I hope you are all having a wonderful Holiday season! I know we are. Our temperatre has been dropping and the apple cider has been brewing. Today we were able to reach a high of 1 degree. Thats right I said 1 degree! For my project this week I made a cute little gift box. It comes from a 5-in-1 Template idea but I resized it out to fit my needs as the example was a 4 inch and I needed a 5 1/2 inch. I picked out 3 colors of card stock to make my box from. I went with blues and greens.

I took the piece I wanted as my top and flipped it over to trace out my pattern. I used my Expression to cut out a 5 1/2 inch circle then I folded it in half to form the edges of the box.

I cut out the lid pattern and then scored it with my fabalous Martha Stewart score tool.

I used the same 5 1/2 inch circle I cut with my Expression and traced 2 circles on my green paper. I then cut them in half and folded the half circles in half. So you have 4 half circle corners.

I took the folded half circles and glued them on the inside of my lid on both sides to make my 4 corners. Glue the other ends to the side to make your lid.

Next I got out my bottom paper and traced the pattern on the paper.

I cut in on two sides flipped and cut in on the other two side just opposite. Scored the other lines.

Folded them up and glued them down to make the bottom of the box.

Slid the little lid on top and added ribbon and a flower bow that I constructed out of a few flower cuts on George and Basic Shapes cart.

~*Recipe*~

~*3 pieces of 12x12 cardstock

~*ribbon

I love making these little goft boxes. They are so cute! For the original tutorial you can find that at.... www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/five_in_one_template_box/

Thanks so much and I hope you have a wonderful holiday season!!

~*Jen*~

A day in my life!!

The week is almost over yay!!! It's been a hectic one for sure! Monday
we took Ryder in for emergancy surgery at a Vet Specialist place in
Anchorage. He had a ruptured disc between T13 and L1. They went in and
removed the disc material in hope he would regain his abillity to
walk. We have been driving in every day to visit with him and are
scheduled to bring him home tomorrow. His temporary home will be a
kennel we borrowed from some friends for the 3 months or so it will
take him to heal. So far he has not tried to walk with his back legs.
Today they made him a special little sling to hoist up his rear. He
seemed a little more happy to see us today. I am sure he will be a
happy boy to come home and be with his family... even his brother
Gunner :D as for me I will be happy to have a day to sit at the house
and not have to go anywhere! I am ready to break out my Expression and
get my craft on! We were invited to go riding Sunday but I told DH to
go with out me. I am looking forward to the quiet time at the house.
As for everything else the weather has been chilly! In the single
digits with winds up to 70-80 mph. It blew all our new-ish snow away
so it's just icy and fridgid! Hot apple cider and soup weather! Well I
am off to relax. Enjoy you weekend!

Something new

Hello! This is my attempt to try and blog on the go! I hope this works!!

Sent from my iPhone

Its raining HARD

You know that old saying when it rains it pours? Well thats my moto for right now. We were called with a family emergancy that my husbands Grannie is dying of lung cancer and he had to take leave from work and we flew down to Seattle for 11 days. Then while we were in Seattle we got a call from our friends who were watching our dogs that Ryder, our older one (only 4 years old) had received a spinal injury and cant use his rear legs. So here we are just fresh from Seattle and I just feel crazy! AHHHHHH lol!! Anyways here is a project I had sent in to the DT right before we flew out but hadnt posted yet....

Hello! This past week I recieved in the mail a package-o-happiness!! It was a pack of the new 'Post-It' craft paper!! I couldnt wait to tear into this wonderful craft paper and here is the first thing I made with it. I got the idea from SCS :)

~*Recipe*~

~*Cardstock from DCWV Christmas stack

~*Green carstock from Post It

~*Red cardstock

~*Black electrical tape

~*4 white buttons

~*green ribbon

~*black paint

~*black Sharpie

I am still here!!

Just a quick note to let you know I am still around! I have been so busy with the DH home that I havent had much time to get in here and blog. But dont worry I am still here!! OH and BTW I now am the proud owner of a Plum Expression AND a Gypsy!!! Woot woot!

Help me help you

Please stop by Karels blog http://karelj.blogspot.com/ and vote for either of my projects!! Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeee....puuulllleeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ok...do it....right now.....ok now.....how about now??......do it or the snowman gets it.....thats right I am resorting to threats.....Thanks in advance because I know you will go vote :D :D Right ?! Save a snowmans life

'Let It Snow'

~*As I type this it is snowing out :D*~

Heya Everyone! I had a chance back on the 11th of this month to sit in on a free class offered by Cricut. When I signed up for this class and saw they were going to be making a banner my wheels got a turnin'. Yes there was smoke and a lot of screeching but eventually they stopped resisting and turned. ;) When I signed up they listed the items you would need to complete the same banner they were making. I didnt have anything that they had listed but it didnt keep me from sitting in to get some tips and ideas. I had thought for a week or so on what I want to make for my banner. If you follow my blog or know me then you would know my choice was simple! I chose to do a winter themed banner that reads 'Let it Snow'. With my obsession being snowflakes I jumped all over using as many snowflakes as I could. I asked my crafty partner in crime (Kristine) if I could use her Expression because I only have the baby Cricut. I started out with picking 3 different shades of blue paper. The words 'Let It Snow' has 9 letters so I would need 9 sheets of 8x11 (3 pages of each shade) or a 12x12 will fit 2 on each sheet if you roate it.

