Bonkers for Banners

November had me madly making banners for coworkers to have in time for family gatherings!  This first one is a "shalom" banner.  One of my roomies wanted this for her mantle in time for Hanukkah.  I went simple with the embellishments because we both agreed that she would be able to use this for the High Holy Days that typically fall earlier in the fall and then still be able to use it for Hanukkah (which after this year will be more into winter again).

This is the "harvest" banner that was inspired by the "lilah" birthday banner from an earlier post.  I ended up sending it to my DH's cousin who is in London this year.  Obviously they don't celebrate Thanksgiving and I was hoping she would have it in time to decorate her room for our holiday. :)

This is the "thankful" banner that a coworker wanted, but then decided it was too small.  I thought I would keep it for myself, but then another coworker wanted it for her mantle. :D

I have yet to download the pics for the "merry" banners I have created, so stay tuned!  They may even get posted before Christmas. ;)

Snowy 3x5 Opportunity!

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone already! Where does the time go?!? Ours was a wonderful long weekend spent with lots of family, friends, and (needless to say) food. :)  Our house is tricked out for Christmas thanks to my DH's family and our good friends the Hakala's and Wysocarski's (ask Erin for her chocolate chip cookie recipe- they are awesome!)

Now that it is December (SERIOUSLY!!!!), time to get those cards made and sent.  It's crunch time people.  What's that?  Got all your cards made?  Fabulous, but do you have all your gifts ready?  You know, those last minute need something kinda gifts?  I'm here to help! :)

You can make 15 Cards at my class on December 14th from 10-12 at Ink About It in Westford.  5 of each of the 3 designs you see above.  If you can't make the class, you can always order a kit.  I'll cut and stamp everything for you, so all you have to do is color, assemble, and package. :) 

These cards would make great thank you notes for all your Christmas gifts, or add a couple snowflake sequins to cover any holly and these make great winter birthday cards come January!

Can't wait to see you on December 14th!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!  Hope this day finds you able to spend time with loved ones around a table heaped with turkey goodness!

I'm thankful for the inspiration I have found over the years at this party!  I'm sharing this tablescape with folks there.  Thanks Everyone!

We are going to my SIL's place for the big meal, but I decorated the table here for us to enjoy throughout November.  I'm proud to say that we ate several meals together at the table this month!  We tend to eat late and catch up on a DVR'd program, but not this November.  Pardon the angle.  I was trying to catch all of the table and cabinet without catch the blue & purple post-its on the wall to the left.  My DH is still working on my birthday present from August.  I asked for him to put together our combined family tree.  We had big chunks of info already, but you'd be surprised how many gaps you find when you sit down to put one of these together!! I'm truly thankful for my Gram Ahboo (that's my nickname for her) who had TONS of info both on paper and in her head!

The scarecrow Mom made years ago and is supposed to light up, but I thought he looked cute here so I took out the bulb 'n cord.  She made the pumpkin too.   The turkey "art" was a $5 snag at HomeGoods this year and the printers tray I grabbed this summer up in Wells with grand plans to fill it. ;)

My MIL gave me the pilgrims a couple years back when I mentioned how I had so much for Halloween & Christmas, but so little for Thanksgiving.  The candlesticks were acquired from family hand-me-downs and thrift shops, the flowers, gourds, and "glass" acorns are all Dollar Store finds.

I love these turkeys!!!!  They are one of my favorite finds from last year (I think it was just last year- the years are flying by these days!!!)

The place cards I made a few years back to bring to the Family Thanksgiving Dinner, but I wanted to see how they looked on this table too. ;)  The dishes are our good china and are a hand-me-down from my Aunt Helen.  We love them, but never use them because they have to be hand washed.  We really should use them though.

This is my most favorite catch this year.  This HUGE leaf lantern I got for $7 at HomeGoods.  LOVE it!  I filled it with 5 battery operated candles.  With those candles and the real ones on the table & wall put off a beautiful glow at night.  We've been eating by candlelight at the table and it is so pretty. :)

Our decorated wine rack.  Honestly if it stands still long enough, everything gets decorated in my house.  The corn is a gorgeous wine color IRL.  The accordion fold art is from a class I took and though you can't see it, the flower pot is one I painted with a giant sunflower.  Remember when toll painting was all the rage in crafting?  The "messy" looking thing in the front is a knitted nest and it is fabulous.

It cost a pretty penny and I had to wait a year, but it was totally worth it.  My Harvest Nest came on my birthday last year and it is squeal-worthy pretty.  The gal who makes these is such a LOVELY person.  You can meet her and find out more about her nests here.

Hope you had fun checking out my table.  We are off to enjoy some turkey with family in NH now.  Please leave the shopping until tomorrow.  Be thankful if you are lucky enough to enjoy spending time with your family and friends today.  Not everyone is blessed enough to have this opportunity.

