December 31, 2010

Love Songs Revisited

Happy New Year friends! Welcome to my first blog post of 2011! It's gonna be a great new year, I can just feel it. The Papertrey Senior Team girls are kickin' off the new year with a post featuring Love Songs. It's a great set chock full of images and popular love song sentiments.

As tradition follows, I make a notepad for just about every occasion. Here I have a fun sample for you using White Notepads and Pine's Happy Spots patterned paper. I've also created a second little gifty item that features my favorite Mark-It markers. It will be the ultimate gift for those who love markers and notepads and all things office-y.
For the notepad top, I used the darling little envelope image and a scalloped circle die from Limitless Layers: 1-3/4" Circle Collection.
The bottom portion of my notepad features the word *love* spelled out on a stitched piece of cardstock. The word *notes* completes the notepad and is layered onto a Tad Bit Bigger Tag from my Etsy shop. The alphabet set used is from Hero Arts.
To package up the little bonus markers, I slipped some patterned paper into a Bookmark Slick. Two markers fit perfectly. I tied up the bundle with some Rustic Cream twine and an envelope embellishment. The small scalloped circle was die cut from the Love Lives Here die collection.
Here's the inside of my notepad. I made it with two notebooks, one adhered to each side of the cardstock cover. I am beginning to include an extra piece of cardstock that is the size of the notepads. This is great when using the Mark-Its so that the ink doesn't bleed through onto the next sheet in the notepad.
A little snippet of a Dainty Doily was slipped under the love accent piece. Such a cute little ensemble.
To package up the two gifts, I tucked them into a Brown Paper Sack. I layered a heart doily (coming soon to my Etsy shop) and a Dainty Doily onto the sack and then tied a Sweet Blush ribbon around the sack.
Another circle embellishment created from Papertrey supplies was slipped under the ribbon. A little pink, vintage bee that I scored from a thrift shop was secured around the ribbon.

Goodbye 2010! Here comes 2011!

Hey friends! Happy New Year's Eve! Goodbye to 2010!! It's been a great year. I had to shoot one last photo of my little family in 2010. It's freezin' butt cold here today so the family was not into this outdoors shot off the back deck. But, looks like Mama got her way..again.
Life is good. :)
I want to thank you all for following my little blog, leaving great comments and being my online friends. You're just peachy! I hope you will join me for another great year of blogging in 2011. I have some great new things coming to the blogaroonie. You've already see that I'll be sharing my Project Life album.

I'll also be sharing my one little word this year via Ali Edwards' inspiration. I've got my word picked out and will share it soon. I've also signed up for Ali's One Little Word workshop so am looking forward to following along with Ali this year.

Of course I'll be adding new items to my Etsy shop soon. Coming up: Valentine goodies and more.

Soooo, any big plans for tonight? Josey's heading out to party that's bound to go down in history. She thinks it will be *epic*. Her new word. The girl has a new word weekly. She could never handle Ali's one little word for a WHOLE year. No way.

The rest of us? Well, Jordy has a friend over tonight. There will be lots of Wii playing going on and Apples to Apples. Eric and the girls went off on their own at Walmart while I was picking up grocery items. I brought home party food. They brought home two new Wii games. Geez Louise, did we not just have Christmas? :) Oh well fun times, right? Then we decided to invite my folks over and they were just tickled. Woohoo!

On the menu: Our Best Bites recipes to the rescue! From this Happy New Year post full of yummy recipes, we're having Little Smokies fixed with the sauce from the Sweet and Sour Meatballs and yummy Caramel Toffee Fruit Dip with apples and grapes. And of course we have to try the BBQ Bacon Sliders that won the Better Homes and Gardens Cook-Off. The Garlicky Blue Cheese Spread is finger lickin' good. Oh yumness! I cheated a little and used packaged crispy fried onions to save some time. For the bacon, I stuck it in the oven to cook. So easy and less grease splatters. Becky Higgins does it all the time. I love her. Everything's ready except for the little slider burgers. Can't wait. My mouth is watering already! My mom's bringing mini cream puffs with fudge sauce. Hell-OhH!

Okay, I better get a movin' peeps. I still have a blog post to write for the Papertrey Senior Team post. It goes live at 11pm my time. We're kicking off a brand new year of great projects!

One last thing.....you got your black eyed peas ready for New Year's Day? I've got my can sitting out. And I know my dad does too. You have to eat them. For good luck all year. You just have to.
Have a fun, FUN night tonight friends! Be safe, stay warm and I'll see ya in the new year!! Party on!

