December Daily - Day Fourteen

While my husband and I were sitting in front of the tree last evening sipping hot chocolate we were remembering what it was like to be a child at Christmas. Waiting for the big day to arrive seemed like it would never come! Remember that? More than a week before Christmas was almost more than you could stand! For me, it's just going to darn fast!

Well it's another Monday, a great day for all of us who love to make cards! 2 Sketches 4 You has a new card design for all of us along with a great prize package from our sponsors Sassy Studio Designs and Sakura. Here's the sketch for this week from the talented Laura Davis and my take on her design.

This week is a bonus sketch week too! Shanna Vineyard one talented design team member at 2 Sketches 4 You came up with this great sketch. I love that there is a tag on it...that'll be fun to play with!

Since it's the holidays and many of us are scrambling around trying to get our cards made and/or mailed, I thought I'd share a card I made last night. Another simple one to whip up in no time and pop in the mail.

This is an A2 size card made with a red card stock base. I embossed a piece of white card stock with a cuddlebug folder for the dotted texture to layer over my base. Then I cut a little rectangle tag out of the same red and white card stock and attached a piece of Bazzill Basics Just the Edge scallops to the left of my tag. The sentiment is a K & Company rub-on from their Evergreen line. I sell these rub-ons in my Etsy shop if anyone is interested. Anyway, I further accented this card with a green polka dot ribbon and green stitched button. That's it! Easy!

Thanks for stopping by another December Daily. I look forward to having you stop by again tomorrow! :) Kathy

Crafting Like Crazy

It's already Wednesday! The week is flying by! The painting of our house has finally been finished! Yay! All the rain we've gotten lately put a serious damper on the project! Monday my friend and I managed a whirlwind shopping tour of our quaint downtown. Tuesday was full of errands, the dentist and the post office! Has to be done! And today, I've been a craftin' manic! A lot of holiday things have sold from my Etsy shops so I've been trying to restock the shelves! Thank you to all of you who have purchased something! The support is so much appreciated! Now, let me share a couple of my projects with you.

This is my caroling songbird picture. He was so fun and easy to make! I painted an unfinished wood frame and papered the inside with vintage sheet music. The little bird accent is from K & Company's new line, called Evergreen. I fastened a trio of jingle bells on the lower right hand corner and a bow to the top of the bird accent...done!

This is my Winterberry Wreath I made last weekend. I found these fabulous 15" pine wreaths from the dollar store and decked it out with these lovely berries in varrious shades of blue. The final touches were the silver glittered berry and leaf pick and the wide white grosgrain bow with blue button center. I wanted to keep this, but thought I should list it in my shop since I can't keep everything. And it sold!

This is the last project I'll show you today since I need to get back to it. This barn star is actually rusty metal that I papered with bits and pieces of vintage sheet music. I inked it a bit to make it look aged and then I added tinsel stems around the edges. Another accent from the Evergreen line, a dimensional chipboard sentiment is placed in the center of the star. Lastly, the bow and a jute hanger. Ready for the tree! Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed my projects!

Celebrate!

Birthdays are a for celebrating! Cake, balloons, dinner, champagne, friends, family, presents and cards! Did you know that I like to make cards more than I like buying them? Yep! I can't get enough and I'm having lots of fun this week making birthday cards with these cool and oh so glittery party hat embellishments from K & Company! So, the next time you're at the craft store, pick some up and have a crafting ball! Someones birthday is coming soon, isn't it?

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

Scrapbook paper isn't just for scrapbook pages and greeting cards anymore. Here's a fun way to use your patterned paper stash and make some great gifts or decor items for your home. I used some beautiful papers from K & Company's Wild Raspberry line for this project. If you don't have the time or you don't think you could make something like this, don't worry! Log onto http://www.cardblanc.etsy.com/ to purchase this mirror and many other fun decor items.

You've Got Mail!

