Day 21

Today is your Christmas Menu - when do you have your big dinner - Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? What do you do for breakfast? MMMMMm - it sounds yummy just thinking about it!

baking?

Today's question is do you do holiday baking? I love to bake for the holidays. I usually host a cookie swap at the beginning of Dec and I keep baking until Christmas. I love to share fun holiday treats with my family and friends. Here is one of my favorite recipes:

Mint Truffles
1 8oz package cream cheese - room temp
1 package mint oreos (or store brand) - finely crushed
chocolate chips

mix cream cheese and oreos in mixer until well blended. shape into 1" balls - i use my smallest cookie scoop. Chill for 30 minutes. melt chocolate chips and dip the oreo balls into the melted chocolate. I keep the chocolate over low in a double boiler so it doesn't harden. I used about 1 and a half bags this time, but it just depends on how much chocolate you want around the truffle. Chill until hard. (a few hours)

ENJOY!

Day 19

Today is your letter to Santa - yes a letter from you - a grown up. I have a friend who wrote a wonderful Christmas letter to Santa a few years back, I wish I could share it with you - it was so heartfelt and wonderful to hear her wishes for Christmas that year.

I stayed up til midnight last night making pjs for the girls for Christmas. With a friends help, I finished both pair of pj's, pj's for me, pillowcases for the girls and she made two sets of pj for the girls build-a-bears. Once I finish the handstitching stuff, I'll get a picture of them to share. I'm so very excited about them!

Day 18

Today's theme is "that special Christmas present" be it one you've been given or one you'd like. I have a friend who asks for a certain necklace every year, she has yet to get it - would that be her special present????? What's yours? I'd love to see your answers.

I'm off to make the Christmas p.j.'s this morning, hoping to get them done in time for Christmas, I'm not a very quick sewer!

Once again, I'm behind

wow- I missed the whole weekend! It was a crazy busy tiring weekend, and i'm really glad my little one slept in this morning so I could too.
Day 15 is Christmas Music, - what is your take on it?
Day 16 is "What are you grateful for this year?"
Day 17 is "The Christmas things I love"

Yesterday was little dude's birthday and we had a nice quiet day with family. Tonight we are headed to "Jump Planet" and she requested a special ice cream cake. Another full day today!

Day 14

Day 14 - the people you spend Christmas with. Usually for us it is family, but this year we will be visiting some friends.

This is a horrible picture, but having given them all away and not checked the photo before I did that, this is what I have. I used Lizzie Anne Designs tea cup and marvy punches. We made 60 of these for the people who work with the children at church - yes we have 60 teachers and leaders for all those kids. It was fun to make. The back of the tag says "to special friends so dear, wishing you a cup of cheer! Thanks to whoever came up with that!

the journal

So, between my responsibilities at church and getting ready for Christmas, the journal is not getting done. The journaling is getting done, just not put on pages. I'm hoping this weekend to have some time to catch up, but who knows how the weekend will go! I'll still post the daily propmts, and soon have some pages to show.
Day 12 is Now & Then - what is different.
Day 13 is Describe your ideal Christmas

Day 10 & 11

I missed a day! To be totally expected, but I was hoping not to! So Day 10 was "traditions" and day 11 is "a christmas tree" - real or fake? who decorates it? etc. I'm hoping to have both pages up later today, but realistically, it will probably be tomorrow! Have a good one!

Wrapping Presents

I love to wrap presents! When i was younger, my brother and I would see who could disguise their presents the best...this included adding weight to the box and even making it an odd shape. Today's entry is about wrapping presents.

How do you know Christmas is in the air? Is it the sights? the sounds? the smells? something you do?

Shopping!

Today's topic for my Christmas Journal is "shopping" this year I am way behind in the shopping department. I'm still wondering what to get my girls. . . I'm hoping to go out tomorrow to do some shopping, we'll see how it goes!

I've decided that if I really want to finish this journal, it's been much harder to do each day than I thought, that my pages must be simpler and focus on the what this journal is about...the jounaling. So my pages are going to become much, much simpler! And that makes me excited about knowing I can finish this project on time!

Have a great weekend!

Advent Calendar

Day 7 is Advent Calendar - do you do one? It's a fun thing that I plan on making each year - never quite get to it, but it remains on my to-do list and hopefully someday i'll get it done! Here is todays page. Enjoy the day!

baby, it's cold INSIDE!

