Christmas Bears and the family!

Hello! How was your Christmas?! Hope that you and yours had a wonderful celebration! It seemed to rush in and rush out so quickly this year! We had a very nice celebration full of family and yummy food and lots of goodies! Our son was able to come home despite the yucky weather and spend almost 2 days at home with us, which was super nice! It melts my heart to see my kids all together! :)

I wanted to stop by for a few minutes and share a couple of the gifts I made with you guys! I have 2 nieces and wanted to make them something special this year so I took out my SU! Build a Bear dies and went to work! I made each of them several little bears to dress and oodles of clothes to dress them in! They each got their own box to hold it all with tiny little envelopes to hold all of the clothes! It was a lot of fun! Here are some pictures of the finished project:



The bears and their clothes!


Their envelopes with the clothes inside (fronts!).


(fronts and back!)


Box insides!



Closed Box!


Box with lid.


Box #2 closed.

Here is a picture of hubby, the kids and I on Christmas morning! This is the famous hold the camera out at arms length and try to get everyone squooze into the frame shot!! I am crazy about these folks!!



Hope that your holidays have been wonderful so far and that the rest of the year is as happy! I have lots to share with you and will be back soonest!

Have a wonderful day!

Some Christmas fun!

Hello!! Happy Sunday! How is your weekend?! We are still homebound with lovely snow everywhere! :)

Recently I had a few of my wonderful friends over for a mom's craft night and we had so much fun! I thought I would share a couple of the projects with you that we worked on! We got a late start on a weeknight so I wanted to keep the projects brief but still went for that AWWWWWWW! factor! I saw both of the reindeer on SCS and am not sure who the original artists are (so if they are your wonderful brainstorms PLEASE contact me because I would LOVE to give you credit!!). I thought the Hershey bar reindeer were too cute for words! I will be making several more of these and tucking them into lots of Christmas gifts! The other project was Christmas tags! Simple and sweet! :)






I have lots more to share and will be back soonest! Meanwhile, have a wonderful day! :)

CC Challenge #14 and some other things!

Snowy hello to you!! We got slammed with 11" of snow last night!! We are house bound for several days because we live at the top of an almost mile long driveway and our vehicles are having none of this snow business! I am experiencing a little bit of stress because the stockings are NOT all hung by the chimney with care! In fact I am not even close to being finished with my Christmas shopping or Christmas dinner shopping or card mailing or package mailing...LOL I will be really lucky if I can get down the driveway to get things finished up this year..oh well! What can you do, right?! There is a giant pot of chicken and dumplings on the stove and a cozy fire in the fireplace! Things will be ok! :) I will hold off on the stress until later because right now I am enjoying being stuck inside too darn much! :)

I have lots to share with you tonight! :) First of all is my entry for the CC Challenge #14! This was a toughie! This challenge was hosted by Jennifer B! (Hiya Jennifer!!) and the guidelines were:

My challenge to you is to use LSC249 from SCS, White Christmas. I've always wanted to do a card like this, and now it's on SCS also. The deets are:

* Use only white card stock
* You cannot use patterned paper, unless it's all white
* Use only white or clear embellishments
* You can use one color of ink, but nothing more
* You cannot do any coloring, such as copic or water coloring

Easy peasy, right!! Nope! This one threw me for a loop! Such a simple card just seemed so difficult! I enjoyed it though! I used white and red as my one and only color! No embellishments, no ribbon, no fancy doo dad's! Here is my entry:



Please excuse my stinky lighting! Time got away from me and it completely escaped my mind this was due today! I took the photo inside (at night!) just a few minutes ago!

Also, wanted to share a picture of hubby's car in the snow! :) He drives a Fit which is a tiny, little car! I got tickled when I saw how tiny it really looked in all of this snow! Here is the picture:



Finally, a couple pictures of my snow angels(!!):




Hope that you are having a warm and wonderful weekend! I have much more to share and will be back soonest! :)

A little Christmas Cheer!

