Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to you! I didn't have to host Thanksgiving this year so I got a little extra time to play instead of cleaning.  :o)

 

I found a picture of these little turkeys on Pinterest.  There were no instructions but I could tell they were made with the Stampin' Up! owl punch and scallop punch.  I have both (of course!).  hehe  I made little candy bags.  We didn't need anything more to eat during but they were too cute to pass up.

 

 

I also bought some cake pops to take to our 'feast'.  I bought these from my friend, Becca.  She does an amazing job.  I only took a picture of two of them because the little cellophane reflection was too much for a good photo.  Love the turkeys eyes.

 

Like many, I baked today.  I made two pumpkin pies and a pumpkin streusel bundt cake.  Yum!!

 

Tomorrow I hope to get my Christmas bins out and get started decorating.  I pulled stash fabric for Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice and the clue is being released tomorrow.  I have so many UFO's so I was kind of on the fence on whether or not to do it.  I think I'm going to but I won't be able to start it until the week so I can get the house decorated. 

 

Have a great weekend!

 

Yooohoooo!

Argh....I've been busy doing different goodies and obviously not blogging. 

I decided I "had" to clean my sewing room so I started making piles on the floor to re-file my fabrics from bridesmaid bags, craft projects, etc.  And then I started to work on some other projects before I actually got anything put away.  Sigh........THIS.....is still waiting for me!  lol

I swapped out some blocks for my Yahoo group.  I think I have enough of these blocks to make a nice size quilt.  I have to go in search on my other blocks I did the last two swaps to see just how many blocks I have.  I can't wait to go to my retreat next month, not only to see my friends in Indiana but also to get some sewing time to play with these blocks!

Some of the things I've been doing while being "absent" the last few weeks is I made some table cards for my friend's daughter's wedding.  I printed the wording with my computer on cardstock and then cut a little embellishment out with my Cricut machine.  I got the pretty rose paper at Michael's.

The bride-to-be will have a photo booth and asked for a sign they could hold up to put in their thank you notes.  I cut several signs but didn't remember to take a photo of the finished product.  I cut apart the Mr. & Mrs. and put the couples new married last name underneath it, I did the "just married" on the other side of the sign and did a few different fonts that said "thank you" so they could have a variety.

I went and helped my friend Anna put together some favor boxes for her nieces wedding she's going to next month.  The wedding is on the east coast so she packed these all up to be mailed and they'll add the little flower on top once the boxes are filled with chocolates. 

She cut the shapes out with the Top Note die from Stampin' Up! and we glued two match boxes inside.  The will fill them with eight Hershey's Nuggets.  They aren't glued down yet so they're a little wonky.  :o)

Then....I had purchased a onesie die and cut out about 100 of these little cuties.  My girls are doing a craft show in a few weeks so I thought I would make some "clotheslines" to sell.  I will include 10 onesies, the bakers twine and clothespins.  I made about seven 'kits' for either a boy, girl or generic nursery print cardstock.  This onesie isn't a finished one.  After this photo, I added three little brads where the snaps would go.  They're so darn cute!!!

And FINALLY back in the sewing room!!!  I cut out enough 'kits' for 14 make up bags for the craft show.  I am using the Little Glam Bag pattern.  It's so easy and uses such a small amount of fabric, it's perfect to clean up the scraps in my stash.  Too bad it didn't even make a dent!

Soooo, will all of this to do, I might be gone for another little bit but I will try not to wait too long to post again. 

Spring forward, Spring cleaning!

This post (from the pack rat) is being made while I take a break from cleaning, sorting and trying to organize. My paper crafting space is/was out of control. I don't have a very big surface for making cards and when the little table is covered with junk, papers, print outs, etc., it's even harder.

Yesterday and today were sort of stay home days. No plans really so I dug in. My sister works at a school and they had a yard sale. She grabbed me some white shelves that were new in the package for $2.00 each. Yeehaw! I moved my metal racks, which left me holes to patch but I'm sure that won't get done. I asked hubby where the paint is from this room and I got "the look" like you're kidding me right? :o) So, the holes will stay but it's okay. I've got enough going on to not even see little holes in the wall. Lots of cleaning and I found a table for making cards. Yay!!!!

I kind of messed up though because my wire baskets used to hang from the racks. When I moved them, I forgot about leaving space for the baskets to hang so now they are using my shelf I wanted for table-top stuff. Argh....I guess I should've hired an engineer for this project. LOL
I also hung up another magnet strip that I got from the Crate & Barrel outlet a few months ago. I had some miscellaneous tins that I needed another strip for so that's up too. Check!

