Christmas Paper Gifts

Hello again! Christmas is only 2 more sleeps! I AM SO EXCITED! I am also feeling a bit stretched out :( My family has family coming in from out of town and that excites me, they will be here tomorrow (or should be) and I can see some aunts and uncles from out of town. Then tomorrow night we are heading to Chris's folks house to spend the night and then Christmas day spending it with his family. The big suck in all of this is that Chris has to work late Christmas eve and early (four am early) Boxing day. I despise retail for that! SO when you are out getting your sales and enjoying your gift cards- please be courteous to the ones out there that are sacrificing time with their families so the stores can be opened crazy early. Me? Ima stay home :D HAHA I DON'T do well in crowds- I love small spaces, but being in crowds makes me claustraphobic. I forget what it's really called. But all in all I think we'll squeeze enough Christmas spirit in the small time alloted and remember- it may be cliche- but Jesus IS the reason for the season :)

In all that being said- here are some eye candy treats for you all- the only kind of candy I wound up making this year :S Usually I make homemade truffles and chocolates- but baby taking all momma's energy had DIFFERENT plans. Sleepy plans!

Here's what I whipped up for teacher's gifts this year. I posted one earlier on in Novemeber, using the box that a Martha Stewart border punch came in- I tore it apart and adapted it a bit. I used velcro to close them and they were so much fun and easy to make once I got the template down pat! Embelishing was simple and quick using border punches, Stampin' Around Jumbo wheels (have I mentioned lately that I LOVE them??? lol!) and STICKLES! Okay- Ranger industries??? You guys are officially GENIUSES in my book for inventing such versatile, colourful and PRETTY embellishments! I used acetate for the 'windows', but vellum would work too! I cheated- as I typed above I usually make candy- and have some GREAT recipes for caramel, hazelnut cream, peanut butter cups and nougat- but this year I just didn't have the energy- so I cheated and bought mini peanut butter cups and hershey's kisses! I have a great plan using this little template in a bit- and EP (energy permitting) I should be whipping up one today for a gift and posting it later :)

Another teacher's gift I whipped up was for a friend of mine- who, coincedentally enough is a teacher as well- my daughter's pre-school teacher- but she wanted me to make some for her son's teacher. She loved the stationary desk set I whipped up using an adaptation of my Milk Crate and adding pockets. Using a christmas theme for each of them I came up with these little cuties:

These 'crates' have two pockets in the front for 2x2 items- whether it's notecards or tags as seen here. Nothing is as cute as little homemade tags taped to the top of your Christmas package! then I made two mini boxes to seperate the 3x3 notecards- great for large gifts or gift bags and the back is storage for A2 greeting cards. I was able to fit 5 of the smaller cards and I made 4 greeting cards- tho you could add more. All sentiment stamps are from Inkadinkado, border stamps are All Night Media (acorn stamp on the pink) and Stampin' Around wheels. Then for embelishments I turned to simple border punches from EK Success, ribbons and stickles. I think next year I'm going to give myself more time because I'd definatly love to give these little treasures away- and keep some for myself!

So there are some Christmas ideas for all of you- if I don't post before then I hope you all have:

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND ALL THE BEST IN THE NEW YEAR !!!!!!!!!

Much love and God's blessings,

~Brandie~

AUGH!!!

Not the original title of my post- but GRRRR the computer button is RIGHT beside my computer chair and VOILA! You have an 'off' computer in the middle of a post and everything is gone! This autosaves- but I have no idea how to get to it! SO! Blah blah blah- saying I was pregant with only 7 weeks left- but it leaves me considerably drained of energy! Blah blah blah- don't have the energy to make my usual Christmas cards and gifts blah blah blah excited for baby bean to get here.

There- now you're all caught up ;) lol Ahhhh- it was just a vent point for me to carry on about how tired I've been lately and how excited I am for Christmas next year when I'll have a 10 mth old on some what of a schedule and wont be pregnant so I'll be back to my Brandie self- and so long as there is a Christmas to celebrate, I will be making and baking and candy creating like I have been in past years.

