Some Homemade Christmas Presents

Earlier in December we had our annual demonstrator luncheon for the Yurinkin' Stamp Addicts.  We were fortunate tohave 7 in attendance during this crazy busy month.  More would have liked to attend but had to do other things. We missed everyone not in attendance.

We had a great lunch at Cafe Classico II, swapped Christmas tags, chatted and shared ideas, and had our great homemade gift exchange.  Everyone did a great job and I didn't think it fair not to show you what everyone made.

This is a framed piece of art that I made for the gift exchange.  (See me in the reflection, lol)  It uses the great decor element piece, Jingle all the way.  I wheeled the white mat using the musical note wheel and embossed it in white.  I then created a red mat to lay over the white one.  Once it was all together, I added a large red button with some linen thread threaded through it to the glass of the frame.  Finished with the red striped 1 1/4" grosgrain ribbon.

Maria was the recipient of my gift.  Looks like she likes it.  Hope she will enjoy it for years to come.

Lucia was the next one to open her gift.  She received Dianne's gift of a gingerbread house that will be sure not to crumble letting her use it from year to year.

Here's a close up of the gingerbread house.  Dianne created the candy canes on her own.  Isn't it cute?

Next up is Patti.  She recieved a gift made by my sister, Roxanne.  I think it turned out great.  Roxanne used one of those room freshener little lights (can't remember who makes them) and created her own cover.  It's such a cute little night light.

Here's a close up of it.  Look at all that detail.  Great job, Rox.

Then there's Roxanne (my sister) showing us her gift.  She recieved the gift made by Lucia.  Lucia recovered a memo board with Stampin' Up!'s new fabric.  She used Stampin' Up! ribbon and brads to finish it off.  I love the extra special touch of a few stamped cards to bring it all together.

Here's a close up of the board and the cards. 

Here is Dianne with the gifts she received from Patti.  Looks like Patti had a great time making this perfect desk set. It included a notebook, pen, magnets, desk drawer organizer, stamped tealight candles and a little box to keep those important things in.  It's such a pretty set, I'm sure Dianne will put it to great use.

Here's a close up of Patti's desk set she made.  Very pretty.

Then there's me getting ready to open my gift from Maria.  Can't wait to see what's inside.

Here it is.  A very pretty covered notebook (to keep track of all those Christmas things), a matching pen and what really caught my eye, a bag full of some chocolates.  You know me, stamping and chocolate go hand in hand. That's what I always say anyway.  lol

This week at Sisters in Stamping we are taking a little break, so come back next week for a sneak peak from the Occasions mini catalog and/or the Sale-a-bration Mini catalog.

Hope you enjoyed a little glimpse into some of the fun we have as demonstrators.  You can always join my team to be included in the fun. Contact me for more information.

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas. 

Check back tomorrow to see a special greeting from my family to you.

Time to add some Decor

Glad to be sharing with you some great ideas using the decor elements. This week at Sisters in Stamping we are focusing on using the decor elements.  This is one line of product Stampin' Up! offers that isn't stamps, ink and paper, so even "non-crafty" people will want to get their hands on some of these. 

There are decor elements for everything.  You living room, kitchen, laundry room, bedrooms, and kids bedrooms. There are some that are great for classrooms or playrooms.  We even have chalkboard decor elements and yes you can write on them with chalk, wipe it off and write something new.

I recently held a party that focused just on Decor Elements and people were amazed at how fast and easy they are completely on the wall or anything else you need to "spruce" up a bit.  If you are interested in hosting a Decor Elements Party I would love to chat with you on doing one.  Everyone at the party will also get a chance to work with the decor elements so they can see just how amazing these pieces of vinyl are.

Today I am going to share with you some quick, cute, and simple Christmas gift ideas.  I will share more photos with you in the coming days for other ideas with the decor elements.  But for now we are on Christmas.  I found these glass containers at the local dollar store.  I simply added the Christmas decor elements found in the Holiday Mini Catalog to the front of them.  I used both the real red and old olive pieces for these two shown.  The ornamanets come in a strip of 6 but I just cut it in half and used three (kind of a two for one deal ther)

I then used a piece of 1 1/4" striped grosgrain ribbon.  Olive with the red ornaments and red with the olive ornaments.  These really come together very quickly and are pretty inexpensive gifts to give to your neighbors, co-workers or just about anyone.

Here is the individual pictures of each one so you can see them a little better.  I filled them with red and white striped peppermints to make it the perfect little candy dish.  They would also be good to use on a desk for pens and pencils, or even a little vase (for some short stemmed flowers, of course).

Remember to head over to Sisters in Stamping to see some more Decor Element ideas.  Remember if you need a quick decorating idea then Decor Elements are your answer.

The last of the Holiday Treats

Here are the Holiday treats I promised you.  These are for the special little Trick or Treaters in my life, my own children and some nieces and nephews.

I used the Spooky Things decor elements (from the Holiday mini catalog) on some cute little dollor find containers that were large enough to fit a lot of loot in them.

These were extremely quick and easy to put together but they are great containers for the kids to use.  I gave a few of them to some nieces and nephews on Wednesday that I won't see on Halloween and they loved their treat. 

There are 10 different images on the Spooky Things sheet so you can make a good amount of these with one sheet.  Even though Halloween is today they are still available in the Holiday mini Catalog through January if you want to get a head start on next year.

