A Belated Merry Christmas!

Christmas is over...a big sigh of relief is heard around the world...but I know many, like me, always feel a little sad that it is over.

We had a wonderful day filled with family....it was crazy, hectic but so much fun. David and Taylor were so excited about Santa.  I love Christmas through the eyes of the little ones.  So much magic!

I had made this 3D card for the grandkids which I gave them a few days before Christmas with a little treat.  I think the card was played with a bit too much and is now a heap of nothing but it was cute while it lasted.  And since I have the file I can make another one whenever! ;)

It was created from a file designed by Lori Whitlock who makes the most amazing stuff!!!

I just love the detail in it.  It cuts so beautifully on my Silhouette.  I am hoping Lori Whitlock comes out with more designs for other events!  The sentiment was stamped with a Hero Arts stamp and Memento pigment ink...and then embossed with clear embossing powder.

Here is a close up of the layers:

I think Santa would have liked this card! :)

Happy Crafting and for me...a day of resting! LOL!

I entered this in the Anything Goes Challenge at Simon Says Stamp HERE.

Wham, Bam...Smack!

....in the middle of the holiday season.  Christmas is just 6 days away!
I've been out of the blogging loop for a while.  Where have I been you ask?  Well, having my foot butchered!

Ok, not really butchered but up until hour 48 following surgery that's exactly what it felt like!  Thankfully I am doing much better now and the throbbing has gone from massive to slightly less than massive!
Knowing I wouldn't be crafting much in the next couple of weeks (since I don't trust myself on stairs just yet and my craft room is downstairs) I tried to get a few things done in the past couple of weeks.  I made these ornaments for my scrapbooking ladies group with some blue vinyl, clear glass bulbs and a design from the Silhouette Store.  The tag is from a Hero Arts stamp and die set and stamped with Hero Arts silver ink.  I put a little "snow" in each ornament...I made 16 of them.  They worked up pretty quickly and I think the ladies who received them like them.
And since Scrapbookers believe in the "art" of preserving memories I thought the design was perfect!

As I'm not really able to be up and around and shopping (some benefit to having surgery this time of the year!) I have just been enjoying my nice quiet house with my pretty tree and lights.  What presents I did buy are wrapped and Hallelujah for gift cards! LOL!

And now a shout out for something totally different!  I love makeup and skin care products.  I am always looking for the next greatest thing...you know?  Things that will make me look 10 years younger (well, ok...2 would even be good!)...

I don't know that these products make me look much younger but they are fantastic!  What am I talking about?  Honeysuckle Soaps is a line of skin care products and soaps that are all natural. You can check the website out HERE.  I picked some up recently at a show and was skeptical but they were packaged in cool little bottles (and I am a sucker for packaging!) and I liked the minimal and not overpowering scents so decided to give the products a whirl.  I purchased "Glow Daytime Serum" which is an oil that I use sparingly on my face. My skin drinks the stuff up...and yep...those tiny fine lines around my eyes fade away!  It's true!

I also bought a bottle of the NightTime Serum which includes various oils (Vitamin E included) and extracts but also includes just a hint of lavender for that night time relaxation!  And it's all natural, too...and makes my face feel great as I settle down for the night.

I am so in love with this stuff I ordered more as gifts on Sunday and by Tuesday it was here!  I also have the Lavender body lotion that I put on before I go to sleep..nothing better than lavender at night for restful sleeping!

And it's all very, very reasonably priced and shipping is reasonable, too!!!
So if your face tends to need some nourishment and you lean towards natural things and not those icky chemicals that some of the high end cosmetic companies use give Honeysuckle Soap a try!  The company says they provide "food for the skin" and by George...I think they are right!

Give them a try....I think you will like it as much as I do!

Happy Crafting and Happy Facial and Body Products!

'Tis the Season to Be Busy!

I am sure everyone feels the way I do!  This starts the "oh my gosh, I'm so busy I don't have enough time!"  I know I have the same 24 hours a day that everyone else has but some people definitely seem to manage it better than others.  Me?  I am great at wasting time and then wondering why I am running around like crazy! LOL!

I did get my house decorated.  We bought a new tree this year....I had a 9.5 foot tree that just seemed to grow each year and got more and more difficult for my old man husband and me to put up!  So we gave it to my daughter and put up a pencil tree in our living room.  It looked so dinky for the past two years that I got it in my mind to get a new one this year.  It's smaller... 7.5 feet but wider at the base.  And it's one of that has a bit of snow and berries on it...as well as little "ice" chips and is just so darned pretty I can barely stand it.  And the piece de resistance is a rotating stand.  Too cool.  My tree does a pretty pirouette on its stand.

