Halloween

I haven't had any trick or treaters in quite a few years but Beth Anne called and said to come to her house about four and see the kids dressed up before they went trick or treating.

 Tiger, above and Jackson, below, were green dragons.  I didn't get a picture of Jackson standing up so you'll have to use your imagination.  And I've never seen a dino with red boots but Tiger loves them and wouldn't take them off.

 Bryce was a puppy dog.  He's so cute.

 Sophia was Little Bo Peep and Isabelle was her little lamb.  Belle didn't have her outfit on yet when I took this picture but she was an adorable little lamb.

Hope you had lots of cute kids come to your house and that no one played any tricks on you.

October card class

Last night was my regular card class and here's the first card that I want to show you.  It's a little different size but it will fit in a business size envelope.  The base is 7 1/2" X 8 1/2".  Then it's folded in half with the 8 1/2" sides together.  The blue card stock pieces are 3 1/2" squares.  The white pieces are 3 1/4" squares.  Then the white pieces were run through embossing folders.  I used the Northern Flurry and the Petals-a-Plenty folders.  I stamped snowflakes on the base card and added the Merry Christmas from the Christmas Greetings stamp set.  And that's all there is to it.  It's pretty easy but so pretty to look at. 
More cards tomorrow.

Christmas Stamp A Stack

My Christmas Stamp A Stack was last Thursday and I finallly decided to post the pictures. 

 This next card is a copy of one that Arlena Craven made.  I tweeked it a little bit by adding the scalloped piece and the poinsettia at the top of the card.

I am so tired that I can't even think so this is it and I'm going to bed.

More Christmas planners

Okay, I know I said that I would show you a Christmas planner that only has three pockets but I tried and tried and I didn't like how it turned out.  So instead here's a couple more that have four pockets.  These are so much fun and don't have to be for Christmas.  You could make one for any occasion that you are planning. 
Here's the first one.  I wanted to do one in black and white to see how elegant it would look.  Not sure this qualifies as elegant but I like it.  You might not be able to see but on the bottom panel I stamped Baroque Motifs in versamark and embossed with black powder.



Here's in inside.  I didn't do it up nearly as fancy as the first one but you could always add more to it.  On the second panel from the left I used heat and stick and chunky black glitter but it doesn't show up very good in the picture.

 And this is the blue one that you saw in my other post.  I finally finished it with just snowflakes.  It was real fast and easy but I really like it.  The folder matched our Tempting Turquoise pretty good so I just used Temping Turquoise and Not Quite Navy for the snowflakes. 

And here's the inside, again, quick and easy.  I'll be watching for folders next August so that I can  have a Christmas Planner class next year.  Until then you're on your own.  If you make one send me a picture.  I want to see what you come up with.

Holiday Bundles

Okay, I know that I said that I would show you another Christmas planner but things don't always go my way.  I spent Monday in Lansing and today with the dentist.  Alright, I didn't spend all day at the dentists but by the time he was done all I wanted to do was come home, take some pain pills and go to bed.  I feel much better now but I'll probably be going back tomorrow for a little adjustment.  So the result is that I still don't have the Christmas planner done.  BUT, there's good news.  Stampin Up! has done it again.  Just in time for Christmas they're offering some Holiday bundles.  Check out the Holiday Bundle on the right hand side of the page.  These specials will save you 20% off of the regular price.  And it changes the November tag class that I'm offering.  The price for the stamp set and the label punch is $10.00 cheaper than it was.  What a deal!!  Just let me know if there's anything you want from this special, or you can go to my Stampin Up! web page and order it online. And if you'd like to book a workshop so that I can show you things to make with any of these sets just let me know.  The holidays are coming way to fast.  Are you ready?

Military Salute by KISS

I don't care how you feel about the US military but I don't think any of you can watch this and not be proud of our military.  I cried all the way through.  I love how exuberant all of these people are.  We should be as proud as they are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MtdIO23MKM&feature=player_embedded

Christmas planner

  Since it's been a whole week since I've posted anything here I decided that I really need to do it.  Even though I'm trying to watch CSI Miami.  So if this doesn't make sense in places it's because I'm distracted.  Anyway I wanted to show you this easy Christmas planner.  You start with a paper folder, the kind that the kids use in school.  In this post I'm using two different folders because I finished mine and then decided that I should have taken pictures of the process.  So we'll start with this blue one.

 You going to fold it so that the inside is now the outside.  Does that make sense? 

This picture is blurry and for that I'm sorry.  But you want to make sure that the pocket is cut all the way to the edge of the folder.  So if the inside of the folder looks like this then you need to cut to the edge of the folder so that all pockets are the same width.

Now your going to fold the edges back to the middle fold so that it looks like this. 

 When its folded it will look like this.

Now I used pages for the inside from this site.   http://christmas.organizedhome.com/printable/christmas-pocket-planner  These pages are shorter than the folder so you can cut the top of the folder off a little.  The web site has a number of different forms that you can print off.  You have four pockets so just pick out the forms that you want to use. 

Here's my finished planner.  Decorate however you want.  Just be sure to put a ribbon around it so that you can tie it shut. 

 Here's the inside of my planner.  Again, just decorate however you want to.  I adhered card stock to the back of each pocket and then decorated the front of each pocket a little differently. 