But in running my on-line store I've had a few orders to keep me busy and I have some stuff to share :) And I did get some teacher's gifts and class favours done- so that's pretty cool. I am finishing up some baking today and IF (big if) I feel motivated enough, I may even make some paper craft boxes to store the baking in. I feel guilty not doing what I usually do, but I've overdone it for the past week trying to meet personal deadlines that I need to cut myself some slack and think of me and baby and our health. Only 4 days til Christmas and it'll be full of family times and fun and (YUMMO!) food. So little boxes and cards don't seem that important :) I love doing it- but really- I have tons of excuses to craft, Christmas doesn't need to exsist just for me to craft :)

SO! all that being said, let me show you what I've been busy with:

So I lifted this little idea from SCS- and I am sorry, I can't remember from who or even what it was called. If you search "acetate" I'm sure you'll find the ingenioused woman who came up with this! What I did was cut a peice of cardstock to 5.5x4.75 and score lengthwise at .5 so I have a half an inch tab. That tab was used to attach a peice of acetate measured at 5.5x4.25 that I embossed using my snowflake cuttlebug folder. I used pop dots to add a piece of DSP to the top and bottom of the acetate and stamped with a Christmas inkadinkado clear stamp set. I also cut some snowflakes out of vellum using my snowflake die from Cuttlebug and attached them to the front. I made a matching box and then sent ten of these, along with some cookies, to a friend of mine for her birthday (well- she bought the cards- the cookies were a gift :) )

NOW! I have no clue why I haven't used my Stampin' Around Wheels more often- but ladies GET THEM OUT! HAHA! Not only do they make a wonderful background for giftboxes (which is why I bought them) they are super cute for borders! WHY OH WHY didn't I do this before? I saw some cute ones from Hero Arts at Michaels and pointed them out to hubby for Christmas gift ideas and he said "don't you have border stamps? isn't that why the HUGE stampin' up order in spring was for?" so I was like *sigh* okay and I whipped them out and started using them for borders. *insert maniacal laughter here* so much fun! So here are a couple of the creations I came up with:

Here's a Christmas card using Soft Holly Standard wheel with Bravo Burgendy ink. To make the pointsettas (in which I am very proud!) Using vellum, I cut 2 large flowers from my Olivia alpha set for the cuttlebug- you can use any pointed flower punch- and then I layered two of the flowers together with Zots and then 'painted' them with Stickles. The stickles not only added glitter- but they warped the paper to give it a 3D look. Then you can add either a gold brad or gold stickles to the center. The punch is Holly from EK success- wonderful punch BUT it's not a traditional border punch. It wont 'punch' a border, but a seperate peice that you can add on (if that makes sense).

So steering away from Christmas, here are some basic cards using the Stampin' Around standard wheels:

So for this thank you card I used Forever Flowers and Mellow Moss- then using Itty Bitty buds I added the flowers to the edge. NOW you can't tell, but the card is standard A2 size in total, but the outside sentiment peice is 4.25x4.25 and the extra edge is over extended in the back.

For the birthday cards here I used some scraps of DSP from the Spring catalogue and for the pink it was Bella Rose, with Always in Bloom Stampin' Around Wheel and the blue was .... I forget the name of the paper- but Baroque Border was the wheel I used. So as you can see, using these wonderful wheels can open up a wide world of cardmaking that I wasn't even aware of! lol I just love making packaging and all I wanted was to create my own background paper for the boxes. So hopefully you've got some ideas here and with two more working days til Christmas maybe I wasn't TOO late in inspiring you ;) More tomorrow- I want to share my teacher's gifts before the big day. So have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by!

~Brandie~

A Pile of Christmas Cards

Okay- I have a bunch of Christmas cards to post as there have been quite a few friend requests for cards for the holidays.

