Blog Your Heart*/One Little Word

One little word. Select a word for yourself or let it find you and live it for the year. Sounds simple, right? That's what I thought this time last year when I picked my word. I thought long and hard about my word. I thought about my word in the shower, as I was sorting through junk mail, as I drifted off to sleep next to a night stand piled high with scrapbook magazines. And it came to me as if in a dream. Or maybe it was a wish. My word for 2011 would be organize. Surely picking the word and writing a blog post about it would mean that I would live this word and, as a result, all the clutter in my life would vanish -- or at least be neatly put away into one of the many bins I continue to buy in my never-ending quest for a clutter-free life. Ha!

It's January 1, 2012 and I am back to report that I failed miserably. Yes, it was just one little word but I couldn't embrace it. Those eight little letters got the best of me! With the exception of a stack of magazines which finally made their way into the recycling bin, clothes that went to Good Will and my stamps which I organized into labelled binders, my house is no more organized at the start of 2012 than it was at the start of 2011. I did make two cabinets a Gluten Free zone for Melissa but now when I cook, I can't find my spices because they are no longer in the place they have been for the last 18 years. More organization is definitely needed in this department! I still can't figure out how to make the most of Photo Shop so I never get around to posting my pictures on Shutterfly which is something that my sister in California always asks me to do. My Project 12 became a Project 3 as everyday life got in the way of scrapping these monthly recaps in March. My December Daily has turned into a A Week in December but I did take all of the pictures so who knows!

Maybe guilt, or frustration, or defeated should be my word for 2012!

Or maybe patience is the word for me this year. Patience to accept the non-perfect days as my reality now. Patience to get through some of the tedious tasks that need to be done (like photo editing) in order to get to the good stuff -- like scrapping! Patience with my kids. With two teens in the house surely I need to embrace this now more than ever! Patience with myself to find a way to eat better and maybe get to the gym. Who knows, maybe I will even have the patience to organize my house or at least go through another pile of magazines!

It's just one little word. How hard can it be?

*Blog Your Heart is a monthly challenge created by Stephanie Howell who brings a refreshing honesty to all of her blog posts. Thanks for always telling it like it is, Stephanie!

Joy to You and Yours

...and best wishes for health and happiness

in 2012!

Christmas Boxes

Oh, you just have to love Pinterest! Where else can you store all of your ideas and inspiration without adding to the clutter on your desk? I found the tutorial for these little gift boxes on Jillibean Soup's blog, saved it to my Gift Wrap board on Pinterest and knew exactly where to find the instructions when I started to wrap my presents! So, here's the gift boxes I made:

Just a note on dimensions. I cut the paper for the bottom of the box to measure 7x7 as stated in the instructions. However when I cut the lid as a 5x5 and scored as instructed, it did not fit as snugly as I wanted so I cut a new piece to measure 4 5/8" x 4 5/8" and scored at the 3/4 inch mark. The result was much better! As you can see, I was able to make two boxes from the two coordinating sheets of patterned paper.

To decorate the boxes, I cut a belly band 3/4" wide and added two punched snowflakes (the top one adhered with pop dots) that were adorned with rhinestone stickers. My nieces loved their Christmas presents -- inside and out!

Supplies:

Patterned Paper: SEI Winter (Winter Song; Blaze Velvet);

Tools: Martha Stewart (Scoring Board; Nordic Snowflake punch; Icelandic Snowflake punch);

Embellishments; Recollections rhinestone stickers

Noel Tag

Whew! Is it the end of December already? I feel like this month has really flown by as evidenced by my absence here on the blog. Between Christmas preparations, a nasty upper respiratory infection, taking my mother to physical therapy, shopping, making my Christmas cards and a broken washing machine, I feel like my excuses for not being here could fill Santa's sleigh. Luckily, I was a little crafty this month and even worked on a December Daily for the first time. These are all projects I will be sharing with you over the next week or so.

Today, I want to share my folded Christmas tags. They were inspired by this challenge at Papertrey Ink. Here is my tag:

I started with the Papertrey Ink's Mat Stack 3 die. I added a strip of velvet paper which was left over from my Christmas cards I stamped a label using PTI's Label Basics, added the sentiment and brad and adhered it to the tag using pop dots. The snowflake was something I had in my stash. I bought a pack of four last year at Michael's for $1. Now, I wish I had bought more!

Supplies:

Cardstock base: Georgia Pacific;

Patterned Paper: K & Company;

Tools: Papertrey Ink dies (Mat Stack 3; Label Basics);

Stamps: Papertrey Ink (Label Basics; Think Big Favorites 8);

Ink: Stampin' Up! (Riding Hood Red); Memento (Black);

Embellishments: Snowflakes (Michael's); Brads (Anna Griffin)

It's In The Bag!

