Bella Gift Card/Treat Boxes

Here's a quick kit I made today. The boxes are diecut and a RAK froma scrapping friend. The image is SurpriseaBella cut into a circle with my trusty 1-1/2" circle punch. I framed her, colored her with Copics, and stuffed the box with primas and flowers. I put ribbon around the box, I don't know the brand, got the roll at a rummage sale. There are four diecuts and images with the one handmade box to make a nice little kit.
I don't know about the New Year, but I'm going out with a creativity BANG with all the time off I've enjoyed! and I'm loving it!

My Coffee Tree Card

The card on the left is a mix of Stamp Sets. I used the tree from ther Limitless Limbs set from Pink Cat Studios, and the cups, coffee beans and sentiment are from Stampin Up "Espresso Yourself" stamp set.

I colored the image with my Copics, which posed a challenge. I had never used them on glossy paper before and boy howdy is it different! I blinged the images with CTMH Liquid Glass for the "pot" and the beans and Stickles for the cups. I also adhered the cups onto the limbs by first putting the cups flat onto the limbs and using a black fine tip marker to draw in the part of the limbs being covered up. Then I used dimensional dots and lined them up again.

To make the tree seem planted in the coffee cup, I used a swivel blade to cut out the line where the trunk falls into the cup. The sentiment didn't fit into my frame so I cut apart the words and adhered them to fit.

I love the way my camera's flash put the 3D shadows onto the background. My good friend Linda W. sewed some card fronts for me and I used one here to frame the whole thing.

A Note ABout the Stamp Below

I have discovered that the stamnped image I used in the post below is from Whiff of Joy and is called Melinda Helping Angel. I love this stamp, as well as Melinda Reading and Melinda Blowing Kisses!
Back to work today, but I managed to squeeze out one more project. This is a card I made, along with a card kit, all the materials needed to make the same card (colors vary). Again, the image was sent to me and I don't know who designs it. I love this little girl, so I'm going to have to go surfing on the internet to find it!

One More Project

Oh, it felt so good to relax and spend most of the day in my craft room. I cleaned off my desk, finished the cards I needed for a swap, and put together some PIFs,
One project I'm trying to complete before Saturday is the Sweetheart Partner Swap. I need to package up items for my partner on LuckyBug. Each item has to start with a letter in the word "sweetheart". This is the item for the letter "A", an Altered Notebook.
I loe the image, but don't know what stamp company it's from. I receive several images with no identification, and I know this is from a popular series. Anyone know it?

Altered Matchboxes

I love these tiny altered boxes, and you can really pack them full of small embellies like jewels and Skittles and flowers and eyelets and brads. There are three already altered and one box is ready to be made into a tiny treasure chest.

Quilt-a-Card Card Kit with Handmade card

Okay, so I'm not a sewer or quilter, so this card is not sewn, but as you can see, you can make any type of cards with this kit. I used Basic Grey for the patterned paper and stuck the cup on with dimensional dots. I hand drew the steam rising from the cup and added Copper Stickles to make it a little blingy. The heart is a leftover 3D sticker. You can't see it very well, but I used VersaMark ink from SU for some subtle backgrounding. You can stamp any sentiment on the inside.

I have a huge mess to clean up. We had Christmas dinner with the whole family, and since everything ran late, we left a mess in the kitchen, as well as the basement. Hubby is in charge of the basement, and he's almost finished. I have another dishwasher load ready to go, and I need to take the leaf out of the table so people can actually move around in the kitchen!

Next holiday, New Year's Eve. We're having company in, since we have Bella overnight. Nothing like a full house to ring in the New Year!

Here's a card I just made for a Birthday card swap on LuckyBug Yahoo Group. The image is SurpriseaBella, the words inside and out are unknown from a RAK I received from a fellow crafter. The patterned paper is Basic Grey, and I colored Bella with my new COpics. I glitzed her up a bit with both Liquid Glass from CTMH and colored Stickles.








The card below is for Scrapbook Place. I made this 6x6 card using Paper Adventures cardstock, while the patterned paper is leftover from other crafting projects. Bella is of course the centerpiece, colored with Copics and glitzed with Liquid Glass and Stickles. It comes with enough paper and supplies to make four more 6x6 Birthday cards and I'm offering it as a Card Kit PIF. The inside sentiment reads: "May your birthday be as special as you are"

That's all the time I have for crafting. I'm expecting 10 people over to our house for a belated Christmas dinner. Turkey's in the oven, granddaughter is screeching upstairs, which means she wants grandma, her daddy is sick with a cold so is halfheartedly watching her, and the power has gone out here twice today.