So I've been a little bit glitter crazy obviously! Glitter is absolutly essential for any Christmas card- don't you agree? lol. I just loved being challenged in this way with many people wanting something different. Before now, I've been making my own Christmas cards so it was a batch of all the same, my own style. Now there is trying to make other people's style and tastes fit into my cardmaking skills. It sure stretches me as an artist, but I have found it VERY fun!
So the first card was a photo insert card that I made to fit a wallet size photo in it. It was challenging to think how I was going to work it- but she just wanted something simple, one page, no open up- so it was basic stamping and layering. The second one was fun too- and I lifted the card idea off of a Stampin' Up idea page. I got a LOT of use from my Martha Stewart snowflake punches for these! I got the two that were available last year. The third one I had NO clue how to start. My friend wanted something more spiritual as we both, being christian, wanted to focus on the reason for the season. I used some Prima pointsettas to finish it off. The last card I tried something different. The glitter snowflakes are my FAVE! What I did was punch the snowflake out- added my mix of embossing powder and fine glitter and inked the entire front of the snowflake and poured the mix on and heat embossed it. Then I punched a brad in the center and dangled them from some sheer ribbon. I used the same glitter technique on the "Season's Greetings" sentiment- making it POP! I love it- and I think it looks store-bought- but for much less! It just took my Cricut and Jasmine cartridge, mix, ink and time.
All cards are basic A2 sizes. Stamps are clear stamps from Inkadinkado, flowers from Prima, ink from Colorbox, glitter and snowflake punches from Martha Stewart, embossing powder from Stampendous, leaves and snowflake border punches from EK Success.
SO! I have a couple more cards to share but I'll save that for later- thanks for stopping by!
~Brandie~

A Bit Busy

With babysitting, creating gifts and cards for people on my FB store and just life in general- I have, yet again, become a VERY bad blogger :( Sorry guys. I do want to do better after Matty gets here. BUT that being said- I have a LOT to share, so I'll just take a few posts to share everything with :)

The first thing I want to share is a baby gift I made for a friend for HER friend. The baby onesies seem to be a big hit and it's fun to stamp on them. I am thinking of doing something Christmas-y for the heck of it and then again something for my new little bean. TWENTY NINE WEEKS DOWN WOO HOO! Even tho I've done this three times before, I am PETRIFIED of going thru the labour again. Aigh. I know it's worth it but still....

OKAY- back to the subject on hand- CRAFTING :) SO here's my little set:

She wanted a keepsake box to hold the cards that her friend would be getting for her new baby. I thought it was a cute idea and whipped up the box. It's personalized with the baby's info on the front, and has a "T" for his initial. Then I got one of my acetate 2 4 6 8 boxes with a lid all decked out to hold the onesie in. I used Inkadinkado's baby boy stamp set for everything stamped and my corner punch for the borders.

So the box all opened up shows two little 'shelves' that you can store the cards in- standard A2 cards- which I am hoping fit. I made it a little bigger so it would have space for a bit larger cards. What I loved was adding glitter to the ribbon I wrapped around the onesie box. Then on the onesie itself I added fabric glitter to the stamped image and buttons for the 'wheels' on the cars- I don't know if you can see it too well in the first photo.

I find that adding glitter, flock, embossing powder and stickles to different images lets you take a plain peice of CS and make it wonderful. I save a LOT off of patterned paper doing this. To be honest- I don't find alot of DSP that I like, and it's usually pretty expensive. I really like a lot of the SU! DSP- but for me to set some money aside to make an order takes a bit of self control- and I don't have much. I'd rather buy at a store and have it NOW! BUT I need to learn to be patient. With my new business, I really want to set some money aside cuz there are FAR too many cute Cuttlebug folders I don't have- as well as I found Pink Cat Studio and have decided to take the plunge and start stamping with images instead of just sentiments. But that will come in time- I've only been doing this card making thing for a few years now- and the first couple had a bunch of SUCK! lol- I am grateful to the crafting blogs of the world in which I glean a LOT of inspiration from!

