A little gift from me...

Just a little gift from me to you! I made these to from tags for my packages this year and I've been using them like crazy! I just punch them out with a 2" circle punch and away they go! Just click on the image to enlarge it, then right click to save the sheet to your computer. Now you can have some free gift cards for all your wrapping and packaging!
Merry Christmas!

Christmas Wishes

This is the Christmas card we're sending out this year. I made several different styles, but the fam voted on this one. So out it went in this weeks mail, but I thought I'd give one to you too here in blog land! Merry Christmas!

Stop by my etsy shop if your in need of some Christmas cards, I have some cute ones in there.

Easy Christmas Craft Idea

Today I'm sharing an easy Christmas decor idea you can make in just a few minutes. Jami made these super cute candles using the Classic Christmas Journaling cards from my shop.



Jami took scrapbook paper, cut it to size, and wrapped it around the candle. Then she embellished them with the round scalloped journaling cards, ribbon, and crystals. They look so cute and festive on her window ledge! Try some for yourself!
Happy crafting!

Christmas Scrapbooking

Do you have any traditional Christmas photos you do each year? Well every year we take a picture in front of the tree at my parents house. Everyone is in their Christmas best and each year it gets more interesting trying to get everyone to look at the camera, sit still, and leave the ornaments alone. ;) We have pictures like this from starting from the year I was pregnant with my first. This year in addition to the "usual" layout I'm going to scrap a layout with 1 photo from each of the last 7 years. It make take me awhile though, cause I'm actually going to have to dig out negatives (remember those?) to get the first one or two printed...

Today though, I'll share the traditional photo op layout. Be sure you take time to scrap all those great "everyday" Christmas traditions.





Stop by my etsy shop for some fun Christmas embellishments for those scrapbook pages!

My oh My!

Where is December going? I can't believe how fast it's flying by! I've been having major Internet problems... something with our new anti-virus software and the connection to our office computers... I don't know it's beyond me. Long story short I have not had consistent Internet in over a week, so all my Christmas plans for my blog and shop came to a standstill. I never really realize how much I rely on this computer until it's not working. I've been able to get online with our laptop, but as far as access to my photos, files, etc... I was getting worried I wouldn't be able to get our Christmas cards ordered! I think/hope all the kinks are out now, thank goodness!

I thought I'd share some Christmas decor today. My house always looks so full this time of year, and I'm really enjoying it! Especially because when we take all the decorations down it looks so naked! ;)

This snowman is new to my collection this year... isn't he great!?!
This is part of a vintage inspired decoration I made. I was a super fun tutorial in Sommerset Magazine. I just love crafting with crepe paper!
My children just love these mittens. This year my son hung the up and filled them with "scraps" from our Christmas tree.
I love my Putz houses! I have a huge village that my Grandma passed down to me. I just love seeing bits of her collections around my house. My favorite decorations are the ones passed down through generations!
Lots of sparkle and glitter!

Head on over to my shop and check out the Christmas goodies. I'm working on a few more things today and I'll try and get them listed soon!

Get out your needles and thread...

...cause we are going to do some stitching today! I love to use my sewing machine or hand stitch on scrapbook pages! So I thought I'd share a layout today with a lot of stitching.
I used my handy dandy paper trimmer to cut squares out of red cardstock. Then I trimmed them into triangles using my pinking sheers. I tacked them to my page to form a banner for my title and then used my sewing machine to stitch a "string" across the top. For the title I punched circles out of cardstock and backed them with a pop dot for dimension.
I also stitched this quilt like paper to my page and added extra stitching to give it even more of a quilted effect.

For a quick and colorful border for the top of my page I added a row of brightly colored buttons.

Be sure to stop by my shop today and see all the new Christmas goodies! There are all kinds of things perfect for giving this time of year!

Christmas Cards

I've been playing around with photoshop a lot lately and having a ton of fun doing it! I am so not a manual person. If I have to read about how to do something, I'll never figure it out! It's so much easier for me just to dive in and start playing around... more fun too! I've been making Christmas cards lately. This is an example of one I made for our family.

It still needs a little editing. I've made several and I haven't decided which one to use yet, or maybe I'll use a combo of all the ones I've created.

Have a great day, and be sure to stop by my shop and see the new goodies going in today!

Fun Christmas Tradition

It starts today! This is a pretty new tradition for my family, we started it last year. I read somewhere that one clever mom wrapped one Christmas themed book for each of the 25 days of Christmas. Then each day her child got to unwrap a story that they read as part of a countdown to Christmas. I thought the idea was so great I started it for my family. (Thanks to the help of my super fab cousin Jessie who stocked me with a bag full of Christmas books last year!;)) We actually do several different kinds of advents here. I created an advent mini album with pull out tags that give us activities to do each day (like wrap presents, take cookies to a neighbor, make someone a card to show you care...etc). This year I also made a countdown calendar. I'll share a picture of that later... but for now let the countdowns begin!

I'd love to hear about your advent/countdown traditions... leave a comment and share!

More new goodies going in my shop today... stop by and check them out! Have a great day!