Thankful and a Little Village

The Chairman of Surgery hosted a holiday party for everyone in the department at his home a week ago so I wanted to send a thank you note to him and his wife.

I stamped the window from the Home Made stamp set by Papertrey Ink complete with curtains and colored the inside yellow like the glow of lights within. I cut it out, popped it up on foam dimensionals and framed it with a rectangle Nestability that I just embossed (not cut). The sentiment from Blessed by You by Waltzingmouse was just perfect for what I wanted to say with this card.

And finally I wanted to share with you a little winter village I created on top of my entertainment center this year.

I've always loved miniatures and have collected houses and trees over the years. These houses are little tin ornaments from Hallmark.

I love this little tree inside the coffee cup and the wind up tree hops all over when wound up!

The little tree by the farm house is actually a piece of a pine cone sprayed green that I picked up at a craft fair somewhere! Some of the bottle brush trees are from my parents when they were young and some are newer ones.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Houses for Friends

I made these two festive houses for my friends Bill and Sandy at work. Bill's real house is white with black trim so this one is for him.

And Sandy's house is white with blue trim - so this one is for her!

Inside the houses I packaged two home made Pecan Rum Bundt cakes (Yumm!!) I also gave them a bag of Sugar Spice Nuts .

I placed everything in these little baskets that I got at the Christmas Tree Shop last year. The star on the bag is from the Seasons of Love set by Waltzingmouse.

Doesn't this make a pretty package!? I just love making these cute little houses - they can be as fancy or as simple as you want to make them.

For my friends of the Christian faith - I wish you all a most blessed Christmas Eve and Day as we celebrate Our Lord Jesus' birth.

Stamps: Seasons of Love, LVery Vintage Labels No 4 - Waltzingmouse Stamps, Home Made, Signature Christmas - PTI

Paper: White - PTI, Going Grey - SU

Ink: Spring Rain, Melon Berry, Enchanted Evening - PTI, Memento Tuxedo black

Accessories: Wreath charm - Michaels, clear dew drops colored with Copics, Scor tape, scor pal, Home Made Template - PTI, bags - PTI, Star & Labels Four nestabilities, Copics - Y02, Y11, R29, Gold spica pen, foam dimensionals, saddle stitched ribbon - PTI, Martha Stewart Fern punch .

Crafting Some Gift Containers

Today I thought I'd share some gift containers I've made for my various gift giving needs this Christmas. Above are some bags of Sugar and Spice nuts decorated with stamped and die cut stars from the Waltzingmouse set Seasons of Love. I'm giving these to the Surgery Residents that I work with. They always need a little snack to give them strength during the long hours they work!

My friend Lisa makes beaded jewelry and I commissioned her to make this pretty little bracelet with a heart and the letter 'E' charms on it for my 4 year old God-daughter, Eden. I'm going to tell her it means 'I love Eden'! Lisa gave me the bracelet in this pretty star bag. I thought Eden would love to play with this cute little purse box that I made to tuck it all into! And finally - we always give our mailman a gift card to somewhere each year. This year I slipped a Dunkin Donuts one inside this festive stocking I made - template designed by Claire

Before I go - I just wanted to share this red sunset we had last Sunday just as our 12" snowstorm ended - I took this from our front door and you can see a corner of our decorated fence as well as the pretty red sky above our neighbors roof.

Thanks for coming by today!

An Early Valentine!

Congratulations to Benzi (Bev) the Featured Stamper over on Split Coast! I had fun checking out her lovely gallery.

We were kind of snowed in on Sunday and I was supposed to be cleaning up the house for Christmas - but I just had to make a card (of course!) It's pretty CAS but took me about 4 tries to get it to where it is (!?!) (some cards are just like that - aren't they?!)

I cased her candy cane Christmas card but made it a Valentine instead. I'm ready to move on from Christmas cards! I changed the embossing folder and used a heart instead of a candy cane.The sentiment and scrolly I stamped behind the sentiment in Versamark are from the Seasons of Love set by Waltzingmouse Stamps.

Hope you are enjoying the last days until we celebrate Jesus birth and that you aren't too crazy busy! I'm cleaned and baked - now I just have to wrap a couple of things and I can relax and enjoy! AHHHHHH......... what a good feeling! AND we have snow! Perfecto!!

