12 Tags of Christmas: Day 2

The Tim Holtz Day 2 tag has been my absolute favorite to put together. It was really fun discovering all of the hidden embellishments available in my stash that ended up working for this tag.

Here is Tim's Tag:

And here is my version of the Day 2 tag:

12 Tags of Christmas: Day 1

I am just loving Tim Holtz 12 Tags of Christmas! I went back to Day 1 and am going to try to get through as many as I can. It is taking me a while to do each one, but I am enjoying the creative process. Here is Tim's Day 1 Tag:

His is absolutely gorgeous! I love all of the sparkle and pinecone/greenery elements. Here is my version:

The base of the tag was run through the Cuttlebug using a snowflake folder. Then I stamped over it in gray.  I used some sparkle polka dot paper for the title. I found some bits of ribbon and some bling to dangle at the top. After searching through Cricut carts, Camp Out came through for me with the pine cones and leaves. The dark green branches are a Martha Stewart punch.

12 Tags of Christmas: Day 5

I don't know how I am only now discovering Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas! It seems like everyone is talking about this fabulous event. I wish I had time to do them all because they are all stunning. I started with the one that seemed to be the least involved. I am mid construction on two others and hope to get them posted before Christmas.

Here is Tim's tag: 

 Here is my version of the Day 5 tag:

As you can see, mine is super simple. I used some Christmas paper that had words printed on it. I wish the words were white, but I have to make due with what I have. I realize that I need to add white ink to my shopping list. The wreath is made from the Martha Stewart Branch punch and since I didn't have any pearls in my stash, I used bling instead. This was so much fun, that I may even try another variation of this.

Christmas Cards

On Black Friday, I stopped by the local stamp store and was able to add two awesome new Christmas stamps to my collection - the snow globe and the fir tree. Right now I don't have the time to make cards for our entire mailing list, so I'm only doing a handful for our closest family and friends. Here are my two designs. Both have glitter on them which is difficult to see in the pictures. I'm trying to do coordinating tags too!

Chocolate Stars

When I was little my mom always used to buy the Stauffers Chocolate Stars as a special treat for the holidays. They were always my favorite.  I sort of forgot about them until last year when I was at a card making party and my friend served them on her cookie tray. I fell in love all over again.

But I was unable to find any place in MA that carries them. Luckily I have some amazing friends in PA who were kind enough to send me several boxes of both the milk & dark chocolate variety. Here is the Thank You card I'm sending to them. I highly recommend if you find them to grab a box - but be warned they are very very addicting!!

Giveaway Winner!

Happy December!

The winner of my November blog hop giveaway is......

Congratulations to lucky #3 -- Crystal aka Caitlynsmommy!!

Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop Challenge - Home Decor & A Giveaway!

I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving! Welcome to the November Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop Challenge! You should have arrived here from Bethany's blog, if not you can head back to the start to see the list of participants. This month the challenge was to make a home decor item. This is not my area of expertise. However, that is just one of the things I LOVE about Counterfeit Kit - every month challenges me in new ways and makes scrapping even more fun.

I picked up a chipboard ornament mini book at Michaels in their $1 bin and was inspired to use this to create my own ornament. I didn't have any Christmas paper in my kit so I decided to make a photo frame of my husband water skiing for the first time.

My favorite part of the ornament is the shrink plastic tag I made using the stamps in my kit. Have I mentioned my new addiction to shrink plastic? :)

In honor of Thanksgiving, I just wanted to say a huge thank you to Meridy and Bethany for creating the Counterfeit Kit Blog and for all of the design team members who are so inspiring month after month. I have learned to find new (but "old") treasures in my stash and to look at products in different ways. I'd like to provide a small giveaway as part of my thank you! All you have to do is leave a comment and I'll randomly select a winner on Thursday, December 1!

Thanks for participating in the hop this month! Hope to see you all in December!

