Gingerbread Dreams

One of my very favorite images from Holiday Button Bits is the little Gingerbread boy. I finally got my hands on some Cosmo Cricket By Golly paper and I thought that the peppermint paper would be the perfect addition to my Gingerbread and I love it!

The card layout is very simple. To vary it a little bit I punched 3/4 inch squares from the pepperminut paper and some ornament paper from SU! and placed those along the bottom edge of my card. In between the border the the image I tied a big fat bow with Pure Poppy ribbon topped off with a lovely vintage cream button. Not exactly flat for mailing like my other cards this year but I could not resist buttons on this card!

Less than 2 weeks until Christmas can you believe it! I have a few things to finish up in the gift giving department and oh yeah, one little small thing like decorating the house! I was sick Thanksgiving weekend and that put us seriously behind. My daughter likes to tell everyone that we don't have our tree up so we are fixing that today! And I only have a few Christmas cards done. I'm going to have to put in some late nights to get some more done asap and tomorrow is candy making day. I love making candy and giving away treats for the holidays. Recently I have enjoyed this more than making Christmas cookies but we may have to make a small batch for Santa on Christmas Eve.

Here is another of my favorite treats for the holidays. I am making some this weekend!

White Chocolate Party Mix

1 lb. white chocolate (I use Ghirardelli)

3 c. crispy rice cereal squares

3 c. crispy corn cereal squares

3 c. toasted oat cereal

2 c. think pretzel sticks

2 c. peanuts

1 (12oz) bag m&m's

Combine all ingredients except chocolate in a large bowl. Melt the white chocolate by your preferred method. Pour over cereal mix and stir to coat evenly. Spread the mix on wax paper to cool. Break in small pieces. Store in an airtight container. Refrigerate to keep fresh.

I am not a fan of white chocolate but I cannot get enough of this stuff. It has the perfect combination of sweet and salty!

Card supplies by Papertrey Ink unless noted: Stamps: Holiday Button Bits; Vintage Labels. Ink: Dark Chocolate, Close to Cocoa (SU!), Tea Dye Duo, Pure Poppy. Cardstock: Ripe Avocado, vintage cream, dp by SU! and Cosmo Cricket. Accessories: Pure Poppy double-stitched ribon, vintage buttons, rustick twine, copic markers, Labels One dies by Spellbinder.

Roll Out the Holly

The weeks are zipping by and as usual I am way behind on all of my crafting goals for the holidays. Here is another Christmas card using Holiday Button Bits.

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I'm trying to keep the cards relatively simple and flat this year to avoid having to use extra postage. Instead of buttons on this card I stamped the largest single polka dot stamp from Polka Dot Basics in Pure Poppy ink to make the holly berries and then I covered them with red stickles for some sparkle. The holly leaves were stamped an extra time, cut out and then popped up on dimensionals.

Since some expressed an interest in candy recipes, here is one for homemade Clark Bars. This is one of my favorites, passed down to me from my Mom, who always makes yummy candy at the holidays. Love you Mom! Yummmm!

Judy's Homemade Clark Bars

Ingredients:

• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup white Karo syrup
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 cups peanut butter
• milk chocolate candy melts. A couple of bags will do you.

Directions:

Combine sugar, Karo syrup and water in a pan and place on stovetop. Heat to 290 degrees. While this is heating up spread your 2 cups of peanut butter into a black iron skillet. When the sugar mix reaches 290 degrees pour it over the peanut butter in your iron skillet and stir quickly. (I emphasize "quickly"). Spread it immediately onto a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan and score it with a pizza cutter. Let it harden for approximately 1 hour and then dip in melted chocolate. Place on wax paper to let the chocolate set and then store in an airtight container in a cool location. These keep very well. You can make them a couple of weeks before the holidays.

Tips: You do want to use an iron skillet. This stuff sets up very quickly so you have to stir FAST and then spread it FAST onto your cookie sheet. An extra set of hands will be invaluable. My husband helps me stir and he holds the skillet while I spread it onto the cookie sheet. If you score it with your pizza cutter it will break apart easily for dipping.

I hope you enjoyed the card and if you try the recipe I'd love to know how they turn out!

Thanks for stopping by,

Kim

Supplies (By PTI unless noted): Stamps: Holiday Button Bits, Polka Dot Basics, Signature Christmas, Vintage Labels. Ink: Dark Chocolate, New Leaf, Pure Poppy, Vintage Tea Dye Duo. Cardstock: Vintage Cream, New Leaf, Dark Chocolate, decorate paper by SU! Accessories: Spellbinders Labels 1 dies, glitter glue (Ranger), Border Punch (Martha Stewart), Cotton Trim (Joanns), Rustic Twine.

