Sarah's First Christmas

Last year I shared a preview with you of a project I had been working on.


Well, it took me forever to get it in the mail and for my niece to actually receive it. And then I forgot about it. For some reason it came to mind the other day and I thought I would share it with you.

First of all, let me give you a little advice. When you make something for someone and have to mail it, go ahead and send it certified or whatever where it can be tracked. I sent Shannon 2 packages at the exact same time by USPS using the flat rate boxes. Then I sent her a facebook message to let her know they were coming and to please let me know when they arrived. Six days later, I got a nice little message that a package had arrived and blah, blah, blah. Well, I could tell that it wasn't THE package.

THIRTY-THREE days later (yes, I'm going out of my mind by now but had plenty of Race for the Cure related things going on), Shannon's neighbor decided to return from vacation and brought her 2nd package over. Yes, it was delivered to the WRONG house and just sat there for a month! UGH!

OK, it may be out of my system now. Maybe not though.

Anyway, I had been doing so many ABC albums that I wanted to do something different for Shannon's daughter, Sarah. I thought a Christmas album would be cute. After much debate, I decided to go with the 12 Days of Christmas as the theme. From there I had to come up with 12 items that I could make with my cricut and would fit. Thankfully, I had plenty of suggestions from friends. Another friend (thanks, Gayla) suggested that I send her all of the items. I sent the stocking before Christmas so that she would at least have it and told Shannon more would be following. I just had no idea how long that would be.

I managed to get the album made and most of the items obtained. However, by procrastinating in getting it mailed, Sarah outgrew some of the items. Bad aunt!!!! I also included extra papers from the album for Shannon to use for mats, etc. So Shannon was really confused when she got the first box with odds and ends of multiple items including scrap paper. Sweet thing never asked if I had gone stark raving mad, but I'm sure she thought it. I mean really, SIX rubber ducks?

OK, ok, here it is:

Well, when I view the slideshow on the blog, it is only showing part of the layouts. If you click on the slideshow, it should take you to my photobucket page where you can look at each layout. Sorry.

The paper was an 8x8 stack I found at Hobby Lobby. It had lots of glitter. I used 3 CTMH cardstock colors for the solids and rotated them. I tried to keep the format fairly consistent throughout the book by putting the number ornaments in the same place on most of the pages. I also used Stickles, google eyes and ribbon to girly it up.

For the cover page, I used Design Studio to cut 1st Christmas into the pink ornament. I ran the pink paper through my Xyron where the adhesive would go on the back and then, leaving the backing on, I ran it through for the adhesive to go on the front. I took the backing off the FRONT and covered the ornament with CTMH Prisma glitter. Once it was well covered and the access glitter shaken off and poured back into the bottle, I took the backing off of the back and placed it on a darker ornament which had already gone through the Xyron to adhere the back to the page.

I also included a copy of One Baby Jesus: A New Twelve Days of Christmas book. I hope that Shannon was able to find pictures to fit the pages of her album. I can't believe she's already had her 2nd Christmas.

I hope you and your family are enjoying a nice weekend. I'm spending mine scrapbooking with the Jammers. Yes! Actually scrapbooking!

Jill

Stocking Banner

Happy 2012! Hope you have had a happy beginning to the New Year. I also hope to be able to scrapbook, create and share with you more this year. 2011 was k-razy! Here's to a quieter 2012 for me.

OK, I did not manage to share this with you before the holidays, so let's just pretend that I'm sharing early for Christmas 2012. :D

Seems like everyone has been making banners lately and I wanted in on the fun. I wanted one on my mantle for Christmas but didn't want to use pennants. As we use a stocking hanger for our stockings instead of hanging them from the mantle, I thought stockings might be cute. But I also didn't just want to say Merry Christmas. Finally--Happy Birthday Jesus.


I used stocking1 from Christmas Cheer for the base and its shift for the detail (both cut at 5 3/4"). However, I only needed the top cuff so hid the nail, toe and heel pieces. I also hid the toe, heel and cuff lines on the base stocking as I didn't want these to cut. I probably could have welded those instead of hiding.


Calligraphy Collection has become my favorite font cartridge lately. I didn't want a lot of layers and wanted to be able to see the letters from across the room, so I just used the shadow of the basic font for my letters cut at 2 1/2".


I would have added glitter or cut from glitter paper for the white except for the fact that my son has a glitter phobia.


For his sake, I try to avoid glitter when I know he is going to be around.


