Holiday Pics

Austin

Cameron

Carter

Me & my brother, Kyle

Austin, Cameron, Carter

Of course I have tons of holiday pictures , but these are a few of my favorites.

Buttons Galore!

Just a quick post this morning, as I am bleaching everything in my house. One of my daycare parents has the swine flu, so I am being overly cautious. This will be another Chritmas gift. I think it turned out so cute. And who doesn't love buttons!?

A Bun In The Oven

First let me start by saying Happy Friday & Happy 10th Anniversary to Erin and Tony. Can't wait to see you guys tomorrow night it's going to be a great time! That being said, let me share with you my latest creation , using Lauren's "A Bun In The Oven" template. This one has been out for a while, but I just decided to purchase it when a friend opened an in home bakery, appropriately named- A Bun In The Oven. I found this cute little ornament while I was out shopping, and I loved the snowman in the muffin tin, so I thought it would be a sweet little gift for her as she gets her business up and running. But I couldn't just hand it to her. It had to be all packaged up, and nothing is more fitting than this little template. I also have a couple of baby showers I'm working on, and I may make a few of these to sit on the tables, with baby socks in them. The lighting in these photos is terrible. it has been a dreary week here in Ohio. Here is a close up of the top of the oven. I had to get creative for the burners. I had no idea what I was going to use to make them. But as I was trying to figure that out, I began working on another projects using PTI"s large square trendy tubes. The Top of the tubes has the circles that reminded me of the burner, s0000 I grabbed my Chocolate Chip Stampin' Write marker and inked up the top of the lid & used it like a stamp! It worked perfect!! I was very pleased with that revolation.

Here is a shot with it open.

An here is the whole thing. Blurry & dark! lol

I am going to give this gift to her in just a little while and I hope she likes it. Who know, maybe we could go into business together. She could make little cupcakes or muffins & I could package them in this cute little box! TGIF!!!

A Christmas Wish...

All right people. I have heard you loud and clear. Appariently you are not happy when I take a week between posts! lol So here is my latest project. I think I will be using Lauren's Timeless Templates in some form for all of my Christmas gifts that I am making this year, but to get into the Christmas mood I made this box (using the "from the desk of" template) and a few matching cards. I also added a marker to sign the cards and postage stamps, so everything is ready to go when I get ready to send out the cards....or this just may be a gift for someone! lol I guess you will have to wait and see.

Teacher Gift #2

Here is the 2nd teacher gift I have done. I used one of Lauren's templates to hold a set of thank you cards for Cam's teacher. Weare off to take Carter to his first day of preschool. i'll be back with pics:-)

Happy 2009!

I thought I'd make my first post of 2009 a quick overview of myself and my family incase there are any new readers. Then I am so ready to move on from Christmas and straight into Valentine's Day projects! My name is Erica. I am a wife to Dustin. We have been married for 7 1/2 years. We have three sons. Austin is 9, Cameron is 6, and Carter 3. We have 1 cat, Angel. You won't or see much about her because she does nothing but sleep and truthfully she and I don't really get along. Then there is our newest addition, Hemi. She is our 5 month old Black Lab/ Golden Retriever mix. You will, on the other hand, hear and see alot about her. She's momma's girl, but she has tons of puppy energy and gets into trouble...a lot! I do daycare in my home which gives me the opportunity to be at home with my kids while making a little extra money to help with the bills. My fun job is being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator. I've done this for about 3 years and love it. And of course my passion is stamping and scrapbooking. I try to do something creative each day, for my sanity. So check back very soon for my next post. Happy New Year!

Christmas Is Over, But We're Still Celebrating!

How was everyone's Christmas? Ours was great, and we still have one more tomorrow to go to. We kept things simple this year, so the kids didn't get an over abundance of toys that they'll only play with for a short time. What is crazy is that a few days ago the temps in Ohio were below zero , but today it it 65 degrees and sunny! I am in a fantastic mood because of it. I'm getting so much done today! It's the perfect day to get those outdoor Christmas decorations put away. On to the project... Using yet another of Lauren's Timeless Template found over at PTI

I was able to create this adorable holder for these chocolate covered marshmallows to be used as stir sticks for hot chocolate. I made the marshmallows by stacking two in a lollipop stick and covering them in melted bakers chocolate and covering them with crushed candy canes. I just placed them on wax paper and out them in the refridgerator for a few minutes to set up.
Here is a closer look. This went to one of my aunts that I had for a gift exchange. She thought it came from a gourmet shop we have in town! It was very inexpensive to make. Probably less than $4 all together. I am going to take advantage of this beautiful day and I hope you do too!