December 29, 2010

Project Life 2011

Edit on 12/30/10: Yay! I read your posts and am so glad that a few more of you are joining project life. And you're right...it's as simple or detailed as you want to make it. I am excited to share a little of my Project Life 2011 with you all. Stay tuned for some ideas on how to set up your Project Life * work area* to make it work the best for you. I'll also take some photos of how I assemble my album when I first get it. It should be here January 3rd. Woohoo! Such a great way to scrapbook and document those precious memories. Especially for those of you that say *I can't scrapbook*....or *I don't have time to scrapbook*. You can do it!

It's coming soon. My 2011 Project Life Kit.
I love Project Life by Becky Higgins
Haven't heard of Project Life. It's from one of my favorite scrapbookers of all time....Becky Higgins. It's fabulous. I can't wait for my box to arrive. You'll be seeing LOTS more scrapbooking here on the blog in 2011. Stay tuned. :)

Check out this video that Mary Ann created for Becky. It shows a real view to some completed Project Life pages.....and how to add more mixy matchy pages to the album. It's fully what I intend to do with my album this year. So excited.

Here's just one sample from my blog of how I integrated some regular scrapbook pages into my Project Life album.

So tell me....are you a Project Life user? Are you a wanna be? Let me know your thoughts. :)

December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Merry Christmas to all my blogging friends! I hope you have a delicious, peanut butter ball kind of day!
Yesterday was going great...we were baking sugar cookies and had planned to make Christmas plate deliveries to all the neighbors after supper. Then I burned my hand really badly on crock pot steam. I sat with my thumb in cold water for 5 hours because it hurt so bad if I had it out of the water. Today I have a giant blister and scald marks but the pain is gone. We all have colds now though. Tis the season.

Today we enjoyed opening our gifts with the girls. The floor was covered in ripped open wrapping paper. Then my folks came over to open gifts and enjoy a delicious breakfast casserole. Oh, it was so good. Now we're playing the new Wii that Santa left for the girls...and we're heading back to my folks for a wonderful Christmas dinner with the family.

I'd like everyone to take time to think of those who are missing from our celebrations this year. We have had way too many tragedies in our community this year and my heart goes out to everyone who has to celebrate this first Christmas without their loved ones. I also think of our dear Jeff who we miss always but especially on the holidays.

I am so thankful for all of my friends and family....and for you, my blogging friends. Your warm comments and stories that you share with me make my blogging so much fun. We'll continue our friendship into the New Year as we create more goodies together. Merry Christmas everyone. Stay safe and warm and embrace your families with warmth and tenderness this holiday season.

Hugs from Mish

December 24, 2010

Sending Holiday Wishes..

Edited for question: Sorry but I can't quite remember what Copic colors I used on this card. I know that I used two pink colors, pretty light colors. The rest of the color was picked up simply from the patterned paper.

Hi friends. Sending you holiday wishes from our little house on the prairie. It's SNOWING! Yay. We love a white Christmas. Come on snow!!

Thought I'd share a project from the December Papertrey Release. A pretty little card made by paper piecing the poinsettia image.
With lots of German glass glitter and gold embossing. So beautiful. This one went to my mom and dad.
The reds have already shook presents and sorted presents and re-sorted presents this morning. Then we mixed up some sugar cookie dough and it's chillin' in the frig for later. Eric and the girls are on a drive to the post office for me and then we'll do a few neighbor visits this afternoon to deliver some treats. Hope your day is full of family, fun and laughter. It's what it's all about!

December 23, 2010

Rosette Kits in Etsy Shop

EDIT: Hi there. Getting emails that you can't find the kits in my Etsy Shop. Sorry but they're all sold now so they don't show up. I'll be having more kits and rosettes in my shop in the near future. :)

The kits are now sold out. Thank you for your orders!

Hey friends, it's crunch time. Are you ready for the holiday? I've got all my gifts wrapped and Eric is out with the girls doing a little gift shopping for me....and groceries. We're expecting a snow storm...and good ol' ice so we need our staples. It's just like Little House On The Prairie around here. I hope Pa and the reds make it home okay. LOL!

Well, you're going to think I'm crazy but I have some Valentine kits up in my shop today. I have to keep creating and since I'm all done with Christmas stuff I've moved on to Valentine's Day. I have LOTS of new items coming soon. You should see my sketch book and all the ideas.
And the kits are SO cute. I don't know if it's just seeing something other than green or red or what, but I had so much fun creating these kits. They're all wrapped up pretty and ready to be sent out the door.
Note: All Etsy orders will be shipped within my usual 2-3 day time frame, as long as the post office is open.....and I'm able to get there with the weather. :)

How about a recipe? We'll be having this on Christmas morning right after we open our gifts. It looks so yummy.

