Christmas Verse Starbucks Book

I had so much fun swapping goodies in a recent Secret Sister swap with Mary Leeson (Check out her Blog Here)! She sent me some wonderful goodies, including a treat box she developed from a SCS tutorial. I'll get some pictures uploaded soon of the other great stuff she sent me. Here is one of the things I sent her. It's my version of a Starbucks Book in Mary's favorite color combo, blue and brown. I used the coffee sleeves that Starbucks uses on its coffe cups. I added tabs that count down the days in December until Christmas with a daily Bible verse. (The pages are 4.25" x 2.25") Faith is a big part of Mary's life, so I wanted to join her in celebrating what Christmas is all about. I got the verses from Heather Scott and they are passages that I think you'll find uplifting all year long. Heather has the file loaded here (Scroll down past Ginger Joy). I hope that the Spirit of the season fills your heart and your holidays are filled with blessings!

Advent Calendar

Well, as you all know, I get the best ideas from Heather's Oz-Some Blog. Here's my version of her mini muffin tin Advent Calendar. My kids get a long holiday break, so we've been doing activities from our calendar since December 6th. Here's part of our list and if you'd like to see some photos of our holiday festivities, go here:

Take a bubble bath and make Santa beards

Bake Cookies
http://jas.familyfun.go.com/recipefinder/display?id=15068

Make Holiday Tags with office supply labels

Make Paper Drop Ornaments http://jas.familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts?page=CraftDisplay&craftid=10496

Decorate a Gingerbread House Kit

Watch a holiday movie together.

Read Santa Mouse then play “Santa Mouse Hunt” together.

Set up the Nativity Scene together & read the nativity story.

Make cinnamon applesauce ornaments and set out to dry.

Decorate cinnamon applesauce ornaments with glitter.

Update:

The bubble bath Santa beards and cinnamon ornaments were huge hits!  Happy Holidays!

Festive Faux Library Card Book

This cute book was one of our 2007 MHAG projects and is also a sampler of all the papers, cardstocks and ribbons in The Angel Company's Amelia collection. Perfect for the holidays and all year long, you’ll fall in love with Amelia!
I love to make mini books! They are great mementos and decorations too. Here are the details so you can make one for your mantel too!

Supplies
5 3”x8” Amelia Paper (V-838)
10 3”x1 Amelia Cardstock (B-317)
3 2”x3.5” Amelia Cardstock
1 Lg. Tag, 2 Med. Tags & 2 Sm. Tags from Amelia
5 4” pieces of Amelia Ribbon (B-217)
Be (T-2265)
Palette Burnt Umber (TT-218)
Corner rounder
Hole punch

Instructions

1. Score 3”x8” pieces at 4 7/8”. Fold in half with pattern out. Adhere a 1”x3” piece to the “top” edge of each folded piece where the white will be showing.
2. Round the top corners of each piece (where the 1x3 cs was adhered).
3. Score 4 of the 5 remaining 1x3 pieces in the middle (at ½”) and fold in half. (Use the fifth as an embellishment later.)
4. Lay out the “pages” of the book so that they will alternate facing up and down. Lay out the scored 1x3 pieces so that they will alternate between valley folds and mountain folds. If you want to make sure a certain pattern appears at the front of the book, figure that out now.
5. Begin assembly by applying adhesive to the inside edges of one page and sandwiching one hinge in one side. Move on to the next page, applying glue to the inside edges and adding hinges alternately with the mountain or valley fold facing up to make an accordion.
6. Use the three 2x3.5 cards to make tags to slip in pockets. Round corners, add tabs and ribbons and embellish as desired.
7. Stamp tags and pages with desired sayings.

Semi-Homemade Giftwrapping

If you like to make handmade cards like me, maybe you can relate to something that happened to me a couple of years back:

I was inundated by birthdays and had extinguished my supply of little girl cards. As I wrapped a gift for my friends' daughter, I thought, "She's so young, she won't notice if just this once I use a store-bought card." Well, she didn't, but as her mom helped her unwrap her gift, she exclaimed, "Julie? A store-bought card?!" Just then, her husband, who had been capturing the birthday fun on his camcorder turned the lens toward me and zoomed in, "What? No handmade card?!" Well, as you can imagine I was not only embarrassed but stunned by the realization that my moment of shame would be forever immortalized among their home movies.

Well, I think I have found a happy medium. My friend Yuki Zepeda likened this idea to Sandra Lee's cooking show.* I make semi-homemade cards and wrappings with things I have bought at the store. They still have a special touch, but they are super quick to make. In the slideshow you can see how I added stamping to plain (but oh-so-versatile) wrapping paper for a gift that is quick and classy. Real satin ribbon gives it a little extra style. My other favorites were the notecards I found at Target for $.74 for a package of 10 with the U monogram. I use all of my stamps that have the word 'You' and just cut that off to use with the cards. I also did some cute holiday cards where I just covered the U with a small image. Add a little Stickles or a little ribbon and voila! You'll be ready for all those birthdays that seem to all fall on the same weekend.
PS- Do you know why the second week of November has so many birthdays? It's nine months after Valentine's Day!