Volunteers are sandbagging the river due to all the snow we've had has almost melted. It's in the high fifties here in Chicago, and it has been raining all night and day. We're higher than a lot of hte suburb I live in, so as long as we have power, our sump pump will keep out the water, but some folks live closer to the river and they flood every year, just not very many times in December!!

Weird, weather, huh?! Well, I better baste the turkey and check my list. Happy Holidays!

'twas the day after Christmas

and in my craft place,
I saw all my presents
with a smile on my face.

The Copics, the papers,
the stickers and such.
It pretty much added
to almost too much.

My craft room was crowded
I thought with a frown,
My shopping spree nature
I had to tone down.

My husband was right-
I had too much crap
I resolved then and there
to work with my scraps.

No more would I hurry
to the store for a coup
With the stock I have now
I would have to make do.

So look to my blog
in the new scrapping year
I'm using leftovers
without shedding a tear!


SO saying this, I will show off the lovely new colors of Copics that my daughter gave to me this Christmas. That's all the presents in the way of crafting. We've got one more dinner to go to, or rather host, tomorrow, when my sister and her family return from visiting the inlaws in Las Vegas. Christmas was great, and hope yours was too!

Blog Candy Ends Tomorrow

Oops, I was so interested in this blog I forgot to mention she has Blog Candy offered up through tomorrow. Check out her fabulous work:
http://chrissyd723.blogspot.com/

From Our House To Yours

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Before the snow washes away in the mild weather rain we're expecting tomorrow and Saturday, I thought I'd post this postcard photo of our home. The last snow, which came yesterday, was the very wet, very heavy kind. And our poor little blow-up penguin didn't make it. It's behind the bushes on the right, very deflated.

Here's a picture of this year's Christmas tree. I've had the tree up for a week or so now, but the lights and ornaments and garland, ah, that's another story. The garland went on early yesterday morning. Nothing like the nick of time!

I bought new ornaments this year, all teal and silver. The garland is a mix of silver and white. We put up white lights on the tree this year. I've never had a "designed" tree before, and I must say it looks pretty. But I miss the kids' homemade ornaments, and the Hummel globes from my grandmother, and all the special ones I've collected through the years. Next year we're going traditional. Maybe I'll mix and match.

Now this is a picture with a story. My grandma is 98 years old, so the gifts she gives us are pretty much bought by my mom, and then given to us at Christmas "from" her. This year mom was running behind on a lot of activities she normally has finished by the beginning of December. That's what she gets for going on a cruise to Hawaii around Thanksgiving--no pity here. Anyway, after the presents were opened, my grandma asked us all what she gave us.
When it came time for my mom to answer, she told her she got a pair of pajama bottoms from her. Gram said, "Just the bottoms?" and mom replied, "Yep, I wear just the bottoms."
And since we all were born with a good imagination, we all started laughing...because she meant to say just the bottoms, cause she wears Tshirts for the tops!
I guess you had to be there (I'm still snickering about it).
So even though my sister and her family were in Las Vegas this year, and all the cousins were at home celebrating life with my uncle, who can't leave the house while his immune system is wiped out (chemo and radiation), CHristmas was low key, very different, but still a time of laughter, memories old and new, and plenty of fun.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!

Christmas Eve & New Year's Scrapping Resolutions

No new pictures, as I am posting while on my Christmas present, my new laptop. Hubby will remain a keeper at least for another year. Christmas came early in the form of my granddaughter Bella. We got her this morning and will keep her overnight until noon. What a great holiday this is turning out to be!
Meanwhile, thoughts turn toward the new year and the many promises we make to improve ourselves. Besides my repeating resolution to put more organization into my home, my family, my work, my crafting and my life, I have scraplifted Heidi's resolution to make 365 in 365 next year. Between pages, cards, and swap items, I'm aiming for 365 items in total. I don't think it's an easy goal, but it is still a realistic one.
I also resolve to live by the motto: less is more. I'm going to try and pare down my supply and demand less new items. Looking at everyone's craft area, I feel like I have overindulged in paper and stickers and alphas and so many new cool things I just have to use. I am beyond frugal when it comes to saving scraps of paper, but they are out of sight so out of mind when scrapping. I'M GOING GREEN!
Finally, I'd like to join more swaps and maybe restock my store of ATCs. I'm almost out, I use them on cards and pages and on altered items. I love to also see other people's art on these little cards. They inspire me and teach me new techniques.
So that's what 2009 will look like to me. What's yours?

My Scrapping Space

So in order to qualify for blog candy on LuckyBug Creations blog (see link on right), I took these pics of my scrapping space. Here is the table at which I create. It gives a false sense of organization. Little does the viewer realize that I swept all the clutter behind me and out of the camera's frame. It's called Staging, I learned this from HGTV's The Stagers program, all about staging a home to sell. Very interesting, and as you can tell here, very successful.


