Merry Chirstmas Eve!

I know in my last post I said something about showing you the ornaments that I made this year, however I don't have any pictures yet of any of them so I'll have to wait. 

I wanted to make sure to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!  I hope that you are surrounded by love and laughter during this beautiful holiday season.  I'll be soaking up as much holiday cheer as I can handle the next couple of days to get me through the New Year. 

I'll be back next week!

Melissa

The last Christmas card

I have one last card to show you.  I love this Santa.  I used him several times last year too!

I'm officailly done with all my Christmas shopping, wrapping and preperation.  We'll be heading to Anthony's brothers house in Columbus for Christmas eve.  Then to Grammie and Grandpa's where Grammie will have excellent cookies to set out for Santa (I won't be able to stop myself from eating several).  I'll spend the next few days listening to Christmas music and praying for time to slow down.  I'm not ready for the end of the year, nor am I ready to face the fact that February is just around a short corner.

I'll be back on Friday to show you all the ornaments that I made this year

Have a beautiful wednesday!

Melissa

Friday is here!!

I've been working away getting ready for my party tomorrow.  The food is bought the house is decorated and I'm in the process of cleaning every square in of it.  I'm pretty sure have 2 and 1/2 baths is really over kill.  I'm pretty sure we could survive with just the one upstairs and the 1/2 downstairs.  3 toliets are a awful lot to have to scrub!  Thankfully I'm almost done, I'm down to finishing the laundry and scrubbing my floors.

Today I wanted to show you some of the ways I decorated our house this year. 

I've always wanted to have a fireplace, not to have a fire but for the mantel.  I think that stocking just don't look as nice if you don't have a mantel.  Usually we use our bookshelf and hang our stocking from that.  However this year I saw a fabulous wall hanging that you could hang your stockings from.  I would have bought it but I need 5 hangers and it only had four.  I know, I know you are think "but there are only four of you," which is true but we have a stocking that says 'The Sayers.'  My MIL made it for us along with the girls stockings and I love to have it out but we each need a stocking because thats one of my favorite parts of Christmas morning.  Everyone gets something in their stocking!

So this is what I came up with this year.  I cut all the words with the Cricut Winter Woodlands cart twice, once on white vinyl and once on patterned paper.  I glued the paper to the vinyl and then stuck it on my wall.

This is the corner of my dinning room.  The tree is for the ornament exchange at our party tomorrow.  I cut all the ornaments on my Cricut with the Christmas solutions cart.  I cute the bases on red and blue vinyl and the tops on shiny silver paper, glued them together, stuck them on the wall and added shiny ribbon to make them look like they are hanging.  I love this corner so much I might not ever take it down.  Seriously, Anthony won't be here to say anything about it and the girls won't mind one bit.

Close-ups of the ornaments.  I'm not sure what size I cut these at since they are all different sizes but they all did fit on on 12x12 sheet.

I'll be entering my creations into the Fantabulous Cricut "Deck the Halls Crawl" Challange.

I hope that you all have a wonderful Friday and a fab weekend!

melissa

Oh Wednesday how I love you!

Wednesday means only a couple more days that I have to get up and bundle the kids up for our short walk to school before the Christmas break!!  Wednesday means we are on the down hill slide to our wonderful Christmas party this weekend.  Yay yay I'm excited!!

Isn't this card just the cutest!  I love this patterened paper from Me and My Big Ideas and these cute little reindeer from Smirk stamps.  I love the little ornaments on his antlers. 

Happy Hump day everyone!!

melissa

Angels on high

Sorry for not posting yesterday, school was cancelled yesterday so I had very little time in my craft room yesterday afternoon. 

 Last night I attended a fantastic cookie exchange with the fabulous women in my neighborhood.  I have so far refrained from having one or two of those delicious cookies for breakfast.  We are on a two hour delay from school this morning so my kids would see me eating them and then I'd have to give them one and they always tell Dad when I let them have cookies for breakfast.  They seem to forget to mention the actual breakfast that I fix them every morning.

I only have a few cards left to show you.  This is one of my favorites this year.  I love how simple it is and of course pink is always a good choice.

Have a happy Tuesday!

melissa

where did the week go?!?

Seriously its already Friday?!?  I have a to-do list about a mile long and nothing seems to be getting marked off.  Why oh why did I decide to have a holiday party this year?  I'm a little stressed, not about the party, I could throw a party in my sleep.  I have some new that I've been putting off writting about, even really thinking about. 

