Sweet Treat Gifts

Hi friends! I L-O-V-E the holiday season. As a matter of fact, I would say that I love all the days before Christmas more than the actual day.  I totally love shopping for presents for others, baking (especially cookies), making special handmade gifts, & of course, making holiday cards. Don't get me wrong, the spiritual part of Christmas is more important than any of the gifts or commercial aspects but I just love 'spoiling' others! So- just a warning...I get real sappy this time of year.

Today, I want to share with you some more of the treats I made as gifts. More bread - another 9 loaves of banana bread for my hubby's co-workers. For my Stamp Club friends, I made a treat jars filled with tootsie rolls (12 of these babies!). You've probably seen these before- not a new idea, but I enjoy giving 'the girls' a little something more than a card for our December swap. The jar supplies are strickly Stampin' Up out of respect for my wonderful demonstrator. The jars are recycled Starbucks cold beverages jars that we sanitize & save throughout the year. (My youngest daughter who is in college does a good job of adding to my jar supply each year!)

I'm gearing up for a modified Project Life for 2013. So be sure to check back with me to see how I'm doing. I'm avoiding perfection & believe I've come up with my own solution on how to capture our lives.
Enjoy your holidays! Hugs, Marilyn

Food Gift Wrapping

Today I am sharing the way I wrap one of my favorite gifts to give- mini bread loaves! I love making & giving these little bits of baked goodness to friends with whom we don't typically exchange gifts. It's just a little something that let's them know they are special but it's not a big deal. Just a little, non-store bought gift so they don't need to feel like a return gift is necessary. That is the really important part for us- we are so blessed & don't want for anything.

The wrapping puts a special touch to it especially with a personalized handmade gift tag. The hand wrapping also helps keep the cost down as I use plain foil loaf pans without lids & plastic wrap versus the fancy foil with hard plastic lids or the ceramic pans that some of the discount stores sell now.

On these two loaves, I used some retired SU! designer paper  & ribbon in Baja Breeze and my tag stamp was from SU! Tags Til Christmas stamp set. The tag was tied with retired SU! silver elastic cord (circa 2008...sometimes my supplies seem to last for-evah!). The SU! DSP is a nice thickness and gives the gift a sturdy feeling that thin wrapping paper can't create. I use Sookwang double stick adhesive tape to secure the edges on the bottom. The DSP with matching ribbon & gift tag make such a nice presentation- at least IMHO (in my humble opinion).

Enjoy your holiday season! Hugs, Marilyn

Photo Holder

Hi Friends! Today I want to share with you the swap I made for our April card club. Usually we make cards, but this month I took some creative license and made a photo holder with a photo page. Of course the picture wasn't included...those cuties are my daughters many years ago. The girls were 2 & 4 years old here...a long way from the current 23 & 21, I love this picture- it was taken when we first bought this home & they are under the built in desk in the kitchen. They used to 'hide' in this space & giggle.

Well, anyway, back to this project- the large clothespin/clip is 1 1/4 wide white, wooden that I covered with SU! Everyday Enchantment DSP and Mod Podge.  The page is a 5-1/2 by 8-1/2 inch piece of Pool Party with a scored strip of Peach Parfait and another piece of Everyday Enchantment DSP. The medallions are two toned cardstock punched with the doily layer punch. The bottom layer is retired Kiwi Kiss (close to Lucky Limeade) with Peach Parfait or Pool Party on top & secured with a brad from the Everyday Enchantment pack.

Have a great weekend!! Hugs, Marilyn

Life is Good!

Hi Blogger Friends!
I'm sorry I haven't been around much...new job, spending as much time as I can with DD (Dear Daughter) before she goes back to college & lots of get togethers with friends. All is good! Last night was Stamp Club at Karen's, today is my uplines' quarterly gathering & tonight my best friends who craft are getting together. So a real marathon weekend of paper crafting!! 

Today I am sharing the easel card I made for my girlfriends as a holiday gift. I had to cancel out of our get  together in December due to illness, so I am bringing my gifts tonight. I got the idea of this easel calendar card from CarrollAnn (MrsBoz).  She made these a year ago & I loved it so much that I sent away for little pre-printed calendars. My last post was the calendar I made for my office. You can print these little calendars yourself & there are several websites that offer them for free. I did that one year when I made two calendars & it took quite some time to cut and line everything up. So this year I bought  in bulk (30) & it was really worth it, even if I don't use them all. I hope to make more for my Stamp Club friends, but I'll cross that bridge later.