Here's the fireplace on Christmas Eve after Santa made an early stop to fill our stockings and before everyone arrived. If you click on the photo, you can see the silver letters I found to attach to our stockings. Everyone loved the banner.


I plan to add something at each end next year to "hold" the string. I just ran out of time this year and couldn't decide what I wanted to use.

Have a great week!

BTW, while not using my blog in almost a year, I have lost the connection to upload my files. You should be able to recreate this file on your own if interested, but you can comment on this post and leave your email address if you would like for me to email it to you.

Thanks,
Jill

Santa Hat

Yes, I am a little out of season. Sorry for the delay.

Rose Mary was working on a cute layout of her granddaughter back at our crop in January. The lighting wasn't great in the photos, but the pictures were precious.

She had bought a Santa hat embellishment but didn't like it after all, so we proceeded to see what could be done. I found the Santa with suit on Christmas Cheer which was close to the hat she had. I hid everything we didn't need and cut the hat in Cranberry and the trim in Colonial White. Rose Mary inked the edges and added Prisma Glitter to the trim. Then she removed the decoration from the one she bought and added it to the one we made.


But the layout still needed something. Rose Mary really wanted a 12 inch border, so I used the same elements only smaller to make a border. I created it with the view on 24x12 mat so that I could get it long enough and then rotated the design to fit on a 12x6 mat. Lots of hiding selected contours! Again, she inked the edges and added Prisma Glitter.


We thought it turned out pretty dang cute!


You just might see this design again if I ever get around to scrapping my Christmas pictures. I hope you can use the Santa Hat file.

Jill

Christmas Wonderland

I hope that all of you, your family and loved ones are safe and well. It's so sad what the people in Haiti are going through. Certainly makes you stop and think.

It's been a while since I've actually completed a layout. It seems like I'm always working on a project. Well, this morning I decided that I wanted to do something with the pictures of our yard during Christmas. Dave always does such a wonderful job decorating it for all to enjoy.

I was rather lazy and thought I'd do a digital layout for a change. I've had this Peppermint Kisses kit from Scrap Girls for some time, LOVE the paper and thought it would be perfect. I guess the only other thing I used was a font from my computer, Amazone.


Everything but the snowmen and penguin came down after New Year. What's left will come down tomorrow for Teddy to come out for Valentine's Day.

I've added several blogs to the list on the right column lately. One I added today was What's the Scoop a division of Paper Popsicles. It's a new one and has some cute ideas.

I really need to get everything together so that I can share some Cricut projects with you. I spent most of last weekend covering Target mailboxes. However, I got my original file from someone else and can't figure out who she is or how to get in contact with her. Does anyone know Leann that did a Target Mailbox file?

OK, off to figure out what I've done lately and get some pictures downloaded.

Jill

Reindeer Tags

Well, most of the Christmas decorations are down. Just have to pack some of them away tomorrow and make a trip or two to the storage unit. What happened to December?

I do have a file to share with you today, but it's a very straight forward one. That's to say that I did not make any adjustments to it.

In November, I decided that I wanted to have a Christmas Luncheon sometime in December. I thought it would be difficult as everyone is always so busy at this time of the year. I set the date and sent out an email inviting five of the divas for a Saturday afternoon. To my surprise, they ALL accepted! Then my hopeful Saturday afternoon grew into a full weekend crop with some coming on Friday afternoon, one coming Saturday morning, one only coming for Saturday and everyone else leaving on Sunday. Wow!

Somehow, my idea to make an ornament for each of the girls grew and grew. I made round glitter ornaments and etched their initials in the heart shaped ornaments. My mother had found some heart shaped candy dishes. I came across some Christmas magnetic notepads. I added a Scentsy travel tin, a packet of peppermint cocoa, some peppermint and chocolate candies, a Christmas pencil and a little Christmas game.


Of course, I had to have a nice way to present all of this to them and found these bags at Hobby Lobby just the perfect size. The etched ornament was wrapped in tissue and placed in the candy dish. The glitter ornament was placed in a small Christmas cube box that I got at Michaels. Everything else was placed in a Christmas goodie bag I got at Hobby Lobby. I added red sparkly filler and topped with tissue paper. Then I made tags to match and tied it all up with red ribbon.


Here they are under my pink tree all ready for the girls. Can you see the reindeer tag hanging under the red bow? It's from Very Merry Tags. I cut the tag in black and the layer in red. Then I used Winter Woodland to cut their initial in red and put it on the back of the tag. Why did I not take a close up of the front and back of the tags?


