Need a little Christmas?

I am involved with a ladies' organization at my church and I am in charge of our monthly meetings.  The theme for last night's meeting was "A Meaningful Christmas".  It's so easy for this time of year to be stressful and hectic, instead of time of joy and hope.  I wanted to create an atmosphere that was warm and cozy, and I invited people to share ideas for activities and traditions that would help them have a Christ-centered, low-stress Christmas.  At the front of the room I set up a rocking chair, a lamp, and my pretend fireplace/heater.  I had LED pillar candles and lights all over the room, and I brought my Wallflowers (plug-ins) that were Christmasy scented.  This would mean so much more if I had taken a picture!  Christmas music was playing softly in the background as people arrived, and we had a table full of everyone's favorite Christmas treats and recipes to share.

By the glow of the (fake) fire, we started the evening with an inspirational story which was a heart warming reminder of the joy of giving - there wasn't a dry eye in the place!  The rest of the evening was full of wonderful traditions and activities that we can share with our families.  It was a good night, and I came away with some new ideas for inexpensive, meaningful Christmas gifts for my family.

I didn't take a picture of my set-up at the church, but I do have a picture of the wreath that was part of the decorations.

I've been wanting to make this wreath for a while now, but I had a little extra incentive a couple of weeks ago when DCWV put out a call for Utah-based designers.  I live about half an hour from their corporate offices, so I thought why not?  This was one of the projects that I submitted.  The base is a foam wreath that I picked up at Joann, and the rest is paper from DCWV:  from the Recollections Warm Wishes stack, and the DCWV Holiday Collection stack.  Oh, and two cuts with my Silhouette:  the gingerbread man, and the bow.  The rest of the wreath is made of paper accordion flowers, or pinwheels, or whatever you want to call them.

Oh, and I made the team.  Yay!

Hello Again

This week I did something a little crazy.  Even though I have about 3 bushels of apples in my house right now, and tomatoes to be made into salsa, I decided to craft!

I love Pinterest, and I have been seeing so many fun projects that are a combination of candlesticks and mason jars to make cute containers, or candle sticks and platters to make cake stands that I decided it was time to do a little experimenting.  I saw someone once use glass candle holders to make the cutest pumpkins.  She used vinyl for the face, and then filled the containers with orange marbles.  So cute!  Well, what can I say?  I like food a lot more than I like marbles, so I decided to try a variation of that with cute Halloween candy.  And then I thought, why not put the glass bowls on top of some fun candlesticks?  Here's what I came up with:

What do you think?  I'm really happy with how these turned out.  Of coarse, my little pumpkin would look better if I had been able to find the candy corn M & M's like I wanted, but that's another story.  All of the supplies were purchased at Hobby Lobby.  To make them you will need:

• Large glass bowl (from the floral department)

• Small glass bowl (this one was in the candle department)

• Large glass candlestick

• Small glass candlestick

• Lid - also from the candle department (normally used as a base for a pillar candle).  It's not a really secure fit, but it works

• Black tulle ribbon

• Super incredibly strong glue that is intended for gluing glass.  There are a number of adhesives that would probably do the job.  I picked one called Omni-Stick because it dries clear and becomes dishwasher safe.  

• Black vinyl cut into jack-o-lantern shapes.  I used some Snapdragon Snippets designs from the Silhouette online store

 And here's where they are on display in my kitchen.

And here's what is below:

I have about 3 bushels of apples in my kitchen right now (this is not all of them).  So far I have made 32 quarts of applesauce, 7 quarts of apple pie filling, and dried a lot of apples too.  Today I thought I would experiment with my juicer:

So we'll see how that turns out.  The rest of the apples are going to be turned into cider.  A friend in our neighborhood has a cider press and has been kind enough to let us use it.  I'll take pictures and post later on that.  Oh, and all of this is coming from two apple trees.  Ya, just two.  It's been a good year for apples.

Holiday Doodlebuggin'

Well, you may have figured out that the reason I was spending some quality time with my Doodlebug Design Inc products last week was because I was preparing my submission for their first Design Team call.  I have loved their products for years, so naturally I would love the opportunity to get other people excited about them too!

So far you have seen my layout, and one of my cards.  Today I would like to share with you the rest of my submission.  I think one of the best parts of being a crafter is it gives you a reason to get into the holiday mood early!  I hope these will help get you in a holiday kind of mood too.

