Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Morning Visitor

Here's what flew into our neighborhood this morning. I think this is a blue heron. It's so much bigger than it looks here!! It was foggy this morning so the picture didn't turn out that great, also, it's in our neighbors yard so it was also far away.

It's "stalking" the fish in my neighbors pond (wonder if there are any left!!). I had a great time watching him slowly move around and in and out of the water!

Living in the city we don't get sights like this very often unless we go to the wildlife refuge.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Advent Calendar

This is probably one of the best advent calendars I've seen. My step mom made each of my kids one of these. Each year she buys all the goodies to go in them and I put it together. Even though my son is 13 he still loves opening one of these boxes each day.

Each box is 4X4 and you will need 25 for each calendar. Only the lid is stamped. The backing is a piece of foam core board (20X30) painted black and then Christmas-y type paper used as the background on top. Each of the squares has a letter in it that spells Merry Christmas and then the name of the child.

The boxes were the hardest to attach (and make them stay that way!). I know this because my step mom used hot glue which had come off by the time we got these home. I wanted something strong enough to hold them so we could hang these on the wall.

For my daughters, I punched a hole through the box bottom and foam core and put a brad through to hold the boxes. For my sons I used Gorilla Glue and that seems to be holding well.

On each box I punch hold in the bottom on opposing sides. After I put the goody in, I ran ribbon through the holes, placed the top on and tied the ribbon to hold the box lid on nice and tight and keep prying eyes out!!

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Finally!

Well, I finally got rid of the smell. I don't know what it was but I had to resort to shampooing the carpets so maybe my dog is to blame although I didn't actually see anything.

So, now I am trying to get back into the groove of things. I have seen a couple of things that others have done with their punches and tried those.

I keep thinking....why didn't I think of that? I just need to get inspired!! Maybe I need to put my stamping stuff away and get my Christmas gifts made.

My kids have always played sports and they usually get a t-shirt with the sport organizations logo on it as their uniform. I have always saved these and decided this year I would make them t-shirt quilts for Christmas. I figure if I start now I might have them done by next Christmas!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.......

Monday, November 12, 2007

P-ewe!!!

Sorry I have been so quite here lately. My craft room has picked up a strange odor and I have been moving and cleaning and trying to find it (unfortunately it smells like a dead animal!!).

My room isn't that big but it sure seems like there are a lot of hiding places!!!

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Yet Another Christmas Card!

Well, I just can't stop!! Here's a card I totally CASE'd from someone. I wish I could remember who it was because this is a definate WOW! card!! I made about 8 that looked like this and about 8 more that did not have the 3 flowers off to the side but instead have "merry" stamped sideways in that spot.

The 3 little ornaments on the tree are little red fuzzy pom-pom's. I'm not sure that these will hold up through the mail so I'll probably hand deliver these.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Christmas Card

I love this card. It was easy since there is no coloring. I used confetti white cardstock and the ribbon actually comes through a hole in the accent piece. That is the new taffeta ribbon. Wonderful stuff!

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Snowman Christmas Card

Yet another Christmas card!! I loved this one. The only thing stamped here is the Merry Christmas. I saw this snowman paper at our local scrapbooking store yesterday and just had to get it. The snowman print is on one side and the stripes are on the other.

I used SU's ticket punch to make the "merry" ticket and the tab punch to make the "Christmas" bit. I'm still not great at sewing cards but I'm getting there!