And while I was at it, I cleaned up my ribbon basket and my paper. Gotta get back to work. For this side of the spare bedroom to look this good, I had to move a lot of junk. And guess where it is? On the other side of the room. LOL Breaks over!

Save the Date....done!

We had a house full this afternoon for our assembly line to put together my daughter Ashley's Save the Date cards. Ashley's fiance', her future in-laws and our other two daughters were here and we got the cards done in a little over two hours.....done and in the envelopes! I think they came out cute!

The paper is Stampin' Up! Night of Navy. The envelope was cut from the Cricut using the Wild Card cartridge and the Save the Date was from the Sweetheart cartridge.
Kelley, our oldest daughter drew the couple, designed the background and the cards.
If you pull on the ribbon, you get this...

Ashley has to check her list for addresses and will make labels. Tomorrow is a Bridal Show at the facility where she is getting married so the whole group is going. There will be about 30 vendors there, hor d'voures, champagne and hopefully some yummy wedding cake to sample. YUM!

Save the Date....Part(s) 1

I didn't realize until recently that paper crafts are very much like quilting. Lots of parts and lots of steps, and it isn't until you have all the pieces prepared, that you get a finished product.

**Acronym alert!** :o)

My youngest daughter Ashley is the B2B (Bride to Be) and when it came to a Save the Date card, she wanted something handmade. She is our former college softball player and not a crafty gal but she "steps up to the plate" (pun intended LOL) when she has to. She searched the Internet and found a Save the Date card she liked. We are making several changes so I guess you could say it was our "inspiration". She found it here if you'd like to see more of the sample.

I used my Cricut to cut the Save the Date words out from the Sweetheart cartridge. The words are all one cut so that made it easy. We cut a Shadow in silver card stock from Stamin' Up! to go behind the words. Ashley ran them through the Xyron machine after they were cut out to put permanent adhesive on the back, then she and Adina, her MOH (maid of honor) glued them down to the silver background. All 90 of them!

Kelley, my artsy daughter, created the cards we will use for the background page and the inserts. Since Ashley and Dave are getting married on 11/12/11, the numbers were too thin to do it like the inspiration card.

I used my middle daughter's Cricut machine to cut out the envelopes. She's got the bigger machine and it was nice to have two going at once.....although a little tiring. :o) Between my Cricut cutting the words and background shapes and Stephanie's Cricut cutting 90 envelopes....the dining room table was hummin'!!

We are waiting on the background sheets with the swirls and the names on them, and a drawing. Once we get those and get them cut, we can start the assembly line. We're shooting for Saturday because Dave's mama, Missy, aka/MOG (Mother of the Groom) will be in town and she can be a part of the action! Stay tuned for Part(s) 2. :o)

BusyLiz, aka/MOB.....Mother of the Bride Okay, I think I got that out of my system. hehe

Pumpkin cake and adorable Frankies!!

Thursday night was TNT (Thursday Night Therapy) and it was just going to be me and Neena crafting. I whipped up a Pumpkin Bundt Cake. You can get the recipe here. Let me tell you, it was yummy with those streusel layers!!! slurp :o)

And this is what we made. Aren't they the cutest little favor boxes ever?!!! You can find the directions to make your own here. They are super easy. The 6" box takes a 12" piece of scrapbook cardstock, some wiggly eyes, glittery felt (which I had never seen before) and a couple of punches. They are so much cuter in person. I hope you can make some for your favorite little ghoul or goblin. My ghouls are grown women but they loved them just as much as a little one. :o)

I used retired Kiwi cardstock from Stampin' Up! For the eyelids, I used a 1 3/4" circle punch and cut it in half. I used my bone folder to 'curl' the eyelids. Neena said our little Frankies needed a scar so we put a few stitches on him.

After making the three big boxes for my girls, I made 4 little ones for friends. For the smaller ones, I cut my paper 9 x 9" and scored them at 3" and 6". I think these were almost cuter because I used the same wiggly eyes and they were sort of big on the little faces.

And now that I did all that playing, today I have to clean the house. :o( I should get time off for making such cuteness but the cobwebs have a different idea.

A swap, a little shoppin' and mark one off the list!

Tuesday I swapped out a hole lotta quilt blocks. These are called Scrappity Do Dah and I mentioned on my blog before that this is from a McCall's Quilting Magazine free pattern insert from a mailing I got. The blocks are 5" and I think the example quilt in the flyer was made with about 400 blocks!! I'll be doing this swap again early next year so we can all make some more blocks for a bigger quilt.


