Christmas Place Setting boxes

Well Christmas is nearly here and I have all my cards mailed, gifts wrapped and food bought for the family gathering Christmas Day.  Last year I swore that I would not be doing everything last minute and I succeeded.  I'm so happy.  Not stressed and very relaxed.  So with 3 days left before the big day I decided to make some little treat boxes to put at each place setting.  These are super cute as well as super easy.  They kind of resemble a milk carton.  Kind of between a bag and a box.  A Bag Box!  Anyway I only needed 12 for the adults and I filled them with little dark chocolate pretzel balls.  YUM.

I tried so hard to make something for the kids table too but ran out of time due to a migraine.  But the adults all loved the cute additions to our table.
Hope your holidays were fantastic and until later........................
HAPPY CARDING

Mini Album Ornament

Merry Christmas!  Did you have your cookies made on time for Santa?  I did whewwww.  I have a yearly bake day with my daughter in law, sister, and her daughter in law.  We make tons of cookies and also deliver big trays full to the fire dept and public works dept in our town.  We also always take pictures of these cookies to help us remember year after year what we made.  This year I decided to put some of the pictures from this year into a mini album for each of us.  With only a small hand full of pictures I knew the album would be tiny.  Our luck we would lose it.  hahahaha  So instead of just an album I decided to make it into a ornament.  I followed the tutorial by Samantha on cutcardstock blog found HERE  Her process is so super easy to follow and they turn out great.  I added the ribbon for a hanger before gluing B to A.  You'll understand when you read her directions.  And here are mine.  All ready to give to the girls on Christmas as a little something extra.  They thought they were adorable and decided we needed to take way more pictures next year.

Til later
HAPPY CARDING

More Scrap Christmas Tags

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I have an obsession with making as many tags as possible from the tiniest scraps.  Today's post is no exception to my rule. "Use all that you can".  So when my granddaughter came over on the weekend to make tags for teacher gifts I was sure to save everything she didn't use.  I had 6 sheets of 6x6 papers that she absolutely loved.  It was left over from a pack I got at Michael's that my Niece used for her cone wreath.  This pack was all about cats and dogs and my granddaughter loves animals.  So much so that she volunteers at a shelter once a month and she's only 11.  So proud of her.  Anyway she made 11 tags from the papers I gave her.  Yes I know that's alot of teachers, but she had also made the tags for her brothers gifts to his teachers and her sisters.  My Grand daughter has a big heart and likes to give little gifts to the lunch lady, librarian, office workers etc.   I looked at all the weird shaped and size pieces she had leftover and thought OK this is a challenge.  You see when I cut paper I try to be as neat as possible and not waste space.....my granddaughter on the other hand just cuts right in anywhere.  But I was determined to use those scraps.  Ta Da!  I got 37 various sized tags! 

Now I know they are not fancy but these are Perfect for the kids gifts.  I won't have to gasp as they rip the gifts open and throw away my little works of art.  I should really make more of these ease up on my stress a bit. lol  Let me tell you I used every bit of the scraps and still have 1 whole 6x6 sheet left.  That's alot of tags from 5  6x6 sheets.  Just imagine what you can do with your scraps.

Til next time....................................................
HAPPY CARDING

ABOUT FACE FORWARD MARCH

OMG I'm in love with a soldier!!  A wooden one that is.  I saw these all over Pinterest and LOVED them.  Batted my eyes and I was able to get my darling husband to cut me out 8 boards and foot bases.

These guys are soooo cute.  They are made from a 1x6x36 inch board and their feet are 4x4's cut to the same width as the boards.  That allows them to stand at "Attention".  My husband routed a little grove on the 4x4's to make it look like they were wearing shoes.  I made stencils for everything that wasn't a straight line.  Gold metallic pens are my friend lol.  There was alot of gold work on my guys.  I also found out that when you spray varnish over gold metallic paint pens it softens the ink and will smudge if you touch it.  Good thing retouching was an easy task.  These guys are gifts for my lady friends that I craft with.  I can't wait to see how they like them.  Rumor has it one of the other ladies is also doing a wood craft as our gifts.  Sure hope we don't have the same ideas!  LOL

That's all for now til next time
HAPPY CARDING!