I've got a couple more in the works. A black one that I'm going to decorate to look elegant and the blue folder will probably be decorated with snowflakes. The hardest part of making this was trying to find the folders. This might be a good project to keep in mind for next Christmas and then you can get the folders when the school supplies are in high supply in the stores. Oh, and I forgot to say that the planner fits quite nicely into my purse so I can carry it with me all through the season. Some of the forms are Christmas card lists, gift lists, menu planning, calendar stocking stuffers, etc. Just pick the four that you would use the most and your good to go. Tomorrow I'll show you a smaller version that only has three pockets.

Easel Card

 Here's the directions for an easle card.  It's a geat card to make if you want to send someone a picture.   We start with one sheet of card stock and cut it in half the long way.  Then take one long peice and cut it in two pieces.Save it for later.

 Now take your long piece (  11 x 4 1/4 ) and fold it in half. 

 Fold the front of the card in half again by folding it almost all the way up to the fold. 

 On the bottom half of the front of the card put some adhesive. 

 Now adhere one of the short pieces to this bottom of the front of the card.  It should look like this.

 Now your going to decorate the bottom half of the inside of the card.  (This is a card that I already had done)  Hope it isn't to confusing.  The front of the card is going to rest against this decor so you want it a little thick to hold the front of the card in place.  You can do this with a couple of layers of card stock, some ribbon or, as I did here, a couple of brads.  Pearls or rhinestone would work too.

 Now decorate the front of the card.  On this one I just used a picture.  Isn't that a cute kid?   Let your imagination run wild.

Here's what it looks like when it's set up as an easle.  It's easy when you know what to do.  I have seen these on different blogs and web pages but I didn't know how to do it.  Lorrie Skinner and I found one in Ronda's cards last Sunday and we almost took it apart trying to figure it out.   Now that I know how to do it I'm hoping to make some more.  They don't have to be just for Christmas.  You can make it a pretty card without a picture but anytime's a good time to send pictures. Especially of little ones, they grow way to fast.

Beautiful day

It was such a beautiful day and I have everything ready for tomorrow so I decided to goof off and I went for a walk to enjoy the beautiful day.  Fall is my favorite time of the year and usually the second weekend of Oct is prime color in this area.  So I had to get out and enjoy it.  This is the view from the Paper Palace looking South.

This is a big sugar maple behind my house a little way.  It's a beautiful shade of yellow.

 Not sure what this means in terms of winter but there's a ton of acorns on the ground and the squirrels don't seem to be picking them up.  There's also a lot of chestnuts under my tree that no one has gotten yet.

Gift card holder

Today I'm showing you a quick and simple gift card holder.  I know, you can just put them in the holder that comes from the store but wouldn't it be more personal to make a holder to put the card in?  Lets start with the belly band.  Cut a piece of card stock 71/2" x 3 3/4".  Here I used Always Artichoke.  I stamped the design and then scalloped the edge.  Then I scored it at 1/2" and 4"  Fold it and adhere the edges.  Then use the new label punch and punch out the front of the band.  Save the piece that you punched out because your going to use it.

 Now for the actual holder you want a piece of card stock 10" x 31/4".  Score at 4" and 8".  Fold the short piece up and adhere just the edges of the card stock.  This forms the pocket that you're going to put the gift card in.  Adhere the piece that you punched out of the belly band.  The snowflake is a piece out of the Simply Scrapping Kit.  I didn't put a greeting on the green piece but you can.

Now stamp a greeting onto white or vanilla card stock and punch out with the new label punch.  Slide the belly band over the holder and adhere the piece you just punched out in the hole where you punched out the green earlier.  So your holder will look like this.  Does all of this make sense?  I should have taken a picture of the whole thing put together but I didn't and it takes to long to get my camera, load the picture, edit the picture and upload the picture so you'll have to use your imagination.  If you have any questions send me an email and I'll try and answer them.  Just remember, this is only an example.  You can use any color card stock (make it match the gift card?) and stamp and embellish it anyway that you would like.  Make it in your style.
I probably won't post for a couple of days but when I come back I'm going to show you a really cute easel card that you can use to send pictures.

Christmas gifts

Here are pictures of some of the Christmas gifts that we made at Ronda's Gift Giving Extravaganza on Sunday.  This first one is probably a stocking stuffer because it's a candy bar holder.  Everything that we made on Sunday was made with the Simply Scrapping kit called Christmas Cheer.  We each got 1/2 of a kit and Ronda added a half bolt of Marina Mist wide stripped ribbon and 1 12 x 12 sheet of Marina Mist card stock.  So if you like the paper that you see here the only way to get it is in the kit. 

This wall haning is really simple to make but so pretty.  You could make different ones by changing the color and the words.  I like "noel", "peace" and "love".  

 This is just a box to put a gift in but wouldn't you like to get a present wrapped up like this.  I love the snowflake paper.

 Here's a little photo holder.  It's made out of one of the Elegant Notes cards.  We cut the flap off the envelope and adhered the card to the front of the envelope.  Then added three decorated sheets of paper that you can put the photos on.  You could put a total of 7 pictures in this mini albumn.

And here's some note cards with a holder.  The holder is the stripped Top Note.  Just fold your paper and place it on the die so that you don't cut through the one side.  Put a ribbon on for a band and slip the note cards.  A great idea for teachers, bus drivers, anytime you just need a little something for someone.

I've got one more gift to show you tomorrow.

Distressing Kit

The pictures that I'm showing you tonight are from Ronda's Gift Giving Extravaganza on Sunday.  Sandi Dailey showed us how to use the distressing kit that is on page 195 in the big catalog.  She had a beautiful display and this is only a part of the display.  She used the distressing tools on each item shown.

 Doesn't she do beautiful work?