Shortly after the new year my hubby will be going to overseas for a year.  The girls and I will be staying in Ohio, near their grandparents. I've done really well holding off on freaking out until after Christmas but I can feel the reality closing in on me.  What I really want to do is lay down and cry, and at some point I most likly will, but now isn't the time for that.  Now is the time for us to spend as much time as possible with each other, to celebrate this wonderful, cheerful holiday together and with those we love.   So the freaking out and hysteria can wait a couple more weeks.

I promise this wasn't all a pity party for me, I do have a card to show you.  I love this one.  Super simple and cheery.

Thanks for listening to my rambling.  I wish for you a fabulous Friday and a wonderful weekend.  Merry Christmas Friends!!

Melissa

BRRRR

Seriously its cold outside!!! I'm past being done with winter and its hardly started.

Heres a card I did with some Smirk stamps. They are just too cute!  The colors aren't quite right in the picture (its purple) but I love how the colors of the card are bright and cheery.

Well I'm off to tackle the laundry monster that keeps growing.  Have a fabulous Wednesday!

Melissa

Mornin'

Good morning to you.  If you consider cold and snowing with a two hour school delay (after you got up already at 6 and took your shower) a good morning. It wouldn't be so bad except I had errand to run this morning after I dropped Rhalynn off so I could be back by 9:15.  But since there is a two hour delay it means the road must be bad (which terrifies me) so no driving for me this morning.

Here's one more of my Christmas cards (which I haven't even sent out yet).  I hope to be sticking them in the mail today (cross your fingers for me) 

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Melissa

Birthday Girl!

Happy Friday morning everyone.  The clouds are clearing here in Dayton so its going to be a sunny day.  YAY for the sun!  I'm in full Christmas decorating mode at our house.  I've decided to have a little holiday party so I'm going all out this year.  I still have to purchase some lights for our front porch and put a couple more things on the walls and I'll be all done just in time to start cleaning.

Even though I'm in a Christmas mood I have a birthday card to show you.  I love this stamp so I'm sure you'll be seeing more of her from me.  I've been working on my shinny black hair and think I'm getting pretty good at it, now if I could just get some other hair techniques down I'd be doing good.

I hope you have a wonderful day and a fabulous weekend!!

Melissa

Pirate Chistmas

Well  we are halfway through the week and I have plans with my BFF on Friday evening, YAY!!  Did anyone else catch Glee last night?  What did you think?  I missed last week and forgot that I missed it so I need to go back and watch it but I'm not sure if I'm really getting the show this year.

I have a fantastic card to show you today.  I just love this pirate snowman and all the little extra stamps that came with him.  Isn't the polka dot paper fantastic?  I'm hoping to use him tons more.

Well I'm off to Michaels to get some glitter to finish off my Chirstimas ornaments for this year.  Have a wonderful day!!

Melissa

Happy Shopping!

Sorry for the extended absence.  I've been busy creating I just haven't really felt like blogging.  But I'm determined to start posting again regularly.

I hope that everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving!  Did you go out and brave the crowds on Black Friday?  I did with my MIL.  I scored my girls each a pink DS's for $89.  I think they are going to have a fantastic Christmas.  I've just about finished up all of my shopping.  Just a couple of people left to buy for.  In honor of a weekend of shopping I though this card was called for.

Have a fabulous Monday!

Melissa

Celebrating!

I hope that everyone had a fantastic Halloween weekend.  We trick or treated Friday night and then enjoyed a soup potluck with our neighbors.  Heres my little Cowgirl and Princess.  They had a wonderful time TorT with their friends.

Today is a very special anniversary for me.  Today is my one year anniversary as a non-smoker!!!  Do I still want one?  Oh my goodness yes!  Will I ever smoke one again?  No,  because I know that I'd never be able to stop at one. 

I also have a card celebrating Clara's friend, Trey's, birthday. I used a Scooby coloring page since he's having a Scooby Doo party.  The paper is from my scrap drawer.

I also wanted to share with you my contrubution to our neighborhood potluck on Saturday.  I have to say that I have some fabulous neighbors!!  I made my own version of What's New Cupcake's The house that boo built.  I love this cook book!!  I can't wait to try more of the cute cupcakes.

It looked better in person than in this picture.  Since my camera is still messed up I had to use my Playsport.

Have a wonderful Monday!!

Melissa

Orange Halloween tags

I've got the last  of my Halloween tags for you.  There isn't much difference from the others except they are orange. 