I pluged in the 'Celebrations' cartridge and and use the foundation of the triangular banner on the bottom right of the key overlay. I set the Chicut to 9 inches and cut out 9 banner triangles.

I then picked out 5 different patterns of winter type paper.

I stuck them down one at a time on the cutting mat and set the Cricut to cut at 8 1/2 inches on the same banner foundation as above. It still looked a little 'sharp ' along the edges to me so I got out my scalloped edged scissors from X-acto and cut the edges of both the blue and patterned paper banners. I looked through a few cartridges and found that Doodlecharms, Accent Essentials and Designers Calendar has snowflakes in them. So I used thoes cartridges to cut out a bunch of miscellaneous sizes, white and shades of blue snowflakes. I glued the snowflakes to the pattered paper banner pieces. Then I plugged in the George and Basic Shapes cartridge and cut out the letters at a size of 4 1/2 inches in the same shades of blue as the banners. Grabbed more white cardstock and cut the shadow image of the same letters I just cut. Glued the letters and their shadows together. I outlined the white part of the shadow letter with irridescent glitter glue.

After the glitter was dry I got out my Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots and glued the letters to the patterned paper banner with snowflakes already glued down.

It still didnt look like I wanted it to look yet...not only do I have an obsession with snowflakes but I bathe in glitter on a regular basis. I think glitter is the answer to world peace. Im not sayin, Im just sayin. So I got out some blue glitter glues and went to work.

I plugged in Accent Essentials again and cut out the word divider snowflakes at 5 inches in light blue cardstock then did it in shadow in dark blue cardstock. Took out Accent Essentials and pluged in George and Basic Shapes and cut out a 3 inch circle in a teal blue and constructed the snowflakes.

After all that, I layed it all out across my floor. Let me tell you something here. For some very strange and odd reason when ever anything is layed on the floor in my house my 2 dogs and my 2 kids think its an invite to come and lay on it or run past it so it flips over or sit on it. I have no idea what draws them to my stuff, on the floor, but it happens EVERY TIME! Back to the instructions.....so I layed it out on the floor so that I could get a general feel of how it will look in its 'banner' form.

Pleased with the results I sifted through my ribbon tin (It is an old vintage tin that was used for ribbon candy. Thought it was kinda fitting :D) and pulled out all the blue ribbon I could find. And tied the banner pieces together.

And the result was a fun and fitting banner I can leave up for pretty much 6 months out of the year here :D :D

I hope that inspires you to make your own fun banner!! If you have any questions about any of the steps you can leave me a comment here or on my own blog! Thanks!!

Thanks card

Blah! Ever have one of those days when the 'word of the day' is blah. Thats today for me. Lol I know I have stuff to do but I dont wanna do it. Its Friday so I have art to teach and good thing I prepped all my art projects for the month or else the kids would be getting a white sheet of peper and I would be telling them to do what ever they want HA! You know, interesting fact about that, it really is funny to watch kids do art. Especially when you give them a sample piece. Some kids will try their hardest to copy yours. Some kids will see it and then make it their own some how and some kids......well.....you look at their art and wonder if they were in the class when you gave directions. We had one kid a few years ago that every time no matter what the project was he would always just take his paper and scribble all over it. With paint, marker, crayon...didnt matter the medium. We would show the sample and then when we would pick his up it was just a scribble and he would say it looked just like the sample! One time we were painting scarecrows. All the kids had somewhat of a figure on their paper. Even if it was a stick figure. His....just a scrazy all over scribble. So my point (if I actually have one) is its funny to see how everyone can interpret their own meaning of art. I am always toting along my fabulous bag of creativity incase I ever get a moment. And I hear SO many people say "Oh I am just not crafty. I could never do that." And I wonder.....have they actually really ever tried? I could not imagine my life with out crafts!! Wow I just got really scared about that thought. No crafting EEKKKK Well for your visual pleasure I have for you a card I made for 2 wonderful girls who sent me some Unity Stamps. Havent tried them yet because honestly....stamping.....scares me. I want to try it!! Really I do! But I am worried that I just wont do it right. So I guess I just need to get with it and DO IT!! Hey BTW enjoy your weekend and be safe!

Advent Calendar done!

I finished one of my projects yesterday! My plan with this is to have my kids write 25 good things about the other one and then put one in each little envalope. Thats my plan anyways. We will see how well it works! I got this DCWV kit from JoAnns. I did a little extra to it...

