Kiss and Tell Scrapbooking

Winner of the Ella E-Book!!!

My son Mac selected a number at random and here's the winner!

"I linked the Vintage Hip Christmas Crafts to my Twitter! Also...my favorite Christmas craft project is the annual Scrapbook Calendar I have made for my mom for the past 10 years (when my firstborn was a newbie). Love collecting all the photos of the year and appropriate embellishments knowing she and my dad will treasure them for the following year!

Posted by: Nicole | December 11, 2009 at 12:07 PM "

 

So Nicole please get in touch & we'll get you all the details on how you can claim your free e-book!  Congratulations!!

Obsessed with Scrapbooking? Check out this scrapbook obsessed site: http://scrapbookobsession.wordpress.com/2009/12/12/friday-night-scrapbook-randoms-7/#comment-13271

Scraplift-able: Using up your random scraps

Love this scrapbooking layout  I found on the Kenner Road Scrapbooking Website because its one that looks cohesive but you can still throw a bunch of random (notice the use of color to keep it consistent) scraps down and call it done.  I love using up scraps - this comes from years of hearing it "you could use it someday" from my Grandma Grace.    I'm going to try to scraplift this later today :)

Eco-Friendly & Funny Home-Made Christmas Gift: Save Santa A Trip - Be Naughty!!!

Check out what we made using a muffin carton, some rocks from the yard, and a really cute tag that  you can download for free from Kolette Hall:

Click Here to get the free download of the cute little "Save Santa A Trip" tag from Kolette Hall.

check this site out - -http://thelongthread.com/?p=5200

lots of hand-made craft ideas

November Daily Thanks Mini Scrapbooking Album

I started this mini-tag book last year and intended to write down something I was grateful for everyday of November, but I wasn't all that diligent about doing it every day, so I picked it up again this year... and again didn't do it everday.  So I think that this will be an album that I pull out every November and add a little something to at random, so in many years from now, it will be a nice little retrospective of November and gratitude over the years.

I used the good old Sizzix to cut the tags out; a jump ring from the office supply store; and I used the ever-useful Cropodile to poke holes in the Clay Artz by Nicole T. Gailliott at www.creatively-green.com

Still Time To Enter To Win Free Vintage Hip Christmas Scrapbooking & Crafts book!

Yep that's right - if you want to win a free Ella Book before Christmas - just leave a comment TO THE BLOG POST ABOUT THE GIVEAWAY BY CLICKING HERE AND THEN LEAVING A COMMENT (in other words, don't leave a comment on this post - leave one on the original post, make sense?  Good Luck :) 

still sewing up a storm of hot/cold pack thingees with rice & lavender.

Everyone is Encouraged to Wear Holiday Hats: More FUN with Santa Hats!!!

I recently did a post about how I was so proud that I go the whole family in a group pictures with Santa Hats on our heads.  Then someone pointed out that one person in the picture didn't have a hat on his cute little head.  So here's the whole series of Santa Hat Photos that may shed a little light on why:

 
There was a little spat between my little elves right before the shot.   We were lucky to get everyone in - that most of us were wearing hats was a good thing.

Meantime, I noticed this funny little note on the kids' Christmas program flyer:

 
  

So all this sparked an idea for a scrapbook page all about Santa Hats and here it is:

More Details, notice that these pictures aren't all from the same year but they all feature Santa Hats.

  

Good Thing These Dog Pictures Aren't Scratch & Sniff

Here's the thing:  My dogs smell bad. 

The yellow one just smells a teensy bit:

which is a good thing since he's a little snuggle bunny and always wants to be right there with us.  Such a sweetie.

But the black one smells seriously bad, like death with a little vomit on the side.  But we still love them and just look at how cute they are:

And here's the kicker - when we're eating - these cuties are right there - so we get the dog stench with every meal.  Maybe thats why I've lost a few pounds over this past fall.  Oh Dukey, don't worry, I still love you, you smelly, smelly thing. 

Fast & Easy 6x6 Thanksgiving Mini-Book & Proof that 7 Year Old Boys Enjoy Scrapbooking!

