Getting down to Crunch Time!

Wahhhh - my Steelers lost today.  I thought they were going to pull out the win but time ran away from them and they didn't get the win.  They played the Jets and both teams were fighting for playoff berths.  We play Carolina on Thursday who should be an easy team to beat considering they have only won 2 games all season, but you just never know with football!  Anything can happen - and usually does!

We're entering the final stretch for Christmas.  This is the last week to get your shopping done, bake those cookies, wrap the presents and get your singing voice ready for Christmas carolling!  I only have a couple more presents to buy; haven't made any cookies yet; haven't wrapped the first present; and don't have a singing voice!  I did make some tags tonight so I can do my wrapping tomorrow and finally put something under the tree besides dust.  What about you?  Are you ready for Santa?

I had a great time this weekend making digital calendars!  I am just so proud of them.  I subscribe to a monthly on-line magazine, Paper and Pixels.  It is fairly new and is free.  They have some really good articles and ideas.  If you are interested, here is a link to them - ( http://www.papersandpixels.com/).  Saturday, I was reading the magazine and they had information about a CD calendar.  There was a download of the calendar template and several other links to the calendar.  I downloaded all of their information and opened up My Digital Studio and that's all it took.  I created three different calendars using parts of their download and a lot of the paper, stamps and embellishments from Stampin' Up.  What fun I had!!  Here is a peek at a couple of the pages.

January - everything came downloaded on the page except - the snowflake at the top, the brads in the middle of the snowflake, the skaters (which I colored after printing it out), and the big snowman.

 February - Again, everything printed out as is.  I just added from MDS, the items in the 3 boxes and the heart stamp on the calendar.  After I printed it out, I added a real pink corduroy button where the rhinestone is.

The more I use My Digital Studio, the more I really love it!!  It really got a work out this weekend!!  I ended up printing the calendar pages on some glossy white paper that I had and they turned out super.

Oh - by the way, I didn't wake up yesterday to snow!  I never saw any snow at my house although a few areas around us got snow - just no accumulation.  My mom called in the afternoon to say she had seen some really big flakes at her house.  Oh well - maybe for Christmas!

Club Projects

I had my last Club meeting yesterday.  We will start again in January with making calendars.  We had a small group yesterday - only 4 gals but we made enough mess for a dozen!!  They wanted to make tags so I had gotten out all my Christmas stamps, punches, paper, and ribbon so they could create on their own.  We also made tag holders to put the tags in like the ones HERE.  They turned out really cute with everyone making a different one.

We also made a Gift Card Holder that is really cute! 

Isn't he darling?  Of course, this is the Owl Punch.  I used the Snowflake Punch for his antlers.  The gift card holder uses the Sizzix Two Tags Die (pg 206).  This is a very versatile die.  Not only does it make great tags but if you put the fold of your paper above the cut line on the die, it makes this holder.  If you don't understand, let me know and I will take a picture of what I am talking about!

Gift Card Holder opened - insert gift card where green paper is.

I also showed them how to stamp on candles.  Don't you love how this candle turned out?  I used the Bells and Boughs stamp set from the mini catalog for the poinsettas.  My club gals stamped on tea lights.

Well, I am headed out the door to get my hair cut, meet my sister for lunch and do some Angel Tree shopping!  Hopefully, when I return home, I can begin to dig through the mess that I call a stamp room!!

Tag - You're It!

I spent all last week making tags I think!  I had an old SU holiday kit  with a lot of chipboard pieces that were pre-cut into shapes with matching DSP.  So, I got busy and made up a bunch of the tags.  Then on Thursday, I got a shipment from SU and one of the items was the "Tags Till Christmas" stamp set from the Holiday Mini.  That is such a great and easy way to make tags!  I highly recommend it along.  Most of the tags in the set match up with SU punches so it makes it so easy!!   

These are the tags that I made from the Tags Till Christmas set. 

These are some of the chipboard tags I made

Close up of a snowflake tag - using a corduroy button (from Clearance sale!)

So, with all these tags, I needed someplace to store them.  I love these Tag Holders and usually make a few each year for friends and family.  These will be offered for sale in the craft fair in November.

This has velcro for a closure - the button is just decorative.

The blue ribbon holds this one together.

Another velcro closure - button is decorative.  I used white cardstock and stamped all over it.

The red gingham ribbon is the closure.  I used the circle for reinforcement.

Velcro closure with Scallop Punch decorating the flap.

These are super easy to make.  You need 6"x6" page protectors and cardstock or DSP.  Cut a piece of DSP 6" x 5 7/8" and slide it into the page protector.  (I put a little adhesive on the back of the DSP just to keep it in the page protector.)  Next cut a piece of cardstock or DSP (best if cardstock weight) 6 1/4" x however long you want it to be.  You will score it lengthwise to fold over the page protector and adhere the page protector to it.  Decorate as desired.  I use a little piece of velcro to hold it shut or tie ribbon around it.  You can see the different closures I did above.  If you have any questions, let me know and I will try to help.