Hello! How are you?! Doing well, I hope! I have a quick post to share with you tonight! I wanted to get my home school group involved in a community service project this holiday season and so we spent a couple of hours putting together 90 food baskets for our community this week at our holiday party! It was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed it! Here are some photos of them assembling the baskets and the finished product! :)

Also, pictured is our Christmas tree! For the first time ever I let the kids do all of the decorating! I am still struggling with this darn cold. It has moved into my chest and knocked me flat on my back! We normally add popcorn and cranberries, but time just got the best of us this year so the tree is popcorn-less! LOL The picture doesn't do the tree justice though because it came out beautifully! :)

We are getting slammed with a snow storm tonight! We have about 9 inches so far and they are calling for a total of 22! I am hoping to spend most of tomorrow in my jammies catching up on all things crafty! :) I should have some fun things to share tomorrow!

Have a wonderful night and I will be back soonest!

Snowy night!

Hello! How are you today?! Hope you are doing well! I am trying to fight off a little cold, but am feeling like I am in Round 11 going down for the count! LOL I hate not feeling well! (Who doesn't!?) I just have waaaaaay too many things to do right now to be under the weather! (Who doesn't!) LOL Sigh!

I wanted to stop by for a few minutes and share a card with you! I took this card to my home school meeting this week and taught the mom's how to do masking and reverse masking! Several of them were new stampers so it was a fun challenge! Everyone did great! This card just feels so "Winter is here!!" to me!! I just love that little snow guy too! I mean how cute is he?! Everything I used on this card is Stampin Up! Holler away if you have any questions!

We are waiting on a load of wood for our wood stove to be delivered and then we are heading into town to get our Christmas tree! :) Although I am not nearly even remotely close to even being close to being ready for Christmas (LOL) I love this part! Getting the tree is always so much fun! Lugging it in and making it beautiful! :)Hot chocolate and cookies and Christmas Carols! :)

I hope that you have a very nice weekend! I will be back soonest! :)

CC Challenge #13 and some great big thank you's!!

Hello, hello, hello!! Sorry to be MIA for a whole week (Yikes!!)! I decided I wanted to give my blog a face lift so it has been under construction for the last week! More about that later though! :)

I wanted to stop by and share a few things with you today! :) Time for Crafty Critter challenge #13! Here are the rules:

1)My challenge for you all is to create a card using the Split Negative technique. Found here!
2)You can post your cards anytime between Nov 28th - Dec 7th.

I have never done one of these, so this was really a fun challenge! I figured since 'Tis the season' I would go with a Christmas theme to maximize my crafting instead of doing the laundry, dishes and mopping time! Big, cheesy grin! You know...multi-tasking by finishing my challenge card AND making another Christmas card! Giggles! I used red and white as my negative image colors and mounted the whole deal on a green base. I added gold cording and a white sparkly gem. The stamp set is Snow Swirled by SU! Here is my card:



Fa, la, la, la, la... :)


Recently, I was awarded a very nice blog award by several of my fellow Crafty Critter friends, Tracey, Colleen and Terria! Thank you so much for thinking of me girls! You guys are absolutely the best! Here are the particulars with this award:



1. Thank the person that nominated you.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link the person that nominated you for this award.
4. List 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
5. Nominate 7 Kreativ bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 bloggers that you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.

7 things about myself:
1)I am allergic to vinegar!
2)I like sunflower seeds on my cottage cheese!
3)My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving!
4)I am a choc-holic!!
5)I want to live at the beach!
6)I still do not know what I want to do when I grow up!
7)I love the color pink!

Since so many of the wonderful ladies that I blog with have received this award too I will refrain from passing it back to them, but please know that I think you all have amazing blogs and do wonderful work! :)

Finally, (you still with me?!) LOL I wanted to say a great big warm and fuzzy thank you to my wonderful (not to mention devastatingly handsome) IT guy for fixing my blog all up for me! I tried and fell pretty much flat on my face (read NO computer skill here!)! My IT guy rushed in and beautified (is that even a real word!?) it all up for me! Thanks hubby! <3

I hope that you are doing well! I will be back soonest becasue I have lots to share with you guys! Have a wonderful day!

