What a year! {top 12 of 2012}

I'm sitting here, typing up this year-in-review post, and desperately trying to make sense of the idea of another year over.  I feel this way every December.  Where did the time go?  What did I even accomplish this year?  How did the kids grow up so much in a year??

In all honesty, I'm not one for big new year's resolutions: they stink of failure after the resolve behind the decision fizzles out.... (I'd rather make my huge resolution in, say, October - and not start out the new year feeling like I've already let myself down.)

But I'm a firm believer in looking-back-before-moving-forward.

Sooo, that being said, enjoy this month-by-month look back at some of my favorite projects of the year, before we move into a new year of crafty ventures together :)

Click on any of the photo captions to be whisked away to the original posts.


January:

an early valentine

February:

thank you so much

March:

little chickadees

April:

sewing party invitations

May:

milk & cookies party

June:

gallery idol, round 3 cards

July:

it's what's inside that counts

August:

camping party

September:

a new day

October:

halloween mis-fortunes

November:

snow-globe shake tag

December:

ring in the new year

Happy New Year!  

nailed it!

I'll make this post short and sweet, since we're on the run this holiday season...

I wanted to enter the mama elephant challenge, which ends tomorrow.  It's the first time I ink up these two sets: "midnight letters" and "on target."



Hope you like it!  There's still time, if you want to submit an entry of your own - they're offering a free digi stamp if you don't already own their stamps.

JOYful resolutions {CSS group project}

Happy day-after!

if you're anything like me, you're living inside of a sugar overdose... I still can't believe that Christmas has come and gone!  It was such a wonderful time spent with family and friends, sharing gifts, making memories, and eating more food than we ever thought possible...

As we sail towards the year's end, and start thinking about our new year's resolutions (getinshape*cough*getinshape), some of us over at Clear & Simple are showcasing the limited edition JOY stamp set and offering our own crafty resolutions for 2013.

I've created a little something for the midnight ring-in.  An embellished bottle of bubbly, (actually, sparkling apple juice here, since we'll be serving it to the kids) a little confetti pouch, and re-worked party blowers.

(of note: last year, we set all of the clocks back so that the kids thought they were staying up until midnight with their cousins, when in reality, we had them all in bed by 9pm.  We did a fake countdown and everything.  I don't know if we were bragging a little too loudly, but Sofia found us out.  whoops!  This year, we're staying in and letting our kids stay up as late as they want.  I look forward to watching them drop like flies somewhere around 10:30pm... my husband thinks I'll be falling asleep on the couch by that time and leaving him to entertain the 3 musketeers.... I suspect he may be right.)


To create the embellished "wine" bottle, I cut into a sheet of silver cardstock to spell the word "cheer" (yes, a play on the usual glass-clinking "cheers") using the uppercase alpha dies, and backed it with a piece of very subtly striped patterned paper.  For a bit of extra frill, I adhered a strip of double-stick tape to the back of the patterned paper and gathered a length of white crepe paper, so that it looked ruffled from the front.  A bit more double-stick tape was used to adhere it all to the bottle.  To bring in a bit of blue to my bottle, I stamped a favor flag die-cut with the coordinating frame image, and stamped the "and happiness" sentiment from the limited edition "JOY" stamp set.  Some blingy rhinestones and silver cord finished it off.



For the midnight toss (doesn't everyone want confetti at midnight?  uh, maybe not the parent who'll have to clean it up, hee, but we'll allow it anyway...) I cut circles of various sizes from "my style blueprint," "silver," and "a blanc check" cardstocks.  I threw in a little coarse silver glitter at the end.  I knew the package would be ripped into, so no need to make a fancy topper.  A little creative inking (I nabbed the "for" and "midnight" from 2 different sentiments in the favor flags set) gave me a custom sentiment, and I framed it in blue to match the bottle label.  A little ruffling of silver tissue paper and silver cord also tied back into the embellished bottle.