This was just too fun to make and turned out so very cute! Wouldn't it be perfect for a little girl's room, a place for mom and dad to leave a note or special little surprise? I've got this mailbox and another one that's decorated with flowers in my etsy shop at http://www.cardblanc.etsy.com/. Come on by and take a peek. I also stock the Berry Sweet card stock I used for this project for those of you who would like to make your own mailbox and other paper crafts.

Snips and Snails...

and puppy dog tails...that's what little boys are made of! I'm having a grand time making cards lately and wanted to share this one with you. I can't get enough of the Grand Adhesion stickers from K & Company like the clothes line sticker I used for this greeting. And another favorite product is the Cuddlebug dry embossing folders. That's what I used to make the textured polka dots on the white background card stock. Enjoy and thanks for stopping by!

It's a Girl Thing

Once in a while I just have to scrapbook a page or work on a project that's girly! I have a son that I make a lot of scrapbook pages for so I have a lot of boyish scrapbook papers and accents. After doing a bunch of masculine pages, it's fun to get to use some pastel colors, buttons, flowers and ribbon and make something really feminine, like this wall hanging. I attended a crop over the weekend and I packed nothing but a K & Company pad of 'Doll House' papers and cute little embellishments to match. And here it is...my girly project! Fun huh? If interested, it's for sale at http://www.cardblanc.etsy.com/. Are you feeling like scrappin' something girly now?

Beautiful Fabrics

I don't sew in the traditional sense, but I love the look of stitching and fabrics applied to paper craft projects like greeting cards and scrapbook pages and I was thrilled to discover these colorful fabrics from Fabric Shoppe on Etsy. You can buy a bundle of fat quarters in gorgeous styles and colors, perfect for paper crafting. And if you adore the beautiful Amy Butler prints that K & Company incorporated into a line of scrapbook papers and embellishments, you will be happy to see this shop carries a lot of the Amy Butler prints. To see these fabrics click on http://www.fabricshoppe.etsy.com/ and enjoy the color and selection.

So Simple!

I love flipping through magazines like Better Homes & Gardens and I drool over the beautiful wares you can buy at stores like Pottery Barn, but in these economic times, I don't want to spend money on things our family doesn't need. And because I'm a crafty sort, I often wonder if I can make similar accents for less?

Absolutely! These butterfly shadowboxes were so simple to make, my husband could have done them! Well, maybe not. :) But you could! All you need is a couple shadowboxes from Target or your local craft store. Anything you want at Target will go on sale if you wait a couple weeks or craft stores like Michael's and A.C. Moore always have those weekly 40% off coupons. Anyway, once you get your shadowboxes head over to your local scrapbook store and buy a sheet of die cut butterfly card stock from K & Company. I think it cost $1.50 a sheet for 25 butterflies. Then pick out the butterflies you like the best, punch them out, fold the wings up a little, place a small pop dot in the center and stick it to the inside of your shadowbox! That's it! Yep, it's that easy! And look at the results!

From Trash to Treasure

Reduce, reuse, recycle...the three 'r' words that reside in the forefront of my mind. Even though my husband and I have brought our own grocery bags to the store for the last 10 years and have driven fuel efficient cars since the purchase of our first Honda Civic in 1992, and have been avid recyclers before we met one another, there's always room for improvement and we made some big ones last summer. We switched all our paper products from toilet paper and facial tissue to paper towels and napkins to brands made from 100% post consumer recycled paper. We also started buying natural household cleaners and make some of them ourselves. There's been a lot of little changes made along the way and we keep discovering more ways to live a greener lifestyle.

With that said, I decided to take this old chocolate heart shaped box that my husband gave me a couple years ago for Valentine's Day and dress it up to be used as a Valentine decoration. I covered the top of the box with this pretty glittered heart patterned paper and then used some wide rick rack along the underside of the lid to give it a scalloped shape. The top is then decorated with a wide white grosgrain ribbon bow, some mini rick rack and a strand of faux pearls. The tag is made from a Sizzix die cut machine and features a cute three dimensional glittered sticker from K & Company. I found this big white button in my stash and used it to attach the tag. So there you have it...from trash to treasure.