I saw this post back in August of last year!

I bookmarked it in my fav’s under “projects I want to do” & decided a couple of days ago that I was finally going to attempt to make one.

I had 3 of the same black 8×8 frames from Ikea that had been sitting on the shelf  in my laundry room since we moved back in July & I had taken this great pic of my friend Brenda-Lee & her daughter Kayley at Christmas.

This is what I did:

I used a butterfly theme because I absolutely adore them & what they stand for.

I found this Irish Blessing on the web after searching for “butterflies” & than I saw that Lauren Meader of My Time Made Easy has this Irish Blessing in acrylic stamp form…very cool!

I put 2 hooks in the back of the frame & tied some black organdy ribbon on them to hang the frame.

I absolutely love how this frame turned out, I personally think it’s gorgeous, I was soooo excited to give it to Brenda-Lee today AND I can’t wait to make my other 2 frames into gorgeous artwork for my walls.

I’m surprised I finished this calendar in time for January! I didn’t start doing it till days before Christmas & finished up a couple of days before…what a tedious job! I am soooo glad that I did not buy more to do for Christmas gifts.

In the end I decided to keep this one for ourselves because I’m sure we will enjoy & appreciate it so much more than anyone else! & I’m going to trim them away at the end of the year & put them into little scrapbooks that I already have for each of the kid’s.

I used ALOT of crystal effects, I think I used it on every month! so it looks alot better in person!

The black “stitching” is actually a ruler & a black Sharpie fine tip marker. So it’s nice & messy!

First page of calendar.

I will post a pic of December at a later date, I haven’t found a pic for it yet! but, at least the month is done!

Happy early New Year everyone…ENJOY!!!

Greetings Everyone!!!

Have you missed me??? Ya right!

Well I haven’t posted in a long time, what can I say…I have no good excuses except the holidays got the best of me…and they should right???

The kid’s are on Christmas break till the New Year & we are all enjoying our time together.

We have been “trying” to catch up on sleep, playing with all the Christmas goodness, hanging out & just being low key. I can certainly say that I personally DO NOT miss making lunches & running around like a mad woman in the morning trying to get the kid’s to school for 8AM.

We have watched some movies. Billy & I watched Julie & Julia, I remember when this movie came out in theatres & I really wanted to see it, now that I did I realized it wasn’t that good, kind of disappointing.

Than I took the kid’s to see Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. OMG, what a funny, cute movie! I think I was laughing more than the kid’s were!

(500) days of Summer…another crappy movie I thought, I don’t know maybe I just wasn’t in the frame of mind to really appreciate it.

Precious, what a disturbing movie.

and onto crafty things, I made these for Brenda-Lee’s dinner table (our lovely host for the evening!), everything coordinates, isn’t it lovely??? The table looked soooo pretty.

We were hoping to put chocolate in the containers that matched also but, these little cups are hard to fill with chocolate. Brenda-Lee filled them up with smarties.

I made 20 of them & the good thing is that they are recyclable.

Here is what they looked like on the dinner table.

I found the instructions for these treat cup holders here (scroll down a bit) & I just modified it to only use 2 treat cups.

So really that’s all I’ve been up to! I hope you are all enjoying your holiday season.

I saw this post here for a ribbon tree & thought hey, that’s cute, simple & fun!

http://snsribbon.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/ribbon-tree-how-to/

I went to Michael’s yesterday & bought the foam tree for $5.99 but, used a coupon than I bought 6 rolls of cheapo ribbon, 3 of red, 3 of green, they were on sale for 1/2 priceI than bought a package of silver ribbon from the Dollar Store as I thought some silver would like fabulous!  & than I bought a little star from the “miniature” christmas ornament line, also on sale.

I cut my ribbon to 2 1/2 inches.

It’s very “cutesy” in person.

Wouldn’t this look good in pink, lime green & turquoise for your Christmas dinner table Brenda-Lee to match everything else???

Once again my dear friend had this great “idea” to make notebooks for Christmas gifts, so we bought a 15-pack of 8 1/2 x11 notepads from Staples & than got them to cut them in half for $1 a piece.

