Thanksgiving... a little late

So, as always, I'm a tad behind on my blog posts.  Is it any wonder that I'm so far behind on  scrapbooks for my kiddos? :) But, better late than never right?

This was our first thanksgiving out of the military.  While we were in the military, on average we hosted 2 families each year.  This year was a little quieter - my brother in law Corey came in from Minnesota to visit.  Shawn had to work in the late evening so we had an early meal and quiet day.  Wednesday I made two pies - apple and pumpkin.  My husband didn't want apple yet he ate more leftovers than I did.  Partly because an eighth of the pie was about 580 calories! haha... but they don't count during the holidays right?  right...

Anyway, the only crafty prep I did for Thanksgiving was actually done on Thanksgiving day.  I was up late feeding Sammy and found this cute idea on Instagram.  All it took was some brown paper bags, twine and some diecuts.  Easy peasy - and for sure a repeat next year.

  

 

Pretty cute, huh?

Uncle Corey snapped a picture before Shawn went to work. 

credit to my mom who taught her 4 daughters the love of baking <3 

It was a beautiful day filled with many blessings and calories.  I pray your year has been blessed too! 

A quick holiday party gift

We have not lived here in the area for the holidays but the families that live on our street seem to have fun!  For halloween the family at the end of the road invited everyone on the loop to their house to start the festivities.  They had a tent with drinks and sweets, a campfire going, a COMPLIMENTARY food truck and a hayride for the kids to go on.  (this is where I learned there are two types of New England chow-dah.  Red and White).  Talk about going all out!  

**Disclaimer:  This gift I show you is nowhere near that level** 

So this last week we received an invite from another neighbor down the road that invited us to their house for their annual Christmas party.  Since Shawn won't be home from work until 6 and the party is only from 3-8, I thought I would just take a small gift instead of taking dessert or an appetizer so late.  This was my favorite tag from my holiday show: 

I will be honest though, this only came to be from a messy accident.  If you could see my room right now you would understand!  I had this wreath stamped and on a card ready to go.  Next thing I know, i looked down and a random stamp was laying on half the wreath.  And do you think that was a clean stamp?? oh no - not a chance :)  so I saw that I could salvage half of the wreath and was happy with what came out!  Hope you like it too!

           (sorry but the Cheers! stamp is retired)

This is such and easy and quick gift to make.  You just need the bubbly :)  I'm actually giving away a bottle my MIL bought.  I don't drink so it's just sitting in the pantry.  I will replace it later haha!

Here are a few other samples for other occasions.  Enjoy!

Happy Stamping :)

-Holly

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Time to relax!

I apologize for abandoning all of you faithful followers of mine :) I'm still here and alive (my poor boys have missed their momma too!)  I know it's been quite sometime since I posted last, but I promise, I will be posted more frequently.  I recently signed up again to be a demonstrator with SU and my goal is to try out for the artisan design team (which requires an active blog).  Anyway, I've been very busy prepping for my first craft show here in Rhode Island.  This was my third show overall that I have done.  All have been a flop.  Boy, do I know how to pick the winners!  The craft show was very small and slow (the rain didn't help) but I didn't know any better being new to the area.  I suppose I chose it because the fee was very small but I also thought it was at the fire station on main street in my town.  Instead it was on a back country road I've never been on.  It wasn't in the newspaper on Friday and I didn't see a single advertisement for it.  :(

you live and you learn.

But, regardless, I was very excited for my booth!  I absolutely love making cards and sharing with others what I love!  You could also say I was very proud of my display.  My husband took an old pallet and made some boxes to display my cards.  He's the best!  I also found an awesome 6 pane window at an antique store a few weeks back for $3.75(!!) and strung the chalkboard banner from Stampin' Up! that I purchased last week during the extravaganza.  I added some chalk labels from Hobby Lobby and I was set!  

So, over the next few days I will be sharing some of the cards I made in preperation for the booth.  Tonight I will just show you the end result :)

I used my Halloween tombstones as message boards.  My friend Jamie picked up on it, but I don't know who else knew! Shhhhh! :)

Lots of cards - or caaads as they're pronounced in New England.

Single Christmas cards and 5pks.

Tags were 50c, gift card holders were $1.50 and the wine tags were $2.50 or 2/$4

My intentions with the Rudolph's spares were to fill the 1x8" cellophane bags (from SU) with red sixlets that I ordered off amazon.  Unfortunately the package was lost in the mail and never showed.  However, I had enough red rolos to fill 2 curvy keepsake boxes.  I didn't sell any treat boxes though, so at least Eli's preschool and Sunday school gifts are started!

I also made the sugar scrub - you can find the recipe here.  They make great stocking stuffers! The tag is made from the Sweet Season digital stamp set.  I always wanted the set and when I found it online I bought it, added it to MDS and printed them out.  Simple as that!

The lady who had a booth beside won my raffle basket items.  She was so excited and maybe, just maybe, I have a future customer!  I loved the tag I made for the coffee :) (don't mind the picture -- this was on the [dirty] raffle prize table).

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the samples :) will post more this week!

happy stamping!

-Holly

Banner Blessings Released!

What a wonderful week this has been! On Tuesday, the wait was over - Stampin' Up! finally released the stamp set that I designed for a contest over a year ago.  I received a prototype at the end of October and they asked if I would make some samples and talk a little about where my inspiration came from.  You can read it here.  And might I just add - God is amazing! The very day this set was released, the verse from my devotion from Our Daily Bread was Phil 2:15!!! One of the stamps verses. :)

Creating these sets was a really different feeling! Every time I'd ink the stamp and put it to paper, seeing it transfer and see MY handwriting and MY drawing... Wow, such a cool feeling.  Hard to describe.  It was a little challenging though coming up with cards without Pinterest or Instagram to give me inspiration :) plus, these were for SU's blog! Talk about pressure!!