What'll ya drink?

I went nuts making some hot cocoa and hot cider stocking stuffers for the in-house craft fair. They are kinda addicting to make 'cause they are so fun to embellish!

I used a couple PTI mini sets to make the red apples.  They are really supposed to be cherries & the leaves are for the pears, but I love how they can be morphed into mini apples!!!  The sentiments are from MFT's lollipop set and I thought they helped to make the hot cider tags transform them into possible place cards instead of stocking stuffers. :)

Don't tell the other packets, but this snowflake is currently my favorite one because you have a snowflake ornament to use after you drink all the cocoa. :D  I think I might have to give it to our PE teacher as a thank you.  He helped lug all the stuff to my car when I took down my "booth" yesterday.  If I know him, he'll drink the cocoa and pass the snowflake along to his mom.  Whenever he wins something girlie, or gets something more on the girlie side, he gives it to his mom.  Isn't he sweet!

What stocking stuffers are you working on this year?

Who's Coming for Dinner?

 We've had a craft fair at work amongst ourselves the last couple of weeks.  I've been madly creating things and these place cards are one of the things I made.

I had made a version of these before and sold them in my Etsy shop.  Sooo much fun to make!  I used all kinds of dies from PTI that had been collecting dust. :)

A bunch of the papers I used on the base are from PTI and then others are smaller papers I had in my stash.  The Swiss dot paper is one of my favorite "go to" papers from Bo Bunny.  They add just the right pop without making things too busy.

So who's coming to your place over Thanksgiving- or where are you going?

Jingle Jars

Getting ready for a mini craft fair at work this week.  I made these for a swap I did with gals at my LSS & when I brought them into work to show my roomies, lots of people asked me to make more!

The version with the bells are all that are left!  They are fun to make though, so I didn't mind creating some more. :)

Off to pack up the goodies to bring in to work.  Fingers crossed that the snow they have predicted doesn't cause too much of a traffic jam!

Lil' Punkin's B-Day

I had the coolest Etsy order last week!  The community our summer cottage is in had a craft fair for the residents.  It was held outside at our pavilion and it was COLD!!!!  Totally worth it though 'cause I sold a bunch & a couple custom orders were placed. :)  I brought a bunch of goodies I had on hand, including these cards.  One of the gals that stopped by was excited to find out that I also had an Etsy shop because after getting a couple cards & seeing the pumpkin cards, she contacted me about making a pumpkin banner for her little gals birthday this month.

The theme for the party was pumpkins- how stinkin' cute!!!!!!  I pulled out my PTI pumpkin die and lots of pumpkiny colors & embellies.  So much fun to make & I'm so happy that she loved it.

In the process of making this inspiration struck.  I just finished that piece on Monday, so hopefully I'll get some pics up here soon. :)  Inspiration hit DH too.  He was looking at the banner as I had it set up to assemble and he said "The pumpkin looks kinda flat.  Can you add some extra texture like those dots?"  He meant the Swiss dot folder (which he bought for me when he got me a Cuttlebug years ago- such a great idea!)  Sadly, it just wouldn't cover the whole pumpkin and was a hot mess when I tried.  Then I thought- what about using the pumpkin ridge die (meant to cut slices of the pumpkin) and embossing the lines on instead?  Can you believe I had the foam/rubbery layer that helps you do this and NEVER used it?!?!  My husband was a genius to suggest added dimension AND I used another tool that I had never used.

Well enough of my babbling.  Hope you enjoyed this banner and are inspired to get out some goods you have and haven't used yet. ;)  While we are on the subject- have any of you joined the "50 in 50" group on Facebook?  A friend just told me about it.  The goal is to make 50 projects, in 50 days, without buying anything.  You make whatever you want and try to use up what you already have instead of buying new stuff.  I'm thinking I might have to join so I force myself to get more done!

Let me know if you've tried it!  I'd love to hear thoughts. :)

Sweet 'n Spooky in a Jar

Happy Hallow's Eve, Eve!  Thought I'd share a couple more Halloween cards made with leftovers from cards of years past AND some new fun stuff. ;D

I went nuts cutting Halloween paper with dies last year.  I had WAY more cut goods than ideas, but it is so awesome to pull out that precut stuff and run with it later. :)  Here is evidence exhibit A. LOL!  I used to hate spiders as a kid.  Not saying I want one as a pet or anything now, but I have a certain affection for them these days.  They eat so many other creepy crawlies that I despise that now they are on my "good list".  Not sure who to give this one to this year.  Maybe I'll save it for next year.  We'll see...

