Christmas cards

Every year I make Tomio a Christmas card to put in his stocking. Well, actually I usually end up making him 3 or more trynig to make it just right....lol. I think I worry about his more than any others, even those I submit to magazines...And yes, this year was no exception. I made 3 cards, and in the end I chose the last one I made. But I thought I would go ahead and share all 3 :) (and no worries, he doesn't check my blog :))

Here is the first one I made:

Light blue and brown :) I LOVE light bue and brown. I embossed the trees from Paperrey's Merry & Bright set with some sparkly white embossing powder. All the cardstock and ribbon are from Papertrey too.

Here is the second one I made:

I had this image in my head of silver snowflakes on a red background.... and this came out pretty close to what  I was thinking of. The snowflakes are from Impression Obsession. I use them ALL the time. The sentiment is from my current favorite Christmas set, Holiday Tree from Papertrey.

And this is the last card I made:

I used Holiday Tree for this one too. I LOVE this snowman! He's actually the reason I wanted this set :).And I used rustic cream cardstock for the base. Wow. I {heart} rustic cream!!! It has just the right touch of "rusticness" lol. I *might* like it even better than kraft-gasp! I said might lol.

Now, I think this is my favorite. So I will probably give him this one. But, I am pretty sure that he will like the second one best, so there is a chance I will give him that one instead lol. What do you think? Which one is your favorite? And which one would you give?

Thanks for stopping by! We made gingerbread men today. The kids had so much fun :) Now the are getting ready to have a cookie-Christmas movie -party :) Emma's asleep, so now I am off to make dinner :)

apple butter

Our church has a Christmas party each year, usually a few days before Christmas. This was actually the first year Tomio got to make it because the last couple of years they had it on a day when he had work. Anyway, the last couple of years I had been wanting to make something nice to give out to everyone, but never actually got to do it. So this year, I was determined to actually DO something. I decided to make homemade apple butter foreveryone. Here in Japan you can't get apple butter, and most people hadn't even heard of it. After a few bumps in the road finding the jars and supplies, I was actually happy with how they turned out :) Leah was so excited about them and SO wanted to help. She put all the labels on the jars for me and was so proud of herself :) I was glad that she liked helping out.

I had alot of fun making these tags. Well, not at first. Knowing that I needed to make at least 20 of these, I thought it would easiest just to mass produce them.(Yes, I KNOW I hate mass producing...) So foolishly, I started cutting out 20 tags the same color and stamped them with the same design...only to hate the results. Then I realized I had alot more fun just doing a few at a time, kind of similar, but no 2 really alike. THEN I had fun and liked the results. I used a few different Papertrey ink sets to make these. Oh, and I used some snowflake images from My Sentiments Exactly and Hero Arts. The lables I printed out on my computer and then stamped the frame with a Hero Arts stamp.I'm SO glad I actually did something this year instead of just thinking about it lol.
Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to do at least one thing you think about doing each Christmas but don't, for whatever reason :) You will be so glad you did!

finally...

I don't know what it was, but for some reason my computer and blogger were NOT getting along for the past few days. I have been trying to post, but it wasn't really working--aargh! But, at least they seem to be getting along fine now :) I was supposed to take Miss Emma in for her second vaccine in a series of three today. It seems though, that it was too soon after she had the mumps, so it was moved to next week. Not really a big deal, but frustrating nonetheless. I've been trying to take her in for this vaccine for the past 3 weeks...anyway I was so happy to make a card for this week's Mojo Monday sketch. I haven't really made much just for fun lately, so I was glad to have this chance :) I used some of my newest goodies too. I just love the Turning a New Leaf set from Papertrey! So many uses. I don't know how well you can tell in the photo, but I stamped the largest leaf image from the set in light yellow before I stamped the sentiment. I'm not usually one for fussy-cutting, but I really like how these images look when they are cut out. Christmas cards are really my absolute favorite kind to make, but I have been making so many Christmas cards and tags lately that it was fun to make something different too.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you are enjoying this last week of fun anticipation before Christmas :)

supplies: cardstock: bazzil, pattern paper: basic grey, stamps: papertrey ink and verve, scallop punch: fiskars, ribbon: paperrtey ink, ink: tsukineko

more of Miss Emma

I cannot believe that there are less than 2 weeks till Christmas!! wow. It seems extra fast to me since we usually put up our tree near the beginning of November and have it up for about 2 months :) But since Tomio was swamped and then everyone got the mumps etc, we didn't actually get it up until December. It's fun though, Levi keeps asking when we get to open the presents under the tree. He seemed to think that tree=Christmas TIME=Christmas=open presents :) I explained that once the advent calendar-tree was full of decorations, THEN he got to open them. It took a couple days, but I think he got it now :)