Thanksgiving Card

Earlier this month, I saw an awesome technique from one of the Counterfeit Kit design team members that I was so excited to try. Shrink plastic!! Check out Milissa's tutorial here. After a few hours of searching, I found my missing package of Shrinky Dinks. Since I am at my parent's house, I don't have my Cricut and had to go to the old stand-by of cookie cutter stencils. Luckily my mom had 2 cutters that matched my paper perfectly!

Thanksgiving Cookie Cutters

Shrink Plastic/Card

I simply traced the cookie cutters on the plastic, cut, punched a hole for the string and shrunk! So super easy! This year I also made sugar cone cornicopia's as favors.

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Counterfeit Kit Sketch Inspiration

I am so excited and inspired by all of the challenges over at Counterfeit Kit this month. The only problem is, I am on vacation visiting my family for the Thanksgiving holiday and have limited time to play this month. I've managed to put together a card and layout so far and I'm working on my blog hop challenge. I realized that I never made my Thanksgiving cards - so I am also hoping to squeeze a few out of the two sheets of fall paper in my kit.

My layout leverages the sketch inspiration from Scrapbook Challenges. I stayed true to the sketch and only increased the size of the photos.




Here is the anniversary card I made for a friend! I can't believe a year ago we were in Aruba celebrating! I loved the beachy colors in my kit. I made my own embellishment following the great tutorial for this month.


Hopefully I can find some additional time to keep using my kit!

November Counterfeit Kit Challenge

November came around so fast that I didn't get a chance to jump right in to the November Counterfeit Kit Challenge. But I'm ready now! I've been waking up early each morning and slowly assembling the pieces. This month's inspiration kit is from Scraptastic Club’s November 2011 selections. I was drawn to the Home Sweet Home collection.
Here is my counterfeit kit:


I've also done a special add-on this month. This week there was a post on Scrapbook Update about wrapping up 2011 and finishing those unfinished projects that continue to haunt us. Operation Clean Slate. As I thought about my kit, I realized that I have several unfinished class projects from the Creating Keepsakes Convention I went to in May. Yes, May. One project in particular - the Studio Calico Terrific Trends - stood out as something I need to complete. The colors really played off the solid card stock in my Counterfeit Kit and I thought it would be a fun enhancement.


Appreciate you stopping by and hope you have a fabulous, crafty weekend!

October Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop Challenge

Hello! I am so excited for another fabulous Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop Challenge! I am sitting here posting a Halloween layout as I watch the snow fall. Yes, that is correct. SNOW. Something is not right with this picture. (See photo of my skull lights covered in snow)


You should be joining from Julie's blog. If you hopped in from somewhere else you can always head back to the CK blog where you will find the complete list of participants.

This month's challenge was a tough one for me. We needed to alter stickers and use them in an unexpected way in our project. My first challenge, well, I didn't have a single sticker in my kit. I don't even have all that many stickers in my stash. However, as I was cleaning out some paper bins I found this giant lime green circle sticker. I decided to use it as a journaling tag. I guess you could say I'm keeping it simple this month.


If you look back at my original kit post, you'll see I mentioned I had a plan for the stencil of the letters I cut out. I used a sponge and inked over it to create my title. I also mentioned in that post that I have no Halloween photos. I did find this one photo of my friend and I having lunch while I was visiting her in CA.

I'm also adding a picture of some cards I made with my kit. The Mummy was inspired by the pillow box tutorial on the CK blog earlier this week.


Thanks for stopping by today! Please head over to visit Bethany's next. See if you can recognize her stickers.

Counterfeit Kit: Candy Inspiration Challenge

In honor of Halloween, one of the challenges over at Counterfeit Kit this month was to use candy to inspire your project. I chose my favorite candy - Junior Mints! As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have no Halloween pictures, but as I was digging through a box of old photos, I found one of me from high school. I honestly didn't remember it being taken, but I remember the costume. For dress up day at school, I decided to go as a Christmas tree. It is ok for you to laugh at this photo... I haven't stopped laughing since I found it.

I took inspiration from the mint box and used a circle punch for the black border. I also tried to use papers with circles and traced the outline of my title with a white pen. Now that I'm craving Junior Mints, I'm off to go by some!