Sending An Ohio Christmas To Texas

It's been a while, huh!? Not because I haven't been around, but because we got an ice storm that made my internet server loose electricity. This gift was sent to a friend in Texas. Hopefully, she has gotten it by now, but if not....act surprised when you get it Haley! I just wanted her family to know that we were thinking about them this Christmas, and she of all people understands my goal of trying to keep things inexpensive. The idea of the Christmas Tree Garden was born when my s-i-l and I were walking through Target in November and came across these little pots with seeds for Christmas trees in the dollar spot. I scooped them up because I knew they'd be a perfect match for the egg boxes that I just had to have from PTI they are sitting in my closet collecting dust. So I went to work covering the box with adorable d.p. Now the insert for the box had 6 holes. My pots were just a little too big to fut 6 so I covered the insert with cardstock and only cut out 3 holes. I made some cutey little picks to put in the pots , so she knows what's what when she plants the seeds. FPr shipping purposes I put the seed packets and instructions under the insert to keep them contained. So I hope she likes it. I thought it was a fun gift and urge you think outside the box this Christmas!

Gift Exchange Stocking

This year for my mom's side of the family we decided to go the gift exhange route. I drew my step dad's name. In an effort to keep the cost of the gift down, I used Lauren's (free!) stocking stuffer template to create the gift packaging for his gift card. I think that presentation of the gift is sometimes as important as the gift itself. I love how masculine this stocking turned out. I just went around house looking at my Christmas decoration trying to find the perfect "embellishments" to snatch for this project. The d.p. is by SU! called Frosty Day. I made the tag using my Marvy scallop square punch and a retired stamp from the Noble Deer set, by SU! I used that same pinecone stamp with Timber Brown Staz On to stamp the bag on the inside of the stocking that holds the gift card. I am really happy how this turned out and will be using this template a lot! Be sure to scroll down for my earlier post.

Nugget Tin Gift

Just a quick Christmas gift to share with you today. This will go to the boys' bus driver. I always feel that we also need to thank her for making sure my boys get to school safely each day. Most people remember the teachers during this time of year, but forgot people like the bus driver, or the school secretary, or principal. I simply wrapped some Hershey nuggets with some of the d.p. left from the I Wish SSK. and added a belly band and tag. Then I put them in a hinged tin that can be purchased at Specialty Bottle or PTI. Very simple!

Sleeping Santa & Peppermint Snowpals

I'm going to start off by saying how proud I am to be a mom. I know most of you come here to see my creations, but once in a while I have to share my family with you. I took this picture of Cameron last night after he went to sleep. He's been sleeping with his Santa hat on the past few nights. Why is that a big deal, you ask? It reminds me that there is magic at Christmas time for my children. Especially for Cam. He is at that at that age where he really believes in this whole Christmas spectical and it makes me realize even more what a special little boy he is. Being the middle child he is often overlooked, but he holds such a special place in my heart. He wears his heart on his sleeve and isn't afraid to show it. He is always telling us he loves us and he is full of compliments. If you're having a bad day he knows just what to say. The other day was Dustin's birthday. After we sang happy birthday to him, Cameron tells him that he is his hero. Dustin asked him why and Cam said because he protects us. My heart exploded and he made me so proud of him! So this year at Christmas I urge you to look through your children's eyes at the magic and wonder of this holiday instead of getting caught up in the hustle and bustle of it all.

The next picture is just of some quick snowpals I put together with my leftover peppermint patties. I call them snowpals instead of snowmen because yesterday while going through some of my lesson plan books (I used to teach preschool), I remembered that we were taught not to say snowmen because that was sexist. They taugh us a lot of other goofey thing to say, but that's another post. Enjoy your day!

There's No Day....

Here's a card from last week that I never got to post with the craziness of the holidays. I think it was from Julee's Mojo Monday sketch, but I'm not positive. My main image was from last year's CC Designs release. Lulu is building a snowman, I love the colors in the My Minds Eye d.p. that I used. There is lots of glitter on this card for the snow. I colored my main image with Copics. Dear Santa, if you're reading this....I NEED more. Lots more!

Weekend Wrap Up

I could share tons of pictures with you from the weekend, but I'll spare you. But here is a potential family photo for our Christmas cards. What a wonderful long weekend, huh!? We have been on the go from 10 am to midnight or after every night since Wednesday. We are exhausted and having a hard time jumping into the Monday routine. I'll be back later to share a card and hopefully a Mojo Monday sketch!

