Penguin

This is a little penguin card I made using my nestablities label set. I plan on making the entire set with the santa and all. They are just too cute!!!

My family on Christmas Eve

Me, my two brothers, my nephew and my mom!


Me and my mom!



Me and my nephew. He is 15 and is 6' 3". He had his knees bent in the picture so that we could get a good one!!!



Every year my family come to my house on Christmas Eve to celebrate, eat some food and exchange gifts. We had a great time tonight. I spent the day cooking and getting things ready. We ate then exchanged gifts. We all had a good time!!! It's always great to get everyone together. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

Christmas Goodies!!!

Today I have been busy in the kitchen! Jan over at the stamp shack posted these yummy looking Pretzel Treats so I had to make some too!!! They are super easy. Just take some Snyder snap pretzels and put a Hershey's kiss on top of each one. Stick in the oven at 170 for about 4 minutes then take out and push a m&m in the center. Your done!! The second picture is of my spiced pecans and spiced walnuts:

4 cups walnuts or you can use pecans

2 cups powdered sugar

canola oil

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper or to taste

1 teaspoon cinnamon or to taste

salt to taste

Blanch walnuts in boiling water for a few seconds. Remove nuts from water and place in a bowl.Mix the nuts with sugar until you can't see any sugar on the nuts-it should liquefy and cover the nuts Place oil in sauce pan and heat about 3 minutes. Place nuts in oil, do in several batches, and be careful the oil will foam up. Cook until the nuts are lightly brown.Place cooked nuts on a foil covered cookie sheet and let cool.Mix the spices together and sprinkle over nuts making sure every nut is covered!!! EAT!

Hope you all are making some yummy treats too!!!

Going Nuts?

This is one of my most favorite set of stamps. He has a hat, Easter bunny ears and a few sayings as well. I made this atc for a brown themed swap over at the stamp shack.

Cards!!

Well finally I've been working on some cards!! I decided to play with a set of stamps I got for my birthday and haven't used yet. The set is from The Paper Studio and is called Botanicals & Birds. I fell in love with them when I saw them at the store. The set contains about 14 stamps and each are equally as beautiful!!!

Frosty

When I saw this card I knew I had to give it a try! Here is where I saw it. I used my Labels nestablities on mine and had to draw his mouth with a sharpie. This was really easy to make and so much fun!!!

Merry Christmas card

This is one of Tim Holtz stamps. I love his stamps. They are so pretty!!! I used an ink blending tool to distress the edges. That is a wonderful tool to have. If you don't have one and you use distress inks you really should think about getting one. It's made by ranger: http://www.rangerink.com/products/prod_inkssentials_blendingtool.htm

If you have one of the handles for alcohol inks you can use that and just buy the foam pads. The handles are basically the same. Give it a try if you haven't yet!!!

Gingerbread House Card

I found this stamp at M's and thought it was so cute. I copied the layout from one of Pams layouts. Do you like my background? I put a clear plate upside down in the snow and then put my card on top of the plate!!! I love snow!!!!!! I'm sorry it's gone already. I miss looking out the window and the white wonderland.......maybe we will get some again in another four years!

More snow pictrures!!

Well last night we got almost 3" of snow!!! This morning it was still there. I took a couple of walks and took a ton of pictures!!!

Snow Angel

This is me making a snow angel in my backyard!!! It's not often that Texas gets snow, little loan this much!!!!

It's snowing in Texas!!!!!

It's a big deal around here when it snows. It doesn't do it very often!! It's fun to go out and play and listen to all the kids outside. I can hear a bunch of kids laughing and having a good time!!! I had to dig out the gloves to make the snowmen....I tried doing it bare handed but my hands starting hurting. This is really exciting!!!!

Tim Holtz Inspired Tag/Card

I have been oohing and awwwwing over Tim Holtz tag's this past week. I did one of them a few days ago and it didn't turn out so well. Yesterday I went to my LSS and bought a couple of his small stamps and decided to give it another shot. I think it turned out ok this time around. I made my own mask out of cs, wasn't the best thing to use but my swirl die cut wouldn't cut the acetate. I also made my own shimmer mist, which really is easy and I encourage you all to try it. It's a lot cheaper then buying it too!!! Well if you haven't checked his tags out here is the link: http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog/ I love following his blog, he always has great ideas!!!

I didn't really have a use for the tag so I decided to make it into a card!! I cased a card from Pam's blog. I think it makes a nice card. I just took the ribbon off the tag and put a brad in it's place. I don't own any border punches so I took my nestabilites and made the scalloped edge.

Christmas Recipe Book

This is the front of the finished recipe book. I hosted this swap over at the Stamp Shack. There were 6 categories and each person had to make 6 cards per category. They then sent them all to me and I swapped them out, made the dividers and the cover then bound them. I did this swap last year too, it really is a great book when it's all put together. .

10,000 Hits!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yahoo!!! I can hardly believe that I've had 10,000 hits on my little ol blog!!!! When I started it I was sure that no one would visit, boy was I wrong!! Thank you all for making my blog a success, now I better get on the ball and make something to post!!!

No muse.......

Well I just can't seem to get into the swing of things. I haven't really made anything for almost a month. I just haven't had any creativity. I went in my craft room yesterday trying to make Christmas cards but nothing came out. I sat there and sat there and sat there. I know in my brain there has to be some ideas I just can't get them to come out. I promise as soon as I make something I'll post it!!! Maybe I will have something spark my creativity in the next few days.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I just wanted to wish all of my blogger friends a very happy and safe Thanksgiving. This is such a wonderful holiday. It's a day that we all can really think of blessings in our life that we should be thankful for. It's a time for family and friends and good food!! I hope you all have a blessed day!

We've been elfed!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Sending Holiday Wishes

This is a free set of stamps I got when I placed an order over at Clear Dollar Stamps. I couldn't wait to play with!

Eat More Ham!

This is one of my new sets of stamps I ordered online. It makes me laugh every time I see the image! LOL!!! Isn't he cute naked!

The mailbox is one from Target's dollar spot. I got it around Valentines day. I think I need to buy more this valentines, I just love how they turn out!

Stamp Index and Paper Storage

Over the past few months there has been a lot of talk about how we all store our paper scraps and how we keep track of our stamps. I've decided to share with you what I do with mine.


My paperscraps are kept in a binder like this. I've taken gallon ziplock bags, reinforced the bottoms and punched holes in the bottom.

I then have all my colors separated into bags. I do this only for my solid color paper. I find it works very well and that I use less paper then normal. When I need a little piece for matting I just go to my binder and find the color I need!!!!

As for my stamps, I have each and every stamp I own stamped out. I have them separated into categories; e.g. butterflies, sentiments, snowmen, etc......... I have a ton of clear dollar stamp sets from M's and I stamp them in a different color so I know which they are and where to find them. I find that it was well worth the effort to do this. I was not using stamps because I couldn't remember what I had. Now when I go to make a project I just look through my stamping catalog and pick my stamp out that way. It's also nice because you can actually see what it looks like stamped!

I hope my storage ways can help you out or give you some ideas about the different way's of storing things. Good luck with organizing! It can be a pain to start but you will be glad yo did it once your done!

More Christmas Tags

Here are some more tags that I worked on today. These are for my SIL. I hope she likes them!!!

Breast Cancer Awareness ATC Book

I have a friend from another site that is currently battling breast cancer. She was the inspiration for my book. Please stop by her site: http://littlelifepreservers.com/. It's a great program she has started and I just know once you read her story you will want to help!!!! I hosted a breast cancer awareness atc swap and asked all the ladies to send me an extra one so I could make a book with them. I have included their names below each of their works of art!