Time to Deck the Halls!

I have another Christmas card to share tonight. In contrast to my last post, this card has a much more rustic feel.

I kept the embellishments light so it would not be too lumpy and require extra postage. Instead of using buttons with the ornament toppers I used the lovely ornament (or bell) from Communique Curves and it fits beautifully! Instead of a big bow I just cinched up the ribbon with a little rustic twine. I will definitely be using that trick again. And I LOVE Dawn McVey's Signature Christmas sentiments!

I am very excited for Christmas this year. Having a 2 and 1/2 year old has definitely restored some of the wonder of Christmas. I need to start cranking out the Christmas cards and I'm starting my candy making this weekend. Maybe I will share some of my favorite candy recipes. If that interests you let me know.

Thanks for stopping by!

Kim

Stamps: Holiday Button Bits, Communique Curves, Signature Christmas. Ink: Ripe Avocado, Pure Poppy, Plum Pudding, Dark Chocolate, Vintage Tea Dye Duo. Cardstock: Rustic White, Ripe Avocado, Wassail dp (Basic Grey). Accessories: Ripe Avocado double-stitch ribbon, rustic twine. All supplies are by Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.

Deck the Halls!

It's time to get a move on designing my Christmas cards. I finally started playing around with my Papertrey Christmas stamps and had a wonderful time! Here is a 3 card series using the same colors and design elements but changed up just a little bit.

I think this last card is my favorite but I'd love to know what you think! Each card uses a color scheme of Kraft, Sweet Blush and Aqua Mist and Linen vellum cardstock. Thetrees and snowflake images were stamped in Fresh Snow and then embossed with filigree white powder. Two of the cards include sewing on the vellum. Additional details for each card are included below. I am trying (key word is "trying") to make my cards not too lumpy this year so they can be mailed with a single stamp. The half pearls add a little bump but not as much as a big bow. It's hard for this girl not to have any bling on her cards so I added glitter. At the holidays I always bust out the glitter because it makes me so happy!

I am usually very traditional when it comes to my Christmas cards but for some reason I was drawn to create these using Aqua Mist and Sweet Blush. I really like the look but don't fret, there are plenty of cards with traditional colors and images coming to my blog soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

Kim

Supply lists (All supplies by Papertrey Ink unless noted):

Card #1: For this card I stamped the trees in Fresh Snow and then traced over each one with a glue pen and dusted it with crystal glitter. Stamps: Holiday Tree. Cardstock: Kraft, Sweet Blush, Aqua Mist, Linen vellum. Ink: Fresh Snow. Accessories: Art Institute crystal glitter, Filigree White embossing powder, sewing machine (Brother).

Card #2: Stamps: Holiday Tree, Holiday Treats, Polka Dot Basics. Ink: Fresh Snow, Palette Noir. Cardstock: Kraft, Sweet Blush, Aqua Mist, Linen vellum. Accessories: Art Institute crystal glitter, Filigree White embossing powder, circle punch (EK success), half pearls (stash).

Card #3: Stamps: Holiday Tree, Holiday Button Bits, Polka Dot Basics. Ink: Palette Noir, Fresh Snow. Cardstock: Kraft, Sweet Blush, Aqua Mist. Accessories: Scor-Tape, Filigree white embossing powder, half pearls (stash), Art Institute Crystal glitter and narrow oval punch (SU!); Sewing machine (Brother)

Ho Ho Holiday

Hello and thanks for stopping by my little blog this evening. I bet you're here for the Papertrey Ink blog hop. I couldn't resist this month's challenge. Here is the description:

"The holidays are going to be here before you know it! No matter how much planning you do, there always seems to be last minute gifts and wrapping to do! This month's Blog Hop Challenge is to create a quick & inexpensive wrap or tag that can be the perfect solution for "grab & go" gifts! We can't wait to see what you create!!!"

I had several ideas but decided to go with my first one, which was to make a stamped muslin bag to hold some little gifts for Christmas. I won't show you what's inside just in case any of my friends and family are reading this! ;)

I estimated the size of bag that I would need and cut out two pieces of muslin and sewed them together. I turned the bag right side out and used two ribbon stamps from Faux Ribbon to make a Candy Cane stripe for the bag. I think I first saw this candy cane stripe done by Niki Estes but Mish Wooderson has also done it I think. I find both of their blogs so inspiring! I didn't come up with the idea of the stripe but I haven't seen any little bags like these. After I had the bag stamped I popped my gifts inside and tied it up with a nice bit of Pure Poppy satin ribbon. I made a little tag using the Santa from Holiday Button Bits with some snowflakes from Holiday Tree. I have lots of ideas for more bags. I might tweak the size a little bit so I have more fabric at the top and I"d love to try a drawstring bag but this was supposed to be quick and simple so I didn't do a lot of fiddling. I hope you enjoyed my post. Thanks so much for stopping by.