This is my thrifty rummage sale find. $50 not only bought me this large cumbersome but very roomy piece, but three husky fellas to cart it over to my house and place it in the perfect spot in my scrap room. Don't let the crooked handles distract you from the very organized look of this furniture. Did I mention it was on wheels? A bonus, as I can move it out from the wall if I lose something behind it or if I wanted to capture dust bunnies with my vacuum. (By now they have formed their own warrens)
Now that I have finished all my Christmas cards, and brought my Christmas boxes down from the attic, I found the SIX BOXES OF CHRISTMAS CARDS I PURCHASED LAST YEAR AFTER CHRISTMAS. They were so cute I figured I couldn't make them cheaper or cuter. Each box is of a different design and when the card opens, the inside decorations either pop up or hang by tiny threads and makes the whole effect 3D. So now they are parked in my file drawer, where I will be opening the drawers all year long and re-discovering them (frequently). In sight, in mind, for next year!

I Love Snow Days

I went to bed and wished for a snow day, and when I woke up the ground was covered with white stuff, the streets were unplowed and the schools had called off classes. Time for me to play, and play I did!

I couldn't resist making another Christmas card with my new favorite stamp set. This time I mixed twinkling lights with holly and ornaments, coloring them with my copics and Stickles and Liquid Glass. I fell asleep mapping out this card, believe it or not! The idea of stamping and then cutting the image into segments was in my head as I dozed off. It looked way different, because I had imagined different sized and shaped blocks of stamped image, but I like this clean look. I also decided on a non-traditional pink background, and let it peek through the negative cut of the word Christmas from my Cricut. The Merry is in red and loses itself in the background color but I kinda like that too. I embellished with a couple diecut Xmas light bulbs (Stickles for extra glam) and put the star on at the very end to follow the triangle pattern they're always talking about in the scrapbooking mags "the eye gets pulled along the three points of the triangle for a more focused view..."

Then there was the leftover picture, the one I really like of my sister, year unknown. Every Christmas I can remember as an adult, she would wear her Santa hat and pass out presents, digging far behind the tree for those stragglers, making sure everyone had a gift in hand to open. Her smile in this photo brings Christmas into focus for me. I will remember her smile and her job as chief elf and Santa's helper long after I remember the presents I received through the years. I love the mix of colors that the background paper pulled in, and used them for my photo and journaling mats. I have an irrational fear of white spaces, so I had to stamp the Santa face on the patterned paper, even thought it technically wasn't a "white space". I think this may be the least embellished page I've made in my Christmas album yet, but it looks complete to me, so I'm putting it into the album before I add...I don't know,something!

Just Had to Do One More

I had stamped a couple images of the tree before I stamped it on the patterned paper shown in the post below. So I pumped this new card out tonight in double time. I wish my camera could pick up the glitter of the Stickles I used to color the light bulbs and the snowflakes, and the shine on the ornaments and the red bird that I got with Liquid Glass.

I think I spent more time looking for a ribbon to go onto this card before I gave up and tied fiber to it. I used the last of my black net, too. Ah well, back to the drawing board!

I just received my newest stamp set from Pink Cat Studios. It's called "Limitless Limbs" and here is my first card. The set comes with two styles of trees and a humongous amount of small stamps to embellish the tree. I used the owl and the Christmas tree light bulbs.

The biggest mistake I made was stamping the tree directly onto patterned paper--that meant stamping the tiny tiny light bulbs onto white cardstock, coloring and Stickling them, then cutting EACH ONE and adhering them to the branches. Next time I'll try to stamp the tree onto white and use pp as a back drop, etc. It was very time-consuming but I like the way each light bulb twinkles.

I used liquid glass from CTMH to make the owl pop, along with a dimensional dot behind it for dimension.

The little girl looking up at the owl is a 3D sticker. I tore two pieces of white cardstock for some added dimension as snow banks, and pulled and fastened one corner of the pp down to break up the squarish look to the card. Of course, I had to add a snowflake or two, you know me and snowflakes!!!

I can't wait to have some play time for this new set. There are stamps for a Halloween tree, birthday tree, cupcake tree, valentine tree, and even a cute little monkey and a banana. Looks like I won't get any sleep tonight!!

ATC-sized Christmas cards

I love ATCs. I love making them and I love collecting them!

I had a package of small-sized envies, just the isze of an ATC. So I thought I would make these cute little ATC-sized Christmas cards for my coworkers. We're having a holiday lunch on Tuesday so I can pass these out then.

Some of the above were made using ATCs I have collected through the years. I want to thank all my crafting friends for their tiny creations on these cards, but some of them didn't have names on the backs.