So- being as it's been a while, I'll also show one of the (many) cards that have been keeping me busy. Another friend was going to a Hallowe'en wedding (I know- we're thinking of Christmas and I want to back track to Hallowe'en!) and I didn't know how to do a 'spooky' wedding card so I opted for something elegantly gothic.

I LOVE MY STORYBOOK CARTRIDGE!

If I haven't made that abundantly clear- I would like to do so now :) I made a tri-fold card and cut a 'window' out of each panel. Then I used my Storybook cartridge to cut the rectangle of leaves out. I sponged them with silver and then added some glittery black flowers from Prima. I stamped the four corners of the 'frame' (I forget the stamp maker :S Sorry) and embossed with silver. Then by finding a poem from one of the card sentiment sites printed on some vellum with a ribbon added the perfect finishing touch. She loved it and that's all that matters.

SO there's a couple of things to chew on. I have quite a few Christmas cards on the go for various friends- so I can show you them soon (and by soon- I mean quicker than a months time!)

Thanks for stopping by!

~Brandie~

Martha Stewart Inspiration

I love packaging. Sometimes, my favourite thing to do is go around gourment coffee shops or holiday gift shops, card shops, that sort of thing is check out the packaging so I can lift it into the paper crafting world. I bought myself some Martha Stewart border punches and the box they come in is so cute and I thought: why not manipulate it into becoming a gift box? With a few tweeks and twists I came up with this, using a broken down border punch box as a template:

Now I realized after the fact that it looks a lot like one of Lauren Meader's timeless templates. I did NOT get the template from Papertrey Ink- tho I do support their products. They are an amazing company and I think Lauren is completly talented- but what can I say- great minds think alike? lol- maybe I'm becoming a bit more like my mentor! YAY!

So I just wanted to share this little tid-bit. Try it yourself- find a cute box, tear it apart, measure the dimenssions and make your own cute packaging. With Christmas coming sooner than we would like to admit, finding creative inspiration whereever you can makes it easier. I don't know about you all- but I find it easier to make cute packages and fill them with homemade goodies over trying to shop for every single person on my list. It's more personal and usually cheaper too!

So thanks for stopping by.

~Brandie~

Oh Baby!

Babies babies everywhere! No kidding! I am having a baby- if I didn't let my blogger friends privey to the information- we are having another son, due early February (either the 7th or the 10th- depends on which ultrasound you go by- so I just say early Feb.) and we've decided on the name Mathias. We haven't agreed on a middle name yet, but I'm hoping for Mathias David Allan. My brother's name is David, and it's so soft and my dad's name is Allan and they worked well together. Other middle names floating around between DH and myself were Sebastian, Sebastian-Allan (I thought it was too much) and Alexander. So that's my baby news- comeing into my 3rd trimester soon. I thought Bella would have been my last- but lo-and-behold God saw fit to bless me again- tho this pregnancy has been easier than the others (I am NOT a fun pregnant lady!) I still can't wait for it to be done. I am not all that into the anticipation of things- I enjoy the actual event :P

Other baby news is simple, a friend of mine from church is also expecting and that's exciting and another friend just adopted a beautiful baby girl. I got to see her today for the first time and she is just BEYOND precious! The bonus? Mommy wanted ME to make her 50 Thank You cards. I have decided to QUIT procrastinating when she decided she wanted half of them by the 18th of this month and I waited a week before starting. So yea, I got all 50 done in three days- but I have a mountain of laundry and dishes waiting for me.