Stamps: Waltzingmouse Stamps - Seasons of Love
Paper: White, Pure Poppy - PTI
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versamark
Accessories: Heart nestabilities, Leafy Branch Cuttlebug folder, foam dimensionals

A Snowy Tree

My good friend Anne (itsapassion) was the hostess for the Inspiration Challenge over on Split Coast this week. She showed us a wonderful web store called Fabulous Stationary. And it sure is fabulous! I was inspired by this snowy tree card.When I saw this card it reminded me of this tree stamp I won from Innovative Stamp Creations. I got it quite some time ago but hadn't used it yet - so today was a good day to get it out and ink it up! I embossed it in white directly on the blue card. I made a score line around the edges of the card to give it some depth since it's pretty much a single layer card.I used stamps from the Seasons of Love set by Waltzingmouse Stamps for the ornament piece. The sentiment is white embossed. I looped a piece of velvet ribbon through the top to represent the hanger on the ornament. I really like the blue/orange color combination on this!


We just got about 6" of snow over night - so our trees look pretty much like this today!


Stamps: Tree: Innovative Stamp Creations, Ornament - Waltzingmouse - Seasons of Love
Paper: Enchanted Evening - PTI, Pumpkin Pie - SU
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black. Versamark
Accessories: White ep - PTI, hot gun, circle nestability, foam dimensionals, scor pal, white velvet ribbon - PTI

Not A Creature was Stirring........

OK - so can you tell what this is on my card????!!! Here's a clue - I made it for the Moxie Fab World challenge - to incorporate a critter into your card. So - this is my kittie Scout - sitting happily under/inside the Christmas tree!

And here's the story - we had just put up our tree - no ornaments on yet - and I walked out into the kitchen - and when I walked back into the livingroom- there she was - a headless kitty sitting under the tree (actually with her head in the branches of course!) - it just CRACKED ME UP!! I grabbed my camera and took the shot - I was so glad she stayed there long enough!

So I thought I'd make the picture into a card for the challenge.... The sentiment is computer generated - I thought it was kind of 'tongue in cheek' funny for the pic! I added a lacey punched edge, some gems as ornaments, a button with punched ferns behind it over a ribbon - and good to go!

And while I'm sharing pet stuff - thought I'd show you what I made for the dogs in the family that will be coming over for Christmas Day. I made some dog biscuits in the shape of a moose and some shaped like bones.

Not sure if you can see the moose in the package - his antlers are at the top left - and there are two bones behind him. (I forgot to take a pic before I sealed them all up!) I slipped them into cellophane bags and wrapped a piece of twill around it that I had stamped with 'woof' and a dog paw print. I got the dog biscuit recipe from Bullwrinkle.com

I think they will be happy crunching on these!

Stamps: Paw print - Art Impressions Clear Stamps, Woof - Pet tootie sentiments- Cornish Heritage Farms

Paper: Handsome Hunter, Black - SU, White - PTI

Ink: Dark Chocolate - PTI

Accessories: Edge punch - Martha Stewart, adhesive gems - K&Co, vintage button - PTI, fern punch - Martha Stewart, pure poppy satin ribbon - PTI, printed picture, computer generated sentiment, Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder, putty twill - Martha Stewart

The Star of Bethlehem

The Limited Supplies Challenge on Split Coast was to incorporate silver or gold into your project. After re-reading the challenge - I think I was supposed to make an actual ornament - oops!!! Well - you could hang this on your tree right?!?!?

I needed a few more Christmas cards (can you believe that?!) so I embossed this beautiful Bethlehem stamp with silver EP, mounted the image to a silver panel, tied a silver ribbon around the base, and punched a silver star to layer on top with a foam dimensional.

I embossed a line on the edges of the image panel just to give it a little dimension.Inside I layered a white panel over the dark blue so you could read the sentiment (!) and stamped Luke chapter 2:12 and Christmas Blessings. The star is a Fiskars corner punch called Celestial and has a punch for a moon, a sun and this star all on the same punch. My card is 4 1/4 x 4 1/4

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Stamps: Stampington & Co, Inside: Rosebud Rubber Stamps, Signature Blessings - PTI
Paper: Enchanted Evening, White - PTI, Silver CS - unknown
Ink: Versamark, Memento Tuxedo Black
Accessories: Silver EP - PTI, hot gun, star punch - McGIll, Silver Ribbon - PTI, Foam dimensionals, star corner punch - Fiskars Celestial, scorpal