Some Recent Craftiness...

I've been slowly playing with my November Cocoa Daisy kit (which I just am in love with!)...last night I put this layout together using goodies from it and I was happy with how it turned out. I've been holding on to these photos and just didn't ever feel as though I had the "right" papers or embellishments to go with them. I am happy with the patterned paper from Basic Grey's Indian Summer collection...they just seemed to work perfectly in this case.

We're off to see family this weekend (Zoey's already got her bags packed for grandma's house!) and will go to the Packer game this Sunday and this time I am going to try and remember to bring my camera along! Have a great weekend!

Someone Deserves a High Five!

Zoey's first Kindergarten Parent/Teacher conferences were last night...I have to say that it would be hard to top just how proud of this little girl I was last night while we were all sitting there together with her teacher sitting across from us in her classroom. She's pretty darn super-duper! Super happy parents of one (okay, I just have to say "super" once more!) super happy little girl! The neatest thing I think was that the day prior to her conference Zoey's teacher saw me in the hall and said (with much enthusiasm) that she was so excited for our conference, that she just couldn't wait...and due to her amount of enthusiasm I was a bit nervous about what it was exactly that she was so excited about sharing...or, what did Zoey do that showed she is directly from my genetic lines of dorkydom? =) Alas, her secret is safe for a bit longer it seems...her teacher was genuinely excited about sharing what achievements Zoey's been making in school thus far. One more time, super proud of this little girl!

12 Ways We Know the Holidays are on the Way: Mini-Book

Today I am sharing a fun little mini-book that I created using library pockets as the pages. After cutting out the library pockets from my lss's Ellison die-cutting machine I created tags from cardstock and rounded the corners using my corner rounder punch and threaded a book ring through holes that I punched in the top corner of my library pockets.



The patterned papers that I used to embellish the book are all by We R Memory Keepers with the exception of the Glazed (dot) cardstock by Bazzill. The snowflakes were cut out using the SLICE portable die-cutting machine by Making Memories.



My journaling strips were typed up in word (I think I used Century Gothic type) and I simply printed it off on cardstock and then used my paper trimmer to cut into strips.



A super fun and easy way to record what your family does every season to get ready for the holidays! This is going to be a class that I'll be teaching next month at Paper Studio in Minocqua, Wisconsin.

Marks Paper Company : The 12 Creative Days of Christmas + Tea Booklet w/Tutorial

Getting ready for the holidays is going to be extra special and a bit more fun this year with The 12 Creative Days of Christmas going on over at the MPCo. blog! Stop on over here to read and learn more (updates will be every Sunday and Wednesday)!

Here is a fun project that I created recently for Marks Paper Company using the Old Fashioned Courtship Collection of papers. The idea is that the book is a tea booklet and you can adhere little tea packets to each solid cardstock piece within the book (you could always change this up and simply add photos in place of the tea packets). I was thinking that this would make a great teacher gift for the holdays with a nice handmade mug to go along with the tea.



Supplies needed for this project: 2 sheets of color coordinated cardstock, 1 sheet of Marks Paper Company patterned papers (Old Fashioned Courtship Collection), Corner rounder, Ink + stamps (Hero Arts), Embellishments, Ruler, Paper trimmer, Scoring blade, Craft knife

Project tutorial can be downloaded for free here.

Birthday Weekend...

and what a good one it was! It started out with my receiving an email from one of the editor's over at Creating Keepsakes magazine on friday letting me know that they had seen a project that I had created which they thought would be perfect for an upcoming article in their March/April 2010 issue, and would I mind sending it in to them for publishing? Ummmm, mind? YAY! =) This is the first time that I've gotten a pub without submitting something for a specific call...very cool indeed!

Then, on Saturday I worked at my local scrapbook store and the owner and I spent the entire day rearranging the store and the studio space which, while it may not sound like it, was alot of fun. Those that know me well know that I love rearranging things here at home and it turns out it's fun at my workplace as well (it must be a design thing)! And I suppose that it helps that I have a boss who, when we are both at the point where we're sweating and tired and plain out pooped, will call out "SUGAR BREAK!" I mean, who can not enjoy themselves while hanging out with someone like that? Saturday evening Ethan had prepared for me a wonderful meal of wild rice, mushrooms, onions and some of the vegetarian Quorn bits of chicken with hot buttered corn on the cob (my absolute favorite food is corn on the cob, I would eat it every day if I could!) and there were my favorite flowers on the table as well...yellow daisies. It was a very special evening and it was nice to have it be a quiet one.