I just love Halloween!  This is an 8 inch foam wreath that I wrapped in black tulle.  The fence and the spider were made using the Mini Monsters Cricut Cartridge, and the spider web was made using Paper Doll Dress-Up.  I have the most adorable Doodlebug Design Halloween Jellishments which is where the round purple embellishment (with the spider & web) and the Halloween came from.  I also used the Doodlebug Design Spooky Town Assortment Boutique Brads together with some cute Halloweeny (is that a word?) baker's twine.  Finish with some ribbon, and voila!

And last but not least:

I just love how this turned out.  It's so simple, but so cheerful!  I started with a white card base, and followed with green, and then red cardstock.  The Christmas tree in the center is another one of those cute Jellishments from their Christmas assortment.  On either side of the tree I just cut and matted circles in white and green, then placed candy canes from the Doodlebug Design Christmas Candy Assortment Boutique brads.  I then finished with some Christmasy baker's twine.

If you are a papercrafter then you're probably like me and have been using and loving Doodlebug Design products for years.  But if you're not familiar, head over to their website or their blog and check out their fabulous products - you'll be glad you did!

More Doodlebuggin'

Here's the next installment in my Doodlebug Design Inc projects.  And this is why I love their products so much - they're just so fun!  The adorable paper in the background is from their Summertime Collection and is called Little Lady.  I took three cuts from their Feeling Groovy Cute Cuts - the pink flower, the tag, and the "smile".  Then I took some brads from their Cherries Jubilee Boutique Brads - one is the center of the flower, and the other is the red with the white polka dots.

You might also notice that I have started using baker's twine.  Baker's twine is everywhere in the papercrafting world right now, and I have to admit, when I first noticed it I was not sold on it at all.  But I have seen too many adorable projects embellished with twine, so I had to get some and give it a try.  I wish I could say that this is the Doodlebug Design Doodle Twine, but it was just introduced at CHA in July and isn't readily available yet.  Maybe they'll have some at the Scrapbook USA Expo next week!  I really like the look it creates. 

Paper:  Doodlebug Design Inc (Little Lady), Doodlebug Design Cute Cuts (Feeling Groovy), AC Cardstock
Embellishments:  Doodlebug Design Inc Boutique Brads (Cherries Jubilee), baker's twine, assorted gems and buttons, Petalloo Flower, Diamond Glaze

Doodlebuggin'

My absolute favorite papercrafting company is Doodlebug Design Inc.  All I have to do is go to the Doodlebug isle at my local craft store, and it just makes me happy!  I love their color palette, I love the fun images, their boutique brads, their glitter paper, I love to go to their booth during the Scrapbook USA Expo (which is coming up BTW), I just LOVE them!  I love what they did at this summer's CHA.  Did you know that they won an award at CHA for their super fun booth?  How could they not?  Their wonderful new products and creative exhibiting just screamed fun!

Last week I spent some quality time with my Doodlebug Design Inc products, and this week I am going to share them with you!

I made this layout using primarily their Welcome Home collection.  Aren't those just the cutest kids you've ever seen?  I don't know whose they are - I just found them on the street and dragged them in for a picture!  ;-)

Paper:  Doodlebug Design, AC Cardstock, DCWV
Accessories:  Doodlebug Design Cute Cuts (Welcome Home), Doodlebug Design Boutique Brads (Welcome Home), American Crafts (ribbon), DCWV (buttons), Prima (flowers), Diamond Glaze

No Cricut (GASP!) Creations

I know, this is very shocking!  It has been a LONG time since I've made a project that didn't involve the Cricut.  Well, I teach primarily Cricut classes at my local Joann, and I have been asked to start teaching basic card classes that don't use the Cricut.  After much pondering, I decided for my first class I would teach the accordion flower technique.  I also thought I would challenge myself and make all the cards from the same DCWV stack, which in this case is the Nana's Kids Stack.  If you have been to my blog before you'll notice these are a lot simpler than what I usually make, but that's because I'm gearing them towards beginner to intermediate crafters.  That said, I'm really happy with how they turned out!  I guess I should also confess that I didn't exactly stick to the stack (as it were).  I did have to use white cardstock, one sheet of violet cardstock, and one sheet of red.  I was pretty close though!  ;-)

Paper:  DCWV Nana's Kids Stack, Core-dinations (violet), AC Cardstock
Embossing:  Cuttlebug D'vine Swirl
Embellishments:  DCWV (buttons), Offray (ribbon), Fiskars (edge punch)