My new Christmas card display...

Remember the "clip it up" project I told you about back in October?  Well, I finally got it painted black.  I got an idea (from someone's blog) to use it for our Christmas cards this year.  I have it in the corner of our dining room.  As I look at the photos I am thinking of adding some ribbon to it and maybe something on the top - any ideas?

Also, I found this great "happy holidays" sign/ornament at a Dolle's Candyland in Ocean City, MD a few weeks ago when I was there.  It was half price and I just love it! 

I hope your holiday preparations are going well and you are enjoying this season of Advent.

Winter Retreat

 This past weekend I was at the beach for a three day retreat with a group of girlfriends from church.  The weekend was called
"a cup of Christmas tea". 

There were twelve themes -

FRIENDSHIP * FAMILY * JOY * LIGHT * SHARING * PEACE

* TRADITIONS * THANKSGIVING * GIVING *

DREAMS * HOPE * STILLNESS

My girlfriend Jan found these great little plain white tea cups and tasked me with coming up with a favor for the weekend.  I love tags and ribbons, so I decided to make a little tag book with a separate tag for each of the words.  That worked out to 12 x 13 = 156 tags, each with their own ribbon.

I used an American Crafts Christmas paper set for the back of the tags.  Their paper coordinates so well! 

This was a simple project, but I was happy with the way it turned out.

The retreat was wonderful. 

I don't know that I came back so much relaxed as renewed.

Who doesn't like free paper- right???

Take a hop over to the Urban Swank blog. They are giving away paper - 50 sheets! Wow! Talk about an early Christmas gift!

Their blog says:
"The winner will be selected randomly and will receive papers from the following collections: Lulliloo, Blink, Just Add Color, Mooch, Happy Everything, California, Oh So Merry, Everyday Lily! I'll throw in a few extra papers too and make it an even 50!"

What's not to love?

Heart box from House of 3

My daughter's room has light green walls with black and white furniture and accents. Sometime ago we purchased an Ikea Ung Drill frame. It was so pretty, but we really had no plan for it. Then I saw a great idea from the House of 3. So I ordered their Heart Kit. Last weekend my daughter put it all together. She used a rub on quote that came in the kit. She used her own choice of paper from my "collection". I think it turned out fabulous.

She used some lace to trim the edges. The chunky chandelier crystal was part of the kit.

They have lots of yummy stuff over at House of 3. If you have a minute (or more) go over and do some window shopping.

I hope you and yours have a Happy Thanksgiving!

(and a safe Black Friday)

Gypsy Giveaway!

The Gypsy Spot is giving away a Cricut Gypsy - courtesy of Custom Crops.

Great giveaway! A Cricut Gypsy!

Go to this site. Good luck!

Thanksgiving Card

I recently made this card at a get togther at a neighboring church. I used a copy of an old postcard. I found this wonderful pale yellow ribbon that looked so good with the card and postcard. The postcard image covered most of the ribbon, so I trimmed out the bottom of the postcard to expose the more of the ribbon.

I stamped that same sentiment on the inside of the card as I did on the back of the envelope.

I THANK MY GOD EVERY TIME I REMEMBER YOU Philippians 1:3

It was a fairly simple card, but I was really pleased with the way it turned out.

Are you ready for Thanksgiving?

Fiskateer Rebecca's UStream Class

This is the layout that I made in class.

So I told you about all the goodies that I got from Fiskateer Rebecca to do her UStream class. Well, I wanted to show you what I made. It is a two page layout. The left page is supposed to have three 3x3 photos aligned to the right of the page on the kraft paper. The right page is for a larger photo to align to the left of the page on the kraft paper. The result is a grouping of photos in the center of the two page lay out.

I had never done an online class. I didn't even know what UStream was, but I learned. I made the project as we went (so you will have to excuse my stamping slurs). We could watch Rebecca throughout the class and we could comment on a chat. It was really neat to hear everyone's comments and ideas as we went along.

This is what the two side columns look like.

I must say this was a very exciting experience for me. I loved working with the products. The chipboard is fun and really adds dimension to the pages. The Heidi Grace paper is two sided, giving you lots of options. And Rebecca is a great teacher with a fabulous sense of humor!

If you don't already follow their blog, you may want to start...

a little birdie told me there may be another class like this offered again...