I made this 6x6 mini scrapbook album before Thanksgiving and taught my children's kindergarten & 2nd grade classes to make them too:

Here's Mac's book and for the record - 7 year old boys will TELL you that they don't want to scrapbook and its a girl thing, but put some pictures, scrapbooking paper, stickers, pencils (should have given him some pens), adhesives and stickers, and then just try to pull him away from the project - so I'm going on the record to say 7 YEAR OLD BOYS LOVE TO SCRAPBOOK!  Here's the evidence:

Want more 6x6 fast and easy scrapbooking?  Check out Stacy Julian's blog and upcoming class at CHA Just Click Here to check it out!  I seriously wish I could attend that class! 
 

I Just Want To Be OK Today

1. If you are looking for the Ella Publishing Contest for Margie's free Vintage  Hip Christmas - look at the next post - leave a comment on that one to be in the free e-book contest and get the coupon code :)

2. There's a song called "I just want to be OK" or something like that by Ingrid Michaelson - most likely I'm getting her name wrong and need that MOM / Celebrity Name Translator they had a spoof skit about on SNL (Saturday Night Live) back on the Mother's Day show - if you didn't see that then search youtube for it - and while you're there check out the be OK song if you haven't heard it yet.  I leard it on Pandora / I've been listening to the "Lenka" station since last summer - lots of Kate Nash, Lenka, Ingrid Michaelson, Regina Specktor, and Sara Bariealles, with a touch of Jason Mraz and Jack Johnson.  Not typically my music style - but hey, I even went through a country phase back in the early 90s so you never know what kind of music will stike my fancy and girl songwriters  / acoustic simple type stuff seems to be my pick of  the year - except when it comes to Christmas - then give me The Waitresses' Christmas Wrapping and the Ramones "Merry Christmas - I don't want to fight tonight baby" - I don't know, not much of a traditional Christmas Music mood this year - in the mood for a teensy bit of punk rock with my Christmas cheer thank you very much.

3.  Feeling perfectly justified to be eating Ben & Jerry's FroYo Half Baked Chocolate & Vanilla Low Fat Frozen Yogurt with Fudge Brownies and Gobs (yes Gobs)  of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough for breakfast and yes I'm eating right out of the container with a tiny little Ikea spoon (because I'm a bit behind in doing the dishes - and thats OK!!! today) with my Barnies Santa's White Christmas Coffee with a little French Vanilla Soy Creamer and a dash of Pumpkin Spice Creamer (one of those synthetic tasting creamers but yummy anyway).  Why?  Because I'm off to get yet another test.  An MRI.  This will be something like my sixth appointment - we're on breast cancer watch.  Lovely huh?  And just in time for the holidays!  So far they have found "something" but I "shouldn't worry" because its probably nothing, plus my delightful breast cancer specialist says, in his charming Irish accent, breast cancer is slow so there's plenty of time and all this awareness is really for everyone else since I'm already aware.  This has been ongoing for the past month or so and I'm thinking I've been keeping a fairly positive outlook about it - except occassionally, I'll say to Charlie, as he often says to me (because he's 13 years older than me so he assumes he'll die before me) "I need to show  you how to do this thing just in case I'm dead...."  We've got a lot of inside jokes and sayings and whatnot in our marriage, if you heard us talk at home you would probably not be able to understand us and we'd need to translate.  Yep, perfectly OK with having a secret language with my husband.  (Notice how I buried the lead?  I think that's a journalism thing - or at least I think it is - I sometimes wish I had gone to college for creative writing and/or journalism.... another life perhaps and scrapbooking fits the bill in the meantime.  Plus I still could have gone to law school - you can major in just about anything in college & still go to lawschool.) 