So today, day 5 is a not so good memory. Mine aren't of a not-s-good Christmas day, but of events leading up that make that Christmas memorable. I have a huge to-do list that I need to complete, so I'm off to get one or two things checked off before the girls get up from naptime!

not loving it

A good Christmas memory - that is the entry for today in my Christmas Journal. I'm not liking my page, and I will probably change it, but I wanted to get it up for now. It is feeling a little plain and needs some embellishment or something, but that will have to wait til later.

The winds have died down for now, but I think they are supposed to pick up again tonight. So here is my page for "Cards", pretty simple but I like it.

Supplies: SU Real Red, Old Olive and Certainly Celery Cardstock and Ink, white cardstock, ISUn the Spotlight, Snow Flurries, Petals and polka dots stamp sets, SU scallop circle punch

Cards

Todays theme for my Christmas journal is "cards" - do you send out cards for the holidays? If so, do you make them? what is the status for this year? I'll try to post my page in a little while, but I wanted to get the theme on before the lights go out! Scrapbooking and stamping are the perfect no-power activity. As long as I sit near a window so I can see, that is! Have a great Monday!

The weather?

So today is "describe the weather"...what is usual for this time of year. As I wrote that usually it is rainy, rainy, rainy, it was snowing outside and Little Dude was sure that it was Christmas Eve and Santa was coming and we didn't even have our tree up yet. We assured her that it was not yet Christmas and the tree went up this afternoon. The snow is now all gone and we are back to the rain and wind that is the norm. I sure hope we have power in the morning!

Intentions

This is later than I planned on posting, but that is how my day is going so far. I helped with a craft day at church, we cut down our Christmas tree today and I have been cleaning the house so little dude will stop asking to get the Christmas decorations out (that is next on the list), add a sick little girl to the mix who was up all night and snow covering the ground and it hs been a busy day! That is the subject of todays layout - what are your intentions with this Christmas Journal? Mine is to remember the memories of Christmas and share the love that I have for the Magic of Christmas. I can't wait to see what you have to share!

Supplies: Paper; DCWV papttern, white cs, SU real red cs, old olive cs, Ink; SU Real Red and Old Olive, Stamps; SU Snow flurries, Polka dots and petals, tall tales numbers, Lizzie Anne Designs Holiday Cheer, Misc ribbon and SU red Gingham ribbon, Marvy Scallop Circle punches

Christmas Album

I've been putting together my supplies for my Christmas Album and am so excited to begin working on it. I went through my list again, and made some changes as to what I wanted in it. If you are playing along with me, please share your pages. Also, feel free to change the topic of the day - some things are important to some people and not to others! I don't think I shared this before, this is the card my club members made last month, it holds a gift card inside - unfolds at the celery strip of paper.

Happy Turkey day!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you have a great day with family and friends!

mom's card

This is the Christmas Card I made for my mom. I borrowed a layout from SCS and atered it just a bit. My mom choose this stamp set Sleigh of Toys from SU for me to use for her cards. It is a great set and I'm sad it retired! All supplies are Su except the ribbon(misc), the little silver swirly thing (Joanne's) the ribbon is tied to and the white and blue dotted paper (scrapworks)and eyelets (Joanne's). The colors look a little off in the picture, but the brown in the sleigh, border and ribbon are really the same color.

the last card

Here is the last card:

Supplies: White, black and Cool Caribbean Cardstock, Basic Black ink, blush blossom, pretty in pink markers, scallop cirle punch, circle punches, white gel pen, Shapes and Shadows

busy, busy, busy!!!!

I'm sure everyone is super busy as the holidays appraoch, just like I am. I've been busy trying to get packages in the mail for Christmas, hopefully today they will go out - if not definately tomorrow! So here is one of the projects I had last week, a friend ordered 6 sets of cards for teacher gifts for Christmas and I wanted to get them done early. It is only letting put some of the pictures on in one post, I'll have to do another post with the last picture.

Last year, I read about a scrapbook that you make one page of each day in December, so this year I decided to do it. I made my list of what each day will be and starting December 1st, I'll post one topic each day. If you'd like to play along you'll need to have your album size determined by then. I think I'll be making a 6 x6 or 8x8. And I will probably be using scraps, I have a huge scrap pile! I think this will be lots of fun and a good way to record all those Holiday Traditions!