Hope you're winding down and getting ready to relax and enjoy the holiday. What's left on your list? I would like to finish up my Dad's Germany scrapbook album so he can finally have possession of it. He's going to Africa next year so I have to prepare for another album. :)

December 22, 2010

Prize Drawing Winner Announced

Hi friends. Sorry for the delay on the prize winner announcement. The girls each had a BIG Science test to study for last night....I was scurrying to finish up the 12 girly gifts.....and then this happened:
A little scary looking right? It's our beloved Boots. He wanders between our house and the neighbor's house about a half mile down the road. He eats there and sleeps in her nice warm barn. Then he comes homes and eats here and likes to get lots of pets and a piece of bologna once in a while.

Last night Boots came home all a mess. He looked like he had been frosted in mud and then baked in an oven. He was covered with dried on, packed mud. We don't know if he fell through some ice or tangled with a coyote. But I'm sure he might have used one of his nine lives yesterday. Whatever it was, he was a pitiful sight. So. We had to give him a bath. Not fun for Boots. Not fun for us. We sat him over the drain in the garage and poured about 20 pitchers of warm water over him. He shook water all over and ran away.
But we finally got him somewhat cleaned up. Still not looking very happy after his bath. We gave him a nice warm pillow to lay on and this morning he was all dry and fluffy again. But he peed on Eric's hunting coveralls. Eric won't be one bit happy about that.
Soooooo. Today is back to normal. I'm wrapping up the last of the gifts, tidying up the house and am just waiting for little, excited red heads to make it through their half day of school. Then the FUN begins! WooHoo!!!

And here's some fun....the announcement of my prize drawing winner. It's Maureen!!! Congratulations. Maureen, I found your email address and sent you a message. :) Thanks to everyone for your nice comments. I'll be absent more with the holidays but I'll pop in here and there with some fun stuff!

Maureen Morton said...
Hi, Michelle. Thanks for all these great days of inspiration. I loved it all, but especially the "Be Mine" heart tags - great colors and too cute. THanks again and have a blessed Christmas.

December 21, 2010

Warm Winter Wishes

Hello friends. Hope your holiday plans are coming along nicely. Last night the girls handed me a list with 12 girls' names.....*we need cool gifts for our friends, Mom*. Um,okay. What's a mom to do? I have a game plan here. I'll report back later. In the meantime, I need to make a mad dash to town and hire a few elves.

I hope you are all cozy and enjoying the holiday. I'll be back later on to announce the winner of my prize drawing. Hoping to light a nice warm fire and enjoy the evening.
Note: All Etsy orders are shipping out today and I'll be adding new Valentine items after Christmas. I've got a few updates in the shop today too. :)

December 20, 2010

12 Days of Christmas...Day 12

Happy Monday Friends! Today is the 12th and final day of Melissa's and Mishie's 12 Days of Christmas countdown. Just in time for us to share one more post and then take some time to relax and focus on the holiday with our families. Thanks for joining us today!
As Christmas draws near, most of us are (hopefully) winding down our Christmas cards and holiday packaging. But there's always one way that I like to end my holiday crafting.....and that is with Christmas thank you notes. So our theme for today is thank you cards. I always insist on the reds writing a hand written note to at least the grandparents for Christmas gifts received.

Today I have some fun shaped pocket cards to share with you. You start out with a 6" x 6" piece of double sided patterned paper. I'm using papers and stickers from The Girls Paperie. Fold the square in half and then fold down 1" to create a flap. Stitch all in place to form a pocket.
I used lots of The Girls Paperie stickers to embellish the front of the pocket card. The scallops were die cut from Papertrery's Large Scalloped Border Die.
Wrinkle Ribbon is from my Etsy shop. The half circle tabs were created with the Mini Scrapbook Series: Tabs stamp set and coordinating Mini Tab die.
Recipe Cards from Papertrey Ink were perfect for the card inserts so that we could have lines to write on. I cut them down to fit into the pocket cards, then added a swipe of the Vintage Touch Tea Dye Duo around the edges. Glitter finishes off the top of the insert. I made two inserts for each pocket.....one for the girls to write their messages and one for Eric and I to write our thank you notes.
These cards fit perfectly into plain ol' business envelopes....the smaller size. Whew, one more item crossed of my list. So don't forget to create a few thank you's before you put away that holiday paper. Enjoy!
For my recipe today, I'm sharing some tasty Ham & Swiss Sliders. A perfect sandwich to take to parties or to just fix when all the festivities are over and you're hanging out at home. Looks mouth watering, doesn't it? The recipe is HERE.
(Recipe and Photo Courtesty of Taste the Joy)

And one last item before Melissa and I end our 12 Days of Christmas blogging event. We would like to offer a thank you gift for visiting our blogs during this joyous season. I am offering up this little bundle of goodies from my Etsy shop....perfect for upcoming Valentine projects. Enjoy!

