Have yours'elf' a happy new year!

Hello and Happy New Year!  I am sharing one final Christmas project before leaving this wonderful holiday behind.  

One of my co-workers wanted to make something fun for her son's preschool class.  She showed me the picture of the candy cane elves and asked how hard they would be to make.  After a quick look, I realized everything was made with punches and that it would be pretty easy to knock these out.  The only punch I didn't have was the mitten...  She drew, traced, and cut out the mittens and I made the elf bodies and shoes.  She also did all of the final assembly.  The top photo shows a close up of the elves before they were attached to the candy canes and the bottom photo is the finished project.

I knew we did well when her son gave his approval and told us they look just like real elves!  We received our inspiration from Jackie Topa.  If you look up Candy Cane Elves, you can find the directions.  We simplified our version just a little, but I think they are still pretty cute!

I hope your new year is one filled with happiness and peace!  

A Crafty Color and Sketch Challenge

My upline, Tiffany, gives us a new color and sketch challenge each month.  She's even nice enough to supply some cardstock to make it easier for us!  This month our colors were the new gumball green, along with melon mambo, and so saffron.  We could also use a neutral.  She picks sketches from older Stampin' Success issues (magazine for SU demos only-another great perk!).

Here is my card...

I used the retired stamp set, Look Who's Turning and chose to add whisper white as my neutral color.  I finished this card on Friday afternoon and was so proud for getting it done on time.  Then I left this morning for our meeting and forgot the silly thing on the kitchen table! Grrr...

Card Recipe:  Card stock-gumball green, so saffron, melon mambo, whisper white, Stamp Set-Look Who's Turning, Ink-gumball green, melon mambo, so saffron, Accessories-rhinestones, white bakers twine, perfect polka dots folder, felt flower (ret), owl punch (for circles), dazzling details

Scrapbook Monday-The big 5-0

Hello and welcome to another Scrapbook Monday!  I am so glad you popped in to visit!

A few years ago, we had a surprise 50th birthday party for my sister.  Her birthday is a week before my daughter and she thought she was going to my daughter's party.  She was very surprised when she walked in and saw black decorations and lots of people yelling at her!  My oldest sister and I did the decorations for the party and my girls made her a crown made of black pipe cleaners and purple beads.  We also found these awesome pink and purple feather boas at the dollar store and had to buy two for the birthday girls to wear.

I also started an album for her as a gift and here I am, a few years later, finally working on the pages...Since we decorated with lots of black, I went with that as the primary color and accented it with purple (my sister's favorite color!).  I'm hoping to get this album finished this week and maybe she'll get it before her next birthday!

Today's page is when she walked in and was crowned 'Queen for a Day'.  There's not a lot of SU product on this since I already had a packet of black and ivory scrapbooking supplies from a wedding project many moons ago.  Using up more of my stash...Yee! Haw!

Don't you just love my little blinged out owl?  Owls are another of my sis's favorite things.  I tried to replicate the whole crown theme with pearls and I think it turned out pretty good.  Well, time for me to get back to work.  I'm forcing myself to do more cleaning than crafting for the first few days of my break.  Hopefully I'll make enough progress to spend my last few days being super crafty.  Wish me luck!

Page Recipe:  Cardstock-mostly 'stash' paper, garden green, whisper white, Ink-soft suede and concord crush, peach parfait, & crumb cake markers, Stamp Sets- Punch Bunch, Notes and Details, Extras- basic pearls, owl builder  & bird builder punches, scallop border punch, spiral border punch (ret)

Well...Owl be...

Happy Valentines Day!  We don't really do a lot for Valentines day at our home.  The girls share cards with their classmates and friends, but other than that, it's a lot like any other day.

My oldest DD just celebrated her 13th birthday and since she loves owls and purple, I combined those to make her card.  Let me tell you, it's not so easy to be inspired by purple owls, but she loved her card, so I guess that's all that matters!!  Sorry about the not so great photo quality.  It was overcast when I took this picture, and too cold to be outside!