4. Speaking of scrapbooking, here's a page:

based very loosely (because I have almost no "white space" and she has tons of colorful white space on her project) on Stacy Julian's collage thing that she made for her nanny about her daughter, that Lain Ehmann keeps raving about, and who could blame her - the project is super duper cute; anyway, I've had that paper forever and it seemed to just be waiting for this.  If you love Lain Ehmann & Stacy Julian (or if you like this blog), then you will love their e-book about scrapbooking and being happy which you can find at www.ellapublishing.com

5.  Here's another one I scraplifted (idea not supplies - mine are K&Company - from the discount shelves of the local Big Lots I think) from Studio Calico who always seems to have incredibly good stuff, here's the layout:

6.  We're all up now, I'm a bit late, to my appointment and Mac is doing his "non-sense noises" super loud and instead of scolding him about indoor/outdoor voices, I'm choosing to be OK with it this morning and just tell him how much I love him before I go.  Bye.  Wish me luck / say a prayer.  Thank you.

Vintage Hip Christmas Crafts - Coupon Code & Chance to Win a FREE e-book from Ella Publishing!

I've been in a VERY crafty home-made sort of mood this Christmas season.  Want to know what got me started?  Check out Vintage Hip Cristmas Crafts: 9 step-by-step layouts, gifts, decor and more from www.ellapublishing.com.

 

 

There are 3 ways to win this very fun e-book: 

1. Tell me your favorite craft to make during the holidays by leaving a comment on this post. 

2. Join Ella's email list with free ideas and lots of discounts and coupons, and leave another comment saying so on this post.

3. Twitter or Facebook linking to the Vintage Hip Christmas Crafts book on Ella and leave another comment saying so on this post. (http://www.ellapublishing.com/catalog/ebooks/vintage-hip-christmas-crafts)

 

Also check out the blog contests on the other Ella Friends' blogs (see my list to the right for the links).

 

Winners will be drawn this Friday, December 11th. 

 

Want to start the crafting now?   Use the coupon code CRAFTY09 for 25% off Vintage Hip Christmas Crafts now through 12/13/09!

 

 

Oh Yes, I've Decked the Halls!

Somehow my family does not get all that excited about decorating for the holidays - ie. putting out all the Christmas stuff - and somehow, we seem to have a lot - a LOT - of stuff.  Some of it is from my relatives, some of it we bought, and lots of it we made.  But still there is a LOT of stuff - take a gander:

 

I'm the one who does the decking of the halls.  Here are a few things I've come up with to make this a bit easier:

1.  COLOR THEMED GARLANDS!!! - since we have too many ornaments for one person to put on a tree - or several trees as the case may be - I made several color themed garlands and I'm planning to use them over and over from year to year - just think - putting up a garland with 100s of ornaments vs. putting up 100s of ornaments one by one - and then taking them down one by one - I'm thinking the rest of my smaller ornaments (that are on the trees right now) are going to become part of a color themed ornaments for easier Christmases future.

2. CHILDRENS'S WOODEN BLOCKS to make a message.  There's a mail order catalog - Lillian Vernon maybe?  that has wooden blocks for each holiday and while they are cute, I've just never made that order - so instead, I picked up some wooden blocks from Target (sure I could have looked under the beds & couch - but these ones had really pretty bright colors that I just love vs. the old style primary colors); so far we've done Thanksgiving, my daughter's birthday and now Christmas & I plan to keep making block messages for whatever kind of thing we happen to be celebrating:

We're planning on making those homegrown - yes we grew gourds in the backyard - into snowmen but for now they just sit on a shelf in the kitchen.

3. Picture Ornaments.  Ok maybe this doesn't make things easier, but they just make me happy.  So here are a few:

P.S.  Got to do that www.elfyourself.com thing again - that is so hilarious.  We laughed everytime we played it.  Too funny :)

Personalized Christmas Ornaments thanks to Sharpie & Write. Click. Scrapbook.

Saw a very simple scrapbook-y way to make personalized Christmas ornaments with scrapbooking stickers and glitter at the Write. Click. Scrapbook. Blog  and here's my take on it - with the help of my kids and some Sharpies.

This was a quick and easy immediate gratification kind of Christmas Craft Project - you don't even need any scrapbooking supplies!  - or you could do the super scrappy sticker thing - either way is very groovy - give it a try ;)