To be entered for my prize drawing, enter a comment at the end of this post telling me what one of your favorite projects was from my blog this year. Be sure to leave your name too. To be entered twice for the drawing, post a link to my blog post today on your blog and paste that direct link along with your comment right back here. Your package will be dolled up all super cute like! Thanks for playing along and Happy Holidays everyone!! Prize drawing winner will be announced sometime tomorrow. Be sure to check Melissa's blog for her post today....and she's also giving away an adorable prize. :)

December 18, 2010

12 Days of Christmas...Day 11

Here we are on Day 11 of Melissa's and Mishie's 12 Days of Christmas countdown.

Speaking of countdowns, Christmas is approaching quickly. The lists are long but I'm getting items crossed off. How about you? My goal is to have all of my to do items finished by Monday so that I can fully enjoy my time with the little reds while they are on Christmas vacation.

So today's post is all about saving time and keeping things simple. Our theme for today's post is Punches and Dies....and making quick work for your crafty projects. I will be using Papertrey Dies for my projects today. I love how Melissa's set Love Lives Here has dies that coordinate with some of the stamp images from the set. So easy to make adorable little embellishments.

I needed a few more items to round out some gifts for my sister and my niece. Cards are always a good choice and they love them! My box was ready to mail so I needed to get these cards done speedy quick.
I chose a few sentiments that I liked from the stamp set and then die cut some of the cute houses. I stamped on images to complete the house, added some chunky glitter to the roof tops and then added them to my card front. I used a Fillable Frame #8 die cut image and ledger paper to create a cute scenery for the houses, complete with grass and tiny flowers which are both from Love Lives Here. October Afternoon patterned paper finishes off the card fronts. Card bases are Rustic Cream PTI cardstock. A few wraps of Chocolate Baker's Twine finishes off the cards. I'm really loving the baker's twine right now on cards. It adds a lot of dimension and interest without a lot of bulk. Love.
I hope you enjoy my simple, simply cards today. Gotta keep it real....and right now simple is best so that I can make the most of this joyous holiday season!

For my recipe today, I came across these delightful little Clothespin Cookies. So ME, right? They get the name because the dough is actually wrapped around round clothespins and then baked. I can't wait to try these over the holiday! So cute.

The link for the recipe is here.
(Recipe link and photo courtesy of My Baking Addiction)

Be sure to check out Melissa's blog today for her delightful post. :) Enjoy the weekend everyone!

We're off to a basketball tournament for Jordan's JV team. Good luck Jordy!! Hope you have a great weekend. Work hard to get those lists completed....then sit back and enjoy the holiday. That's what it's all about, friends.

December 16, 2010

12 Days of Christmas...Day 10

Hi friends. We're on Day 10 of Melissa's and Mishie's 12 Days of Christmas countdown. Today we have two sspecial guests joining us. We thought Dawn McVey and Heather Nichols might enjoy playing along with today's theme...Stocking Stuffers and Gifts for Girls.
Now. You're gonna get all jumpy in your seat because of this next photo. Cuz I know you love the office supply stuff like I do. Especially markers. Especially when they come in a set of 36 colors.
Especially when they come on this cool fold out portfolio case that screams *take me back to when I was 12 and where was THIS?*
And even more so when you see a delightful rainbow of colors. When I was a kid, I would have wet my Hee Haw overalls that I received one Christmas over something like these markers. Oh how I love to collect stickers and pens. My favorite pen was one that had five colors in one. It was white and you clicked each color at a time. I know you know the one. Stuff like this just wasn't available though. I also remember making a line of perforations on paper with a needle so that I could make my own pretend checks. Back then you ripped the check off of the side and that little flap stayed in the check book. Remember those? And the stationery that was in little plastic folders with pockets. One side had the envelopes and seals and the other side had sheets of stationery. Oh! Those were the best.

Well now that I've taken you on a trip down memory lane, how about creating that same wonderful memory for our girls this year for Christmas. My girls are nuts about these Bic Mar-Its and they've requested a set of their own for Christmas. We first saw them on display at Staples where you could purchase each pen individually. I think those kiosks are no longer set up but they do sell the Mark-Its in sets like the ones I've shown. There are different sets with less number of Mark-Its that I've seen at Wal Mart too.