The designer paper is from the Paper Studio; it was perfect for my girlfriends as all three lean towards the rich autumn colors in their homes and wardrobe. These three gals are very trendy & keep me up to date on the fashion so I liked the paper for that reason too. I used 110# paper in Solar White from Neenah for my base which makes it sturdy. I purchase this paper in bulk at a local paper distributor. (XPedX) & I also get my regular weight Solar White paper & A2 envelopes there. Bravo Burgundy, Early Espresso and Calypso Coral are the other cardstock colors here (Stampin Up). I embossed the burgundy base using the Elegant Lines embossing folder from SU!. The sentiment stamp is an antique from a Stampin' Up set called Everyday Expressions. I love that set no matter how old it is!! The flower is made from the very cool "Triple Treat Flower" single stamp from Stampin' Up that has the coordinating punches. Lastly, I used the pretty Vintage Brads from Stampin' Up.

That's it for me today...I'm off for a fun day of crafting with friends! Thanks for stopping by & I'll be checking out your blogs tomorrow. Have a great weekend!
Hugs,

Marilyn

Fall Acorn

Happy Fall! I just love this time of year, don't you? This card was created for the Victorine Originals blog challenge. Stop over & play along for a chance to win free stamps.

Aside from card making, I enjoy decorating for the different holidays throughout the year & making a special meal with little decorative touches. This year for Thanksgiving we will join my husband's clan for dinner & on Friday we will be having a small celebration at our home. So I am starting on the decor for the table with this napkin ring made from the same acorn stamp as the card above. As always, thanks for your comments. Your friendship means more than you know!
Have a great week! Hugs,

Marilyn

Supplies for Card:
Stamp: Large Acorn (Victorine Originals) 
Paper: Early Espresso, Old Olive (SU), Solar White (Neenah), DP- Indian Summer (DCWV)
Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa (Tsukineko), Old Olive, Close to Cocoa, Creamy Caramel (SU)
Accessories: Labels 3 (Spellbinders)


Supplies for Napkin Ring:
Stamp: Large Acorn (Victorine Originals)
Paper: Crumb Cake (SU), Solar White (Neenah)
Ink: Old Olive, Close to Cocoa, Creamy Caramel, Certainly Celery, More Mustard (SU)

Holiday Gifts

Here are some of the gifts I made this holiday season. The first picture is a holiday snowflake pail filled with goodies- gloves, lip protection, hand lotion, notepad, tea, chocolate, photo/note holder or a 'purse' magnet. I gave these to the twelve people that work in my group except my assistant and my managers who received a store bought gift.

I made similiar ones for Brian's and my siblings except the contents and pail were different. The adult nieces and nephews recieved goodies in a small gift bag. We have twenty nieces and nephews so we just filled the bags with little things like packs of gum, chapstick, deck of cards and chocolates. We don't usually give to siblings and the nieces and nephews but I wanted to do something a little special and started hunting for stocking stuffer type items as early as August. All in all, I made nearly over forty holiday pails and gift bags. It was a lot of work but fun and definitely worth it to give an unexpected treat.
Below is a picture of how I decorated the banana walnut bread that I baked for my colleagues on the leadership team for our group. I loved the way these bread bands and tags turned out. I baked eleven loaves...and didn't even save one for us. What was I thinking?!?
This last picture is the gift I made for my best crafty girlfriends. The glass jars started in life as a Starbuck's Frappuccino bottles. I got the idea of using SB glass bottles from SCS except they were filled with M&Ms. As you can see, I filled my jars with buttons (not m&ms), and I also gave each friend a SU! keychain that was tied to a red ribbon bow. I had purchased the key chains over the summer when I was a demonstrator. The jar lids were decorated with a stamped circle image and ribbon was wrapped around the lid edge. I stamped each friend's initial in red, outlined with a green glitter pen and then punched and layered on top of a double band of designer paper.

I didn't realize until I took the picture that my friend's first name initials (Monica, Linda and Jody) are the same as my full name initials- MLJ.

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas! Happy new year!!

Altered Notebook

I love notebooks~it probably has to do with my desire for organization. This one is altered with the flower bunch image from The Digi Shack. The notebook background of pink and green squares is part of the original notebook cover; I replaced the center image with the flower bunch. One of the hot trends in scrapbooking is stitching so I opted to try it on this pretty image. One of my former hobbies was embroidery and cross-stitch so this technique was like an old friend. I still enjoy the needlework but have found a new passion. {wink} The stems were created using a stitch called backstitch. It is really quite easy.

Here are pictures- the original notebook & backstitch . There are some nice instructions on this blog. After stitching, I colored my image and then masked it prior to using the spritzer tool for the background.
Recipe:
Image: Flower Bunch- The Digi Shack
Paper: Regal rose, Rose Red, Certainly Celery, WW
Ink: Regal Rose, Rose Red, Certainly Celery, Old Olive, Pretty in Pink
Accessories: Embroidery floss and needle, Spritzer tool, Blending pen, Ribbon, Notebook ($1 bin)


Thanks for looking! Have a great day!!

P.S. There is a great sale going on over at the Digi Shack- through the 22nd. It’s 25% off of your $10 or more purchase. The code for the discount coupon is 82994712.