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Kim

Time Gets Away From Me

There is only so much I can do. I need to learn to embrace this concept. LOL! I have way more plans than I realistically have time to complete in between work and family. But I did manage to squeeze in a few projects. As promised, here are a couple more photos of what I've been up to. Regrettably I did not take more individual photos of the notebooks and they are all gone. But I have more supplies and I'm getting ready to make another batch and I'll try to do better with photos.

I made two styles of notebooks. The tall skinny ones are very popular lately especially among the Papertrey Ink crowd thanks to the new set Take Note. Add a little embellishment and a pen and it's a wonderful gift. The second style was a little more labor intensive but I really liked the results. I covered pieces of chipboard with decorative paper and then spiral bound them with my Bind-it-All. One of my favorite things about this style is that I created a little cardstock pocket on the back flap by stitching a piece of cardstock to my decorative paper before I glued it to the chipboard. The back of the notepad slides down inside it. This way the notepad can be replaced and you can use the cover over and over.

And here is the ever popular "Snowman Poop" gag gift for anyone you know who's been a little naughty this year. :)

Thanks for stopping by! I am starting on Christmas cards and gifts this weekend and will be sharing more soon.

Supplies Photo #1: All products by Paper Trey Ink with exception of the pens, binding coils and some decorative paper. Stamps: Take Note and Teacher's Apple are shown in the photos.

Photo #2: Stamps: SU! Thanks Snow Much. Cardstock: White and Brocade Blue. Accessories: punches and copic markers.

Holiday Hoopla with Papertrey

Welcome to my blog tonight. I am a little late getting this posted. We went to Boo at the Zoo today and got home a little later than planned, which threw everything off schedule and I totally forgot about posting to my blog for the Papertrey blog hop.

So, forgive me how short my post is but you're here to look at the goodies anyway! For the holidays I have been making some bookmarks using Jumbo paperclips and lots of Papertrey images. Here is one of my favorites using the new gingerbread man from Holiday Button Bits.

And here is a photo of my bookmarks all packaged up and ready to go.

The stamps are assorted PTI stamps. The little kraft bookmark holders were stamped with Polka Dot Basics II in Fresh Snow ink and so was the little bag topper but the For You sentiment is from Waltzing Mouse stamps, and was stamped inside a border from Borders and Corners Rectangles. I hope you enjoy these little treats! Stop by again soon.

Kim

Christmas cards and more cards

I have so many things to do for the holidays I don't even know where to start! I make cards to send out and I want to make monogram note cards for co-workers, ornaments for the kids in my family, coaster calendars, and so much more! I need a priority list to keep me on track that's for sure. For my first post to my new blog I thought I would share a few Christmas cards I've made in the last couple of weeks. The first card is one I made using Lauren Meader's Wise Owl set from Paper Trey Ink. I went way too long before inking up these adorable owls! While I was tooling around in my craft room at 2 a.m. last Saturday I thought to myself "Hey, I wonder if this Denami santa hat will fit on the owl?" and it did! It was a perfect fit! The "who" was made with Karen Foster snap stamps and the branch is by Outlines. Cardstock is PTI Kraft, SU! Chocolate Chip and Real Red. I enjoyed this so much that I made 7 more cards, some of them also including a Denami stocking hanging from the branch. It felt great to get that many cards out in one sitting. Now I have only about 30 more to go. LOL!


The next card was for the sketch challenge on SCS. I really enjoyed this sketch and see myself using it several more times as I work on my holiday cards. The main image is from one of the new Inkadinkadoo clear sets. I stamped the reindeer in Versamark with Espresso ink and then embossed with clear ep. I went back and colored in the flowers using Copic markers and embossed in clear again and then added some small stickers to embellish a few flowers. The sky was sponged on using a combination of Antique Linen, Baby Blue, Buckaroo Blue and Night of Navy. The paper is SU!'s new Ski Slope paper. I added some snowflakes with a white gel pen and then embossed the Noel sentiment from PTI in gold and framed it with some hardware. The reindeer panel is mounted on Chocolate Chip cs which is edged with a metallic gold pen.

This blogging is hard! Please let me know if you'd like more or less details about my cards. I think I'll save some other cards to post later this week. This is a good start to my first real attempt at blogging, don't you think?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!