I haven't had much time for crafting but life is great! :)  I did play around with some additional vinyl this evening because I had a little time.
I made this little snowman ornament which is filled with that plastic snow stuff.  I just pulled the circles into my Silhouette software and cut it.  I didn't have any orange vinyl so I just cut and colored some white with Copics and a bit of Wink of Stella glitter.

I see that I have a top hat file that I may still cut out.  But how easy this was to make...
I also did another block or two.  Here's one I did tonight:

This was from a file in the Silhouette Online store...I just moved things around a bit.

And lastly I saw this great idea on a site devoted to Silhouette cutting machines.  I have always had this dilemma about what fonts to use and what fonts cut well, etc.  I do profess I am a font lover...and addict like many of you out there! LOL!  Anyway I saw an idea to cut some of the favorite fonts in vinyl and attach them to the cover of the Silhouette. 

Like this...

It gives a great visual of how the fonts look cut....so I think this is a nice beginning!

And that's it for today!!!

Tomorrow is another day and hopefully I can get more crafting done!

I hope you do, too!

More Fun with Vinyl!

Here's hoping that all of you celebrating Thanksgiving today have a wonderful day!  And best wishes to  those of you celebrating the start of Hanukkah!

We had our big family dinner on Sunday so my husband and I will be off to celebrate with friends today.  We all have so much to be grateful for!

Anyway, on to crafting.

I bought these small flat glass ornaments at Hobby Lobby a month or so ago (and will make a note to myself to buy lots more next year as these flat babies get sold out early!).  They work well for the vinyl newbie (me!) as you don't have such a curved surface to work on. 

I belong to a Silhouette Cameo group on Facebook and the things that people do with vinyl are just amazing...so many people do the most wonderful things with layering.  I'll get there.  Of course, first I need 483 different colors!  So I will need to start a new collection.

I made these very simple and festive ornaments for the little people in my life.  I love those little people.  They make me so darned happy.  Of course some of these are for my grandchildren but some of my friends have grandchildren and I adore their little people, too.

These were cut with the Oh Photo Shoot font downloaded for free from somewhere.  ;)  I also cut some 1/3 inch circles and slapped them on randomly....and on the back I put the year.

Oh so simple and fast.  And fun.

I simply tied some ribbon around the tops....

Here is a close up of one:

I think they will be cute hanging on a tree, don't you?

Again...Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Happy Hanukkah and Happy Crafting!

Christmas Tags: Part 3

Whoooooeeee.....I have been remiss in blogging this past week.  Life just keeps happening.  Time with the grandkids has been great...we did a photo shoot of our little BullDAWG (UGA) yesterday and here he is:

We had such fun trying to pose him (not successfully most of the time!)...we set him up on a bed....opened the blinds...put a heating pad under him and had a heater on in the room and he just slept most of the time.  Too cute!  But we never could get the really cute Anne Geddes type photos...we would "mold" him and he'd quickly unmold!  LOL!

We had fun, though!  My grandkids are so well documented, you know?  Digital photography has been life changing for me.  My husband says he only has one or two photos from when he was a baby.  My grandkids have thousands!!!  Amazing.  I. Love. It.

Onto Christmas Tags....here are the final four I made at the class I took....uh, two weeks ago!

The tag above was simply done by coloring stamps with markers on a tag cut on the Silhouette Cameo.  The coloring part is not my favorite technique.  Not much into "huffing"...I generally over huff or under huff.  On this tag I over huffed my sentiment a bit so it looks like it says "Merry and Nacht"...should have reduced my huffing and then it might have looked like "Merry and Bright"...like it was supposed to! LOL!

The tag below was done with the cutest little penguin stamp...which we stamped, colored a bit and cut out.  We added a tad of washi tape and some baker's twine and that was it.  Easy.

The third tag for sharing was a favorite....we punched the ornaments with an EK Success punch, stamped the date with a Paper Smooches stamp which we did before embossing it.  Added a few little embellishments and that was it!  I loved the bright and cheerful papers!

The last tag we did was this one:

Again we used some bright Christmasy papers, stamped "December 25" on a word bubble which was punched with an American Crafts punch.  The cute little Santa is an 3D sticker from Petaloo.  CUTE and fast!

That's it for today, my friends.  Thanks for stopping by and...
Happy Crafting!

Christmas Tags Archiver's Style

I have posted here about how much I enjoy classes I take at Archiver's.  They are not usually very difficult...and sometimes we all learn a few new things or get to play with some new products.  The annual tag class is no exception and I love making all the little tags.

I went with 2 friends...one of whom says she doesn't much care for the Archiver's classes.  I love them....what's not to love?  They do all the hard work and we just stick and glue and embellish and emboss.  And we can get caught up on all our yapping.  And they clean up the mess we make!  So again...what's not to love?  LOL!

