Friday, December 26, 2008

{PTI December Blog Hop}

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you enjoyed great times & great food with your family and friends. My sister and family surprised us all and bought plane tickets at the last minute so they are all in town. It has been a busy few days. They left this morning to visit her husband's family in MD for the night so I have a little bit of quiet back :-) What better way to spend a little down time than to be part of the PTI December blog hop. As soon as I received this Christmas card from a friend, I knew I would use it to make a new card. The card is from Quotable Cards--I absolutely *love* their products. I cut up some of the holiday greetings and turned it in to a birthday card. I had to include some PTI product so I grabbed my Polka Dot Basics as well as some pure poppy & spring rain to match. I also grabbed the word "birthday" from Limitless Labels. Thanks for stopping by!




Sunday, December 21, 2008

{A Teacher's Apple Calendar}

Still trying to get some last minute gifts done! This is for my secret pal at work. It uses a calendar template from Jen in a Nutshell. It also uses one of my favorite PTI sets, Teacher's Apple. The paper is from an SEI collection called Black Orchid. Happy Sunday!





Wednesday, December 17, 2008

An Altered MM Acetate Box


This is an acetate box that some flowers and buttons came in from making memories. I gave it a make over with some MF patterned paper, some glitter, mm alphabet stickers and a button and loaded it up with Hershey kisses.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

{Jar up some Christmas Spirit}

My sister and I are on a roll today so be sure & scroll through all the posts. I saw this idea on the blog of a designer for CupCards {to go}. Of course I can't find it right now :-) Anyway, the example of a Christmas spirit jar I saw had a little Melissa Frances ticket with the quote on it. As it turns out, my kit didn't come with that exact quote so I printed it out on the computer myself. I just put some Martha Stewart glitter in a canning jar, covered the top with patterned paper, tied on some ribbon and other embellishments that came from my CupCards kit. I'm going to give this to my secret pal at work. Should hopefully brighten her day!

{A Photo Gift}

One thing I love doing is framing photos as gifts. A fun easy to-make meaningful gift that will last forever! Lucky for me, my sister had photos professionally done by a mom (Amber) in her "mom's group". She did a great job! I chose a photo of each of my sister's kids in black and white and framed it for my parents & brother for Christmas. I think it turned out great. Michael's has frames for 50% off. At least they did yesterday.

On another note, my kitchen is a mess right now...I'm making Mish's cocktail crackers for another slew of holiday gifts....they are tasting YUMMY! I've been wanting to make them ever since she so graciously offered the recipe on her blog. She has tons of cute ideas. Anyway, scroll down...we've got several posts today. Happy Sunday!




Another Jar Gift




This time...Christmas snack mix. I could not get a good picture of this jar...but it is very nice irl. I tried to make it a little more manly since it will be going to my daughter's music teacher. Mix includes, Christmas colored m&m's, peanuts, raisins, and peanut butter chocolate chips. Yum!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Bath Salt Nifty Gifty







I am so thrilled with how this little gift turned out! I bought a huge bottle of bath salts at Target in the bath aisle (mine are Mango) and re-packaged them into 3 half pint canning jars. I used some misc papers, rhinestones, ribbons and flowers to create a whole new gift package and I was able to create 3 jars from just one bottle of bath salts. The bath salts are approx. $15 and the canning jars come in a pack of 4 for about $5. So cute! Thanks for peeking in today! Lisa

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Ornament Exchange...

Here is the front...
The ornament...

The back of the package!


Here is a cute packaging idea for your next ornament exchange! I used an old PTI stamp container and "refurbished" it to hold an ornament. In sticking with my sweets theme (Taylored expressions cupcake set) I purchased a sugared lollipop ornament from Target! Too cute! I want to keep it for myself! :)

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Christmas Cone




This is a gift for the secretary at my daughter's school. I made the cone out of patterned paper and decorated it with some of my leftovers from my Scarlet Lime kit. I also used my nestabilities for the first time :) and a new stamp that I got from Whiff of Joy! Inside is nestled in a couple gourmet hot chocolate packs and some chocolate covered peppermint sticks. So easy! The last step was to punch holes and thread the ribbon through. Thanks for stopping in...more gifties on the way....

