banner for my friend, Angela's store window. Here's the big reveal!

I'm so in love with it that I HAVE to make one of these banners for myself!

Supplies used:

• Patterned paper - 5 patterns
• Solid cardstock - cream, green, red
• Eyelets
• Stickles - brown
• Ribbon
• Cricut machine. Cartridges used: George & Basic Shapes (rectangle), Winter Wonderland (scalloped tag), & Alphalicious (letters)

A close up while just after I finished putting on the Stickles (glitter glue)

  Fun little tip: While I was oh-so-carefully applying the Stickles, my hand slipped & I got a little glob off the line I was working on. I asked my daughter to quickly run & grab me a Q-tip. She came back with some toothpicks! Haha! It ended up being a fantastic mistake because I tried them & they worked like a charm! The tiny little end made it perfect for tidying up the uneven parts or any stray sparkles. 

~~~

What crafts are you currently working on? I realize that those of you who live in the U.S.A. will be celebrating Thanksgiving soon whereas we've already celebrated that holiday here in Canada. 

Do you decorate for Christmas before American Thanksgiving or after?

Whatever the case may be...Enjoy your day!

Pin It

Linkin' Up:

Tuesday Talent Show

Sumo's Sweet Stuff

Craft-O-Maniac

Skip To My Lou

Ta-da Tuesday

Get Your Craft On

Everything Under the Moon

Let Birds Fly

The 36th Ave

Crafty, Scrappy, Happy

Uncommon

Just a Girl

Shine On Friday

The Creative Paige

Tatertots & Jello

Shabby Art Boutique

The Twelve Crafts Of Christmas

Update

This banner was featured on these blogs:

This Weekend's Project

  This weekend, I'm delving into another Christmas project. This one is for a friend of mine who owns a store & wants to hang a "Merry Christmas" banner in her front window. Here's the inspiration:

Source

She wants her banner to actually be two separate banners. One for "Merry" & one for "Christmas".

I'm excited to start working on it! I'll post about it once it's finished.

Enjoy your weekend!

Birthday Card Bliss

  Birthdays... they come every year without fail. They seem to be coming more often the older I get. Why is that? My birthday isn't for another month, but just posting these has me thinking about my upcoming birthday... I think I'll throw myself a party... But seriously, what lady wouldn't enjoy getting a hand made card for her birthday? I know guys aren't always appreciative of this kind of thing, but ladies usually are, right?

I stamped that flourish with brown ink, then used Stickles to "colour" it in.

  Have you got a birthday coming up? Are you doing anything exciting to celebrate?

I'm thinking of adopting my friend Sarah's birthday tradition. 

She invites all her girlfriends out for lunch (last time we all went for sushi). 

We just talk & get to have some fun, girl time. 

I think that would be pretty perfect.

Enjoy your day!

Butterfly Wall Art

  Welcome to November! Where has this year gone?? How was your Halloween? I actually ran out of candy this year for the first time ever. I think it was due to the mitt full I was giving to each kid. I was determined not to have any left overs. Nope, no leftovers here. Now just to fend off the temptation from the candy my kids collected at the Fall Festival...

  Awhile ago, my friend Sarah from Prairie Perch asked me to do a butterfly project for her little girl's room. She brought me the frame & a pillow sham that had the colours she wanted me to use. I finally got to it this weekend. Here's what I came up with:

I used my Cricut to cut the butterflies. The butterflies originally had antennas on them, 

but it looked too busy with the layers so I trimmed them off. 

I used mostly paper from My Mind's Eye with a little Echo Park mixed in.

With the pillow sham

I can't wait to see it in her little girl's room! I'm sure she'll be sharing the space when she gets everything in place. 

When she does, I'll link up, so you can all see too.

Enjoy your day!

Linkin' Up:

Skip To My Lou

Tuesday Talent Show

Mommy By Day, Crafter By Night

Today's Creative Blog

Crafty, Scrappy, Happy

The 36th Avenue

Fall Festival

  In the last few weeks of blogging, I've been talking about the Fall Festival that our church was planning. Sunday was the big day. My friend, MJ, & I had set up our booth on Friday afternoon. I was full of anticipation to see what people's reaction would be.

  We started the day out getting our kids all costumed up for our church's Candy Carnival. Our little girl was a hula girl & our little boy was a pirate. I got the hula stuff at Dollarama. Most of the pirate costume came from thrift stores (ladies slouchy boots, too-big black pants, & a ladies ruffled blouse). We got the pirate hat, stick-on moustache, eye patch & sword from Dollarama. The parrot came from Wal-mart. The coat is mine. :)

  The kids partied in the gym while we were having church. After church, everyone headed into the gym for a yummy meal of fried chicken, rolls, & salads with home made pies for dessert. Delish!

  There was live entertainment, fun fall decorations, caramel apples, carnival games, popcorn, sno cones, tons of candy for the kids, & of course the booths which were run by different people in our church. 

  Our booth was well received & MJ & I both sold about half of what we brought. I'd call that pretty successful. 

The goodies in our booth. Top row: my offerings. Bottom row: MJ's fabulous creations.

  

  I didn't get a lot of photos as we were kept pretty busy with our customers, but here's a few:

A great time was had by all! I, for one, hope it becomes an annual event. A huge thank you to everyone who helped pull it off!!

Enjoy your Monday!

Linkin' Up:

Sumo's Sweet Stuff

Paper Box Tutorial

  Last week, I posted pictures of the paper boxes I've been making for the fall festival where I'll be having a booth. The boxes are for housing handmade cards.

  I had a number of requests for a tutorial on how to make them, so here we go!

  Just a fair warning: this post is very photo heavy so you can see the instructions rather than just reading them.

Supplies:
2 sheets of 12x12 cardstock
1 or 2 sheets of patterned paper (or large scraps work too)
Adhesive
Paper scorer
Paper cuter
Ruler

  (Remember those old stories on record that you used to listen to? I feel like saying, "You will know it is time to turn the page when you hear the chimes ring like this... brrrriiiiing! Let's begin now.")

1) Cut one of the sheets of cardstock down to 10x12. Discard small strip.

2) Measure & score according to the following diagram:

3) Now cut according to this diagram:

This is what it should look like after you've cut:

4) Now fold all the scored lines.

5) Fold in small squares & start adhering the box together

These squares will be on the inside of the box.

There. You're done with the bottom of the box for now.

Now the lid.

1) Start with your second piece of 12x12 cardstock. Trim it down to 6 & 1/8 x 10. You need that extra 1/8th of an inch because if you don't have it the lid won't fit over the bottom.

2) Measure & score as shown below.

3) Cut the sides according to this diagram.

It should look like this:

4) Fold the scored lines & start putting it together as you did the bottom.

Here's the box. Now it's time to decorate!

  I keep it simple by adding some co-ordinating paper to the top & the bottom. You really could do whatever you wanted though. In the past, I've added tags, brads, ribbon, buttons, & rub ons. You can do as much or as little as you want. 

The finished product!

  If you are still reading, please let me say thank you & congratulations! Once you make a few of these, it will be old hat & you'll be able to mass produce at a whim.

  If you have questions please let me know & I'll do my best to answer. Thanks for sticking with me through all those photos & measurements!

Enjoy your day!

Linkin' Up:

Crafty, Scrappy, Happy

The Creative Paige

Tatertots & Jello