So my camera is officially broken.  I've tried several different memory cards and none work.  I can still take 5 pictures with the internal memory.  I have been able to take pics with my playsport video camera but they aren't fantastic.  I'll be shopping for a new digital camera soon but I still have another dentist appointment to pay the co-pay for.  Cross your fingers that I find an outstanding camera for a really fantastic price!!

Ingredients:

Manilla Shipping tags

Craftsmart Black acrylic paint

Target $ spot - paper, chipboard, ribbon

Stamp - Studio G

Walmart 3D stickers

I love Friday!

I'm so happy that its Friday. Tonight my friend Beth is having a Tastefully Simple party. So I get to have yummy dips and soups tonight! Yea!!

But on a sad note my camera won't work and I have no idea why :( Every time I turn it on it tells me that the card need formatting but when I format the card the screen reads "can not read card". The card works in my Kodak play spot, so I don't think its the card. I'm pretty sure Anthony is going to have kittens when I tell him that my camera that I've had less than a year doesn't work anymore. Not really a conversation I'm looking forward to.

I have some more Halloween tags to show you. I painted these citron green. Then added stickers, rub-ons, chip board and ribbon.

.

Ingredients:

Manilla Shipping tags

Craftsmart Black acrylic paint

Target $ spot - paper, chipboard, ribbon, rub-ons

Stamp - Studio G

Walmart 3D stickers

Jolee stickers

Everyone have a fabulous Friday and weekend! If you're in the area we'll be cooking smores over our firepit this evening about 8 o'clock, just bring graham crackers (I forgot to buy them).

Melissa

Halloween tags

Well Happy Wednesday!  So Gleeks how was Glee last night.  I wasn't able to watch since I had laundry to put away and bathrooms to clean.  Actually Anthony bought a new game and he was so excited about it I didn't want him to have to stop playing it so I could watch my show.  So I'll be watching it this evening

Today I have two sets of Halloween tags to show you.  I painted manilla shipping tags black, added a bit of paper to each and try to use up my stash of Halloween embellishments.

Ingridents:

Manilla Shipping tags

Craftsmart Black acrylic paint

Target $ spot - paper, chipboard, ribbon

Stamp - Studio G

Walmart 3D stickers

Scalloped Circle Nestie

Have a wonderful Wednesday!!  Thanks for stopping by!

Melissa

Bottle Cap Necklaces

Happy Monday everyone!!  I hope that everyone had an enjoyable weekend.  My was busy with not much time to be crafty.  However I do have several more things to show you that I did while I was on a blogging sabbatical....hehe.

I've been on a bottlecap kick lately.  I ordered tons and have been using them for all different things.  Here are two of the Halloween necklaces I did.  I punched small holes on the lips of the caps and inserted a jump ring them ran some clear stretchy cord through it.  I was actually looking for small ball chain (like you'd use with a dog tag) however its proving pretty hard to find.  So if anyone knows where I can get it let me know.

The first one ended up with tons of bubbles because I really wasn't sure what I was doing.  The second one came out much better.  My girls think they are so cool.  Rhalynn already wants more for her friends.

Melissa

Trick or Treat bags

First off I want to tell you that the pictures are pretty bad since I had to take them in my dinning room.  The lighting really bites in there.

I made these cute Trick or Treat bags for my girls with the Poochie Bag Tutorial from Happy Zombie.  I actually made 4 bags but the ones that I made for my friend, Rachel's, kids I forgot to take pictures of.  Basically they were all the same shape and size just different variations of fabric and ribbon.  I love how easy these were.  I've now made four things with my sewing machine and 4 of those things were the TorT bags.  The other was my test bag  that I made for myself (I'll post another time.)

I let the girls each pick their favorite Halloween fabric from Joann's and I chose the interior to match both of their choices.

This is Clara's, she had to have pumpkins on hers.

This is Rhalynn's.  I think she just picked the first thing that caught her eye.  Rhalynn simply loathes going into Joanns or any other crafty store.  I'm pretty sure she won't be that interested in crafting later on in life.  Which is fine with me since I won't have to share my stuff with her or fight over the fun tools.

(its purple)

We'll I'm off to the dentist in about an hour....say a prayer.....I have serious anxieties about the dentist.

Melissa

Wreaths made with paper

Its Tuesday again and Tuesday happens to be one of my favorite days of the week.  Well it is as long as Glee is on!!!!

