Very SU! Day

I had a very crafty Christmas, how about you? I got to give hand made gifts to my family (who always appreciate the time that goes into hand made items), and I received some great new gadgets to play with too. I haven't had time yet, but stay tuned, within the next week or so I should be able to show you some creations I've made with the I-top I got for Christmas!!!!!! Now, on to some cards.Today's a very Stampin' Up! day. Everything you see is from SU! unless otherwise noted.This card uses the Praying for you stamp set, eyelet border punch, green grosgrain ribbon, and Little Leaves Sizzlits Die. This card uses one of my all time favorite SU! stamp sets, Baroque Motifs. It also uses gold embossing powder, Mellow Moss Taffeta Ribbon, and 1/2 pearls (Kaisercraft)
A little sneak preview for the week...I'm working on a fun layout using Making Memories Just Chillin', line, my Silhouette, and some very "boy" pictures. When I finish it up, you all will be the first to see it!

Winner Winner!

I know you've all been waiting for this, so without further ado the winner of the give away is:

Rosalee who said...

Very Cool Projects. My favorite is the ornament. TFS
XXX Rosalee

December 15, 2009 8:32 AM

Congrats Rosalee! Send me an e-mail at potaylor@hotmail.com with your address and I will ship your prizes out to you.
Thank you everyone for playing a long. I truly enjoyed reading all of you kind comments. I hope you all found some inspiration along the way.
Today I have a card that uses one of my favorite stamp sets from Stampin' Up! It's called Once Upon a Time. Love it! All of the inks, card stock, embossing powder, etc are from SU! as well. Now off to do some last minute Christmas baking!

Buttons and Bookmarks

Happy Friday! I was planning on having this post up yesterday, but got a little busy with holiday plans. That seems to happen a lot this time of year, doesn't it? Every year I like to make a little something for all of the women I'm related to (grandmas, mother, mother-in-law, sister, sisters-in-law, aunts, etc.). This year I decided to do these pretty bookmarks. It's 12" of ribbon per book mark (I used a pretty faux suede ribbon that I found at my LSS). On one end I attached a Button Blossom from Sassafrass. You get 7 of them in a pack for less than $4. They come with adhesive on them, but I reinforced it with some E6000 craft glue (any strong, clear adhesive would work). On the other end I sewed a coordinating button. Most of my buttons are from my Autumn Leaves bag-o-buttons, but any large buttons will do. I also reinforced the button with glue as well. I gave out 5 of these at a family Christmas party last night. I decided about 1 hr. before we had to leave that I wanted to put them in a pretty package. So, I had to come up with something I could do 5 of in 30 minutes or so. Here's what I came up with:
The box template was cut on my Silhouette SD from Pink Paislee Mistletoe & Co. and Pink Paislee Amber Road paper. I used my crop-a-dile to punch a hole on each side and tied the ribbon on the inside of the box forming a loop to hang the box from. Finally, I finished the box up by putting a button on the front, and a button on the back of the box.
Have I mentioned I love buttons? When in doubt, I reach for my buttons. Do you also remember that I have a giveaway going on this week? I was thinking, I should add this to the giveaway. What do you think? So, now the winner will receive the Stampin' Up! Stamp Set, the Kaisercraft rhinestones, and a hand full of buttons. Comment once per post this week to be entered. You have until midnight on Saturday to comment. You will receive 1 entry for each post that you comment on from this week. Random.org and I will pick a winner and have it posted by Monday morning. Thanks for stopping by! I hope you're enjoying all your Christmas crafting as much as I am.

A Few Fast Christmas Gifts

First, thank you all for your kind comments! They make me so happy that I just need to add these pretty KaiserCraft rhinestones to the giveaway.Remember it's going on all week, so leaving a comment on this post will enter you a second time for the drawing. The prize now includes a stamp set and the Kaiser Craft rhinestones!

Here's a set of Christmas ornaments I made. Instead of trading cookies with the neighbors, I give them one of these when they bring me home made goodies.
I struggled photographing these, but I think you get the idea. I just accordion folded strips of paper and put them into the ornament, used a rub-on on the outside, and tied a pretty ribbon through the top. Easy and pretty! These are a bit flatter than the classic round glass ornaments. I found these at Michael's.
My 3 year old made the following ornaments this year. Very similar, but more kid friendly:
The ornaments are plastic instead of glass (I found them at Hobby Lobby). They came with white foam balls inside. I put the foam into a plastic bag, added a few drops of ink from Stampin' Up!'s reinkers and let him shake, shake, shake away. He thought "a little glitter" would be good too, however, his version of "a little" was quite a bit! I then taped a rub-on onto the ornament and let him rub like crazy. Taping it on made it so he didn't have to worry about it shifting while he worked. I removed the tape and the rub-on backing when he was done.

