Halloween Treat Bag

As usual I'm a bit behind in posting halloween crafts. Less activity on the craft front this year because the majority of our kids are beyond the trick or treat age. All in all this is not a bad thing since this time of year kicks off my busiest time.

I did manage to do a quick treat bag for my youngest niece. I fell in love with tissue garland earlier in the year and finally found an oline source that wasn't going to break the bank so I purchase garlands in lots of different colors. I used a yellow gift bag from my stash and a hot glue gun to attach the orange and black garland around the top. Some old paper from my scrap pile, spider web border punch, a LD ghost cut and I was good. I think the entire project took me about a half hour and the majority of that time was spent wrestling with the glue gun.

Catch Up

A quick card I did for my niece who is big into hula dancing. I used Lettering Delights Mahalo cut files and the palm trees from the Florida cut files.



Birthday Cards

A few birthday cards made quite some time ago but never posted. The first is one I made on the fly for my niece's 2nd birthday. I used design studio to weld the cupcake image together to form a card base and then welded the number 2 candle on one side of the base. The images are all taken from the Sweet Treats cartridge. And because I was in a hurry and not really paying attention I had to make a custom envelop using a treat bag since the card wouldn't fit into any of my standard envelopes. You know what they say about measure twice and cut once.

This next card was put together using Life Style Crafts (Quickutz) dies. Quick, easy and putting lots of scraps to good use.



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.

The Raven

 A quick post for this morning. I'd been searching for Raven cut for a while. There are a couple of stamps available that are really cool but I wasn't finding what I wanted in a cut. I finally located a shape I'd like on  the Cricut October 31st cartridge. Immm...maybe I should have started here first.

I really like the images on this particular cart. Totally cool. I'm thinking it's going to get a good workout. And it started with this particular card.

I needed one more card. Now I just need to remember to get them all into the mail on Monday. I think that may be more difficult than finding a Raven I liked.