Secret Angel - Day 3

Wow! It's day 3 of our Secret Angel gift exchange at work. I received a candle and a pretty red ornament today from my Secret Angel. Here's how I packaged up my gift for my Secret Angel.I just purchased this paper pack, called The Homemade Christmas Stack from DCWV, on sale at JoAnn's yesterday. It's very county-ish, but I just fell in love with the colors and the paper is a heavier weight, perfect for templates. The design of this particular paper was perfect for this box from My Time Made Easy called Wonderfully Wrapped. The dp looks like pieces of fabric are stitched together, making it look like real fabric! This box takes a different twist on the traditional gable box. The sides are like wings that "wrap" around the sides. I've held them together with a pretty red brad. To give it more interest, I wrapped a red ribbon around the box and added some gold and green bells to the bow. The tag was cut with a Cuttlebug tag. The sentiment is actually two separate sentiments from the Secret Santa set from MTME. I stamped them in Riding Hood Red and Garden Green inks. Can you see the faux stitching on the dp? It looks so real!

Oh! I bet you are wondering what's inside the box! I almost forgot. It's a door hanger that's sort of like a pillow in the shape of a snowman's face. Too cute! I thought it would look good on Melissa's door (she's our assistant principal).

I have two more to share this week, so please stop by for those! Thanks for stopping in! I hope you are busy little elves!

Secret Angel - Day 2

Our Secret Angel gift exchange at work is in full swing! Today is day two, and yesterday I received a box of Snickerdoodle cookies! They aren't homemade, but they are sooo delish! I'm going to be snacking for a few days on those yummy things!

If you didn't see yesterday's Secret Angel gift I made, you can go here to see that post. Today I covered an Altoid box full of those candies that clear your head out in an instant! LOL!!I used another retired dp from SU called Frosty Day. I've always loved the non-traditional colors of this dp! I ran some bashful blue grosgrain ribbon around the perimeter of the lid and used Scor-tape to hold it in place.
The oval bashful blue piece was cut with a Marvy punch. The flower design was stamped in chocolate chip with a piece from Papertrey Ink's Borders & Corners Oval set, and the monogram was from PTI's Ambassador Monogram set. I added some star dust stickles to the centers of the flowers to bling it up a bit. Easy peasy!

I'll have another post tomorrow with the gift for Day 3, so please stop by! I appreciate your comments! Happy Holidays!

Secret Angel - Day 1

Hi everyone! Our Secret Angel gift exchange began today at work. We chose one of our co-workers out of a hat to secretly leave gifts in their mailboxes or on their desks for the next five days. I chose our assistant principal, Melissa, so you'll be seeing the cute gifts I'm leaving for her everyday on my blog this week. She hopefully doesn't know it's me (although I've become known for my boxes and cards around the school, so she may know!). This is what I left for her today.

I tend to like the container more than the gift! Inside this mini pizza box are three holiday post-it note pads. I thought they were so cute and we use them all the time at school! They fit perfectly into this box. (I have to admit I almost just wrapped them in paper and tied them with a bow, but I just couldn't!) This box takes minutes (literally) to make.

I cut a 6" x 11" piece of card stock and scored it on the short side at 1" and 5". Then turned it to the long side and scored it at 1", 5", 6", and 10". Then I just followed the rest of the instructions for the box. I cut a 3 3/4" x 3 3/4 " piece of dp (SU's retired Dashing) for the top, made this fab flower with the Tim Holtz paper rosette die, added the die cut ornament, tag (using a Spellbinder die and My Time Made Easy's Secret Santa set), and ribbon and was done! It took me all of 15 minutes to make! These are so nice for jewelry or any small gift. I just love these boxes because of the simplicity. And I'm in love with these paper rosettes! It looked so festive sitting on Melissa's desk, too! Thanks for stopping in today. I'll have my second Secret Angel gift posted tomorrow, so I hope to see you then!

Just Us Girls - Technique Challenge

Happy two weeks before Christmas! Are you as frantic as I am? I'm cutting down my tree today, doing the rest of my shopping (I hope!), and decorating tomorrow! Yikes! Too much to do, so little time!But I'm adding to my stash of Christmas cards (add one more thing to the list: send out cards this weekend!) with this Just Us Girls technique challenge Maria chose. It's called sparkly stained glass. There's a tutorial on SCS using glitter (which I used), but Maria says she uses stickles for hers. I think that is much less messy as I am covered in glitter as I write this!I have to admit that I was going to back out of this challenge because I thought it would take too long and I was very tired last night, but I managed to pull together some energy and try this fun challenge. There is a tutorial here on SCS and Beate does a very nice job of demonstrating it in a video. I used a very pretty image from a new set from Paper Makeup Stamps called Christmas Cheer. It was the perfect image to use.