Supplies: Blue Card; SU Night of Navy, Cool Carribean, Certainly Celery and Whisper White cardstock and ink, SU Priceless and Too Terrific Tags Stamp Sets, Circle punches

Frog card; White, Black cardstock, Scrapworks orange paper, SU Black Gingham ribbon, Unfrogettable, Celery and Old Olive Ink

Doodle This: White cardstock, Blue Bayou and Wild Wasabi ink, glitter gel pen, SU Doodle This Stamp set

Striped card: lt. brown cardstock, su rose red petal prints, bashful blue, marigold morning, wild wasabi cardstock, su moss gingham ribbon, misc blue ribbon, SU so many sayings and small sayings

Thanks SO much: misc green, white and blue cardstock, SU cranberry crisp cardstock and ink, bashful blue ink, SU Whimsy Jumbo wheel and So many Sayings

ideas?

Hello - I'm looking for ideas for a mini album? Anyone have any ideas...Maybe my brain just isn't in the scrapbooking mode because I can't come up with a single idea that sounds good to me!

sisters

This is a page I did for the design team I was on at my local scrapbook store. It was fun and a little challenging to use that silver beaded stuff. My sister-in-laws are so cute! It looks like the brads in the upper corner are pearlized in the picture, but they aren't - they are just silver brads that I drew a white line around with my gel pen. I used my white ink pad to smudge the edges to give it some extra little something...

Supplies: Black CS, sisters patterened paper, sliver brads, silver beaded stuff, pink cs, ribbon,su word window punch.

My Keiki

What do you think of the new layout for my blog? It was time for a change!

Another favorite page...This is a page I turned in at my LSS for a page layout contest--it won! That was exciting for me. Unfortunately, the store has recently closed (the contest was last spring). I miss having a store so close! This is a picture taken of little bit last spring while we were in Hawaii. One of my all -time favorite pictures of her. I crossed a few things off my list today, but I also added a couple...

Supplies: DCWV Mat stack paper, SU Tempting turquoise ink, certainly celery ink, round tab punch, Celery ribbon, Petals jumbo wheel, white gel pen, EK turquoise frame, misc ribbons, primas

Ahhhh!!!

Does anyone else feel like Christmas is coing too quickly and you to-do list is growing rather than shrinking! It's all about prioritizing for me - I have one gift done and shipped (the receiever wasn't all that happy about having her present sitting in her house for 2 months and not being able to open it!) Next up is more gifts that need to be mailed, I cna't wait to share them with you all, but it will have to wait until after Christmas! I did finish a baby gift this week and will get it in the mail tomorrow so i can share it later this week. A couple of weeks ago I found a special on prints for just 6 cents each - so I ordered all the photos I had waiting to be printed - 385 photos came in the mail to me. I had to narrow them down - I was close to 500. So i have a rather daunting stack of photos to get scrapped! I thought I would share some of my favorite layouts that I have done recently. I love this one because I rarely get to use orange and blue and green together on a page. My girls are very girly girls and almost always wearing pink. Little bit said the other day to me "only pink mamma" Oh dear - she is only 22 months old! She learns a lot from her big sis! I used my crop-a-dile to set the three little orange eyelets in the ribbon. I love that tool! It has to be right at the top of my must have tools!

Supplies: Bazzill cardstock, patterned paper from a DCVW stack, Misc sticker letters, EK little yellow ducks, SU Wild Wasabi double stitched ribbon, misc blue and orange polka dot ribbon, SU Only Orange ink,

It's the little things....

like finding Razzberry M&M's on a trip to the grocery store! Oh HAPPY DAY for me! I was so excited I bought 3 - yes three big bags. My husband just laughed and my girls "think" I'm going to share, well... they may get one or two...M&M's that is. I have to say that I probably won't be too willing to share too many of these... I plan to keep them hidden in my secret stash and only get them out when no one is around! I'm terrible - I know - it is only candy!

onto a crafty thing... the is a little post-it-note holder I made for the teachers at church to say thanks for all they do. I also wanted to show how I mounted my "so many saying" set fro SU (it's a hostes one) I cut them all apart and took off the grey foam and mounted them to some EZ mount like stuff (I don't remember the name) that I got from Lizzie at Lizzie Anne - she's my neighbor --how cool is that! Have you seen that Splitcoast has new member companies and hers is one of them -- check it out , Meredith has a fun sketch challenge listed. Anyway - I love how this turned out, I use this set way more often than I ever would have as a whole. So easy to line up those dots and "ever grateful" along the bottom.