The last project is something a friend of mine and I made for our MOPS steering team this year:Everyone got to take one of these beauties home with them from our Christmas party. The terracotta pot was painted red and dressed up with a pretty ribbon. 20 punched out circles form the ball on top. This great Christmas paper is from Crate Paper (one of my new favorite companies!).
I hope you're all having a very crafty Christmas!

6x6, Print and Cut, and a Give Away

As promised, it's Saturday and I'm here with a new post. You might want to get comfortable, it's going to be a little bit of a longer post today. First off, some background on today's project. I started out in the paper crafting world as a card maker. Then, about 3 years ago, I made my first scrapbook. It was a 6"x6" scrapbook, and I loved the ease at which it went together. About a year ago, I made my first 12"x12" scrapbook, and haven't looked back. I fell in love with all the extras you can add to a page that large. Recently I've decided to make a 6x6 scrapbook of Christmas, with a page for each kid every year. I want the book to grow each year with us. So, I've been working on this book and have been really struggling to let my style (which includes a love for lots of layers) show through without overpowering the picture. It's been tough! Here's a page I did from last year's Christmas (I just finished it yesterday) to show you what I mean about trying to find balance. I'm happy with how it turned out, but man did it take me a long time to do something so simple!Now, I'd also like to draw your attention to something pretty cool. As you probably know, I LOVE my Silhouette SD. A very cool feature with this, that I just tried out for the first time is the print and cut feature. You can print a design on your printer and then run it through your Silhouette, so you don't have to cut out each little item. The "1st day of Christmas" and all 3 "Merry Christmas" tags are print and cut images. Here's a close up.
My mind is full of the projects I want to do utilizing this very cool feature!

Last but not least, for today, I have a give away. Just leave a comment on any of my posts between now and next Saturday to be entered to win. You can comment 1 time per post. Comment on multiple posts and you will be entered multiple times. And for the prize? This fun Stampin' Up! Christmas stamp set:

Home Again!

I'm home now from what was an amazing vacation. Thanks for your patience with my blog while I was away. My husband and I got to spend a whole week together in Italy, and it was amazing. Here's one of my favorite pictures from the trip.
We visited Venice, Florence, Pisa, and Rome. Yes, I'm ashamed to admit it, we were the ultimate tourists and even took the obligatory pictures of us holding the leaning tower of Pisa up...
I'm planning on scrapping our trip, but we took over 600 photos, so the size of that project is a little more than I want to think about right now. Maybe after the holidays. So instead I have 2 cards, just for fun today. Oh, and did you see that while I was away my blog went up over 1000 hits? Check out my blog on Saturday for a little give away I'll be doing in honor of that mile stone!

Scraptiv!ty Release Part 2

Day 2 of Scraptiv!ty's December kit release showcases some of the great Piggy Tales papers in this kit.
Here's a fun book mark set. The book marks are magnetic, so they hold your place on the page as well as the page. Very cool!
Here's a quick and pretty card. The butterflies are an extra add on you can purchase to go along with the December Kit. They are from Chatter Box. The words are hand stitched.

I set this post as an auto post, so as you read this, I'll be away on vacation. Because of that, it will be a few days until you hear from me again. Thanks for your patience!

Scraptiv!ty's December Kit Release

I have been having so much fun with Scraptiv!ty's December kit! I have boys and the 5 Little Ducks papers from Piggy Tales included in the kit are perfect for boy pages, baby cards, and even a little wall art. This month's technique is making your own stamps. The kit comes with a few items to do this, and I can't wait to incorporate this technique into more of my projects. Today I've got 3 projects that showcase this technique.

For this layout, I used penscore (blue moldable foam) and rubber bands included in the kit to make a lined background for the journaling tag.

For this card, I used the same piece of penscore and bubble wrap to create a very subtle background stamp. Finally, I used an included stamping tool to make the circles and squares in the background of this canvas, which also happens to be a baby gift for my best friend who just had her first baby!

Just in case you haven't guessed, this kit also comes with a TON of buttons!
Check back tomorrow for 2 more projects using the S! December kit.