I first stamped the image on acetate using black Stazon. Then I added Crystal Effects to parts of the ornaments and added the glitter (glitter that I have had forever and glad to use up). I repeated that for the various colors. I let it dry about 15 minutes, then hit it with my heat gun for a few seconds to help it dry. On my first try, the mistake I made was running this image through the cuttlebug...splat! All the glitter just smooshed all over the place! So I started over on a piece of acetate I cut first, then stamped, glued, glittered! Much better results! I adhered it with some glue dots behind the ornaments and the gold bells. The rest is pretty self-explanatory.

Stop by the JUGs blog and see the amazing cards the DT and our guest designer, Elise Durenberger, have done with this technique! Thanks for stopping in today and happy shopping and decorating!

Recipe
Stamps: Christmas Cheer (PMS)
Paper: Neenah white, cool caribbean, Eskimo Kisses dp (Basic Grey)
Ink: Black Stazon
Accessories: Nesties, glitter, Crystal Effects, glue dots, MS punch, gold thread and bells

Paper Makeup Stamps December Fan Blog Hop

Hi everyone! Today is our Paper Makeup Stamps monthly blog hop, but since we don't have a release this month (we are changing to releases every other month), we are having a special hop which includes fans of Paper Makeup Stamps! There are a lot of chances to win some PMS products with this hop! You can find all that information on the PMS blog. PMS is also having a fabulous sale (which includes free shipping)! You can find that information on the PMS blog.

If you've come here from Stephanie's blog, you are on the right track. If not, start at the PMS blog, get all the fun information, and start hopping!

The theme for this hop is winter or holiday. I've got two cards to share with you on this hop. The first one uses new stamps from our November release.I LOVE Christmas cut-out cookies with the anise flavoring, so this card made me chuckle! The gingerbread man is from the Christmas Cheer set, and the sentiment is a single one found here. I used the Mojo Monday sketch and some fab dp from Jillibean called Christmas Chestnut Soup. The poor gingerbread man is paper pieced with kraft paper. I added the white accents with a white jel pen.

I wasn't as satisfied with this card as I had thought I would be, so I decided to make another. I changed the stamps, used the same papers and ribbon, but changed the layout. This is my second try. I used one of my favorite stamps sets ever from PMS, Snow Happy. The image is colored with copic markers. The sentiment was stamped on the back side of my snowflake dp, then cut with a Spellbinder's tag. The ribbon was just knotted and the tag attached with some twine. I also sponged some Ranger white pigment ink around the tag and the dp to soften the edges a bit. I added some Star Dust stickles for some sparklely snow.

Your next stop on our hop is one of our fans, Lindsy Harness. Please show her some love and continue hopping! There's a possible prize for commenting on all the blogs! I've included a list and link to all the blog hop participants in case you get lost!

Thanks for stopping and hopping with me today! Have a great week!

Just Us Girls #62 - Sketch Challenge

Happy Saturday! Are you done with your holiday shopping yet? I'm going today with my niece to get her gift(s) and hopefully knock some other gifts off my list! But before I go, I have my Just Us Girls card to share. Alicia came up with this really fun sketch today and I happened to make it into a Christmas card to add to my stash!

Cute sketch, huh? Papertrey Ink's new Banner Builder set was perfect for this challenge! I used SU's retired Dashing dp, real red, and old olive cardstock. I strung some baker's twine through the buttons and added some bling between the banners. The flower is Tim Holtz's paper rosette die. I cut it down a bit before putting it together to make it smaller. The sentiment is from Paper Makeup Stamps Little Moments set. I added some ferns behind the flower using a Martha Stewart punch.If you want to see more amazing samples from the Design Team, stop by the Just Us Girls blog. We have a new guest designer for December, Elise Durenberger, so I'm sure you'll have lots to drool over!

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a great weekend!

Recipe
Stamps: Banner Builders (PTI), Little Moments (PMS)
Paper: Vintage cream, real red, old olive, Dashing dp (SU)
Ink: Memento tuxedo black
Accessories: Banner builder dies, rosette die (Tim Holtz), buttons, baker's twine, bling, MS fern punch

Wonderfully Wrapped - My Time Made Easy Blog Hop

Hello December! Can you believe it? Where has the time gone?

The holidays are right around the corner and gift giving is easy with templates from My Time Made Easy. And, since it's the first of the month, My Time Made Easy has a new release for you. It's only a template this month, but it's a great one that will get lots of use! It called Wonderfully Wrapped.I actually made this at the end of October when Lauren first revealed it to the DT. I couldn't wait to make it and give it as a gift to my student teacher who was completing her term with me in my classroom. She went to Ghana, Africa to complete her student teaching. The sentiment I chose, from On Display 1 stamp set, was perfect!I cut the template using SCAL on my Cricut using riding hood red cardstock. The decorative piece was cut from Graphic 45 dp. The colors looked Christmas to me, even in October! The sentiment was stamped on the Trendy Tags 2 of 6 cut files. I added some flowers, leaves, bling, and ribbon and was done!

You can see more of this template from the MTME DT following the links below. Thanks for stopping in and happy hopping!