Whirlpool of Imagination

Snowman Gift Card Holder

As I wrap up 2011, I have one more item from Christmas that I forgot to post. Might as well do that today. I've taken to giving gift cards to the teachers for Christmas so I can feed my creative need by creating cute gift card holders.

This year I used the die from Papertrey to make them.

Here's the front, using stamps from Papertrey and spica markers.

I found this sentiment from Papertrey fit perfectly on the flap covering the gift card ~ it was meant to be.

And with that, ends my 2011 creations. I wish you a wonderful new year and hope you'll continue to follow my creative journey in 2012!

Thank You Note Cards

Whenever the kids have thank you notes to write, I generally take that as a invitation to create something new. With Christmas over, there are thank you's that must be written so I created some note cards that worked perfectly.

The tree is from Papertrey and the sentiment is from Verve. I went with garden green for the ink because besides wasabi, it's my favorite green!

I got the kids to sit down and write out the thank you's so it's another thing crossed off my list! I've been making my lists this week and am amazed at how well I'm accomplishing everything! Now I remember why I was always such a big fan of lists - it keeps me on track.

Hope you have a fantastic day!

Happy Day After Christmas!

I'm back after spending a lovely Christmas Day with family yesterday.

I meant to post this photo card on Christmas Eve but we hosted that night so my day was super busy getting ready.

Here's the photo card I sent this year:

I did not have enough pattered paper so I split up the list. Half the people on the list got cards with this paper. The other half got this one:

The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.

The photo was actually suggested by the kids. We were out raking leaves and the kids told me to get my camera - that maybe this could be the picture for our Christmas card. After going through all my photos - they were right - got the kids and the dog to look at the camera and look pretty good too!

And so wraps up another crazy December of Christmas card making. I will start next year's season saying I will start earlier - mark my words that come next December, we'll be doing this all over again - LOL!

Have a great night.

Christmas Week!

Can you believe that Christmas is less than a week away? I have tons on my to do list but I'm pacing myself and not letting myself get too frazzled over it all ~ it will all get done and I will enjoy the process rather than slog my way through it.

So I've been a part of Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas this year and while I don't have really any finished pages to show you, I'm okay with that. I've been taking pictures and making notes and just enjoying that part of the exercise. I've decided that work on scrapping this whole adventure after the holiday so I don't feel pressured to complete each page right now. Amazingly, I feel great about how that's working out so far.

I do have the title page and maifesto pages finished though so I have a little something to show for myself.

I added the title page to the inside front cover. I hadn't done the ribbon all the way on the inside of the cover so I though this would be a good way to cover up the gaping hole and added the title page at the same time.

Here's a close up.....

And here's the manifesto...

I know it looks like it will be a red, white and black theme for the scrapbook but I'm not going to worry about that. I'm going to let the pictures and ideas dictate the colors and not worry about making it matchy so we'll see what happens as I make more.

Hope you take the time to breathe and enjoy this week too!

Dress Up Your Wine

One of my all time go to gifts is a bottle of wine. When someone tells you, "oh no, don't bring anything, just yourselves" I just can't do it. I feel like I need to bring a little thank you. But a naked bottle of wine just won't do. It's a perfect canvas to dress up with a wine tag.

Here's the tag just on it's own. I've cut it down to fit the bottle nicely with a die cut circle to place around the nect of the bottle.

The image and sentiment are from Papertrey ink and once I stamped them, I die cut a border shape along the bottom. Because the tag is not wide, you can take pretty much any Spellbinder die and place the tag in the opening to create whatever kind of bottom to the tag that you want.

Here's the tag hanging on a bottle...

Super easy and dresses up the quick gift to make it just a bit more personal.

Have a great day!

The December Album

I'm working several days behind on my December Daily/Journal Your Christmas album but you know what? That's okay with me. I am really taking this month at face value and trying not to stress over everything that needs to be done. It will get done and I'll enjoy it more because I'm taking it slow.

The long and the short of that means that I've only got my album cover to show you. I took a plain American Crafts album and made some cimple changes to suit me.

The red area was a tad too bright so I broke out the gesso and dry brushed it. I liked that so much that I just kept going with the gesso until the entire front cover was gesso'd. The ribbon was a great way to add a detail and cover up the break between the red and the kraft colors. The letters/numbers are Thicker stickers.

**Note to self ~ next time make sure the letters will fit before you start laying them all down. I had done the "2011" and started working backwards with the letters. Well, let me tell you, I got a bit nervous as I got closer and closer to the ribbon before the "december" was all laid down!

I'm really enjoying my December album and journalling even if I don't have much to show for it yet. And it's great to be enjoying my December too!

Hope you are enjoying all that the season has to give too!

Let's Kick Off the Season, Shall We?

It's December 1st and crafters all over the globe are diving into their Christmas crafting. Whether you do Ali Edwards December Daily or Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas or even Tim Holtz's 12 tags of Christmas, this is a banner time for crafty folk!

For the first time, I am trying the Journal Your Christmas class and am very excited to take back my holidays and truly enjoy the month of December. I have printed out all of today's materials and will work on them tonight. I'm hoping for lots of scrappy goodness this coming month.

But before I started in on my journal, I wanted to do a little Christmas craftiness that included friends and family. In the past, I've taken all the photo cards we receive, cut them up and scrapbooked them. This year (after being inspred on Pinterest), I decided to give each year their own little mini book.

I took all my photo cards and punched holes in them. I added some covers just to spruce them up a bit and voila, little mini books that we can bring out year to year.

I think I may add some ribbon to the binder rings ~ they're looking a bit bare and goodness knows I have tons of ribbon to spare!

Are you journalling your way through December? If so, leave me a link so I can come visit you!