The party blowers will be a sure hit!  I brought home a pack of really gaudy blowers from the Dollar Store, and immediately took them apart to make them more beautiful.  After taking apart the blower, here are the steps:

step 1: cut a length of silver tissue paper to size and wrap around the blower base.  adhere with double-stick tape.
step 2: using the original blower's paper (the part that rolls and unrolls) as a guide, cut a length of computer paper to size and fold as indicated by the original.  stamp a design (from "designer lines") before using scotch-tape to secure the paper closed.  roll the paper, and secure it with a small clothespin (or rubber band, or paper clip or anything like that) for a few hours (this will help it to keep the rolled shape.)
step 3:  secure the base to the blower.  I stamped a strip of white adhesive paper with a starry motif from the "sweet dreams" set and used that to adhere the two together.
step 4: try it out - works like the real thing!

My crafty resolution for 2013 is to collaborate more with other artists.  I have reached out to several local artists, and I hope that party season 2013 will be its best ever ;)

A few of my fellow CSS designers are also sharing their own crafty resolutions: Dana ♥ Lori ♥ CSS

Thanks for stopping by!

merry christmas!

Hark the herald angels sing

"glory to the newborn king!

peace on earth and mercy mild,

God and sinners reconciled"

Joyful all ye nations rise,

join the triumph of the skies,

with angelic host proclaim,

"Christ is born in Bethlehem!"

Hark the herald angels sing,

"glory to the newborn king."

with love and a "merry Christmas" from our home, to yours ♥


(the beautiful photo of my kids is thanks to Tanya Zaleski.  Maia is ever-marching to the beat of her own drum, Thomas is stroking the batman t-shirt underneath the dress-shirt, and Sofia is my gorgeous, and photo-loving princess.  xoxo, Tanya, for capturing this fun moment!)

teacher gift #2: snowman card + cookie set

Hi all!

We're in the home-stretch before Christmas, and it's so sad - the only presents wrapped and under the tree are some brown paper bags that the kids decorated for "mommy" and "daddy."  They're so excited to have put together a present for each of us, it's adorable!  Time for this mommy to get to work so they could see some presents of their own under there!

Yesterday, I shared a gingerbread cookie jar and matching gingerbread tag.  Today, Marlyn & I are at it again!  We thought it would be so fun to create a card set and coordinating set of cookies...  I give you, the "build-your-own-snowman card & cookie set":

I packaged the build-your-own-snowman card kit in the bottom tin, and secured it to the cookie jar by way of a ribbon.  The ribbon knot and tails were embellished with MFT snowflakes.  The snowman on the front is to show how the ones in the kit could come together.  I used Papertrey ink dies, and a mix of lawn fawn and PTI stamps to make the kit come to life.  I packaged each "snowman part" individually, and labelled each little baggie.  (If you know the PTI dies, you'll remember that they don't include scarves for this snowman, but it wasn't too hard to hard draw and cut out a set... and he looks so much cozier like that!)

And the cookies - hee hee.  I had so much fun playing around with them!  Marlyn did include some bigger circle cookies, but it made me laugh when I lined up 3 the same size :)  She thought of everything: eyes, carrot noses, buttons, different hats, there were even a few ties!

I hope you like it!  Thanks for stopping by!

sweet teacher gift #1.

I know I keep posting things that Marlyn creates, and you must think I'm slightly obsessed.  It's true.

We teamed up to create cookies that matched Papertrey Ink's "boards and beams" set *here.*

And now, we're bringing the lawn fawn love.  Marlyn created the cookies based on lawn fawn's "sweet christmas" set.  

Aren't they the cutest little gingerbread people?  If only every teacher could get such a gorgeous gift for Christmas ;)

I'll be back tomorrow, sharing another paper+cookie teacher gift.

In the meantime, if you're keen to know more about me, Wida has a whole post dedicated to me on her blog today.  Pinch me!  I was interviewed for her next installment of "diagnosis design" - which I think is such a great idea!  I'm honored to be a featured artist.  There are even pictures of my craft room (gasp!) and very kind testimonials.

See you tomorrow!

a bundle of joy.

I have an adorable baby card on the app today, using the new limited edition "joy" set from CSS.  It's already being enjoyed by a set of new parents who look so comfortable in their mommy/daddy roles.  sigh.  I was a trainwreck when I had Sofia.  a nervous/don't-really-know-what-I'm-doing wreck.  How do some people manage to look like new-parenthood isn't a big deal at all? hee hee.

Thanks for popping by!