Back to the Christmas tags....if I use them for family gifts I make the recipient give them back to me so that I can recycle them the next year.  I am like that.  It's my contribution to the greening of America.  LOL!

Seriously, the tags are generally too cute to toss so why not use them again I ask you?

Since I've taken this class each year for the past few years I think I have more tags than gifts to give.  A good problem to have, I believe....

We made 10 tags...I'll share 3 of those today.

The first was just some popped up paper with a square cut out to make it look like a fireplace.  How easy is that?!  And then we just stuck on some 3d embellishments...those stocking are made out of felt and so cute!

The second one was done with some silver cardstock and a circle punch, a stamped and hand cut tree, a Hero Arts banner stamp which was hand cut and some bling.  Easy and I like the way this little one turned out!

And the third one was done with a tag shape cut with a Silhouette design, some chevron washi tape, a stamped sentiment and a little punched snowflake with a bit of bling.

All were fast and easy!

So we tried to get a photo of me with the 3 little ones, David, Taylor and Wade, yesterday.  About 20 photos were snapped but none was great.  LOL!

We tried "look at Mommy", "put your legs down", "smile", "put your hands down", "put your hands down and smile", "put your legs and hands down and look at Mommy", "open your eyes and put your legs down", "sit up", "sit up and smile",  "open your eyes and smile and stop doing fill in the blank".  LOL!!! It is what it is! 
I love these kids!  I've told my daughter that for Christmas I'd like a professionally done portrait of the kids.  Good luck to that professional!

Happy Crafting!

Christmas-y Layouts

I actually pretty much have all my 2012 Christmas layouts done.  But of course that doesn't account for the previous 11 months of 2012! LOL!  I freed myself up from scrapbooking chronologically many years ago so I don't stress about that anymore.

I took my scrapbook to my daughter's the other day and my grandson, David, had the best time looking at and talking about the layouts.  I got such great joy having him do that.  Just tickled this ol' Omie's heart!

Here are a few simple layouts done with some printed papers I got at a huge after Christmas Michael's sale.  I basically just slapped some photos down and added a few little touches.  They were pretty quick to complete and I'm glad they are done and now can be shared!

 and the companion side using a 6 slot We R Memory Keepers page insert.

And here they are side by side:

And here's another 2 page spread:

And the side by side:

And that's it for today!

Happy Crafting!

'Tis the Season...

.....ok, not really the SEASON yet but it's getting close and for the crafters "time is a'wastin'"!

I took a class at Archiver's last night where we created 10 Christmas tags.  I love this class and try to take it each year.  The tags are all so doable and most I think are just so cute.  We did 10 tags in 2 hours so it was a quick class but fun, fun, fun!

We used Hero Arts stamps, sizzix dies, stickers, washi tape....all kinds of fun stuff!

Here are the 5 of those we made and I'll put the other 5 up tomorrow:

 The one below was done with a sticker, a stamp and a couple of piece of washi tape.  So easy!

Fun, fun, fun!!!

Happy Crafting and for those of you in the U.S. I hope you get out and vote if you haven't already!!! I did advance voting and waited in line an hour.  My kids went this morning and were in and out in 15 minutes.  Aaarghhhhh.... At least when I waited in line it was really pretty out and today it is rainy in Atlanta.  I think I will get an absentee ballot next time! :)

Somewhat Back to Normal...

...but not totally, of course, as New Year's is just a few days away.  We will be getting together with friends for a New Year's Eve Celebration and then we plan to have our kids and grandkids over on New Year's Day for a southern traditional meal of ham, black eyed peas, greens, and corned bread. 

I had a wonderful Christmas Eve and Day with my family.  We had Christmas Eve at my daughter's and had our big family meal of standing rib roast then.  I did that cooking and it was fun enjoying the meal in their new home as they celebrated their first Christmas there.  I got to put AG to bed on Christmas Eve after we read 124 books including several Christmas ones and told him how Santa was looking in his window to see if he was in his bed asleep so that Santa could bring toys.  That didn't work great but finally did get him to bed.  These are a few pictures I took with the two grandkids in front of the tree on Christmas Eve:

So much for photos.  LOL!  I took about 125 photos yesterday but doubt I got any really good ones!  Oh well....it is what it is!
Here is one I got of our cute little elf on Christmas morning:

Hard to believe she will be 7 months in just a few days...

Here's David playing with his little Home Depot work bench that Santa brought him.

 He really liked it!

 Taylor wasn't impressed with much except for wrapping paper and ribbons or whatever David didn't want her to have (of course!).  Here she is in a pink and brown hat that Omie made for her.  I love the way it turned out.

I got a few scrapping related gifts that I'll post about later...

Happy Crafting!