Have a wonderful Halloween weekend!

Supplies: SU Only Orange Paper, misc patterned paper, SU pumpkin pie and chocolate chip ink, SU scallop cirlce punch, 1 1/8" circle punch, and SU Priceless stamp set (loving that one too)

Halloween again!

I am finally getting around to uploading a picture. I don't know where the last week or so went! I feel like I've been super busy, but I couldn't tell you what I've done or that I accomplished anything of significance, other than reading Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Great Book - read it in one day. This is the card we made at club this month, it is a scratch'n'sniff. It didn't "work" as it was supposed to - I followed the directions but I was doing something wrong. In the end, I stamped the bat in green galore and then colored over it with a versamarker and then sprinkled on the e.p./sugarfree drink mix and heated it. If someone know why it didn't work using a versamark pad (I just got a clear image with a few dots of color) please let me know! This one smells like Lime, the other one we did was grape (switched the purple and green)

(supplies: SU basic black, lovely lilac, whisper white cardstock, lovely lilac, green galore, only orange and whisper white ink, batty for you stamp set, see you around wheel, 1 1/4" & 1 3/8" circle and spiral punch, su green ribbon and misc green fiber)

Cleaning Time

I've decided to clean out my stamp drawers to make some room for new rubber! Pleae email me at katieellsworth@hotmail.com if you are interested. Here is a list of sets that I'm selling, The price does not include shipping. These are all Stampin' Up sets, all are in great condition:

Smile $6
Smile Accessories $6
Favorite Greetings $10
Miracle of Christmas $8
Sketch It $15
Short Sayings $5
Tag Numbers $10
Peace on Earth $10
Alphadot Alphabet $15
Bitty Bolds $10
Fun Filled $10
Fun in the Sun $15
Petite Patterns $5

More Halloween!

I had so much fun making these cute "spooky"'s ! So fun to give as a little Halloween treat! I started with 4" coasters, mod podged paper over them, added my letters (cut with a cricut) then embellished and tied together with fun yarn.

Supplies: SU Batty for you, Booglie Eyes, Misc accents and ribbon. The paper is from a really old paper pack from Joanne's!

Instructions for the Christmas Planner

Good Morning and Happy Friday! I've had a few requests for the instructions for the Christmas Planner so here goes...please let me know if something isn't clear.

Use a plain two pocket file folder, you can remove the three hole tabs with a staple remover if you have them in your file folder. I had a hard time finding them without the tabs. (I used a red folder on the first two photos so it would be easier to see the fold than an all white one, on the final project I used a white one)

Fold the outside edges into the center of the file folder, leaving a gap down the middle. If you do it too close, it won't fold up properly once you get it embellished.

Then decorate as desired. Use an 8 1/2 x 11 peice of card stock and cut it down the middle so you have two peices that are 4 1/4" x 11". Then cut those peices into two pieces that are 4 3/4" x 4 1/2". Use the smaller peices on the bottom pockets and the bigger peices on the top of the folder.

For the front, decorate the back of the second panel from the right in the first picture(see prior post for the fronts). I got the calendar from splitcoast, hmm I'll have to look and see if I can find that again. I saw this idea on splitcoast and put my own little spin on it. If you want it to be a quicker project, use designer or patterned paper. I hope this helps - if you need something else, please let me know!

Supplies: SU In the Spotlight, Sleigh Full of Toys, Snow Flurries, In the Loop alphabet, misc papers and ribbons.

Razzberry M&M's????

A week or two ago, my hubby brought me home M&M's - not just plain M&M's, but Razzberry ones! They were so yummy! And now I want more and I can't find them. If you've seen them, please tell me where to get them!!!!! I know that I want them only because I can't find them. Saturday at one grocery store, I found boxes and boxes of Razzberry M&M's, but nothing was inside of them! I looked through every box on every shelf even if it wasn't the bright raspbeey colored box, hoping one got into another box, but no luck....