I saw Shanon's version of this wreath on her blog The Gibson Girls and knew I had to try it.  I ended up making two because I couldn't decide on which paper line I wanted to use.  I'm definitely making more of these for Christmas gifts this year (if I don't  keep them all for myself.)

The first wreath I used Echo Park's Halloween Paper.

The second wreath uses the gorgeous toil and trouble line from the girls' paperie.

Since I posted something about my oldest yeasterday I thought I'd share a photo of Clara at the Boonshoft Museum.  They have a wonderful exhibit that has facts about sea life.  Clara and her friend, Trey, thought being a sea turtle was fun!

Melissa

I'm a bad blogger :(

I'm sorry that I've been such a bad blogger and blog follower.  I've been hard working on stuff in the evening just haven't really been on the computer much.  I hope that you are all having a wonderful fall so far. 

This is a wonderful Halloween wreath made with burlap from Craftaholics Anonymous.  Instead of using wooden letters I cut mine twice with my Expression using the Alphalicious cartridge on chipboard. I used some random papers I had in my Halloween drawer and then covered them with Glossy Accent to make them shiny.  I love how it turned out and ended up making several of them since I had the burlap.  It only took me about an hour to tie all the burlap and add the letters.  However I spent two days cutting the burlap into strips.  I probably won't ever make one again.

I just wanted to share that my Rhalynn got her ears pierced yesterday.  She's been wanting them done for awhile but I was holding off.  She was a champ, not even a whimper.  She's just growing up so fast.  Its hard to see the earing in her ear since they are so tiny but she is so proud of them.

Melissa

Happy Glee Day!!

Thats right!!  Tonight Glee once again will be gracing us with its fantastic songs and its fun storylines!  I can't wait!!

I just have a quick post of you today.  I've been hard at work on some things but my time is short so I'm squeezing projects in when I can.  I hope to start posting more often soon.  Here are three cards that I made in kits for a couple of my friends.  The SAHM's in my little neighborhood had a wonderful brunch and I helped them put these cards together after the wonderful food.

Have a Gleeful Tuesday!!

Melissa

Birthday Sailor

I haven't really been a blogging mood, lots of things going on and no time to sit down and just do it.  Which mean I have several thing to show you next week.  I wanted to show you this birthday card I did now that I'm sure my friend Jodi has recieved it.  I have to tell you that I was very pleased with her hair, I think it turned out pretty fantastic.  I'm a little upset that I didn't write down the colors I used on her skin since I think that turned out pretty well too.  I'll have to experiment a little I guess. 

Have a fantastic day!!

Easy Happy Birthday

Happy Monday morning to all of you!  Its a beautiful day outside even though its warming up here again.  I haven't had to much time to craft since I'm in the process of planning a BBQ for next weekend.  However I did slap this cute card together last week. 

Ingredients:

Paper: Core'dinations-BM Amulet, Stampin' Up

Embellishments: Soft Spoken-Birthday Banners

Melissa

Butterfly Gifts

Happy Tuesday friends.  I'm going to try to make this post pretty quick since Clara is chomping at the bit to go outside.  I've been going through all my stuff that I've bought to alter and came up with a couple of gifts.  I'm trying to get a jump on Christmas and birthdays.

My projects fit all of these challenges: Crafty Creations #81 Butterflies, Fab 'n' Funky #36 Flower Power, little red wagon #42 altered item, Simon Says Challenge make a gift, Crafty Catz #46 Buttons and butterflies, One Stop Craft Challenge ##94 not a card

Here is a couple of views of the mug.  I really like how this turned out considering I only paid less than a dollar for the mug.  Now I'm on the hunt to find some more.  I wonder if the $store has any that are similar?

Don't you just love the post-it notes on this?  I think I got it from the Target $Spot last summer.  I wish I had more of them.

Ingredients:

Paper: DCWV-Blossoms & Butterflies

Embellishments: Prima-Flowers, irock-rhinestones, Target $Spot-ribbon, making memories-button

Tools: Martha Stewart Classic Butterfly Punch, Tulip heat setter

Other: coffee mug, photo frame, post-it pad

Have a fab day everyone!

Melissa

Mini Celebration!

Well today has certainly been Monday!  I would have been perfectly happy to just get back in bed and pull the covers over my head until Tuesday. 

I made a set of 4 cupcake cards for my neighbor.  Each card is 2 7/8", perfect to tuck into a birthday gift.  I really enjoyed making them.  I might have to figure out a little box or something and make up a couple of sets to keep on hand as gifts.  As it happens these little cards fit into Simple Doodles Celebrate challenge and allsorts Mini Challenge.