Here are the ones I came up with: 

This was the verse that inspired the set: if you want to hear a great song to go with it check out Matt Redman - Shine :)

This was my first and only bokeh card - I can see a lot more being made in the future!

** the trick with the ribbon is to wrap it around a pencil (I used a skinny paintbrush handle) and heat it with the heat gun for 30 seconds.  You have to tape each end first too!**

You can see the little hearts in the stamp from Seasonally Scattered - love it!

And since I couldn't decide which one I liked best, I sent all three colors to SU :) 

Reading the comments, blog posts (some by some pretty well known SU demos!) and seeing the pictures on Pinterest has been so wonderful.  Last night I looked up the hashtag #bannerblessings on IG and got to see the first card made by someone other than SU or me! Thanks Understand_Blue!  

I'm so happy this set was well received.  If it brings even ONE person closer to Jesus, I would be so happy.  I just want this set to touch others!! All glory to God - this is all for Him - not me!

Thank you everyone who voted for my set and waited patiently with me! Can't wait to see what else people come up with!!

Blessings,

Holly

My first bulk order!

Im pretty excited to say I just finished my first ever bulk order for cards!  (They happened to be for my brother and his wife) but regardless if I know the customer or not, I got an order and had 25 cards to make!

About two months ago, my sister-in-law Nicki asked me if I thought I could make their cards for Christmas.  She wanted to include a family picture and make a postcard style card.  I knew I had the postcard stamp so the back was covered.. Now what to do on the front?  I sent her a picture of all of my Christmas sets layed out on the floor and we both agreed on White Christmas.  This set is adorable and you can have lots of fun with it.  So I sat down and made this card.  I used watercolor paper because I planned on coloring the background with ink and my aqua brush but that wasn't working at nice as I'd hoped and it was taking too long.  So instead, I sponged soft sky with a dauber all over the sky, colored the banner with pear pizzazz and added dazzling diamonds with crystal effects.  The paper is non-SU and I got it on sale at michaels once BOGO free so I had plenty of it. (The card had to be a 5x7 to fit the photo frame).  I inserted our family picture just to tie whole thing together visually.

Added a little color on the snowman and left everything else black and (off) white.  Nicki liked the sample so I got to work.  Mass production of these was actually very easy, fun, and quicker than I had expected.

Wouldn't that make cute wrapping paper?! :)

This is where I stopped one night.  Knew I had to trim the sayings but thought I was done after that.. Then i remembered the glitter!!  So I layed them all out on my dining room table (which is now shimmery) and started adding just a little glitter to make snow.  The technique with the crystal effects vs using a versa marker, heat and stick powder, then adding glitter saves a lot of time and it's so easy!

So after they dried, they were NOW ready to go. They fit perfectly in the small flat rate box too! :) I left the cars off so it would package easily but I left a dimensional on there for her.  She will have to print a 4x4 picture to go inside anyway, so I told her she'd have to assemble them.

Hope the people she sends them to really like them.  I had a fun time making them.  (Well, the sponging part I did not enjoy).  Might do some for my family too but that's AFTER the craft show I'm doing.  Gotta get busy!!

So now I'm off to the post office.  I also included her birthday card (it's Thursday) so I'm hoping it ships quick! 

Thanks for swinging by :)

-Holly

Stampin fabric :)

About a month ago I received a sweet package in the mail from a friend I worked with when I first joined the military. Crystal has handmade a gift for all three of our boys so I knew the package would contain something adorable and made with love.  Crystal is quite the crafty gal (just couldn't get her into stampin).  In fact, she just cleaned out her craftroom and sent me 3 unmounted stamp sets from a few years back.  Crystal, you already know how awesome I think you are - so thank you!!

Here's what she sent - a crocheted blanket, hat and bibs. (And hello to my photo bombing cat!)

So here I am thinking, those bibs look super fun to make, but my sewing maching hadn't been plugged in in over a year... Good thing my former seamstress mom was coming to visit! She helped me dust the sewing machine off and make my first few bibs.  A baby can never have too many bibs.

So over the course of two days I made 8 bibs! Easy and fun!  I even made 3 for my new nephew Isaac.  He was born 6 weeks after Sam.

Then I read something late at night on Shelli's blog about a creative challenge.  (she is the CEO of Stampin' Up!) The first thing that came to mind were the bibs.  I could stamp the images and make my own material!  

Then days turned into weeks, and the next thing you know the weeks have passed and the contest ends today.  But I'm not letting the fact of being busy with 3 kids under the age of 4 stop me :) heck, even if I don't win, I have yet another bib... And like I said, you can never have too many. Haha!

So I bought some plain white fabric, picked out my ink and stamp sets and got to work.  I originally planned on using fabric paint, but we will see how this works first.  I used coastal cabana, pistachio pudding, baked brown sugar and crumb cake.  The stamp sets are Hello Love, Life's adventure, Dotty Angles and Work of Art. (Decided against the chevron...)

These have all been used a lot by me and many stampers lately.  Next I simply stamped the fabric in strips and sections.  

Next I pieced the strips together and once I had the size I needed, I backed it with a feltlike material and sewed those two pieces together. Turned it right side out, did the top stitch and added a fastener. This honestly took about 1.5 hours, but I'm sure if you don't have toddlers and you're well rested, this will be quicker for you! 

Here is this finished project:

Well maybe it's "finished"... Who knows? Maybe I'll add SAMUEL tomorrow when my new alphabet stamp set comes in the mail!  :) thanks for stopping by! Hope I inspired you to be creative with stamps! There's more to it that just cardstock and ink :) 

-Holly