Special Spinner cards for Christmas

This year I had decided to get a head start on all my Christmas cards.  On an earlier post I told and showed you all the cards you could make using 1 Christmas Paper Pack and I got alot from it.  I think there were 60+ cards along with a large collection of tags all from the same pack.  Well I had also decided that instead of whipping up a las minute card for my lady friends to go with their gifts, that I would be proactive and make their cards in advance too.  I am so glad I decided to do that because I had found the most adorable card on you tube called the Elegant Spinner card.  I made all four of my cards the same so save me from thinking this out too much.

Isn't this cute?  The back of the card is where the sentiment goes and it all lays flat to slide into an envelope.  The link to this tutorial is: HERE  She explains very detailed and is easy to follow.  Check her out.  These cards are going to be the perfect addition to my lady friends gifts which I will share in my next post.

Til then 
HAPPY CARDING

Atari Ornaments? OK

Remember Atari?  Video games of the 80's.  My son loved it and never got rid of his system.   He collected and horded games and has since expanded his own sons video game interest into the Atari world.  We are all so surprised that my grandson actually likes playing these old games.  My son has actually searched for old 1980's TV sets.  Once the word got out that he wanted one people in our community started contacting him offering him theirs free if he picks it up.  He loves the 80's and has formed a little corner in his world with retro stuff.

My sons passion cracks me up and watching my grandson in a room that looks just like ours did back in the 80's brings back so many memories for me.  If I didn't know better I would swear the little guy in the picture was my son instead of my grandson.  Anyway back to the point.  My son had received 4 round Atari stickers which he gave to me to turn them into ornaments.  He wants to add a little tree to his corner and thought Atari ornaments would be awesome.  Being a paper crafter makes it a bit easy to come up with a plan.  So here's what I made for him.  His very own Atari Ornaments.   

As you can see I used the Maymay Made it Wreath idea as an ornament.  One on bottom right is a rectangle treat box ornament with the smaller sticker popped up.  The 2 larger stickers with the blue background were 3" in diameter so I just used 1 for the front of a snowflake ornament and the other as a ball ornament.  He loved them and plans on taking a staged photo for his Facebook profile pic.  How much do you want to bet that he steels my Charlie Brown tree too?  LOL  That boy keeps me on my toes for sure.

Til next time..........

Happy Carding!

CHRISTMAS TAG RUSH

Three weeks and counting til Christmas.  I have the house decorated.  The presents bought (not wrapped yet).  The main food for the feast in the freezer and my cards all mailed.  Now all that's left is random crafts and tags for the gifts.  Though I have made a ton throughout the year.  
When I was at Michael's a few weeks ago I saw these 6x6 paper pads for $5.  I picked up a bunch and used some to create that Maymay made it wreath with my Niece in law but I still had alot of unused pads.  So to the table I go.

The 2 pads I'm using today are Christmas Farmhouse and North Pole News by Recollection.  These are single sided pads but very pretty papers and perfect for tags.
I pulled out the usable background sheets from each pad as well as the cut apart sheets I could use.  Between the 2 pads I got 9 background sheets and 4 cut apart sheets.

Away I went!  All of my large tags are 2.5 x 6 and out of those background sheets I was able to get 18 tags.  But I still had scraps.  I have this insane issue where I seem to need to not waste a thing so I was also able to get 7 small tags that measured 1.75 x 3.75.  You would think I'd quit there but NOPE!  I got 4 more tags using the scraps of scraps.  1 large, 1 small and 2 odd sized ones using up just about everything.  including the circles from punching the holes for the grommets (which I made from scraps heehee)
So here they all are:

Do you see that little pile of scraps in the right had corner?  That is literally all that is left of those 9 sheets of 6 x 6 backgrounds.  I now need to use those cut aparts and start embellishing those tags.  I also need to add ribbons too.  Technically these could be used as is.  The papers are so pretty I hate to cover them but if I don't jazz them up then it wouldn't be me!  But I did want to show you that with bare minimum you can have a little collection of tags for special gifts.  And incase you are wondering all my tag bases are made from recycled paper.  A company was moving and changing their logo so all the card stock, linen stationary, and envelopes were going to be disposed of.  A friend of mine works there and brought home alot of it.  I was lucky enough to get some and with some cutting I was able to repurpose the papers.

