Baking day treat box

Today was the first of two Christmas baking days at our home.  I started old fashioned over night yeast rolls that will be baked on Thursday morning (and they are heavenly), magic bars, and tea balls.  I had hoped to finish more baking but my older son and his lovely girlfriend arrived mid afternoon to visit for a few days.

I was thrilled to see Aaron and Crissie, but especially Crissie.  This is going to be a horrid holiday season for her and I knew she would need lots of hugs.  Crissie's father passed away unexpectedly last Monday (the 13th) and she is still in shock. Also her mom is too hurt to even consider Christmas at their home so I know this is the closest to real Christmas as she will get this year.

I have several things planned to keep Crissie busy, but also lots of quiet time so that she can talk.  Tomorrow (or is that later today?) we plan to have the annual cut out cookie decorating event.  It is an activity that we all enjoy - decorating the cut out cookies as crazy and funny as we can make them!  (I will post photos later in the week).  Tonight we went out for a lovely dinner at a nice restaurant followed by a short shopping trip.  Later Crissie and I talked for about two hours.  Tomorrow she will be helping me bake as well as seeing a bit more of the Aiken and meeting more of Aaron's old friends who are also home for the holidays.

In the meantime, I mentioned at the beginning of this post that today was day one of two baking days.  I am making the rolls to share with neighbors (in the decorated paint cans I posted recently), as well as a few friends.  I knew I would need a couple of small treat contains for our single neighbors.

I used the popcorn box from Tags, Bags, Boxes and More to cut my base box.  I welded the scallop from Plantin Schoolbook together in a pattern similar to the the angle of the popcorn box.  This allowed the cut scalloped trim to fit the popcorn box nicely.   I also made a matching flat strip to wrap the middle of the trim.

I cut a layered snowflake from Accent Essentials and tied it on to the corner of the box.  I added layered prima flowers in the corner as well.  I finished the popcorn box with holly peelies and green tissue.  I will be adding treats and a handmade card before delivering the box to my neighbor!

Hopefully I will be back tomorrow with photos of this annual crazy cut outs adventure to share!

Let It Snow Layout

February 2010 was a milestone month in Aiken, South Carolina.  We had snow.  Not just flurries or a dusting, but real accumulative snow!  We had enough snow on which to ride a sled, build a snowman (or five snow people like the kids across the street), and have a great snowball fight.  In the nineteen years that I have lived in Aiken, we had never had snow like this.  There was only one word to describe the experience:  magical!

I created the left page of this layout some time ago using the Gypsy for the Gypsy spot.  I had never created a matching right page.  At the Pre-birthday scrap bash on Saturday I made a matching page and added photos of our home in the snow storm.  At the time I was quite worried about the palm tree (see how sad and cold it looks?) but it weathered the storm nicely.

I love the dancing snow people from the Snow Friends cartridge.  I think they expressed our snow-happy joy quite well. I used Accent Essentials to create the large snowflakes and Winter Woodlands to cut the small snowflakes.  I used my snowflake nesties to create the date tag below. 

The LET IT SNOW phrase was cut from Winter Woodlands using Bazzill bling cardstock.  I added blue gems to the centers of the snowflakes and pearls to the snow people. 

The snowfall was so fun and I know we will be referring to it for years to come, in much the same way that hurricanes are "fondly" recalled.  Each time snow threatens for the next few years we will all recall the snow fall of 2010 and we will wonder aloud about the possibility of receiving that much snow ever again!

Circus Birthday Wishes

I am a bit late posting my BBTB2 project today.  I usually write my post before going to bed on Sunday evening and set the blog to post in the middle of the night.  Last night I was too tired to write.  I spend much of Sunday evening working on 50 paper dolls for a message board swap (more on this tomorrow).

So on to my BBTB2 project.  The challenge cut of the week is the elephant from the Everyday Paper Doll cartridge.  The elephant is really cute and I have been told that the trunk is extended in a "lucky" pose.  I used the elephant to make a birthday card for my nephew, Carter, who will be two later this spring. 

I added two train cars from EDPD as well as a scalloped border from Accents Essentials.  I wanted the card to be fun and bright - but I may have gone too far.  The Happy Birthday mini stamp is from a Dacie's set and was cut out with oval nesties.  All in all, not my best work, but I still love this cute elephant!

Gypsy Spot Snow Challenge

This week's challenge at the Gyspy Spot was to use snow or snowmen in a Gyspy created and cut design.  I used my new Snow Friends cartridge along with Accent Essentials and Winter Woodlands to make a Let It Snow layout.

My layout features these two happy dancing snowpeople playing in the falling flakes.  The snowpeople are trimmed in white ink dots and mini pearls.  The blue sweater snowman is trimmed in white pearls, where as the pink and burgundy snow-woman is trimmed in pink mini pearls.  Even snow-women like to be pretty. And don't you just love the striped hat?

The layout title is LET IT SNOW, a cut from the Winter Woodlands cartridge.  The title is embellished with two small silver snowflakes. There are also larger snowflakes falling on the layout.  The largest snowflake was cut in navy cardstock and topped with winter blue cardstock.  The mid-sized snowflakes were cut with a silver metallic base, and a light blue Core'dinations White Washed topper.  The navy sections of the flakes were hand embellished with white pen.

Above is a close up of my snowman doing his winter storm happy dance!

Not to be out done, the snow-woman is doing an Irish Jig as her happy dance!

Gypsy Spot Week 2

I know it seems that I have been a slacker this week - it is Tuesday night and I still have last Friday's post at the top of my blog. I was away for the weekend - Beth and Sally had us to the lake for a scrap retreat weekend and it was fabulous (thanks Sally & Beth).  I completed 7-8 double page layouts, three cards and my Gypsy Spot week 2 challenge.  And of course we did go scrap-shopping!!!

The challenge at the Gypsy Spot for this second week was to weld a word and shape from two different cartridges.  I chose Winter Woodlands (Let it Snow) and Accent Essentials (Snowflake).  I layered both the snowflakes and the Let it Snow phrase with multiple cut.

To see more of the Gypsy Spot challenges just click the blinkie to the left on my blog.

Two New Christmas Cards

There are so many amazing Christmas card ideas posted onboth the Cricut message board and assorted blogs (especially Christmas with the Cricut) that I have been inspired this week.

First, I scraplifted a card that Joy made at the Christmas with the Cricut using the Joys of the Season cartridge. I changed the sizes a bit, but otherwise this was Joy's design.

My second card was my design. I used a new spellbinders embossing snowflake sheet on white cored blue cardstock. After I embossed the design into the cardstock I used a sanding block to remove the blue layer of paper from the embossed design.

I used Accents Essentials and cut three snowflakes, one at 2 inches and two at 1.5 inches. I attached the snowflakes over top of the embossed layer on my card. I added a Season's Greetings tag made using nesties long and scalloped long rectangles and a Stampin' Up stamp. Finally I finished the card off with a piece of navy ribbon and a little bow.

I set a goal back in January to create six cards Christmas cards per month. So far I am still on target with only four months to go. I should have 72 cards in time to mail for Christmas!!