Santa Key

Found the idea on Pinterest from  thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com. Super cute idea and perfect for little believers with no chimneys for Santa to shimmy down. Made one for my youngest niece and them several more for our church X-mas Bazaar. The keys were found at Michael's dollar spot last year.

2011 Treat Bags

A bit late for posting Halloween but it's been crazy around here. I count myself lucky to have found the time to even make treat bags. The teen bags were made using a regular kraft lunch bag. I made the decorative edge using an ek punch; definitely need to use one of the larger border punches the small ones won't cut through so many layers. Paper is from Little Yellow Bicycle and purle trim and rinestones from Recollections.

For the little kid treat bags I used treat bags from my stash. I think they were Martha Stewart. Of course I had to include a Mummy hershey bar. I saw them all over the web. Super easy to make.

On a Roll

A few more birthday cards. We're very much into the bright colors at the moment. I think it's our desire for warmer weather that's driving our recent color selections, as if that would hurry Mother Nature along to usher in Spring. So far it hasn't been working. Ha!

I had a big piece of the striped paper remaining from a recent layout. Along with our mission to make a dent in the big list of photos needing to be scrapped I'm trying hard to use my scraps immediately rather than have them languish in the scrap pile. I just about used up my stock of little party hats from K&Company; I think i have one or two more floating around, finished up 2 sticker sheets and added a few more fun cards to our birthday stock.  

Drowning in Scraps

Mom and I have been hitting the scrapping pretty hard. And this means we're generating scraps galore. I'm good about saving and sorting scraps but not always that good about putting them to use but I couldn't let these go to waste. The papers are from one of my all time favorite old KI lines. I love the bright colors and they're perfect for some cheerful, fun birthday cards. I paired them up with a box of K&Company party hats, very old KI tags and went to town creating a few cards to replenish our stash.

Birthday Cards

Just a quick post to show off some birthday cards. I'm not really that much of a card maker. I go in spurts mostly when I need to replenish my stash of birthday cards; the only cards I give out on a regular basis. A lot of them get sent off through the mail so I usually try to keep anything I whip up fairly flat for easy mailing. These were created immediately after finishing up some layouts. I'm not always that smart or motivated. More often my layout scraps make it into the scrap bin along with my good intentions of using those bits and pieces for card making. The emphasis here is on good intentions.

We like bright, happy cards in my family. And because we have so many guys in the mix frills, glitz and glitter needs to be kept to a minimum.

At the Speed of Light

That's how quickly I felt time zip by me this past month. Lately there's always something on the agenda so I'm spending more time in the craft room and very little time online. Not a bad thing.

So what do you do with 12 boxes of left over chocolate Hershey bars from our Christmas crafts? Well if you're my nephew then you try to convince me to hand over a box...or two or three. Believe me I'm not that hard to convince. I don't need the extra sugar and in reality, though he can afford it, neither does he. Lucky for me (us) Mom came to the rescue with a plan to kick off fund raising for the Youth Group. The kids are planning to attend APS (Appalachia Service Project) this summer. They don't get to attend every year as it takes quite a bit of planning, coordination and cash; perfect opportunity for us to help out and at the same time get rid of the mounds of chocolate bars. We connected with the Youth Pastor and then Mom and I spent a weekend crafting for an impromptu Valentine Bazaar. What started with Hershey bars quickly morphed into a "few" additional items when the LD (Lettering Delight) email landed in my inbox. Come on...how was I suppose to resist these?

I did a slight modification for the bazaar. The pinch box is cute but a bit time consuming for mass production on a schedule. Instead I filled a small glassine bags with Hershey Hugs and Kisses and attached the bag to the back with a couple of staples. They were a BIG hit and held up well even with some handling. If I were to make these again, especially for a bazaar, I'd double the card stock on the body pieces to provide extra stability. Don't want to put all this work in and then have an arm or tail tear when they're being handled.

A photo of our puny valentine Hershey bars. And yeah, the monster has a bit of Yoda going on. We used papers from the K&Company valentine stack and mainly designs from my Cricut library.

And since we were on a roll we also made a bunch of sucker flowers. These actually went to a single buyer who bought the entire bucket. When all was said and done we collected a little over $150 for the Youth Group. A small drop in the bucket compared to the amount the youth will need to raise but not a bad start for the fund.

Snap back to reality….

…all those holiday goodies didn’t come with a get out of jail free pass and yes, your jeans are really that tight. 

…the mega millions did not land in your lap despite dishing out $10 for lottery tickets. You must return to work, you’re not retired, not rich and too proud to mooch off anyone. Well not really too proud, if anyone is offering.

 …it takes a minimum of 30 minutes to drive to the train station and that’s when the stars align and the traffic fairies bestow favor; the 2 week stretch of “10 minutes from home to train” is officially over. Please refer to point #1 if you’re thinking of running for the train.

…the automatic garage door opener is not going magically heal itself no matter how many times you hit the reset button or punch in the double secret code. It’s time to call the repairman.

…the gas fireplace is not going to magically heal itself no matter how many times you click on the remote starter.  It’s time to call the repairman.

…the bedroom closet is not going to magically straighten itself. EVER!

… you live in the Midwest. It’s January. 2 weeks from now you’ll consider 28 degrees balmy.  Stop whining.

It’s always a bit of a challenge for me to snap back from the holidays; to focus, get motivated and move back into a normal pace;  “normal” being a slightly less frantic pace than the Holiday pace I started on Black Friday.  It’s all a frenzied go, go, go up until the evening of the 24^th. A frenzied pace all of my own doing as my family is so happy to point out. So true and all the more reason I find it hard to start the New Year with a bang because when the action stops late evening on the 24^th I’m ready to just lounge, eat, sleep and check out. Even my work week is a breeze; little traffic, no lines, no phone calls; I get things done in a Zen state of calm. Sometimes I think it’d be nice to remain in that Zen state but in the long run it wouldn’t work for me. I like the hustle and need the pressure. I’m very much like Calvin on the comic I have hanging in my office.

Hobbs: Do you have an idea for your project yet?

Calvin: No, I’m waiting for inspiration. You can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.

Hobbs: What mood is that?

Calvin: Last-minute panic.  

And last minute panic is the state I'll soon be entering because there is lots of scrapping to be done. We're a bit behind. Okay more than just a bit. And no matter what your thoughts are on being behind in scrapping my philosophy is pages are meant to be shared and viewed ... and not 3 years after the photos were taken. Now I just have to put that in action. Ha! So I will leave you with a recent layout of my niece who is totally adorable.

Lots of border punches on this layout. Santa is from the Jolly Holiday cartridge and I finally managed to score some Martha Stewart dollies. Paper is K&Company Let it Snow, which I picked up as an impulse and almost returned. The operative word being "almost". I'm so glad I didn't because the papers worked so well with the photos. So I continue to add to my ever growing and already huge stash of Christmas papers.  And while often times less is more, that doesn't hold true for scrapping supplies when more is...well, fabulous.