And yesterday my daughter sent me an email from an ad she saw on Craig's List. It was for two oversized clothes pins from Pottery Barn. The lady was about 25 minutes from me and she only wanted $20 for them. They sold for $80 in the catalog and I saw a set on ebay for $293.00!!!! I don't think I have to tell you they haven't sold on ebay yet!! But I got a steal of a deal! Don't you love when people help you spend your money? lol And my laundry room is dusty and undecorated so now this is probably going to lead to a re-do. Oh oh! I think my twenty dollar deal just got a lot more expensive. Ha!

And last night was craft night and Neena came over and we finished the rest of the wedding favors we needed for the 10/16 wedding. Now I just have to find a box to put them in to keep them safe until the wedding. Checking things off my list. Woohoo!

Stampin' for the holidays

Here are some pictures of the projects we made at my sister's Stampin' Up! party last Saturday. This little Halloween card was super easy using a strip of decorative paper (a scrap would be perfect for this), a circle punch and a bat punch. We used pop dots for the bat bodies and then used a bone folder to curl the wings a bit to add dimension. I put it in a little candy dish I got at Michael's at the dollar spot. The card would be sitting in a bunch of candy but I ate it. LOL

This little treat box was made for Thanksgiving favor using the candy die. So cute! I put the Hershey's nugget next to it so you could see the size. I guess you could compare it to a tiny popper or a giant tootsie roll. :o)

Our last item as this wonderful Christmas card. Neena finds such cute stuff for us to make at our workshops!! We used Jolly Holiday designer paper. It's so yummy with cherry cobbler and old olive. What a great combination! We had bunches of fun making these projects and it really got us thinking about the holidays. Boy, they will be here before we know it!!

Wedding Favors `R Us!

******From the comments I've gotten, I should've mentioned Jessica is my friend Sherrie's daughter. She is getting married in a couple of weeks. Now, onto to the show...........

Here is Jessica, the little bride-to-be! She picked from the wedding favor samples (you can see them here) that my friend Neena and I worked up a few weeks ago. We had a "favor making party" on Thursday night.

Jessica's colors are black and white with yellow roses. Pretty combination. This is the little sister, Dani. Dani got a few hand cramps with the Supervisor (me) pushing her to curl 750 petals. Poor overworked munchkin. But look at her, still smiling.

This is the finished favor. A label will be put on somewhere with the Bride & Grooms names and their wedding date on there. Some flowers have a rhinestone, some have pearls.

They all have chocolate. Yum. Four little Hershey's Nuggets fit inside - plain chocolate, dark chocolate, with almonds and with toffee. There were a few missing out of the package. We still can't figure that one out. ;o)

Lots of pretty little blossoms.

Tonight or tomorrow I will post pictures of the things we made at my sister's stamp party on Saturday. Ohhhh, such fun stuff. Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Sew-in Treats

I'm all packed for my little sew-in tomorrow. Me and two friends and maybe my middle daughter, will go set up and sew until our eyes blur, our backs ache and we can't sew any longer. I'm all packed up but just have to load the machines in the car tomorrow. Yeah, I'm taking two. The Pfaff for piecing and in case I get anything done, the Juki for quilting. I have a "few" projects packed and hopefully, I'll put a dent in a project or two.

I wanted to give the girls a little something festive for their sewing table. I know it's not even October yet but with Halloween candy in all the stores and me gathering up my stamps up for Halloween cards, I guess I'm in that frame of mind and this is what I came up with.

I found the bottles at Michael's last year. They are "message in a bottle" invitations and I think I got them in the dollar spot. I had seen something similar here but don't have any stamp sets like those in the photo. When I saw these, I HAD to get them even though they aren't quite the quality of the ones on the Taylored Expressions site.

In case anyone is interested, I used the spider from a retired Stampin' Up! set called Just Flying By and "Boo" from a retired set called Bitty Boos. I just stamped them in Basic Black and punched them out. The ribbons are from Michael's and I punched three stars from orange, black and yellow cardstock. I put a small clear bead in between each star to keep them separated from each other and threaded them on 24g wire. It's really easy to bend but holds its shape. I just wrapped the ends around a knitting needle. If I had more time, i would cut a bigger design and colored it but it was getting late after I packed all my stuff so it'll have to do. And anyway, it was just to give the girls 'nutrition' to get them through those grueling hours of sewing!! :o)

I got the candy at Target. Juju Ghosts, Jelly Pumpkins and Fall colored plain and peanut M&M's.