Now my camera's batteries are a bit (okay- a LOT) dead and they don't recharge worth poo- so I didn't take any pics of the cards I made- but she liked the baby Thank You cards that I made for another friend of mine that had some animals on it cut from my New Arrival cartridge. I altered the colours to purple to fit her taste and added more girly ribbon and glitter. She was happy and that's all that matters :)

Lastly- and for your viewing pleasure- lol- I have a baby set :)

I didn't do a boy's set because I was tired of waiting on myself to get around to it- so I put together this girly set and decided to start selling them for baby showers.

I got to use some more of my Bella Rose DSP (I am using it sparingly- I still have some left! and that's all from one package!) I tried the baby onesie card that I found on Lauren Meader's blog and she graciously gave me permission to use it. I did alter it abit by cutting off the 'diaper' part and then cutting another piece for 'panties'. I also tried my hand at the shoe template found on SCS. The large card is a 5x7 and I basically copied an idea that I used for my sister's baby shower a year and a half ago. The thank you card is a little 3x3 card to match- I figured the set works cohesivly and maybe people would want to get it as a set- I'm all about the matchy!

Here's the first onesie I made- I had fun and it was my original idea for my friend's thank you cards- she loved them, but she liked the animals more :) You can see the panty detail too :P I love the sentiment, instead of stamping, I used my New Arrival cartridge (my new fave!) to make the Thank You- very easy, they had the option that let you cut out 'thank you' in a circle and then I just used pop dots to prop it up on a scalloped circle. I think I am going to start using my dad's idea and using a white sheet on a chair for a mini 'studio' to take pics of my crafts on. They turn out WAY better- as you can tell. You can see the details more clearly.

Anways- that's it for me- need to get back at that mountain of laundry! Thanks for reading.

~Brandie~

A Peice of Cake!

cakecakecakecakecake! :D

I love cake :) We had my son's birthday party today- I get scared about inviting too many people, so I only let the kids invite 8-10 friends and then only a couple of them show up- it doesn't matter. Gabe had fun anyways. The little bugger wanted a Lightening McQueen cake. Now, I don't have a pic as my camera is dead- but it turned out... okay? I like cake decorating and find it fun, but I definatly need more practice! But it was for some 4/5/6 yr olds so I don't think they'd be near as picky as I am! My arm is KILLING me- first from playing hard on drums on Rock Band last night with some friends of ours, then from SQUEEEEEZING out black icing. I didn't that the other icing colours were easier to use because they were thinner. I needed to add black icing colour to brown (chocolate) icing for a nice black colour- but because the icing was homemade, the black was thicker than the rest and harder than anything to try to squeeze out. I'll need to remember to thin it with some corn syrup next time.

So that's cake part 1.

Cake part 2 is me trying for the first time, paper cakes :) OMGosh are they ever fun and easy! On a side note- I wanted to make a cake and some cake 'peices' for samples for my on-line Facebook store- so I found the tutorial/template on Splitcoast and made a 1 tier cake with some samples. About my store- I only had it up for 1 day and I already have over 50 'fans'- so that's pretty awesome! Lots of work and lots of revanue (hopefully!) I just need to be better at time managment and procrastinate less.

Anyways- back to cake- here's my take on the infamous paper cake (SO MUCH FUN!) very easy- but somewhat time consuming:

I used some cream coloured cardstock, flourished stamp set and some gold ink and embossing powder. The stamping was pretty tedious, and I have no idea how I'd close up the backs of the boxes while making them pretty- I don't want people to have to wreak the box to open it- any suggestions out there? The flowers are all from Prima and there are gold and crystal stickles and some Michaels ribbon. So this is the only full cake I made, I then made some sample 'slices' so I wouldn't have to make a bunch of full cakes- but I'd still show people a variety.

These were super easy and so much fun to make- so here are some photos of the different peices. The materials are pretty much the same: Stampin' Around Wheels, Clear stamps by Inkadinkado, ribbons from Michaels, flowers from Prima and Stickles. I also used my cricut on the monkey one. SO! (I needed to squeeze a 'so' in there!) that's it for now- thanks for stopping by- ~Brandie~