These cards were made using 3D stickers, fiber, foamies, jewels and slide mount frames.

I think my co-workers will like these miniature art treasures, don't you?

Just visited Kim's blog and loved her candy and her poem she lifted from other blogs. I don't know who originally wrote this, but it is SO me:

'twas the Night Before Christmas

'twas the night before Christmas,
I'm glued to the tree.
I'm wondering what Santa
brought just for me.

Could it be cardstock
or chipboard or lace?
Or a Slice, I said,
with a smile on my face.

And that's when I heard him,
"Hi Santa, " I said
"You know....good little girls
Should be in their beds."

"I know I should Santa,
And now I've got caught.
But I was just so excited
To see what you brought."

"Well, let's take a look
In this room where you work.
He shook his head quickly,
And left with a jerk.

I heard him exclaim
As he put it in gear.
"You've got enough crap,
I'll see you next year!"

If hubby read this poem, he'd be in the ER because he'd laugh himself into a heart attack or stroke. Lucky for me, he doesn't blog---lucky for me, he isn't Santa Claus!!

Tears and memories

These next pages were the hardest to scrap. Although it was over 14 years ago that we lost dad, I hadn't really had to scrap anything with his photo in it. Just scrapping new events.
This layout is of 1993, my last Christmas with my dad.



We spent Christmas Eve at my sister's house. Check out my son, giggling over some secret funny thought. Hubby was sporting a beard that year.

Christmas morning was always at mom and dad's. I like that we got a group shot of us kids, all grown up.

The only problems with scrapping with old pics is the inability to crop and adjust and edit them. You have to take what you get. And I didn't have a lot to begin with.

Dad's in the recliner on the right. He had lost his hair with the chemo and radiation, and when it grew back, it came in all white!

We always finished the day off at grandma and grandpa's house for dinner and presents (dinner used to include goose and turkey).

Now we rotate whose house has Christmas morning, altho I don't include my house, becuse everyone comes to mine for the dinner and presents. Gram lost Grampa in '97, and gave up hosting the family. I stepped up to the plate with the condition that once it started at my house, it would stay at my house. I really love having the whole family, aunts and uncles and cousins and babies and everyone, here at my home.

So some Christmas traditions have come to an end, and new traditions have been put in place. Although there are family members missing at the table, they are still with us in our hearts, and in the smiles and laughter we share each year. I love Christmas!!

New Layouts of Past Christmases

After months of ill health and feeling lousy mentally about my job, my family and life in general, I walked right into an ah-ha moment on Friday. There was a spring in my step, a song in my heart and a smile on my face. I believe the old Pat is gone (knock on wood). I feel good physically, mentally and spiritually. Amen, halleluiah, nuff said.

I took my newfound strength and energy and finally started scrapping again. I managed to finish the last page of the Christmas layouts I had planned to scrap.

This first layout is of Christmas 1990. It was a difficult

layout to scrap, because one of my best friends, sitting with me and the kids on Santa's lap, died recently. Her death was accidental, out of the blue and hard to accept. Scrapping this page was a very emotional job, but I felt better, relieved, more in touch with my loss, than I have before.

The rest of the layout was easier to scrap. My son had just turned five. We had a corner lot, good neighbors and friends. We were back in Illinois with family.

This happened to be our last in Villa Park. We moved closer to hubby's work, way on the north side of Chicago, the next year. No matter, as long as we stayed around the area, close to my family.

Every year our tradition had been to gather at Mom & Dad's, no matter where in the country you lived, for stockings and Christmas cookies, followed by presents and breakfast. One year, we decided to open the champagne bottle(s) and toast the morning in. By the time we had all the presents opened and ready to go over the river and thru the woods to my grandparents' house, we were dsrunker than skunks . That tradition died with its inception!!

The next year we were cozy in our new home. My son had started Kindergarten, and although the drive was longer, I got to hang with my mom more often.

The last photo I'm going to post here is of his Kindergarten Christmas program. The pictures I'm using for these layouts aren't the best, but they are the only. After losing all but six of my photos from our Disney trip in 200 (flooded basement), I've learned to appreciate all my photos, no matter their quality. It isn't the angles and lighting of a shop that make the layouts, it's the memories attached to the photos and memorabilia that will keep the album passing from one lap to another.

The Start of Something Great

So here I am on Blogger now. I'll have to play around a bit to get more comfy here before I let go of Yahoo 360. It all depends on hubby's computer security. He's death on anything suspicious.

To inaugurate my new blog, I'm showing a Frap Set I made for my girlfriend's 50th birthday. I filled it with all her fave snacks and she went ballistic when she saw it. Of course it helped to invite her to a sleepoever at a suite in a local hotel, wine her, dine her and giggle and talk all night long!