Sunday (today), Zoey and I did a bit of birthday shopping (thank you Ethan!)...I found these boots:

which I did not pay full price for. I actually got them on sale for $59 and had a special $10 off coupon to apply to my purchase so I was pretty happy about that. I love them. I've been wanting these Frye boots for so long now but just can't justify spending that kind of money on a pair of boots (when I'm really not a hardcore country/horseback riding kind of girl to begin with...I just want to look like one apparently!). I used some birthday money that I got from my dad to purchase a copy of The Recipe Club: A Tale of Food and Friendship by Andrea Isreal and Nancy Garfinkel and a copy of Martha's latest Christmas edition of Living magazine and to sweeten the deal even more, I got a birthday package in the mail from my in-laws and one of the goodies inside was a copy of Barbara Kingsolver's newest book, The Lucana: A Novel. Yay! I also had a special visit from my mom, little sister and step-dad in which they basicly drove up to see me (a five hour drive, one way) and drove back. They delivered a homemade chocolate birthday cake with peanut butter frosting (my grandmother's recipe), a table runner that my mom had quilted, a gift certificate to a favorite coffee shop here in town and some other special things including several hugs. What a crazy, lucky girl am I! Oh, and the Packers must have known it was my birthday today too as they pulled out a win from somewhere for me! It was a great 32nd birthday!

Today I Turn 32...

years old. In the picture here I was 12 years old (it was 1990) and I was posing for my mom in my new (to me) basketball uniform (and yes, I realize I look slightly possessed!). I also realize that my uniform really wasn't all that cool but this was Junior High we are talking about so they weren't the coolest of uniforms to begin with (those all went to the girls in high school). And I think it's safe to say that I wasn't all too concerned with "cool" at this stage in my life anyways (due to my lack of hairstyle and would you check out those stylin' hightops, complete with the velcro straps at the ankles!!!!) All I can say is, thank goodness I grew out of this ackward stage! =) Truthfully though, I may have grown out of my physical geeky-dom (some may argue and say only just somewhat!) but I just moved on to even more ackward and strange life stages while on my way to becoming an adult. But it's all been real and crazy and at many, many times, fun...and that's something to be thankful for. Hoping that this 32nd year will be the best yet!

Stamped Acrylic Holiday Gift Tags

These gift tags I originally created for a workshop that I helped teach at Paper Studio, Inc. I first stamped on the acylic tags with white Staz-On ink (and let dry), I then cut out papers from the Making Memories FaLaLaLa collection of patterned papers and embellishments and adhered the papers to my (now dry) tags using a permanent adhesive roller. The ovals and scalloped ovals were cut out using Spellbinders' nesting dies. I adhered my scalloped and plain ovals to my tags using 3 dimensional adhesive after stamping my sentiments on them. A fun and unique gift tag to attach to gifts this year! All supplies available at Paper Studio, Inc.

Matryoshka Nesting Dolls Fold-Out Card

I cannot tell you just how excited I was to find a template to create this card over at Zakka Life. I am getting Zoey a set of Matryoshka nesting dolls for Christmas this year (something that I was on the look-out for last year) along with the book The Littlest Matryoshka by Corinne Demas Bliss. This card now of course will be accompanying the gift under the tree...or perhaps even in the tree!



[ETA: The nesting dolls can be purchased (along with the book) at Hearthsong here.]

The patterned papers that I used are all by Cosmo Cricket, I used the scalloped border punch by Stampin' Up for the red dot paper along the bottom of the dolls and used clear stamps by Hero Arts for one of the dolls faces and the "i luv you." Other embellishments include chipboard (cherries) by Basic Grey, letter stickers by Creative Imaginations, buttons by Chatterbox, and gemstones and brads by Doodlebug Designs, Inc. Pretty much everything that I used to create this little gem of a project was from one of my kits from Cocoa Daisy.

Such a fun and sweet little project, I think that I'll also be making Zoey a blank cut-out of these dolls too so that she can make up her own "set" after reading the story.

i love her..i love her..i love her..

This morning was hurried and rushed and we were all running late. I had an appointment in another town to get to right after dropping Zoey off at school and she was being pokey and stubborn and I had too much to do myself to help get her organized and ready for the day. She was grumpy and I was too short with her. I was literally holding my electric tooth brush in my mouth brushing my teeth while packing her lunch for school. We made it to school on time and I just made it to my appointment and now I am missing her and wishing that our morning would have been a better one and had gone differently. Being a parent is such a mixed bag. I wouldn't trade it for the world.