Counterfeit Kit & Double Take Halloween Mashup

October is a busy month for me and I've found I need to be efficient with my crafting time. That is how this layout came to be. It is a complete Halloween mashup of using my Counterfeit Kit and also leveraging a fabulous sketch from the Double Take class I'm enjoying over at Big Picture Classes. I had the best time puling this together. It gave me the chance to use lots of the bright patterned paper in my kit. In fact, 10 different papers were used for this layout. As I mentioned, there are no Halloween photos in my stash, so this won't get filled in until next month, but it is all set to go. Bring on the pumpkins and trick or treaters!

October Counterfeit Kit Challenge

Little Red Scrapbook Kit

My Counterfeit Kit

I am a big fan of October and Halloween! And there is something about Halloween scrapbook supplies that makes me really happy. The funniest part is, I never take any Halloween pictures. Not even a picture of a single pumpkin. But this year, that is all going to change! I'm getting my camera ready and as extra motivation, this month's Counterfeit Kit Challenge features a wonderful Halloween kit from Little Red Scrapbook.

I had two sheets of the Echo Park Haunted House paper that matched the LRS kit, but everything else is just random goodies from my stash. I'm really leveraging my Cricut Paper Doll Dress Up Cart this month for all the wonderful Halloween cuts. I used the Blackletter cart for the Happy Halloween font. I saved the background of the cut out because I have an idea for how to use it. Other than that, lots of stamps, ribbon and bling. I may have to do some layouts with photo placeholders, but I'm looking forward to playing with my kit.

September Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop Challenge

Welcome to the September Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop Challenge! If you are hopping, you should have arrived here from Angela's blog. If you'd like to start at the beginning, head back to the Counterfeit Kit Blog. This month we have been focusing on stamping. The blog hop challenge was to use a stamping technique to create a project. I had a bunch of Stampin Up technique books and so I decided to use those for inspiration.

Technique #1: Repetition. It's super easy - just stamp your stamp image and then restamp the image one or more times without re-inking. I love this look! You can see I've done this with the HAPPY stamp on the chipboard embellishment.

Technique #2: Two-Step Stampin. For this technique you simply stamp your images as normal. Then stamp the same image on a different piece of paper. Cut out the second image and overlay it on top of the original set of images. I did a slight variation of this with my title letters. (I left out the apostrophe in man's).

And I guess you could say I did a third technique - stamping on buttons! This was one of the other challenges this month. I used an animal paw print and stamped two buttons in the top right corner. Stamping on buttons is fun and addicting!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have fun playing around with your stamps. Next up is Milissa's blog.

Nautical Baby Shower

My nephew's baby shower was a blast! The sailboats and whales were just too cute. My banner fit perfectly above the dessert table. And the diaper cake managed to stay in one piece. I'm in the process of working on completing the guest scrapbook. I had everyone sign a onesie cut-out and took their picture in front of a large sheet of nautical fabric (which I called the photo booth). Now I've got to match photos and comments together. My goal is to bring it to the hospital for mom the day of his birth.

Double Take: Big Picture Classes

What do you do when you have a serious fear of double page layouts? You sign up to take a class focused only on creating double pages - of course!! When my favorite Big Picture Classes teacher, the fabulous May Flaum, announced that her next class was all about double page layouts, I admit, I thought maybe this would be the one class I didn't take. I don't know what it is about them. Maybe I've just fallen in love with the beautiful simplicity of single 4x6 photo. However, life is about trying new things and if you don't open a window and stick your head outside to get some fresh air, your life is going to get stuffy and uncomfortable pretty fast. So I took a chance and enrolled.

The class is called Double Take: Double the Layouts and Sketches. The coolest part is it you get double everything including double teachers - May is teaming up with Nic Howard and each week you get a handout with four double paged sketches and examples from both Nic and May. Ridiculous amounts of inspiration. There are two things I love most about the format of Big Picture Classes. 1. The wonderful community of each class. The message boards are filled with encouragement and talented folks from around the globe. And 2. The approachability of the teachers who are willing to answer questions about anything. If you want to join in on the fun, registration is open until 9/28 so there is still time.