Sunday, December 7, 2008

nugget tins




Here are some nugget tins that I decorated for gifts...I am going to put in ornament in them. ;)

{A Pizza Santa Box}

Good morning everyone! I went to a holiday craft show yesterday and picked up this cute little Santa ornament for my secret pal at work. I love these ornaments. They are decorated with football teams, college teams, or high school teams. I packaged the ornament in a scor-pal pizza box and used my brand new scor-tape from PTI. I love it!!! I'm wondering if it's as tacky as the red kind but it is way easier to use!! You can just rip it with your fingers and it doesn't stick to your fingers since it has a peel-away backing. I paired PTI colors plum pudding and summer sunrise to match the college colors and used my Kim Hughes Heart Warmers set. The ribbon is also summer sunrise from PTI. I bought some other ornaments that I'm going to package in the little pizza box. So easy!! Loving the scor-pal we received on the Stamp+Cruise...if you don't have one, you should put it on your list for Santa. It is truly an amazing tool. It looked way too complicated to use so I never bought one but it is so easy to use. Thanks Scor-Pal!!





Friday, December 5, 2008

More Cupcards {to go}
















Here are a few more of my Christmas cards with my Cupcards to go kit. This kit really got my inspired to create, especially after peeking in to see what the incredibly talented design team did with theirs. I love making each card different instead of doing multiple cards of the same. Well, that's all today...look below this post to see some cute KH images. ;)

Kim Hughes Quick cards




I just absolutely love all things Kim Hughes. Her sets make card making a total snap. I literally whipped these up in 10 minutes! Both images are from her Christmas Critters line and can be found at CHF. I paired the images with a couple Cosmo Cricket journal cards and put them on a My Mind's Eye Christmas card, some Martha Stewart chunky glitter and voila...Have you seen her new Easter set? Too cute! That will be on my list come spring time! Thanks for popping in!

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Cute Birthday Invitations...


I made 8 birthday invitations for our neighbor's birthday party. She was going to hand them out at school. Inside the tube is a birthday party invite and a chocolate covered candy cane. I used toilet paper rolls and rolled them in colored tissue paper and then wrapped them in patterned paper. I thought that they turned out really cute. Can you see a bunch of high school girls standing in the hallway right now, ripping them open? ;)

Sunday, November 30, 2008

A Teacher Gift


This is a door sign for my daughter's teacher. I took a piece of cardboard and cut it down and applied Tim Holtz's Crackle paint to the outer sides which are visible. Then I used PTI blush for the cardstock background and ribbon and used a thick glue to adhere the buttons to the white cardstock. I think it turned out really cute and it will go with her monogramed theme gift I am giving her. Thanks for looking! I am having a very crafty weekend! Tha mojo is flowing... Lisa

Cupcards to go kits!











I just recently found this site and can I tell you I am already a huge fan! I made 12 cards from this kit last night! I am so loving the kit and this company that makes card kits monthly. I was so excited about it, I even got my sister to order a kit. :) So, here are a few that I made last night! My favorite out of this group is the bottom card with the snowman! Cute addition to your winter stamp sets (love this one)...I purchased it from CHF and it is of course a Kim Hughes! (I am her biggest fan if you didn't know...LOL!)

Saturday, November 29, 2008

My sister Visits

This card uses a kim hughes sentiment available at CHF! I just love Kim's font style and usually grab her stamps to add something to my card. :)
Inque boutique sentiment stamp. American crafts papers.

Scrap ribbon and the cute deer is from one of my Unity stamps kotm! The ribbon idea is cased from the Whiff of joy blog and this post.


My sister came for Thanksgiving and we had so much fun! We went to see the movie Four Christmases which was hysterical and highly recommended and then we did a "sisters stamp camp." We cased a few of the cards. The Joy card is cased from kWerner's blog. The ribbon trees were a case we found while looking around also, but when we went back to credit the blog, we couldn't find it...so sorry. It was a very cute idea and I had seen it a couple times before, but we just used a whole bunch of ribbon scraps and they came out so cute! Sister is on her way home now, so she will post her cards from home! Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends!



