Me + You = LOVE

My very first time playing along with Papertrey Ink's "Make It Monday" challenge!!!!  A few weeks back, I saw Betsy's blog post using this chalkboard technique and I fell in love.  When I was in Home Goods over the weekend, their entire wall decor department was filled with chalkboard style pictures.

For the base of my card I used Pure Poppy and for the chalkboard panel I used True Black (PTI).  The stamps I used were:  Gemstone Alphabet (Recollections), Holiday Photo Finishers (PTI) and With All My Heart (PTI).

Organization - Button Storage

I'm a huge Papertrey Ink fan and have mentioned before that I love they way all of their products match.  My button collection (I know, I know craft supplies shouldn't be collected, they should be used!!) is kept out in the open where I can see them and grab them quickly when working on a project.

Like many crafters, I look to Ikea often for storage solutions.  I use their Rajtan Spice Jar to hold my button collection supplies.  To make it easy to find what color the buttons are, I cut a 1 inch circle of the matching cardstock and adhered it to each jar lid.  I keep my jars in a Memories Makers Embellishment Center which I purchased at Michaels.  I removed the two dowels from the bottom sections of the organizer to keep them as shelves.  This system allows me room to grow!

Since I've already shared my ribbon organization in a prior post, here is a shot of the two shelves side by side in my craft room.

Christmas is almost here!!!

A quick post while we are preparing the house for Christmas dinner with our families.  I'm continuing with the snowman theme and using my Snowman die from Papertrey Ink.  I used this die for all my gift tags and thought it would be nice to keep the theme going onto our table as place cards.  I also added little pom poms to the top of each hat and hand wrote the names on his belly.





To keep things easy I kept the same menu card format as I have in the past (if it works for me, I'll keep it).

As I mentioned last year, I wanted to add a tree in the foyer.  Here she is all decorated and ready to greet our family!  Merry Christmas!    

Puppy Pollyanna

 When my DH and I travel and are unable able to bring our 7 year old Yorkie (Piper), he stays at a local pet boarding facility named Best Friends.  Our local Best Friends offers day camp for dogs and we use this service whenever he stays over night and occasionally when we will be away from the house for an extended period of time on a particular day.  It's a great way for him to interact with other dogs (although when we do spy on him via their webcams, most of the time we see him snuggling on the camp counselor's lap).  He really enjoys the people dogs and we are thankful they take such great care of him.

Piper was invited to participate in this years Puppy Pollyanna (say that three times fast!) for day campers at Best Friends.   Pollyanna is the same concept as "secret Santa".   Piper "chose" little Lucy the Cockapoo who likes toys that are not filled with stuffing for his Pollyanna.  It's a secret who picked Piper!

I cut a few doggy images from the Cricut cartridge Create A Critter and affixed them to a clear paint can.  I wrapped the inside of the can with some sheer ribbon attached with glue dots, tied little bows on each side of the handles, and then filled the can with the goodies.

I sure hope little Lucy loves the items Piper personally picked for her at PetSmart.

Snowman Gift Tags

These snowman gift tags were made using the Snowman Shape Up Die Collection and Snowman Accessories Stamp Set from Papertrey Ink.  I cut the snowman base from white cardstock, the arms from dark chocolate cardstock and the mittens from felt.  I wanted his hat to coordinate with his mittens, and for both to coordinate with the great wrapping paper I found at Hobby Lobby.  First I cut the hat base from white cardstock and stamped a pattern on the middle, using the snowflake label stamp from the Holiday Treats Stamp Set.  Next I cut out the trim of the hat with glitter cardstock.  For the words I used the To: and From: stamps from the 2011 Birthday Tags Stamp Set.  As a finishing touch, I used enamel accents as buttons down his middle. 

A piece of score tape on the backs of the snowmen adhere them to the packages.  

Here's a shot of a few of the packages under our tree located in our foyer!  We now have three decorated Christmas trees in our house: this one in the foyer, one in our living room and another in our family room.  My DH has set them all up on timers.  As soon as it is dark outside they automatically turn on...love that!