(*You know the one. The voluptuous blonde lady that turns husbands who like watching football and hunting shows into sudden cooking show fans.)

Peek-a-Boo Coluzzle Card Idea

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to rush winter, but our new Ornamental Snowflakes seemed perfect for this peek-a-boo card. It looks complicated, but it's actually easy and fun to make. I started by making a semi-circle notch with a punch (quicker) and sanding my Matchmaker cardstock. Using this semi circle as a guide, I marked the place on my card and made this peek-a-boo window with my Coluzzle. The trick is to make a half circle on one side and then the next smaller circle opposite it. With a little nudge, the circle will hinge in the middle, making this cute window.
I used a punch for the white circle too (since I was making 20 for a swap) but all of the circle sizes could easily be made with your Coluzzle.
Give this idea a try and post what you come up with! Email me if you have any questions . . .


Edited: I was contacted by Jean in the UK (Hi Jean!), who was wondering if there were some other tools she could use. Here is my reply:
You could achieve the same look with the Creative Memories cutting system too, but it sounds like you usually improvise with things around the house to save money.


I'm a big believer in using what you have on hand! Other items you could try to get some different circle shapes would be lids to jars and jugs or bottles. You can trace the circles and cut them out with a craft knife. You might even keep your collection and number them in size so you have your own circle cutting system!

A good tip for the peek-a-boo card is to use a ruler or straight edge to make sure your circles begin and end at the correct place. That's very important for getting the circle to "swivel". Hopefully you can figure the rest out with the photo, but if not, send me another message. I'm happy to help!

Card and Notepad Folio

I received so many kind gestures in the last couple of weeks, as I've been going through a tough time, so I decided to make up some thank you's.

I whipped up cards that were super quick and easy, using colored notecard sets that were on clearance. This gave me a little head start, but still allowed me to give the cards a handmade touch. When you are out and about, keep your eye out for notecards. These "U" monogram cards quickly turn into Thank U, Thinking of U, etc. with your basic greeting stamps. I covered the striped card with a birthday message, and with its colorful stripes, it could be used for a male or female birthday! Here are a couple more pictures. Enjoy and thank for stopping by!

Perky Penguins

Well, I needed some stamping inspiration and one place I love to go is Heather's Blog. She's got a fun sketch challenge, so I gave it a whirl.

I had been wanting to try out these Perky Penguins. Isn't he cute? Of course I had to add a little Stickles, and overall, it's a very simple design. An easy card to whip up a bunch of.

This card is very appropriate, since we got snow here in Colorado over the weekend! I snapped this when I went out to shake our maples so the branches wouldn't break under the weight of the snow!

Kamalaht Chalk Board & Embossed Stones

I made this chalk board a while back as a gift. It's a little bit of form meets function, with its cool Kamalaht accents. (I really wanted to keep it for my kitchen!)
It's also magnetic, so I made some little embossed stone magnets for it, starting with those polished stones you find in the floral section of the hobby store. I used black ink and Transcendence Embossing powder. You could use black powder, but I seem to keep Transcendence right within arm's reach. The great thing about it is you can use it with any kind of ink. You have to work fast with regular ink on paper, but you just stamp, sprinkle, heat and whatever color ink you are using has that glossy, raised look. The other nice thing is that those stray sprinkles of powder that manage to get left behind are clear, so they are almost unnoticeable.
Aside from magnets, I think these stones would make nice little "worry" stones with encouraging messages. You hold or rub your worry stone as you think or pray on your troubles and it helps you let go of worry.
Forget your worries and check out Heather's blog! She's giving out candy!

More Fall Supplement Scrapbook Pages

Here are a couple more pages using sets from the TAC Fall Supplement. Cha Cha paper is so fun for fall!

Kids Table Collection on the TAC Fall Supplement

I'm so excited to share some fun projects with you fromThe Angel Company's Fall 2007 Supplement! When I saw this set, Count Your Blessings, I thought about my kiddos around the Thanksgiving table. We always talk about what we're thankful for, so I made this My Blessings Coaster Placecard Holder. It's a great place for kids to write down their blessings while they are waiting for dinner. My blessings include my husband John, son Jack (8) and daughters Katelyn (6) and Lily (2). You can see a couple more of my projects within the supplement, including one of the kids and me in the kitchen. I hope you enjoy crafting and preparing for your fall holidays!