A happy/sad day

First the sad part - Little dude went off to her first day of preschool away from home today. I was really excited for her to go, 3 days a week, 3 hours a day... just me and little bit, some bonding time for us and hopefully time for me to get stuff done! But over the weekend, I was a little sad for her to go, who is going to entertain little bit while I shower and get work done. Of course while I was getting little dude ready for schoool, little bit had to do exactly the same things. She needed her hair done, she needed a back pack, and all the rest. Pretty cute, but I think she is going to really miss her big sis.

Onto the happy part, I was somewhat productive over the weekend. I told my mom I'd make her some cards with some new sets. She likes to buy the sets, but I'm ususally the one who uses them. Sorry mom, but it's true... So here they are(sorry the pics are a tad blurry, i'm working on taking better pics):

My Girls

I was asked to post a pic of my girls, and these are some pics that i just picked up yesterday from JCPenny's. They turned out fabulous! These are my favorite two... I hope to have some fun stuff to post after this weekend!

Tagged

I was tagged by Tricia at Lizzie Anne a few days ago and I've been putting it off, don't know why...

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car) –Jane Civic
2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, favorite cookie) -Mint Chocolate Oreo
3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name) -Kell
4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) –Green Giraffe (favorite SU animal stamp at the moment)
5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born) - Kay Englewood
6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first) -Ellka
7. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink put “The”) -The Blue Vanilla Creme Frappucino
8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers) -Lane Charles
9. STRIPPER NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne, favorite candy)-Curve M&M's
10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names ) -James Kay

I'm going to tag Brandy! :)

Christmas Organizers

This is the project that has been keeping me busy and away from my computer for the past few days. It shouldn't have taken so long to finish these, but with a sick little girl who didn't want to leave my lap, things didn't go as quickly. They are finally done and will be in the mail within the next day or two. Who are they for you ask? My wonderful sis-in-laws! I hope they like them and use them and haven't already made them for themselves! I saw this cute idea on splitcoast and just had to c.a.s.e. it.

supplies: SU Sleigh Full of Toys, Perfect Presentation, Snow FLurries, In the loop Alphabet, Old Olive, Bliss Blue, Real Red, Certainly Celery Ink and Paper, SU Scallop Punch, circle and oval punches, Lizzie Anne Holiday Cheer Stamp, Scrapworks patterned paper, misc embellishments and ribbon

baby card

I made these cards a while back for a gift for a friend who had a baby. It is my favortie baby card - I love the colors and the scallops!

baby GIft

This is a baby gift I made for a friend who had her baby last week. I combined a couple different ideas I saw on splitcoast, and this was the end result. I hope she likes it! The "a" is cut out from a font from my computer and traced in reverse onto cardstock.

Supplis: SU Simply Scrappin kit, Cameo coral ink and paper, misc buttons and ribbons, dollar store frame

Mr. Brown

I had a lot of things on my to-do list yesterday, and while I got a lot done, it wasn't all that was on my list. Mr Brown brought me a box at 10am, a lot earlier than I expected. So all housework was forgotten and the stamps came out to play. I just love Batty for You and the scallop circle punch from Stampin Up. Here is one of the projects I did yesterday, I saw it on somewhere, but I don't remember where. I need to start remembering where I see cute projects so I can give credit where due! The picture doesn't do it justice, but I just couldn't get a good shot, maybe I'll try again later in the day. I finished a couple other projects too, but those are gifts so I need to get them in the mail before I post them. Have I mentioned that I love Halloween????

Supplies: All Stampin Up unless noted. scallop circle punch, 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" circle punches, lovely lilac, wild wasabi, basic black, white, ink and papers, black gingham ribbon.

Finally finished

I've been working on this bat table runner for a few weeks now, ok maybe over a month, and I love it now that is is done. I see something I want to sew and always think it will be a super quick project, but it hardly ever is! I have another one of these to make, for my mom. We both love Halloween and I have a new table that it will look great on - I hope she has a place for it too!

In the beginning....

So I decided it was time to start my own blog to share the fun projects i've been working on. This is the project that my club did last week. I saw the idea on Kristen Werner's blog (when i figure out how to add a link, i will do that), I tweaked it a bit and we made a holiday gift planner. It was lots of fun. I love it when something I try to "copy" turns out great!