Great big hug!

School is starting!

Hello! It was a yucky rainy Monday here today! The sky was gray all day and the rain was cold...just one of those days perfect for crafting! Unfortunately, I was only able to squeeze in a little bit of crafting time though. I made another back pack today, but this one is for one of my most very favorite people in the whole wide world! I made this one for my hubby! He is going back to school starting tomorrow and I just wanted him to know how excited and proud I am of him! I chose muted colors because those are his favorites and gold embossed little hearts on the main piece of the back pack. I used chocolate chip ribbons and gold eyelets for the holes. I had to laugh to myself today! My Crop-a-dile wouldn't quite reach in far enough for some of the eyelets and so I used a hammer to flatten them out. I was in my little craft cave just banging away and no one even batted an eyelash! LOL Guess my family has gotten completely used to my strange quirks! Anyhow, here is hubby's backpack! ((I know you will do great things!))






Sorry about the stinky lighting! I took these outside in between the raindrops! (You can see little raindrops in the picture!) I kept waiting for a break in the clouds and the sun to peek through, but it just didn't happen today!

Have a great night! I will be back soonest! :)

Snow people are so cool! :)

Hi there! How was your day?! :) I had a really nice day today! It was an absolutely beautiful day here! Warm and sunny! I went and visited with one of my most very special friends. We haven't gotten to visit in several months so it was really nice to just sit and chitter chat. Then when I got home my kids and hubby and I took out our cookie press and made a ton of butter cookies in oodles of shapes! It was so nice to just play with them uninterrupted without anywhere to rush off to! It is the simple things that make life feel so full! :)

I worked an another card from my card kit pile today! I just love this paper and the Cuttlebugged snowflake background! I added the snowflakes and bling! I colored just a few things on the image to break up all of the blue and am thinking now I should have added some glitter to the snow under the snowman! I just love snow people! They always seem so happy! Here is another card for the Christmas card pile:



Hope that you had a wonderful day too! :) I will be back soonest!

My kids!

Hello! How is your weekend going?! I had a wonderful quiet day today! I didn't leave the house even once! It was a really nice break. I did some crafting and some reading and some lounging around and some dishes and some light cooking and that was about it! We had a quiet dinner and watched a movie and had homemade mixed berry cobbler for dessert...yummmm-o!

I finished up the scrapbook page that I made a couple of weeks ago and thought I would share the end result with you guys. You can see the first half of the page here. I did the first half before the photo was even taken! The picture was taken almost immediately after the kids got out of the pool so they all still have wet hair, but I thought the photo itself came out pretty cute! I actually have several 'posed' pictures of the four of my kiddos like this and I think I am going to compile them into one album. A project for another day! In the mean time though here is the most recent picture of my kids all scrap booked:




I am crazy about these guys! :) Every time I look at this picture it makes me smile!

Have a great night! Be back soonest!

Thankful Thoughts!

Hello! Well we had our fourth Thanksgiving celebration tonight! It was very nice and quite yummy! :) It is late and we just rolled in the door, but I wanted to share a thank you card I made for a friend! Since the card is to say thank you for hosting Thanksgiving I wanted it to feel Fall-ish! I used the fall leaves from a retired SU! set and went with all Fall colors. I stamped the leaves in Dusty Durango, More Mustard and Certainly Celery. The sentiment stamp is from Thoughroughly Thankful and is stamped in Chocolate Chip.




Ok, the turkey has made me ready for a nice long sleep so I am headed to bed! Hope that you had a lovely Friday! Be back soonest! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! We have had a wonderful day and I hope that you have too! Quick post tonight! I just wanted to share the little hostess gift that I made! We spent the day with relatives and I always like to bring a little something to say thank you to our wonderful host! I made this gable box and filled it with chocolate! Yummmmm! I gold embossed the Tango Tangerine paper and used the stamp set Pocket Silhouettes. I used markers to add color to the main image rather than a stamp pad. I added some sparkly bling in fall colors! Punched wide oval handles and tied it all up with Chocolate Chip ribbon!