I used a lot of goodies from my scrap box and some purple glitter glue from my girls craft supply.  The sentiment was created on my computer and the inside says "Well, OWL be darned!"

I was so looking forward to an evening of eating out, when she informs me the morning of her birthday that she wanted my pork roast with carrots and potatoes.  Fortunately, I only had a morning class on her birthday and was able to get everything into the crock pot and had it ready for dinner!  Maybe my DH will fix dinner tonight... After all, it is Valentines Day!

Just a reminder that there is still time to be entered in my blog candy giveaway!

Card Recipe: Cardstock-whisper white, perfect plum, wild wasabi, tan paper from stash, Ink-perfect plum, rich razzleberry, peach parfait marker, Stamp Set-Punch Bunch, Accessories-owl punch, modern label punch, scallop oval punch

Boo!

Today was a great day to play with my stamps and paper! I blog hopped and found a few challenges that I wanted to try. Sketches By Carly had a fun sketch that I wanted to try. Then I saw the color challenge at My Create Ink, rich razzleberry, basic gray, and lucky limeade. Hmmm... I checked in on the ladies at Hand Stamped Sentiments and they were having a Halloween challenge. Three challenges in one card? Too cool! (It doesn't take much to excite me!) I had lots of thoughts and ideas going through my head and then I remembered that I had seen the owl punch turned into a ghost somewhere in blogland. I don't usually work a lot with gray and was afraid that the only gray would be my ink.  Then I remembered the gray corduroy buttons & brads I had bought from the clearance rack a long time ago! Here is my 3 challenge card...

As you read my card recipe, you may be a little confused. Just where is that Word Play stamp set on this card?! Well, I knew I wanted to put B-O-O on my banner but the alphabet stamps that I own are too big to fit on the banner. So, I used the B from 'wish big' and the O from 'thanks a million'. Necessity is truly the mother of invention! After I had the card put together, I started thinking that I should have done some dry embossing or stamping on the base. It just looks a little bare... Let me know what you think!

Card Recipe: Cardstock-lucky limeade, rich razzleberry, whisper white, & rich razzleberry DSP from the brights pack, Inks-basic gray and rich razzleberry, Stamp Sets- 4 frames, Word Play, Fabulous Phrases, Accessories-decorative label punch, owl punch, 1 3/4" circle, 1" circle, 3/4" circle, basic gray corduroy brads (ret), spider web embossing folder, rich razzleberry 1/4 grosgrain ribbon, white bakers twine

Crafty Sistah's Challenge

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Our challenge to use a DSP that we would not usually pick wasn't as bad as I thought.  I chose Woodland Walk.  While I love the colors in it, I wasn't sure exactly what to do with the patterns.  My first card used crumb cake, very vanilla & wild wasabi card stock.  The stamp is from Punch Bunch from SAB & I used the owl punch on the image.  The ribbon is retired chocolate chip.

card #2 for challenge also used a sketch from the 411 site (love that place!)  Cardstock colors are crumb cake, chocolate chip, and wild wasabi.  The satin ribbon is very vanilla.  Tools used were scallop circle, fun flower die & the big shot.  The friends stamp is from fabulous phrases and is stamped in chocolate chip. I also used this to distress the edges of the flower.

Card #3-used wild wasabi, crumb cake,and chocolate chip card stock.  The flower was made with the ornament punch and the square embossing folder.  I have to say that this set was easier to use once I started playing around with the patterns.  TFL!

'Whooo' has a birthday?

This cute little card is also from my birthday card class.  The owl stamp is from Punch Bunch which was part of the SAB catalog.  We used the owl and large scallop punches.  The card stock colors are crumb cake, wild wasabi, very vanilla and chocolate chip.  The DSP paper is woodland walk (which is also my paper for this month's challenge-1 down, 2 to go...)  The chocolate chip ribbon is retired.  Everyone at the class loved the coordinating stamp and punch!  TFL!