Here we are gathered around my big tree before our ornament exchange and before they received their party bags. Some of the dearest friends a girl could ever hope to have. On the left side is me standing and Kay kneeling. On the right side is Angie in the Arkansas shirt standing next to Virginia with Dawn kneeling and Rose Mary sitting.


We've had our ornament exchange and set those aside. Now it's time to dig in once again. What fun!




All of these goodies and what did they play with? The little toy mazes. You know, the ones that you flip the little thing and the ball ricochets around kind of like a pinball machine. Kids!


It was a wonderful weekend and we had a GREAT time. We all have beautiful ornaments and memories, and we're making plans for next year.

Here's the file for my tags. Again, I didn't make any adjustments to the images. I love this cartridge and hope to make more tags for my Christmas presents this year. I seem to have run out of time last year.

Reindeer Tags

We had another beautiful day here, but COLD. Ok, cold for us. Chance of snow flurries tonight and tomorrow but no accumulation.

Loving 2010,
Jill

P.S. Yahooooooooo! I just found out that the Razorbacks won the Liberty Bowl. Way to go, Hogs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Not sure why I didn't watch the game. I forgot about it when we got home from dinner.)

Pink Tree

Happy New Year! I hope that all of you have safely made it to 2010 and have had an awesome first day. It was absolutely beautiful here!

Dave took down part of our outdoor decorations today. More will come down tomorrow. But our snow related items will remain another month. I hate driving home after Christmas when all of the lights have come down and it's so dreary. But then I get home and my house is still bright and cheery.

I've also decided to leave one of my trees up for a while. This tree was added new this year. A few years ago, our Race Committee thank you gift was a Christmas ornament. Mine hangs from an ornament holder all year on an end table in the living room, but I decided that I wanted a pink tree to hang it on for Christmas. Pink decorations weren't the easiest thing to find, but between finding some and making others, I think it turned out great. It's fun and has made me very happy.


It sits on a table in our foyer. Back in 2005, I decided it was time to remove the wallpaper in there and paint. I taped paint samples up and took them down as they were eliminated as a possibility. I finally got it down to THE color. Well, 4 years later, I decided that really was THE color and proceeded to remove the wallpaper. Then I had to contact the painter and get him out here. No, I don't always take that long. I decided as long as he was coming, I'd have him repaint the hallway also. It just took me a week to finalize that color. Anyway, most of the following shots were taken after wallpaper removal and before painting.


Above is the ornament that started it all. The opposite side says "This One's for the Girls" which was our theme that year.


The ornaments above Love above and above and below and to the left of Joy below are some that I made with the clear ornaments and acrylic paint. None of the pictures show the ones I made with glitter or with alcohol ink.




Don't you love my tree topper and the angel wings?


I love it with the lights on.


Yes, it definitely looks better since the walls have been painted.


The penguin and things on the shelf behind the tree are Pink Palooza that I found at Hobby Lobby. So cute AND pink! And the photo is our Race Committee from 2009.

There's really nothing Christmasy on the tree, so I think it's good through Valentine's Day. Other than my snowmen, rest of my decorations will come down tomorrow. I've really enjoyed my decorations this year, so I'm sad to be putting them away.

And, yes, the foyer's color is pink but the hallway is blue.

I'll share more cricut tomorrow but wanted to share part of me to start 2010. I hope you don't mind.

Hugs,
Jill

Poinsettia Mesh

We had a mesh swap several months ago and I opted to work on Christmas. Since December has arrived (can you believe it's already here?), I thought it a good time to add it to my blog. If you followed the thread at the time of the swap, you may already have it.

The first 3 pages of the file are strictly for viewing the design. I would not cut those pages. Leave the mat alone after cutting the mesh and hit load paper. This will take the mat back to where you originally started. Then go to the border page and cut it. This will clean up the edges of the pieces that are in the non-cutting areas. You'll have to work with the leaves (cut green) and blooms (cut red or pink) to get them in the right places after cutting as some of them are trimmed off to fit the pieces trimmed off on the mesh.

I love the design and was very pleased with my trial cut. When I cut one to use, I think I will cut it either with the mesh in gold and the blooms red or the mesh in silver and the blooms in either pink or blue. And, of course, I'll have to add stickles.

Here's the cut file. Enjoy!

Jill