Miss Emma turns 7 months today :) I made sure to get her monthly pictures taken. And in honor of her 7-month milestone,

I thought I would share another Miss Emma layout I did, with some more hand stitching :)

I drew the line of where I wanted to stitch first, then I pierced holes all along the line. I find it's alot easier to stitch if the holes are alreay there. I usually will just cross stitching thread since I have just about any color I could possibly need :) When  I adhere my butterflies, I usually will just cut a thin strip of foam tape and attach it to the middle so the wings can "pop up".

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to stop and enjoy the holiday season instead of just letting it fly by "while you were busy" :) I am trying to!

supplies: cardstock: paper reflections, pattern paper: fancy pants, butterflies: papertreyink stamps, letters: quickutz, label: spellbinders, buttons: basic grey, doodlebug

Raspberry Suite #20

 I didn't really think I'd get to participate in Dawn's Raspberry Suite Challenge this time since I haevn't had much stamping time this seek. But I really liked the colors and thought it would be fun to try. So I made time :) And, I am pretty happy with how it turned out. I always have fun doing Dawn's challenges :)

At first I wasn't sure what I would use for the rust color, but I remembered I had this really gorgeous pink paislee paper. It worked perfectly! Almost everything else it from Papertrey. I thought I might have a hard time cutting out the leaves, but I wanted t anyway lol. I was surprised that it wasn't too hard afterall and I like the look alot. For the double scallop, I used a Quickutz border die for the big one and the Fiskars scallop sentiment for the smaller one.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies: cardstock: papertrey ink, pattern paper: pink paislee, stamps-text, leaf & sentiment-papertrey ink, dots-fontwerks, scallop borders: quickutz, fiskars

it had been awhile...

Ever since my decision to bake something each week when Emma was just born, I have actually made something each week. Sometimes something new, sometimes just chocolate chip cookies, but SOMETHING. Except last week. Too many people with mumps not wanting to chew, and me a little too tired to think about it. So this week it seemed like it had been a long time since we baked something. I decided to make ginger cookies since that seemed Christmas-y :) They were quite yummy, and yes very Christmas-y:) They didn't even last 2 days though, so I'm thinking we need to bake something else. You know, to make up for last week :)

Now don't you want to make some? :) Or at least eat some?

Here is a layout I made of Miss Emma recently. I had some fun doing some hand stitching on this:

All the hearts sre hand stitched. The cute paper is K& Co. Valentine's paper.

Thanks  for stopping by! I haven't had nearly the scrapping time I would like lately, so I am hoping to get some time the next few days. I hope you are having a crafty week :)

supplies: cardstock: core'denations, pattern paper: k&co, diecuts: quickutz other: gems, floss

tags

Goodness! I've been busier than I expected! It turns out taking care of 3 sick kids and trying to keep house and feed a family of 6 actually DOES take alot out of you. Who'd have thought? :) But I have to say that Tomio has been very helpful :) And I could tell that he DID realize how tough it was for me. Fortunately,everyone's fevers have gone down and they've gotten so that they can eat most things without it hurting too much. I must say, I'm glad that you can't get the mumps more than once :)

Whenever I had the chance, I have been working on Christmas tags all week. This is actually the first year for me to really make tags for all the gifts I am giving, and I have been having alot of fun :) BUT, I can't believe I that I was so excited to get some done, that I addressed them and put them on the presents before I got pictures of them!!!! I did try to get a couple pictures of some I hadn't put on when I realized I hadn't taken any pictures yet.

These are just a few of the ones I made. When I showed them to the kids, they all immdediately chose their favorites and said they wanted those on their presents :) I tried to oblige as much as possible :) I don't know about most people, but I REALLY don't like mass producing anything. I hate making 2 of anything. So I made a whole bunch of differnet tags. It would probably be alot faster to make the same ones again, but I figured there was no point if I didn't have fun, right? How about you? Do you loathe mass producing like I do or find it more fun to already have the layout decided and make lots of a design that you know you like?( Btw, I used my new Papertrey's Holiday Tree set for alot of my tags, and I LOVE it!!! It's so fun and easy to use :))

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you are having a healthy holiday season!