Now the next two items are not treats for anyone special. They are just for me.  hehe.  But I wanted to show them to you so you can see some other items you can make with the images on the Spooky Things decor element sheet.

A floating frame.  I put the Happy Halloween on the outside of the glass and the designer paper (already has bats on it) is cut down so there is still some empty space inside the frame.

Then there are my cute little halloween pumpkins.  These are white foam pumpkins that I can use year after year.  I cut the trick or treat saying apart and used one word on each pumpkin.  I also added a spider on both of the larger pumpkins (the one on treat you really can't see in this picture).  I finished them off with some of the black floursih designer jewels.  I cut it into pieces to decorate the words.  I've had many compliments on my pumpkins and even people wanting to "steal" them from me.  Honestly, they are so easy to make and you will love the end result.

Hope you have a Safe and Happy Halloween.

Trick or Treats for some Special 1st Graders

Yesterday was Jonah's Halloween party at school.  He was so excited all week about it. I'll share some Halloween costume photos with you later.  Of course, I went to the Halloween parade at the school and then I was asked to go and play a game with his class after the parade (during their party). Well, of course, I thought I should play a little Halloween Bingo with them using none other but Stampin' Up!'s great new Bingo stamp.  I had to dig into my retired stash of stamps for this great Halloween set to fit in the spaces.  I definitely will be letting Stampin' Up! know that we need more sets with small stamps to fit inside this great set.

I used the Bitty Boos set (retired a few years ago) and just kept stamping the 12 images in different colors, randomly on the cards.  Not all images in all colors are on each card.  Needed to make them different enough that we didn't have 10 winners all at the same time.  After I stamped the cards and images I matted the white stamped cardstock on some Pumpkin Pie cardstock.  I finished them off by laminated them so I can use them year after year without having to worry about little finger smudges ruining them.

As I was stamping the cards I would stamp the image in that color on scrap white cardstock to use for the calling pieces.  Once I was completely finished I had about a sheet and a half of stamped calling pieces.  I punched each one out with the 1" circle punch and then attached them to 1 1/4" black circles.  Then no one can see through them and know what is going to be called next.  The kids had a great time playing bingo and I even gave prizes for the winners, the glow in the dark bracelets.  Wouldn't you know though that each and every student was a winner?  (Of course, I would give each of them a bracelet at the end of the game.  That just wouldn't be fair if I didn't).

And this was the cute little bag I made for Jonah to give each of his classmates. I used the mini lunch sacks from the Holiday mini catalog to emboss the spider web (also in the mini).  It's pretty cool because you leave the bag just the way it comes and even the sides end up embossed.  I then used the crop-a-dile to punch two holes in the top center to tie it closed with some black ribbon.  I then stamped the Spider from Bitty Boos on white cardstock, punched it out and attached it to a black scallop circle. I punched a hole in the scallop and attached it to the black ribbon with linen thread.

Here's all 19 of them together.  They look great.  I was really happy with how they turned out.

And lastly, I made a cute little pumpkin for Jonah's teacher, Miss Cummings.  He loves her and she is so good to him.  I used a plastic paint pail and attached the Pumpkin faces decor elements to the front of it.  I inserted some pumpkin pie designer series paper inside to make it orange and then finished it off with pumpkin pie 1 1/4" striped grosgrain strips of ribbon tied on the handle.  I also attached one of the spiders that went on each of the kids bags to the side of the handle.  What did I fill it with?  Well, what else but a whole lot of chocolate.  Who wouldn't love that?  I know it would be a great gift for me. : )

Tomorrow I'll share some of the Halloween treats for some of my nieces and nephews.

Are you Organized?

Do you ever find that you need somewhere to keep all your small crafting items that really don't have a specific place but you want or need to keep them close to your work station? Well, have I got the cutest thing for you. My sister took a plain, boring tool turn-about from that cooking company that we all know and love and transformed it into a cute organizing tool for any stamping/crafting desk.

Using the big shot, an alphabet die set and the circles die, she cut letters and different size circles out of a decor elements sheet. It says, "Create" on it. The t and e aren't visible in the picture. Then all she did was transfer it onto the tool turn-about. She created this for the gift exchange for my team, Yurinkin' Stamp Addicts, Christmas luncheon. The lucky receiver of this gift was very excited and couldn't wait to go home and decorate her desk with it.

What Can I do with Decor Elements?

Have you ever wondered what to do with Decor Elements? Decor Elements are Stampin' Up!'s vinyl decorations that can go just about anywhere.

I wanted to fancy up my laptop a little bit and decided on this piece of decor elements to do the trick. I personalized my computer. Isn't it fun looking? I think it's much better than the boring old black top I had prior.

Brittney likes it so much that she is looking through the decor elements catalog to pick out a piece for her laptop. Now that's impressive, who would have thought anything I did would impress a 19 year old, especially my 19 year old who purposely says the opposite of what I like or want.

The decor elements are great for walls because you can easily take them off and not worry about peeling paint with it. You can also use them on or in picture frame. As the holidays get closer I will post a shadow box frame I created using decor elements. This is a great way to use the Holiday elements year after year.

If you don't have a copy of the decor elements catalog, let me know and I will get one out to you. In the meantime, check out THIS to view it online. It's under Definitely Decorative.

Have a great day. Be sure to check back tomorrow for another Fabulous Friday posting.