Tuesday, November 25, 2008

{It's a PTI Floral Frenzy}



Good evening! I've had some camera issues, some computer issues, etc. so I'm in a mad dash to get my card posted. Here's some details on the card---*love* love* love* PTI Ripe Avocado & Dark Chocolate along with Vintage Cream. The stamp and flower are from my November Scarlet Lime Kit though I did deconstruct the flower to add a layer of an old book page :-) Love that trick. I ran down to my basement to find one I could live with cutting up--all in the name of creativity of course. The flower is made from a layer of cordoroy velvet, a crinkled piece of patterned paper, an old book page, and that kind of fabric that keeps rugs from slipping around. Don't you love my technical explanation, he he. I also used PTI Polka Dot Basics and my threading water punch. Enjoy the blog hop & Happy Thanksgiving!


Monday, November 17, 2008

{A Christmas Cigar Box}

Of course it's not full of Opus X or Ashtons but beautiful monogrammed stationery. I have been wanting to do this ever since Nichole shared it during a PTI countdown one year ago. The unfortunate thing is that I don't think PTI carries the cigar box anymore but it's made by Cosmo Cricket. You might luck out somewhere else on the web! The stationery kit is PTI, the stamps are PTI, and the paper is from Crate Paper. The ink is Kiwi Kiss from SU. I made this for a co-worker for Christmas. It has monogrammed paper with a detailed paper strip at the bottom, envelopes and monogrammed stickers to close the letter with. The binding tape is from Heidi Swapp. This was a little time consuming but Nichole's tutorial is great!




Saturday, November 15, 2008

{A Little Birdie Told Me}

It's my niece's 1 year old birthday party today so I stamped a quick card. I actually completely cased a card that we made on the Stamp + Cruise so Nichole gets all the credit. What I loved about this card was the metallic mist spray. On the cruise we used spring moss paper and the gold metallic spray. Since my niece's party is going to be pink and brown, I chose sweet blush and and tried out the silver metallic spray. The silver spray came out a little darker than I expected so I had to redo the base. I think I'm going to have to play a bit more with the silver spray :-) Have a great Saturday.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

A Handmade Christmas


I am so inspired to make my Christmas gifts this year. With all the awesome inspiration on the 'blogging circut' I have tons and tons of ideas! Hot chocolate/marshmallow wraps...home baked goodies with cute packaging and lots and lots of notecard gift sets! I will use this one as a gift too! Stamps are from Kim Hughes and you can get them from Cornish Heritage Farms! I included 4 notecards and envelopes. Have a great day! Lisa

Sunday, November 9, 2008

{Scrapbooking & Stamping Bella}

Well, it's just a quiet lazy Sunday here...hopefully you are enjoying the same. I've been in my stamp room most of the day. First I was trying to clean and organize...pretty hopeless situation. Then I moved on to working on a scrapbook from the Stamp + Cruise. One of my sister's bags never made it onto the ship. It had this scrapbook in it that she made me along with one she did for herself. We thought for sure they were lost somewhere never to be found. Thankfully we found the bag at the pier!! I was so excited to get this back and I know she was too. Anyway, I got it finished today but need to add some more pages. Here's the cover :-)

The other thing I wanted to post today are 2 of my favorite cards that we did using Stamping Bella stamps. I love both of these images!! I think the cards turned out really cute. We colored using mineral spirits and of course added some embella-ishments! EmilyBella is the funniest gal you could ever meet. She felt like a true sistah the moment Lisa and I met her. She is down-to-earth, genuine, funny, and so much fun to be around. Thanks for all of your generosity Emily! You rock!!



Monday, November 3, 2008

{Personalize a Wine Bottle}

Another birthday gift I made for a co-worker....the stamp set is from GinaK and is called Festive Labels stamp set. Gina also sells the waterproof labels that come with a worksheet. You place the label on the worksheet so the ink doesn't get on any other labels. I personalized it using Papertrey Ink's Simple Alphabet. The colors are SU! creamy caramel and cranberry. I then made a tag to go along with it. It uses the Garden of Life by Alli Miles and Papertrey.