Here's the sweeter version!  My DH and his sister both seem to like candy corn.  For all the sweets that I love, candy corn is soooo not on my list.  Totally fun to color though!  I might give this card to my DH for Halloween.  I think he can overlook the more "girly" aspects of the card, since he will be mostly focused on the candy corn and wondering if it'll mean he gets some candy corn to go with the card. LOL!

Have a sweet, not spooky, Wednesday!

A Look Back at WCMD 2013

Thought I'd share what I got done a couple weekends back when it was World Card Making Day.  I was going to use the September Kit I got at my LSS kit club, then I realized I had much more pressing matters!  I've been trying to send cards to ALL my family (in-laws and outlaws LOL!) since the end of August.  So far so good btw. :)  I thought I'd make more birthday cards to send, or get some Haloween cards ready.  So anywho, I was standing in the mess that is my studio space trying to get ready to create.  Before I could create though, I needed to find the floor!

Step one was gathering all the cards that were mostly finished.  The ones that didn't have an envie, didn't have a sentiment, or didn't have my signature stamped on the back.  Do you SEE how many cards I found lying around my studio?!?!?!?!?  When I saw how many I had rounded up, creating new stuff got pushed to the back burner.  I needed to finish what I started!  I had card from classes I had taken,  reject cards from class sample production that needed a few tweaks, from DT work that never made it to the final stages for whatever reason, extras from multi card sets I created, and some from challenges I never entered.

Some of these cards are SO OLD!  I can't believe I left them undone for so long.  So I gathered everything I needed and brought it up to the cottage to work.  DH was at my DBIL's annual men's weekend gathering so I could complete my mission in peace. ;D

I sorted the cards by occasion and worked my way through all but a handful.  It was insane how many cards I had- and now have ready to mail out!  Yippee!  I even had some great cards for guys that just needed a sentiment to make them ready to send for all those guy birthdays.  I am soooo happy! 

Thanks for stopping by today!

Pumpkin Jack

Another creation using those MME papers from my friend Lynn with some added goods from the scrap pile. :)  They sure have gotten me in the mood for the season.  Not that it takes much!  The leaves here are GORGEOUS- our reward for suffering through a rainy May & June.  (Did you know that?  A rainy spring makes for a stunning fall.)  Then of course there is apple cider, which I am blessed to have easy access to 3 varieties of fresh cider within 3 miles of my house.  My current hometown is deep in the middle of apple orchard country.  Wander a mile in any direction and you'll hit an orchard.  Finally there is decorating for Halloween!!!!!  We pulled down the boxes and started decorating.  We have 7 boxes of pumpkiny goodness.  Ahhhhh, I love fall (she says until we get to winter, which she loves- until we get to spring, which she loves too- summer, oh yeah she loves that too.  Hee-hee).

The pumpkin fella is AMuse and he's colored with YR24, YR23, Y21, W2.  The dies are from Papertrey Ink & My Favorite Things.  The black ribbon is from Michael's and the burlap is from The Hen's Den.

This week I'm making even more fall cards when I take Katie's class on Thursday and then the following Thursday I'm saying good-bye to fall and hello to Christmas with my class.  Hope to see some of you there! :)

Jack and I are going to "scare" up some fun here:
Cards in Envy- Now That's Scary Challenge

"Carving" Pumpkins

Happy World Card Making Day Everyone!  Alas, I haven't made any cards today as we were out an about in Hampton, NH for unsuccessful antiquing.  We did happen upon a great garden in North Hampton and a yummy restaurant in Portsmouth, NH and I do have some fall cards to share with y'all today!

These pumpkins are made with the same MME papers from this post with some additional papers from my scrap heap I've been working my way through.  They are a little labor-intensive to plan & prep, but SO worth it don't ya think? :)

I've only posted 4 here, but the prep allowed me to have everything I needed to make 7.  The pumpkins shape come from the pumpkin die by Papertrey Ink (which I've had for a couple years now and never used).  Each patterned paper got run through to make the "ridges" and then I had to play "puzzle maker" to mix 'n match them.  I only wanted to have one piece from each pattern per pumpkin (say that tongue-twister 10 times fast!).  The leaves are also from a Papertrey Ink die.

Each ridge is edged with brown ink so to give the ridges more definition.   They are all mounted on kraft cardstock.  I feel a little bad about this cover one.  I cut the kitty's head off!!!!  Does that make it for sure a Halloween card then???

I would totally make more of these- they were super fun!  I'm so glad I finally broke out these pumpkin dies!!! I've got one more set of cards to show you this week using this same set of papers, so stay tuned! ;)

I'm taking my patch to party here:
Allsorts Challenge: Autumn colors
Sweet Stampin Challenge: Autumn is here
Simply Create Too: Autumn/Fall
Fairy tale challenge: Pumpkins, Mushrooms, or Bats