Today is the first day of class and somehow I managed to put together my first layout in only 1 hr 18 min which is a personal best for me - and its a double pager! I chose to start with an easier sketch and will work my way up to more difficult ones.. baby steps. I'd like to walk away feeling like I can whip up a double anytime I want!

September Counterfit Kit Challenge #1

The Counterfeit Kit Club is focusing on stamps this month. I. Love. Stamps! The first challenge was to create your own background paper using stamps. I tend to use plain solid backgrounds, but my kit this month was filled with crazy patterns. So I opted to use a pattern sheet and then did a more subtle secondary paper using a word stamp -"favorites". I used this on the paper and also on the chip board frame that I filled with journaling. I also stamped the "pizza" title. Creating this layout made me very hungry - now I've got to go find a snack!

Baby Closet Hangers

Baby Cards

Safari Hangers

Transportation Hangers

This is one of my all time favorite Cricut projects. There is a door hanger template on the "My Community" cartridge and the possibilities for what you can do with it are endless. The idea of the baby closet hangers was something I had seen on the discussion boards a while back. This year I've got so many baby showers and I wanted to surprise my friends with something special. The first set of hangers is for my friend who is not finding out the sex of the baby and is going with a safari theme. The second set is for my soon to be nephew!! He is getting a sailboat themed shower/room and I expanded his set to be about transportation. Each set will come with a matching shower card.

September Counterfit Kit Challenge

Sweet Peach Kit
My Counterfeit Kit

The chilly, wet air has settled in. As I write this, I'm wearing a sweatshirt and slippers, gripping a cup of tea for warmth. How can September be well under way? How did it get so cold so fast? Luckily its time for the new Counterfeit Kit to distract me from the weather. The kit this month was from Sweet Peach Crop Shop. There were two kits to choose from. The first kit was all Sassafrass Indie Girl - I already own the whole kit and didn't want to go that direction. The "Juicy Kit" was calling my name. Lots of browns and greens with black and white mixed in. I've got a lot of cards I need to make this month and I think these papers will get the job done nicely. I've got a few stamp sets and some calendar cards. Can't wait to see what challenges there are this month.

Happy 2nd Birthday Banner

Earlier in the month I shared my paper haul from Scrapbook.com. I purchased all of this gorgeous paper to make a fun owl-themed birthday banner for my favorite 2 year old girl. Here is a picture of the final banner. These are a labor of love, but well worth the time and it gets easier each year (mostly thanks to my Gypsy!). This will be my birthday tradition for her. Her cake was super adorable and delicious. It was a very fun party! I'm hoping her mom sends me the pictures she took with her camera - which is much much nicer than my little Elph.

August Counterfeit Kit Layout & Card

With the long weekend, I've had a bit more time to work on projects. I actually have a list of a dozen things I need to complete before October. It is going to be a busy month.
Here are two additional projects made with my August Counterfeit Kit. The first one is a simple Happy Birthday card using paper and stamps from the "Birthday" add-on kit. The second is a layout of my adorable niece. There was a sketch in the Oct. Scrapbooks Etc. issue that inspired this layout. Looking forward to Monday and the new September Kit!

August Counterfeit Kit Mini Album

I finally tackled that chipboard mini album that was hanging out in my Counterfeit Kit. Earlier this year, my husband I were invited to our first Bar Mitzvah. The ceremony was one of the most moving experiences I have ever witnessed. The young man we were celebrating had battled a lifelong illness and his Bar Mitzvah had been delayed until he was strong enough to take part in the festivities. After his Torah reading and discussion there was not a dry eye in the house. The evening concluded with a huge party. It had me wishing I was 13 again! The only word that I can think of to describe the whole day is awesome. I tried to capture that feeling in the album.

I cut out a bunch of items from the program to use throughout the album and even taped a bunch of ephemera to the back of the album (not shown). I'm very happy with the selection of papers in my kit and how well they came together.