Remember this post from last year? Well, the holiday shopping bags are out so I thought I would challenge myself, once again, to use one as the basis of a card. So, here's the bag:

As luck would have it, this week's challenge at Our Creative Corner was to make a project with a Christmas tree. Here's my card:

To create it, I stamped my tree onto the shopping bag and cut it out. To give it more definition, I ran the edges along my black ink pad. I also stamped my tree onto my card base since I was only popping the top. For the background, I used Versa Mark ink to stamp the snow line and ran over it with some liquid glue so that the glitter would stick. Next, I spritzed the card with some Mister Huey in Calico White. Finally, I sprayed some Mister Huey Calico Shine over the entire background before adding the tree and the ribbon.

It's so hard to photograph the shimmer on this card but hopefully the photo below gives you an idea of why I love Calico White and Calico Shine!

If you are inspired to make a card from a shopping bag, please link it up to my blog in the comment section. I would love to see them!

Supplies:

Cardstock: Papertrey Ink (Stamper's Select White);

Stamps: Hero Arts (Merriest Wishes);

Ink: Ranger (Jet Black); Versa Mark; Studio Calico Mister Huey (Calico White; Calico Shine);

Embellishments: Recollections Rhinestones (Red); Martha Stewart Glitter (Crystal Coarse); Making Memories Ribbon;

Misc.: Bath & Body Works shopping bag.

Welcome Beautiful Fall

This past week was a hectic one. I was busy taking Melissa to see this fabulous concert:

Then, a day later, I was busy preparing this:

And the day after that, I was up early to do this:

I did, however, manage to squeeze in a night of scrapping before Thanksgiving week. Here's my layout:

This layout is pretty clean and simple for me which, I guess, depicts the frame of mind I was in when I created it. Kind of like the calm before the storm, so to speak. Under the pictures, I stamped a line of text using the Technique Tuesday Studio AE stamps from October and the limited edition Tim Holtz distress inks. Love them both!

I was scrapping at a friend's house and realized I didn't bring any letters to create a title. Oh, what's a scrapper to do? Luckily, I had a bin of Fall goodies with me so I paired the "Welcome" and "Beautiful" die cut pieces from the Little Yellow Bicycle collection with the "Fall" Flair from American Crafts' Nightfall Collection. Here's a closer look:

I kept the journaling simple by combining a rub-on with a hand-written note.

The most important thing I learned from doing this layout is that rub-ons do come off. I had added some rub-ons of brown leaves to the green paper and immediately felt that they drew the eye away from my pictures. When I googled how to remove them, I learned that adhering scotch tape to the top of the rub-on (repeating as needed) did the trick. Imagine that! You just have to love Google!

Supplies:

Patterned Paper and Die Cuts: Little Yellow Bicycle (Hello Fall!);

Stamps: Technique Tuesday (Studio AE -- Give Thanks by Ali Edwards): Papertrey Ink (Label Basics);

Ink: Tim Holtz Autumn Seasonal Distress Ink (Gathered Twigs, Seedless Preserves); Stampin' Up! (Dusty Durango);

Embellishments: American Crafts Flair (Nightfall); Me & My Big Ideas rub-ons;

Tools: Papertrey Ink Die (Label Basics); Spellbinders Nestabilities 9Scallop Rectangles Large); Fiskars Border punch (Scalloped Sentiment); White Signo Gel Pen.

Tuesday Trigger: Fall is in the Bag

I have been missing in action for the last few weeks. My mother (who is 80) fell and fractured her hip. She needed surgery and then spent some time in rehab. Frequent trips to the hospital left little time for blogging. Thankfully she is home now and doing really well. Unfortunately, she won't be able to drive for a while so I will be pitching in by taking her to physical therapy, grocery shopping and doctor's appointments. The doctor has assured us that she will be dancing in no time which may not be such a good thing since she broke her hip while doing the Electric Slide at the community center of her Senior apartment complex. I kid you not!

Anyway, it felt great to get the creative juices flowing again this week after not scrapping for almost a month. So, when I spotted this week's Tuesday Trigger photo just as I was finishing up a layout using Little Yellow Bicycle's "Hello Fall!" collection, I knew I had to play along. Instead of putting my scraps away, I decided to make a card or two for Thanksgiving. Here's the trigger photo:

And here are the two cards I made. First, the clean and simple design:

And next, one with a stamped background:

Both cards feature Papertrey Ink's Wreath for all Seasons and Technique Tuesday's Studio AE -- Give Thanks by Ali Edwards stamp sets. The background stamp on the second card was created with Hero Arts Large Plaid Pattern background stamp.

Let me know which design you like best!

Supplies:

Cardstock: Stampin' UP! (Very Vanilla); Papertrey Ink (Chocolate Brown);

Patterned Paper: Little Yellow Bicycle (Hello Fall!)

Stamps: Papertrey Ink (Wreath for All Season); Technique Tuesday (Studio AE -- Give Thanks by Ali Edwards); Hero Arts (Large Plaid Pattern);

Ink: Stampin' Up! (Dusty Durango; Tim Holtz Distress (Gathered Twigs);

Tools: Spellbinders Nestabilities (Classic Circle; Classic Scalloped Circle Large); EK Success Corner Rounder.