All I did was remove the green and the black line and I'm able to cut this down for tags.  I'm able to get 3 large tags and  smaller one per sheet.  Its a WIN for me.

Well I'm off to decorate my tags.  Hope this inspires you to whip some up soon.

Til later
HAPPY CARDING

Christmas Box Fun

HO HO HO HO!!!!  Christmas is coming!!! Sometimes I feel like a little kid.  I love everything about Christmas.  The Music.  The Stories.  The Baking.  The Presents.  How oh how did I have the patience to wait when I was a child?  My grand kids are so antsy all month.  To help settle down the ants in their pants I created the Christmas box.  Ok I didn't really "Create" it I embellished the idea.  There are a ton of ideas on the internet pertaining to this box.  Most are just a box for Christmas Eve.  It would include things like new Jammie's, a Christmas story book, maybe some candy.  Everyone has their own take on the idea.  I expanded it for my grand kids and made it into a box with activities for the entire month.  My first one was just an Amazon box decorated and filled.  I had decided I'd like to have a reusable box so I made one from a Michael's wooden crate.  Then comes the fun part.  Gathering items to excite the kids.  This year I added hot cocoa mugs for everyone and at least 4 regular craft items.  Then the staples for the box's like reindeer food, Santa soup, Christmas movies popcorn for movie watching.  The kids also get the paper and envelopes for Santa letters to the north pole.  I tuck in a calendar and fill the days with some suggested activities like dropping off cookies at the firehouse or go to Dickens in Dundee to look at the holiday window displays.  The kids absolutely LOVE this box.  Now it does take some planning and you do have alot of paper work to gather but the internet helps with free printables so you just have to decide what you want in your box and print away. Make up your own little calendar and fill in the activities.  This website has some nice printables that I have used.
Christmas Box

Now I will admit if I was a young mom with small kids there is no way I'd be able to pull this off.  Not on top of regular Christmas stuff.  But I'm a Grandma....I have time so why not.  I know moms have things to do, cooking, cleaning, homework cop, shopping ...the list goes on and on.  But if you do find the time this is a great treat for the kids.  Keeps them busy and it makes waiting for the big day easier.

Til Next Time...............................
HAPPY CRAFTING!

A Natures Wreath

This year my husband and I decided to go visit my sister up north and stay in her spare cabin (I know right?  Who has spare cabins?) for the Thanksgiving weekend.  Usually I'm home and visit with the grand kids but this year brought other plans.  So I hurried and decorated my house for Christmas before we left since usually I get this done over Thanksgiving. Upon arriving at the cabin I was already feeling remorse at leaving everyone behind.  I had no cooking to do as I was instructed to do NOTHING.  So I decided to put a little Christmas into the cabin.  I started first with a little tree she had tucked in a corner. Added lights and beads and a few old ornaments I found in a closet and a dish towel for a skirt.  lol.  It was cute enough for me.  I also found some blue garland, a large pine cone and 2 nut crackers she had in a cabinet so I spruced up the fireplace as well.  I had then decided the front door needed a wreath.  My darling husband went out and trimmed a few branches from some trees and I gathered some smaller pine cones, a piece of driftwood and some seagull feathers from the beach.  We used a coat hanger for the base and not having any ribbon I decided to put a Piggly Wiggly shopping bag to use.  After all it was red and white so it would work.  Everything turned out great and we had an awesome Thanksgiving away from home.  I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings as well.

A little glue...glitter... and nature go a long way! I also took a glass Ice coffee bottle and added some red branch's from some dogwoods by the driveway.  A little glue and a little glitter a couple pine cones and BAM instant table center piece!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....................peaceful!

Til Next Time

Happy Crafting!