Here is a close up of the wonderful cupcake with liquid applique.  I think it makes pretty good cupcake icing!

Ingredients:

Stamps: Stampendous-Freedom Cupcake

Paper: M&MBI-Chester Collection(Petunia)

Embellishments: Ribbon-Oriental Trading Company, Liquid Applique-pink

Melissa

TGIF

Well we've almost made it through our first week of school without any meltdowns or major problems.  Rhalynn loves school and according to her "my new 1st grade teacher is sooooo cool!" 

I've been hunting through my crafty stash trying to find my mojo and I realized I have tons of 3D embellishments like the banner on this card so I thought that I would pull them out and try to use them.  Then I was browsing the challenge blogs and thought the Card Patterns sketch 77 couldn't have fit this banner better.  I just flipped it on its side and centered the elements.

Ingredients:

Stamp: Cloud 9-Birthday Quotes

Paper: Core'dinations-BM Amulet, Stampin' Up

Embellishments: Soft Spoken-Birthday Banners

Have a wonderful Friday and a spectacular weekend!!

Melissa

Good luck on your journey!

Hello friends!  I've been trying to find the time to posts this card for about a week now.  I made this for my neighbor who left Ohio for  Colorado last week

Ingredients:

Stamps: TGF-O&A Journey, Paper Studio

Paper: Cloud 9 Designs-Chocolate Swirl, DCWV-Black Currant, PTI-White Cardstock

Embelishments: flowers-Prima, button-making memories, rhinestones

Ink: Memento-Tuxedo Black, Tim Holtz Distressed Ink-Brush Cordaroy

Have a fabulous day!

Melissa

A thousand sheets of paper!

Really!!  Amy is giving away 1000 sheets of paper!! Wanna know what that looks like?  It looks like heaven to me.

 And thats not all she's also giving away a fabulous collection of stamps.  Oh how my heart goes pitty pat when I look at this picture!!

So click here--->A Thousand Sheets Of Paper and find out all the details and leave Amy some love

Melissa

Birthday Princess

Today just flew by for me.  I spent most of the day looking for birthday party supplies with the girls in tow.  I think we've finially got everything we need for Clara's 4th Birthday.  My baby is going to be 4 very soon!!!!  I have to remember to order her cake tomorrow, I might have to buy a yummy cupcake too.  The Cakery has the best buttercream icing ever!!

I haven't mentioned it yet here on my blog yet but I won the Sweet November Stamps Baby Trick or Treats Princess preview blog candy from Amy Y's (the fabulous designer of Sweet November Stamps) blog last week. This is the contents of the fabulous package I got in the mail on Wednesday evening.  Thank you Amy!! 

 The moment I recieved her I wanted to ink her up but I had to finish some thing for my Mom that had to be mailed today.  So last night I finially got to ink her up!!  And since Clara nearly fell over with excitment when I showed her the cutie I deciede that she should be on her birthday card.

I simply cut off the candy apple and added a present and ta-da a birthday princess!  I used the fabulous sketch from Crazy 4 Challenges to pull it all together.

Ingredients:

Stamps: Sweet November Stamps-Baby Trick or Treats Princess, Studio G-"birthday", Fiskers-Put on your party hat (present)

Paper: My Minds Eye-Meadow Lark

Embelishments: American Craft-mini Marks Rubon (princess), Distressed Stickles-Antique Linen, Stickles-Lavender, Ribbon-from blog candy, large rhinstones

Tools: Martha Stewart-Floral Lace Border Punch

Have a fantastic weekend!!

Melissa

Post 2 of 2

Its another pink and black card because well I love pink and black and it gave me a chance to use some of the tiny pieces of the Black Currant stack I had.  I can't bear to throw any of it away so I have some really small pieces on hand.  I might be making several like this just to use them up.  I used Get Sketchy's Sketch #49 (I love it), along with the Fussy and Fancy pink and black challenge (again), and the Stamp, Scrap & Doodle CAS challenge (again).

Ingredients:

Paper: Core'dinations-In the pink, DCWV-Black Currant, My Mind's Eye-Medow Lark

Embelishments: Stickles Cotton Candy, scrap ribbon

Tools: Sizzix Encouraging Phrases embossing plate, Martha Stewart Cornice border punch

Have a fantastic evening!

Melissa