'To-do' List & Holiday Tags

Hi! It's Tuesday and I'm already looking forward to the weekend. How sad is that? I have a lot to get done this week. These are some of the things on my 'to do' list:

• pickup Christmas gift cards for 6 people
• pickup girls boots from Old Navy (they're on sale this week)
• decide on & make a 'killer' appetizer for the office Christmas party contest on Friday
• finish at least two (out of four) of the Christmas gift albums I'm making for RJ's grandparents....AUGH :-(
• finish my Christmas cards and get them packaged for the post office
• pickup Mr. R's BIG gift.....boys & their toys!
• try to catchup on my 'December Daily' album (why did I start this again?)

Before I pass out from exhaustion I wanted to share some Christmas tags I made over the weekend. I'd never really made tags before but I have some special handmade gifts to pass out this year and the standard store-brought tag just isn't gonna cut it. Here are my first tags:

Supplies:

Paper: Recollections & Paper Studio
Stamps: Hero Arts- Sparkle Clear: Gift for You, Antique Flower Background and Flourish Background; Recollections- Santa
Embellishments: Making Memories- elastic cord; American Crafts- eyelet
Tools: Spellbinders- Labels 8 & large rectangle; Copic markers; Ranger- distress ink; Versamark; white embossing powder

Supplies:

Paper: Recollections & Paper Studio
Stamps: Hero Arts- Sparkle Clear: Gift for You & Dots and Flowers; Recollections- Reindeer
Embellishments: DMC- floss; Making Memories- eyelet
Tools: Spellbinders- Labels 1; Copic markers; Ranger- distress ink; Versamark; white embossing powder

Hopefully, I'll be able to cross some of my crafty 'to do' list off tonight and will have more to share. Thanks for stopping by :-)

Embellish Magazine & 2S4Y Challenges

Hello again! I'm back with my second post of the day. My Gators aren't looking so good right now so I've walked away from the television for the time being :-( I had so much fun with the Embellish Leaves, Acorns & Pine Cone Color Challenge that I decided to make another entry this morning! If you missed my first entry, you can see it here. This time I decided to use Laura's Sketch 40, the current sketch challenge over at 2 Sketches for You. Here are the challenge images:




and here's my card:

Supplies:

Paper: Recollections & DCWV
Stamps: Hero Arts- A Million Thanks; PTI- In Bloom
Embellishments: Target- ribbon; Making Memories- eyelet; stash- twine

Tools: Spellbinders- Labels 3; Cricut Expression-Doodlecharms & Lyrical Letters; Fiskars- scallop border punch; Cuttlebug- Swiss Dot embossing folder; WRMK- Big Bite

I found the ribbon in my stash and fit the Embellish Magazine challenge perfectly! I picked it up at Target some time last year and had completely forgotten about it. I'm feeling pretty creative tonight so I'll be up working all night on my other projects. Maybe I should start scheduling some posts.......hmm

Thanks for stopping by :-)

Happy Saturday & a Couple of Challenges

Happy Saturday!! I love the weekend because it means more crafting time for me and no work :-) This weekend I'm planning on being especially productive because my little guy is spending the weekend with his Godmother. Gotta love that. Plus it's SEC Championship weekend and I FULLY expect my Gators to put a beatdown on the Crimson Tide. Mister R is watching the game with some of his friends at the local barbershop.....don't ask, just go with it :-) The guys asked that I make them some of my double-baked, shrimp-stuffed potatoes so I'll be running off to the grocery store to pickup my supplies in a few. I'll try to remember to take a pic and post it later.

Before I go, let me share a card I finished this morning. I love participating in the various papercrafting challenges found on the web. I don't always have time to participate every week, but I do keep up with them and try to complete them when I have some free time. Over at the Embellish Magazine blog, they are challenging you to complete a project using a color combo & some seasonal items. To be really efficient and complete as many challenges as possible this weekend, I coupled the Embellish Leaves, Acorns & Pine Cones Color Challenge with the current sketch challenge at the CPS blog. Here are the challenge images:



and here is my card:




I didn't have any stamps that contained all of the seasonal images required for the Embellish Magazine challenge, so I decided to put my Cricut Expression to use! Here are the details:

Supplies:

Paper: Recollections & DCWV
Stamps: Hero Arts- A Million Thanks; PTI- Vintage Labels & In Bloom
Embellishments: stash- twine

Tools: Spellbinders- Labels 1; Cricut Expression-Doodlecharms & Lyrical Letters; Cuttlebug- embossing folders; EK Success- corner rounder

I'm working on other projects that I hope to complete today, so I may be back for a second post!