A Christmas Wish

I love the color combo that I went with for this card. Very non traditional Christmas colors in Soft Sky, Chocolate Chip, and Riding hood Red. I started with a Soft Sky card base. The next layer is Chocolate Chip stamped with C.C. snowflakes. The middle is a layer of R. Red and S. Sky wrapped with C.C. ribbon. I added a felt flurry snowflake to the middle with a Build-A-Brad and embossed "A Christmas Wish" on the bottom left corner. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with many blessings just incase I don't make it back here before then!

Trifold Gift Card Holder

I've been feeling extremely guilty for not posting since last week, but I'm trying to get things ready for all of upcoming holiday events that will be non stop until New Year's. This Friday we will be celebrating Christmas with Dustin's family and we needed a gift card for his 8 year old Godson. Boys could care less about the packaging, so I whipped up a quick trifold gift card holder to put it in. I took little time to put it together since it will promptly be going into the trash can. I started with a 4" x 9" piece of cardstock and scored it at 3" & 6". I added some My Minds Eye d.p. to the flap that opens. I created a belly band to keep it closed. For the inside I sealed a small envelope, then sliced the top off, so it was open, and used a circle punch to punch a notch out of the top so he could easily grab the gift card out. I punched out different size circles from several colors of cardstock and adhered them to the bottom of the envelope to jazz it up a little. That's about it. Today it is raining and cold, so besides working on Julee's Mojo Monday sketch (which hasn't posted yet) I intend to put up the Christmas tree. For those of you out there with puppies, feel free to pass along any tips you have for keeping the dog away from the tree. I have a feeling this year is going to be a constant battle with Hemi. She's lucky she's cute!

From Our House To Yours

This is the last of my new Riley Moose stamps. This is Santa Riley. I used him to combine Julee's Mojo Monday sketch and this week's SCS color challenge of Real Red, Black, and Kraft. Everything on the card is SU! except for the main image. I colored him with Copics and used liquid applique for his beard and hat. The rest is pretty basic. Make sure to scroll down for my earlier post.

First Snow & Ornament Boxes

This morning we woke up to the first snow of the season that has amounted to anything. It snowed off and on all weekend but didn't stick. I took this picture through the foggy door. That's why it's a little blurry, but this was the very first time Hemi has seen snow. She loves it, but she doesn't love the cold, so she doesn't stay out long.

Now, I think these ornament boxes turned out just darling. You can purchase the template over at PTI. It's called For Keep{sake}. You don't have to use it just for ornaments, but it is tradition at my house to buy the boys each a new orament each year. That way, when they are grown and gone they will have a collection of ornaments for their own tree. Dustin's mom did that for him and still does, so we get lots of new ornaments each year. I love that tradition! Do you have any family holiday traditions?

There's No Place Like Home For The Holidays

This card is using yesterday's scs sketch challenge. I rotated the sketch a little to work with my main image. I'm loving the Boards & Beams and Home For The Holidays sets from PTI. I also used Martha Stewart's snowflake punch and d.p. from SU's I Wish SSK.I used Copics to color everything and added lots of glitter. Now I'm off and running to the grocery store.

Merry Wishes

Let me just say that is so cold that my hands hurts to type! We actually had some snow flurries last night. So this card seemed fitting for my Mojo Monday sketch card. I pulled out my Wreathabella and matched her up with some of my leftover Figgy Pudding d.p. by Basic Grey from last year. I colored her with Copics. I don't have Nesties or any other big scallop circle so I had to do it the old fashioned way, with the Coluzzle and corner rounder punch! Maybe I'll put those Nesties on my Christmas list! Be sure to scroll down for my earlier post. Happy Monday!

Pancakes In A Jar

Today I wanted to share with you another one of my potential Christmas gifts. I got this idea from Lauren who is more talented that anyone I know. Packaging and presentation are her specialties. So, I picked up some glass jars at Target with a screw top lid as well as several types of pancake mixes. This one is Banana Chcolate Chip. I will keep the mix in it's original bag until it's almost time to give it away so that it stays fresh. I decorated the outside of the jar using Boards and Beams & Home For The Holidays from PTI. I typed up the directions on the computer and printed them out and added them to the lid for easy referal. This scene was so much fun to build using these two sets together. Well, I've got half a dozen more of these to make and things to get ready for Monday morning so that's it for today.