Yum!

Post-it Note Clipboards

I've mentioned before that my middle daughter, Stephanie, is a Physical Therapist Assistant at a hospital. Her manager asked her if there was something "they" could make for PT Week as a gift for this week. Stephanie looked on Splitcoast Stampers, one of the greatest websites EVER!!! If you go there, click on Galleries in the upper right corner. You don't need to log in but the ideas there are endless.

This is what Stephanie (and her elf helper) made yesterday. Instead of using cardboard coasters, she used chipboard (a knock-off really) from my buddy Carolyn. Carolyn does payroll and the packs of checks have these cardboard sheets. She mailed me a bunch and they saved Stephanie or the hospital actually, a bunch of money.

Stephanie tried to cut the chipboard with her Cricut Expression but it was giving her a bunch of grief. We trimmed them up and made them pretty and glued on decorative paper (on the front or top side only). She found binder clips at WalMart on clearance and also the post-it pads for .17 each! We did the best we could to match up the sets and used ribbon to try and coordinate.

We made 60. Yup, 60! They measured approximately 4 1/2" square. The actual coaster clipboards are a bit smaller. I think around 3 1/2".

Stephanie's manager took the scrap paper from the clipboards, rolled them up and tucked them inside a pen. Each PT and PT Assist. will get a set. It's a usable gift and hopefully they'll appreciate them.

We were busy all last week and into the weekend. I only had Sunday to relax and helping Stephanie took up most of my day. I did get two sets of blocks sewed together in the morning and another two sets cut out after she left. They're simple scrappy blocks for a swap and the deadline is quickly approaching so I better get some done this week. And all those new tv shows are starting this week. Ohhhh, it's going to be rough to balance my evenings! I like House and Castle but would like to catch a few of the new shows.

Cutest things.....

My daughter, Kelley brought me a treat last night. She printed me off some of these adorable little floss bobbins. They're just printed on card stock so I don't think they'll last too long but being this cute, who cares. :o)


I'm not sure what else the blogger has on her site. Check it out for yourself. Cute as can be! How can two little dots for eyes and a tiny line for a mouth be so adorable? (Yes, I know. I'm easily entertained!) Wild Olive

Have a great weekend!!!

Getting ready to go....

I'm getting my goodies ready to go for the weekend. My buddy Neena told me on Monday that she had a gift certificate to her local quilt shop and she was going to go over there and get a door prize for our getaway. I said "A door prize?" She said, "Yeah, it's a retreat isn't it? We have to have prizes." Well......I had been thinking about giving the girls some little "goodies" so when she said that, I told her that "I" thought she should bring something for each of us. Because if Susan, the other girl going, won a prize and I didn't, I would be pouting all weekend. lol So the girls, besides packing, are now on a mission. :o) (Yes, I am always this much of a trouble maker!) Hey, we're not kids anymore. We have to create excitement any chance we get! So this is part of what I came up with......
I got the girls these little button containers. We all do card making too so I figured they'd be good for quilting, crafting and cards. I also got them a little emery board from the quilt shop. Then I hit the dollar store for a little container to put their goodies in. They'll be good for little trash containers on our tables too! I found some bubble gum tubes so I picked those up and a little chap stick.

I got my Cricut out and my card stock and covered the bubble gum "piggy banks". It seemed like it was missing something so I "tried" to embellish them. As the time was ticking away, I thought, okay, this is just going to have to do because I've got more important things to do....like PACK!!!

I have a few more little items I picked up at the dollar spot at Michael's to put in here and maybe some chocolate and I'll be done! :o)

My piggy bank will always be empty! LOL

I'm leaving in the morning and have a ton of stuff to do, bunco tonight and people stopping by my house after work so the night should be interesting to say the least. I'll "see" you all on Sunday.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Just a short sweet post to say that I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day and celebrate love in some small way. I didn't jump on the commercial holiday train (too badly). I bagged some treats in a yummy ramekin for my coworkers and gave my girls a little red mailbox filled with treats from Target at the dollar spot. Don't you just love that place???

I was so bummed they only had two. I could've used a dozen or so of these yummy cherry red dishes!

I made my hubby a card and he got all the leftover candy. :o) We'll have a yummy breakfast but that's it. I refuse to go to dinner on Valentine's Day. We'll probably have something from a drive-thru!!! Call me a romantic. LOL

My sister Isabel, gave me this adorable red heart cake plate for my birthday. It made the perfect centerpiece for my table.

And be sure to keep your eyes open. You never know when you'll find a little love today!