Thanks for stopping by :-)

Peace

Happy Hump Day! How's your post-Thanksgiving week going thus far? I've been super busy with work and putting out Christmas decorations. Did you all join in on the Black Friday madness? I did! It's a tradition for me and my family. I usually have my list of must-gets and a map of the stores I want to visit laid out at least a week in advance. Typically I'm back home by 8:00AM or eating breakfast at the local Cracker Barrel. Here's the list of items I scored:

• Three 600-t.c. sheet sets
• 32in LCD HDTV
• 4 Cricut cartridges
• 4 Wii games & 4 accessories
  
• KitchenAid stand mixer
• Pyrex 14pc. bake-n-store set
• 3 pairs of boots

I made it home by 10:30AM after starting my day at 3:00AM. Overall, this year's experience was a good one. All of the shoppers that I encountered were well-behaved and the retailers operated efficiently :-) Our tree is up & decorated. I've wrapped all but 6 gifts and I only have 4 more items to purchase! I should be done with my shopping this weekend.....YEA!!!

Shopping aside, I did manage to get a card completed last night for two challenges, Caardvarks Micro Color Challenge and Mojo Monday Sketch 115:

Supplies:

Paper: Recollections (white, pink & turquoise), Paper Studio (aqua) & My Minds Eye (stripe)

Embellishments: Studio G, Recollections & Hero Arts- stamps; Making Memories- eyelet; Stickles; Copic markers; stash- ribbon

Tools: Nestabilities- diecuts; Crop-a-dile Big Bite

Thanks for stopping by :-)

Christmas Kit Card Samples

So I'm back for my second post of the night to show you four cards that I made in less than 1.5 hours!



With the exception of the card bases, I only used products available in one of my Christmas Kits. I still have over half of the patterned papers leftover and LOADS of embellishments! I will be back later in the week to post the rest of the cards and some packaging accents you can make with the contents of the kit. As an added bonus, I am including an extra $5 worth of products in the first 5 kits that are purchased! You still have time to pickup your kit and get started on your Christmas cards.

Thanks for stopping by :-)

Embellish Brads Color Challenge

I couldn't resist playing along with the current challenge at Embellish Magazine. The challenge was to use red, green, yellow & blue and to include brads. Here is the challenge inspiration photo:


Here's my take on the challenge:



I used one of the sketches for Kristina Werner's 'A Year in Cards' class. I'm happy with the final result and it helped me to use up some of those old 3-d stickers I've had since I started papercrafting! I just added rhinestone brads to the presents to complete the color challenge.

Supplies:

Paper: Recollections (green) & Bazzill (white)

Embellishments: Sandylion- stickers; stash- rhinestone brads; Joann's- ribbon

Tools: EK Success- scallop circle punch; Fiskars- gel pen

Thanks for stopping by :-)

My new project......

I was looking at all of my papercrafting supplies and thought "I REALLY should be doing something with all of this stuff!" With the encouragement of a good friend, what I decided to do was put together some Christmas-themed kits. I purchased a few packs of MME Christmas paper and began the process. I also picked up a few of the ever-popular 'Really Useful Boxes', pulled out my stamps & diecut machine and came up with this:

kit contents

close-ups of the contents

The kit contents are:

• 8- 6 x 6 Christmas patterned paper
• 4- 6" scalloped borders (not pictured)
• 6 brads- snowflake, rhinestone & silver round
• 9 flowers– 2 large, 3 medium and 4 small
• 2 clips
• 2 glitter chipboard flourishes
• 2 stamped artisan tags
• 2 velvet diecut ornaments
• 2 acrylic stars
• 10 rhinestones- 6 large clear, 4 small hot pink
• 8 small pearls- 4 ivory, 4 pink7 buttons
• 2 bookmark tags
• 8 artisan diecuts- 4 large, 4 medium
• 11 feet of ribbon & twine
• 4 hand-stamped gift tags
• 6 felt embellishments
• 3 large snowflake diecuts
• 4 small snowflake diecuts
• 1 sheet of hand-stamped sentiments & images
• 6 3-d embellishments- 4 stamped, 2 embossed
• 3.5” x 5” covered notebook
• 1.6 liter Really Useful Box (pink, teal, purple or clear)
• Small plastic embellishment storage container

This kit is complete with items to create Christmas cards, gift tags, gift card holders & scrapbook pages. It is the perfect kit for a beginning paper crafter or for someone who’s been doing it for years. To pickup your kit, visit my Etsy shop here: Christmas Kit

I will be back tomorrow to post pictures of items that I've made with the kit.

Thanks for stopping by :-)