I am truly thankful for my wonderful family and my dearest friends! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! See you soonest!

Thinking of you!

Hello! Happy almost Thanksgiving! Are you ready for the big day? I sure am! My oldest son is traveling home as I type and we will be spending the day with hubby's wonderful family tomorrow! I am really excited! Something just feels so happy to me about Thanksgiving. LOVE it!

Today I sat down to create something and was at a loss! I didn't have any swaps due or projects that I was just itching to try so I grabbed one of my card kits (Thank you again, Nancy! :)) and went to work! I am slowly trying to compile a box of cards to keep on hand for birthdays and gifts and little hello's! I made this card with my Grandma in mind! Thought it looked like a perfect 'Just Thinking of You!' (in January!) kind of card! I have been trying to get in the habit of sending more cards out and am hoping this will help! I used several of the goodies from the kit! Nancy did a beautiful job coordinating everything! The background is Cuttledbug embossed and I edged everything with my silver marker pen. I added Stickles to aa of the edges and used some leftover snowflakes from my rub ons from yesterday's project!

Here is a card for my box of cards:



Off to eat dinner and wait for my kiddo to arrive! Have a wonderful night! I will be back soonest! :)

Some days it just doesn't work out...!

Ok, so I was so excited to try this project! I ran out and got the adorable snowman rub ons and the pretty clear gold ornaments with the gold toppers! I figured how hard can this be, right?! Just rub the rub on onto the glass ornament (say that three times fast!) and fill them with a little snow glitter and there you have it! I was going to make oodles and give them out as gifts! I was going to hang them everywhere! It was going to be my mass produced give one to everyone gift...but nope!! This turned out to be a big ole' flop! LOL The rub on kit came with the three most adorable snow people ever! I started with my favorite and it ripped in half!! Yikes! So then I moved on to the next one and had to really work with it. It refused to lay flat on the ornament so it has creases. Not the quality project I was hoping for! LOL Some days it just doesn't work out! I filled this one with snow and will write it off as a dud. I kept one snow person and plan to find a flat surface to apply him to! I will keep you posted to his future! :) In the mean time here is my ornament:



I think this would actually work really well with tiny little rub ons like snowflakes! Maybe one day I will give it another try, but for today my glass ornament/rub on production line has come to a screeching halt! LOL

Have a super day! Be back soonest! :)

Crafty Critters Challenge #12

Hello and happy Monday! :) It is time for another fun CC Challenge! The challenge this time was to make a backpack! It was truly a challenge! This cute little guy required a lot of effort! I was pretty pleased with the result though! I made this for one of my niece's and will have to make a duplicate for my other little niece! These were supposed to be filled with goodies so it will wind up holding Reece's Peanut Butter cups! I didn't use any kid images, but made it very flower-y and princess like! I silver embossed the flowers onto the Rich Razzleberry and just love the contrast! I used lots of eyelets and Whisper White Ribbon for the handle and straps! This was a really fun project! The rules were:


This is technique TLC232 and you can find tons of samples.

Steps to this challenge:
1. make a backpack box
2. it must be a childrens theme.....superheros, animals, princess, prince....you name it you can do it....but it MUST be a childs theme.
3. fill it with goodies as a gift to a special child in your life
4. post your creations on your blog between Nov. 16th and 23rd. As you post I will link your name to your blog post!









Hope you are having a great Monday! I will be back soonest! :)

Fa, la, la, la, la...!

Hello! I have a few Christmas cards to share with you today! I made both of these from a card kit that I received recently from Nancy! She was a wonderful SS and spoiled me with several really nice kits! These cards practically put themselves together! :) Can you believe that Christmas is right around the corner?! Not me! I just cannot get over how fast this year has flown by! I really wish I could figure out how to slow down the time!

Here are my Christmas cards:






Hope that you had a great weekend! I will be back soonest! :)