I totally cased Michelle from Mish Mash who just rocks the notebooks as I’m sure you have all seen.

I used Papertrey Ink’s Warm Happiness & this paper I think is a perfect match.

I have 15 of these pads & to be honest I’m not quite sure if I will make anymore!!!

Last night I went to my friend’s house to hang out & scrap, I decided that I would work on the kid’s halloween treat bags for their classes at school. I ended up finishing all 60 of them. Yay!

AND I had a great evening hanging out with Nancy & BL, we had dinner, went to Starbuck’s, talked, scrapped & BL even brought us a Crave Cupcake, yummy!

Thanks ladies for a fun night. Only 4 more weeks till we get together again.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving weekend everyone!

Today my friend & I made Thanksgiving boxes for Sunday dinner, we made a total of 11 & it took only about 1 hour, very simple & quick oh & CUTE!!!

Box template is from Stampin’ Up!

Sorry BL the Reese Peanut Butter Cups wouldn’t fit in the box so they are heading to Billy’s work tomorrow :}

BL brought 2 curtain rods & decorative ends that she “acquired” by dumpster diving in her neighbors garbage container (long story!) & so I went to Wal-mart & bought the mounts & rings (approx $30) & my hubby mounted it for me tonight, love that I have constant inspiration right above my work area & I can change the layouts anytime.

Not sure what I will do with the other one, do you want it BL?

Thanks BL!

Saturday night I went to the Scrapbook Pantry’s Members Night event with 2 friends, it was lots of fun.

They had 3 make n’ takes, prizes every 1/2 hour & a grand prize worth $500, free gift (6×6 album), 25% off of everything, lots & LOTS of chocolate & treats, punch, tables were set up outside so we could sit down & chat, just overall a great time.

Crystal & her staff did a wonderful job.

This was a make n’ take designed by Christy from Monday Night Class. I love this card, I never think to use patterned paper as my card base & what a great way to use up all your scraps of ribbon.

Another make n’ take, very quick way to make some cute christmas ornaments, just use a scallop punch or scallop nestability.

I preordered some “stuff” from Stampin’ Up!’s Holiday Mini & I was excited to try out the Sweet Centers stamp set & the Sweet Treat Cups so I decided to make a halloween project following Tracy’s (Inky Doodles) post found here.

I read a really quick, good book, sad but, good in the sense that it made me appreciate my life even more, to try & not take things for granted, even the tiny, tiny things!

Christmas, Present by Jacquelyn Mitchard

At our local library a lady helped me find using Airdrie Public Library’s website other authors that are similar to the authors I like to read but, are hard to find in the library like Jodi Picoult so this is an author that came up.

Well I should scoot & get ready to take my kid’s to swimming lessons, only 1 more day after today, thank goodness!

My how quickly the end of school creeps up on you when you aren’t paying attention, it dawned on me Tuesday that I needed teacher gifts, so I spent Wednesday working my a** off to make some teacher gifts for my kid’s to give to their teachers.

3×3 card tote, isn’t it “sweet?” Tutorial can be found here.

3×3 cards to fit in the tote, I made 24 (a little bit of a pain because I colored the flowers in each time to stamp with Stampin’ Up! markers), I made 3 totes with 8 cards in each with envelopes. Totally cased from a SU demo named Sandra who included a lovely card in my bag when she returned some cardstock to me. So thanks Sandra for the inspiration!

Gift card holder (Starbuck’s). I’m sorry I don’t know who to give credit for this quick & easy gift card holder, I saved it to my computer & for some reason didn’t write down who did it…so if it’s you…please leave me a comment. Thanks!

Inside.

I made 4 of these with matching envelopes for teachers, totally cased from Lisa, click here to see her gorgeous card.

Card with matching envelope. I stayed up till Midnight on Wednesday to make sure these cards were done so the kid’s could write them out Thurs AM.

Well school will be officially over at Noon today & than the craziness begins!

I hope you & your family enjoy your Summer holiday’s. I’m sure ours will be memorable!