Treasure Chest

I have re-discovered an old recipe that a friend gave me when I was a Girl Scout leader - way back when!!  It is for granola and I have been putting it on my yogurt each morning and wow, is it yummy!  It's great to have something good for you that also tastes good!  If you want to try it, here you go:

GRANOLA ... makes about 6 cups

• 3 Cups Oats
• 1 C shredded coconut
• 1 C chopped nuts
• 1/4 C honey (or more)
• 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt

Mix all together & put in a 13"x9" pan.  Cook @ 350 for 25-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  After cooking, add:

• 2/3 C raisins
• dried fruit

Instead of raisins, I added Craisens.  I bought a big bag at BJ's and also a big bag of mixed dried fruit & nuts.   So, I put a scoop of the granola over my greek yogurt & add an additional handful of dried fruit and that's all there is to it.  Try it & let me know what you think.

I made a little Treasure Chest Box yesterday to hold tags.  It turned out really cute.  Now, I think I'll make one for Christmas tags.

Quarterly Fun

I'm back from a great weekend with stampin' friends at our NC Demos Quarterly get-together in Shallotte.  Marianne and I met for breakfast Friday morning and after being pampered by getting mani's and pedi's, we hit the road.  We stopped at Lake Waccamaw first which is only about 30 miles from Shallotte and did a little reminiscing and exploring.  We drove almost all around the lake and found a state park that I didn't know was even there.  They only have a few primitive camp sites but hope to add more sites in the future.  We walked out on the pier and took a few pictures.  The lake is amazing - the water is tea colored but you can see the bottom and all the way out to the end of this pier, it was still only water that was about knee high! 





You can see all the vegetation that is growing on the sandy bottom of the lake.  I took this picture from the pier looking straight down so you can see how clear the water is.

Marianne out on the pier

We had dinner at the best restaurant ... and the only restaurant there!  Dale's Seafood Restaurant had the best hushpuppies (served with honey butter) I've had around here.  I got fried trout while Marianne got a seafood platter.  We both agreed it was the best seafood ever!  We went to Calabash on Saturday night and the food I had there couldn't hold a candle to Dale's. 

When we got to Shallotte, after checking in to our motel, we headed over to the high school to get started on the shoebox swap.  What great ideas everyone had.  But, let me tell you everyone had owls on their minds!  So many of the cards used the owl punch!  And do-do me, forgot to put my stamp set (Wicked Cool) in my box so not many people got to do mine.  I had used that stamp set the day before with my Club ladies and forgot to pack it.  One of our "virgin quarterly gals" brought her stamp set the next day so a few people did my card. 

On Saturday, we had several presentations and made a few great things.  I did a presentation on an Accordian Box that everyone made and loved.  Cathy Snipes did a demonstration on My Digital Studio that was quite helpful.  Becky Campbell did two presentations and we made two great projects with her.  And, Janie showed us how to make a fish using the new rick-rack die in the Holiday Mini.

We had three different swaps - 6x6 recipe cards, holiday cards and a tag swap.  I will be sharing all these with you this week.  Everyone is just so creative and I always come away with so many new ideas and a bigger wish list!!

Here are the great tags I received in the Tag Swap:

Christmas Tree by Danielle Blech, Thanksgiving by Lynn Creech, Snowflake by Nancy Carr

Ornament by Cathy Snipes, Snowman by Pat Wilkinson, Fence by Jeria



Snowflake by me, Stockings by Marianne & long red tag by Janie Murphy



Raindeer by Marcia Enns (others have no name)

I got a great wake up call this morning from Ashley!  She called me around 6:30 am but I'm not complaining!  I was just scared it was the Red Cross calling and Sonny & I were going to have to go out on a call.  While I was gone this weekend, there was an apartment fire in Mooresville and Sonny had to go without me (but at least it wasn't the middle of the night).  Anyway, Ashley said they were supposed to leave Kuwait City tonight.  They will be taking a 1 1/2 hour bus ride to another army post where they will board the army transport plane that will take them to Baghdad.  From Baghdad they will fly to Mosul.  I was surprised that it would take that much travel time since a flight from Kuwait to Mosul is only a couple of hours.  Ashley said they don't want the plane in the air that long is her guess.  She is ready to be in Mosul.  She said they have spent a lot of time doing nothing in Kuwait!  They went out in the desert on Friday so everyone could shoot ten rounds in the dirt just to make sure their weapon was working properly.

Ashley has been reading a lot while in Kuwait (which is no surprise since she is a voracious reader anyway.)  She told me about Operation Paperback.  They have supplied a lot of the books she has been reading this week.   Operation Paperback is a non-profit organization that collects gently used books nationwide and sends them to American troops deployed overseas.  To read more about them, click HERE.  Clean out your library and send your used books to them or even a monetary contribution!

Well, I am headed to the Y to work off some of that fried fish I had this weekend!

Oh - I forgot to mention those Steelers yesterday!  What a game .... Tennessee had 7 turnovers.  That's got to be a record.  Unfortunately, our quarterbook went out with a sprained knee.  Not sure of his status for next week.  We are just treading water until Big Ben returns - 2 more games - but at least we are keeping our head above the water and winning the games even if they are giving us a heart attack doing it.  Thought we had it in the bag until the last minute (actually 58 seconds left) when we let them score and go for 2 extra points.  Then they did a fake and an on-side kick and took the ball down the field.  They were right at the goal line but our defense held them off.  Also, Tennessee opted to wear their white jerseys making Pittsburgh have to wear their black ones.  The temperature at kick off was almost 90 degrees but that didn't stop us!  Ashley was able to watch the second half of the game over in Kuwait.  Isn't that something?  It just felt strange to us not to be calling and texting back and forth to her during the game.

Have a great day!