Whirlpool of Imagination

Happy New Year!

It's already the new year somewhere so Happy New Year everyone!! Here's my exploding glitter can card. I went to spray the glitter onto the cardstock when a big whooosh of glitter came out and then it sort of fizzled. I tried to stop spraying and the can wouldn't stop. I'm not sure what it was coming out, but I can assure you it wasn't glitter! Had to yell for Mo's help because I kept wanting to fix the can and kept trying to look at it forgetting that the thing was still spraying. I'm surprised I didn't end up spraying myself!

Ah well, the things we do when we have an idea in our heads. I don't look a thing like my partygirl here but we can pretend, right? This is a fun stamp I've had for a while from Beeswax Rubber Stamps. The sentiment is from TAC. While the photo came out really dark, you can see the glitter that caused me all the angst. The girl is really sparkly too. I colored all her jewelry and parts of her dress with a Spica gold glitter marker (I splurged when Ellen had her last sale).

I'd like to wish you a wonderful, happy and healthy new year and I hope you'll come back to visit me!

Quick thank you cards

Good morning! I wanted to come post last night but dh had firm hold of the computer. I got an ipod for Christmas (yippee) and he was busy uploading play lists for the two of us. On the bright side, I had a great workout this morning while listening to my music!

The kids needed to send out some thank you cards for Christmas gifts so I needed to throw a few together. I kept it really simple so we could get these out in a timely fashion.

As you can see, VERY simple but it did the trick. The present stamp is from Doodlebug and the sentiment from Purple Onion. I added some stickles to the bow of the present to add a bit of sparkle to the card.

It was just a little too plain with the image block alone so I used my scor-it to add some decorative score lines to the card base.

Have a great day!

More Gifting

I meant to get these up yesterday but never uploaded the photos!

This card used my new penguins from the December set over at River City Rubber Works. I used the snow writer to add a little snow for him to ski on and some fluff to his hat. The sentiment is from Stampin' Up.

Here's a quick peek at the gift card when its open. I ended up writing my message on the inside of the upper flap.

Here's the last one. This is the same Doodlebug stamp from the other day but the sentiment came from Purple Onion. I colored the presents in with prismacolor markers and added stickles for a bit of sparkle.

I'm working on some New Years cards although my glitter spray from Krylon kind of exploded on me yesterday so I'm improvising (and emailing Krylon to let them know). Have a great day!

Gift Cards Galore

This year was the year of the gift card it seems. I think all the gifts I had to make this year took all the creativity out of my brain to come up with fun presents. I found these holders on Splitcoast and decided to give them a try.

These are super easy to make. You start with a piece of cardstock 8.5x5.5 inches long and score it at 2" and 6".

I used red line tape to adhere both edges of the bottom layer and that became the pocket to hold the git card.

The top section with the patterned paper is 2.5x5.5 inches long.

The presents stamp is from Doodlebug stamps and the sentiment is from Stamping Bella. I have a couple of more I made this morning that are drying as I speak. Once dry, I'll get some good pics for a couple more examples. After my mad rush of scrapping all weekend to make the three grandparent albums I needed to make for gifts, I find myself at a bit of a loss today. I want to create but am kind of crafted out - maybe I'll surf the net for inspiration instead. Have a wonderful day!

Hershey Bars Anyone?

So in my quest to get over the Jolly Rancher lollipop fiasco, I needed some quick and easy treats for Meg's classmates. This idea was inspired by the Splitcoast gallery.

These are little matchbook covers that hold a small Hershey's candy bar. The stamp is the same as for Conor's treats. I checked it and it is from a cute little set from Purple Onion stamps. He was colored with the prismacolor markers and I used the Decoart snow writer to make a little snow under him.

You start with a piece of cardstock that is 2x7 inches long. Score it at 1.5, 1.75, 4.5 and 4.75 inches. Tape the candy bar to the cardstock and adhere top flap over the bottom flap. The biggest problem is some of the candy bars have more air in their wrappings than others. You can see the upper left example is one that folded a bit funny because of that. Otherwise, they looked great. They came together pretty quickly and I was still able to use all those snowmen that I had earmarked for the Jolly Ranchers!

All Treated Out

I am officially wiped out. The last couple of days, I have been working frantically to finish all the treats we were handing out for the holiday at the kid's schools. But the good news is that school is on vacation and if I didn't get it out by now, it'll just have to wait for next year!

I pulled out this little dove for the bulk of the teacher treats. This unmounted stamp is not labeled so I'm not sure of the company, maybe Stampin' Up. Does anyone recognize it? I looked high and low in my stamps for the "peace" sentiment and finally find one among my Papertrey Ink stamps. The box is filled with three decorated Peppermint Patties.

These are filled with the white Tootsie Rolls that are only out for the holiday season.

More Papertrey Ink stamps with tins filled with M&M's.