My Thankful Sign

~*Thankful Sign*~

Heya everyone! For my Fall themed project I made a sign to hang on my door. I don't have alot of Thanksgiving type decorations because we usually have snow around Halloween and snow puts me in the Christmas mood! I am notorious for putting up my Christmas tree at the beging of November. I say why only enjoy Christmas for one month when you can enjoy it for....TWO MONTHS! I even had on some Bing Crosy Christmas music today. So back to my fall project it turned out really great and I am so glad to be able to share it with you!

~*Recipe*~

~*Brown cardstock

~*Green cardstock from DCWV Super Stack 7

~*Orange strip is cut from a page in DCWV Animal Crackers

~*Purple Cardstock

~*Orange cardstock

~*Green raffia ribbon

~*2 coffee filter flowers I made myself

~*Golden colored cardstock

~*Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots

~*Martha Stewart glitter in orange and gold

~*Cricut Cartridge 'George and Basic Shapes'

~*Purple ribbon

~*Purple and Orange oil pastels

I set my Cricut to cut a 5 1/2 inch shape 3 (shift of the 'j') with the brown cardstock. I then set it to 5 inch and cut the green. Set it to 4 and cut the purple. I took my purple pastel and traced around the edges and blended the pastel. Layered the green on top of the brown and glued. Placed the stip I cut from Animal Crackers in the somewhat middle. Set my Cricut to cut three 3 inch ovals. I used the orange pastel to trace around the edges of the ovals then blended with a fancy blend-y tool (my finger). Glued the ovals together to look like a pumpkin. Added a stem and some leaves (raffia ribbon) and a brown curly thingie. Glue the pumpkin to the purple cardstock. Then applied 4 dots of Liquid Scrap Dots to the back of the purple cardstock and placed it on the brown/green base. While I waited for it to dry I cut out the word 'THANKFUL' in 1 inch letters on my Cricut and smothered them in glue and orange/gold glitter mixed. Let that dry. Cut, colored, layered and glued my coffee filter flowers. Glued my dried letters to the bottom of my base. Poked 2 holes in the top and threaded my ribbon through and tied knots in the ends. Glued my dried coffee filter flowers to the corner and VOILA! I made a sign...hangie...thingie. Thanks I hope you enjoyed taking a peek at it!

Snow Cutie card

I made this card for a Challenge over at Pink Cricut. She asked that we use Peachy Keen Stamps but since I didnt have any I just tried my best to recreate one of their snowman faces :D :D

~*Recipe*~

~*Pink, green, white and cream plain cardstock

~*Paper from DCWV Black Currant and Nana's Kitchen

~*String

~*Bling

~*Cotton balls

~*Glitter

~*Stamps from Michaels $1 section

~*Colored pencils

~*Fine tipped Sharpies

~*Gold oil pastel

*~*~*Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow*~*~*

Good use for old cards

Are you like me and you save old Christmas cards? I have no idea why I save cards. Not even Christmas cards but all cards. Maybe I am hoping that some day one of the signatures will be worth millions! There we go ok yah so I save cards because it is my retirement plan!! He he he well I dug out some cards a few days ago and turned them into a holiday decoration! Yes I am now officially in Christmas mode! LOVE IT!

We have snow and a medal!

Ok I know I am strange....really, really strange...even odd or more like unique...some say weird.....ok back on track here anyways I was totally thrilled to see snow yesterday when I woke up. I love the snow!!

Snowflakes are my 'thing'. I use them in all my Christmas cards and even have designed and sketched a tattoo I plan on getting soon with a snowflake.

(much better in person, the forget-me-not I want to be more realistic and the stars inside the stae I want to look like they are 3D like they are popping out and the shadow around the state and snowfalke is purple)

YAY FOR SNOW! Also my daughter finally got her medal!! Last month she ran in a Cross Country meet and out of over 130 girls got 3rd!! I was blown away!! #1 because I dont run. Well nix that I run when someone is chasing me and they usually have to be holding like a chainsaw or a butcher knife or be a bear or a mountain lion or a dog with rabies. And even then my moto is I only run faster then the slowest person :D :D In school I always 'forgot' my PE clothes on running day. So yah it is strange that she is such an avid runner. And #2 I told her on the way to the meet that morning I said "If you finish 1st I will buy you something" she said "Well what about 2nd or 3rd?" and me thinking (this is a super large meet, chances are she wont finish in the top 3) I said "yah ok 2nd or 3rd too" and as I am watching the finishers crest over the hill I see 1st place....then I see 2nd place...then I turn to my friend and say OMGoodness Alli is in 3rd!!! I was so happy for her! She placed 1st in her school but 3rd overall. So yah to make this long story a little shorter all they did at her school was give her a piece of card stock that said "Recognition of Completion for 2010 Cross Country Season" I was like WTC?!? Thats all she gets is a pat on the back. No "Roll out the red carpet and form a parade!! Our 3rd place WINNER is in the building!!" Or even no "Hey Alli did a great job getting 3rd"!! Not one mention!! So yesterday when she came home with her bronze medal I was so proud of her all over again and shocked. Its all engraved and everything. It of course came from the main committee that put together the meet and not from her school. So yay for snow and yay for a medal!!