All tins that you see are from Specialty Bottle. I placed a really large order before everyone from Splitcoast descended on them so I was able to pick up tins in a bunch of sizes.

This gift box was made for Meg's teacher. I used stamps from Stampin Up, Papertrey, and the unknown dove stamp. As I was putting this together, I realized that most of it contained candy in some form. I warned her when I gave this to her that it would fill her candy requirements for quite some time!

The tea tin is filled with Hershey candy sticks. There is a little basket filled with Peppermint Patties. The nugget tin is, of course, filled with nuggets. And the smaller tin is filled with Tootsie rolls. I didn't take a picture but I wrapped this is cellophane and tied it with satin ribbon with a wreath pick stuck in through the ribbon. It looked cute but I need to perfect my cellophane wrapping skills. Does anyone know of any good tutorials on packaging on the web?

Well, if you've read through so far, have a fantastic Friday night. I am going to bed early for a good nights sleep. Tomorrow, I have some more decorated candy for you which template measurements.

More Treats

I had these all ready to show you yesterday but I never got the pics uploaded on the computer. Instead, I went out to a holiday buffet just for some of us moms. I was really looking forward to getting out. It was so nice to socialize and just relax for a couple of hours. But today, I was back to work.

These are the treats going into Conor's class tomorrow. They are the same boxes I made in my last post although this time I went with this cute little snowman. He's colored with prismacolor markers and I used a Decoart Snow Writer to make a little snow under him. These boxes hold 10 kisses.

Tomorrow morning I'll take some more pictures of projects that I worked on today. But for now, its back to work for me!

A Quickie Treat Box

Now that the Jolly Rancher company has thrown me for a loop, I'm working on new school treats for the kid's friends. As I need them by Friday, they need to be quick as well as cute. And since not everyone celebrates Christmas, I usually do something like snowmen or a variety of colors.

There is a tutorial for these boxes on Cambria's blog. I'm thinking that 4 year olds won't care if they're scalloped or not, so I'm skipping that step to save my sanity! This one happens to be filled with decorated peppermint patties but I've figured out that these boxes hold exactly 10 Hershey kisses very nicely so that's what the kids will get.

I'm going to check the measurements but I'm hoping that the snowman I used for the Jolly Rancher lollipop covers fits in here since I've already stamped (and colored) them all! See, that's what I get for trying to plan and not procrastinate! I was hoping I'd get a few boxes done today but I spent no time at all in my studio, in fact never got near it today. So there will just have to be more eye candy for you tomorrow. Later!

Musical Appreciation

On Friday, the entire first grade at Meg's school celebrated Beethoven's birthday. In our classroom, we had a bunch of parents volunteer and help out with the activities. As an added note, I have to say that after helping about 80 kids play Ode to Joy on the keyboard, I know it pretty much by heart now! As one of the room mothers, we have to ask for volunteers a lot during the year and I really like to thank people when they help out so these are the thank you notes I'm going to send to the parents that were there that day.

Since I'm pretty strapped for time, I made this pretty simple. The background stamp is from Purple Onion and the note and composers are from a Stampin' Up set I've had but had never tried out.

As of this weekend, I officially finished the big Christmas card order I was working on (yeah!) and I've moved on to treats for the kid's school friends.

And because procrastination is my middle name, I am just starting the mini scrapbooks I make for the grandparents for Christmas every year. But hey, I work best under pressure.

I'm hoping tomorrow to have little treats to show you. Night!

How can they do this to me???

I've been a bit absent these last few days. I felt a need to just step away from the computer. I'm not sure if its the craziness of the holidays but its been nice to step away for a few days.

One of the projects I've been working on is the little treats Meg and Conor will bring in for their school friends right before the holiday break. I had it all planned out - decorated Jolly Rancher lollipops.

Look - aren't these cute? I found a simple snowman image and used my scallop punches for a quick and easy decorated gift. Since I need to make about 50 of these, I wanted something easy with minimal coloring. A few swipes of the marker and a little glitter snow under the snowman and I thought I was golden.

So my stash of lollipops was low, only had these 9 left. I thought, no problem, I'll run out and get more. After going to SIX different places, I did a little internet research and have discovered that JOLLY RANCHER HAS DISCONTINUED THE FLAT LOLLIPOP FOR THE ROUND ONE INSTEAD. Are you kidding me???? I have a plan, I need those lollipops. And round lollipops? I never could do those cute little decorations with all those strips of paper. My plan has completely gone out the window. I found some smaller charm lollipops for one of the kids classes and small lolly's with the safety handles for the other class but am I satisfied? Not really but I have too much on my plate to alter the plan now. I think we need to protest this. Does the Jolly Rancher company not know how much of a loop they are throwing me? So, if you are looking for flat rancher lollipops ad find them somewhere, you better buy them out because once they're gone, they're gone.