A story: Josey had her friend Brittney over last summer and we ran some errands in town. We went to Staples and I bought each of the girls 3 of their own Mark-Its. They got to pick the colors. We then went to Taco Bell and the girls had a great time writing all over napkins. When we went to clean up all of our trash, the girls discovered that everything they wrote on the napkins bled through and marked on the tables. It wouldn't scrub off and Josey got a big laugh when Brittney told her that the next time she went to Taco Bell that her and Josey's names were still on the table. Ha ha! Good times. That's what it's all about.
Sooo, these Mark-Its will hopefully make it into the girls' stockings this year. Or maybe under the tree if Santa brings them a big enough set.

Jordan and I love to play our own little game of Pictionary. We go through notebooks of paper playing our little game. The Mark-Its are great fun!
Josey likes to take the entire set of Mark-Its into her room.....just like any teenager, she wants to be alone...and make posters and quotes about softball and sports. She has lots of papers like these taped to her wall.
This summer for Jordan's birthday party, each party girl got a blank white gable box filled with prizes. One prize was a Mark-It that they got to use to sign each other's birthday box. Kind of like an autograph book but in 3-D form. This was Jordan's box. (You can purchase Gable Boxes from Papertrey HERE). I see that she made a color chart of the Mark-Its too. So like me. Love.
So in hopes that Santa pulls through with the Mark-Its, I wanted to create some fun notepads for the girls to scribble and scratch on. I had lots of this cute Cosmo Cricket Pixie-Licious paper, etc left over from my guest designer month so I thought it would colorful and perfect for the girls' notebooks.
I also pulled out some stickers and chipboard accents. I love to have an entire collection of something....makes it so easy to pull together a project.
Jordan likes purple and Josey likes this Chartreuse green so went with those two color schemes for my notepads. Here I've selected my Papertrey cardstock colors, my Cosmo Cricket patterned papers and cardstock stickers.
To give the girls plenty of paper, I made the notebooks double thickness. I used two White Notepads and put a strip of 1/4" Scor-Tape along the top. Then I covered that with Happy Spots paper.
I also love to personalize items because everyone loves to see their name on something. Here I've used Hero Arts alphabet letters to spell out the girl's names for tags and on their notepads. A fun tip that I use: Use capital letters for consonants and lower case letters for vowels. It gives a mixy matchy look that I so love. The die I used for the tag is Papertrey's Limitless Layers Collection.
Next, I added my base layers of patterned papers and then my cardstock sticker accents.
Oh so cute and colorful. Papertrey Vintage Buttons tied with baker's twine finish off the notebook fronts.
Here you can see the girl's names. Love.
And so that we don't have anymore Taco Bell incidents, I added a blank piece of cardstock in with the notepads. This way the girls can draw and write notes with the cardstock piece under their paper, preventing the ink from bleeding through onto the next sheet. I can add new cardstock pieces when these get all messy.
And here's the sah-weeet notepads in all their fancied glory. I used Long Sleeves from my Etsy shop so that the notepads could stick out of the top. Notebook Slicks would also work for packaging if you want to enclose the entire notepad.
I tied Papertrey Ribbon around the Long Sleeves and then tied on the glittery name tags. Oh oh I loved making these for my reds. There's nothing more fun that creating a gift for someone special. I hope you enjoyed my stories today. I hope that have fun reminiscing about your childhood favorites. And I hope you get all crafty and make something fun for a loved one this holiday season. I think I'll go play with my Mark-Its now. Maybe write Eric + Shell just like I did in high school. :) (Did you know that only people in blog land and my paper crafting friends call me Mish?....I am definitely not Mish to any of my family or friends.....I guess it's my stage name, ha!)
But before I go, I had to snap a photo of Josey's whiteboard that she has in her room. She stole this from me because *it would be perfect for her room*. She writes down each week's happenings and then draws little scribbles and pictures. So adorable. So teenager-y. Have you taken time to check out your kids' rooms lately? Sneak in there while they're at school and check out their little world. Pretty cool stuff.
We all have this whiteboard obsession at our house along with the markers. I see that Josey has also permanently borrowed my silver tray of whiteboard markers too. Maybe Santa needs to bring everyone their own whiteboard markers too. :)
I have fun ideas to share with you about how to use your whiteboards for homework, chores, lists,etc.....and a little bit how color evokes learning in kids. I'll share that post on another day.

Be sure to check out Melissa's and Dawn's and Heather's posts today too. I know they have something girly and cute up their sleeves. :) Thanks for stopping by today!

Now for my recipe today. Pioneer Woman has a section under her recipes called Cowgirl Food...totally fitting for today's girly post. I am going to try my hand at these chocolate truffles...oh how I love truffles. And with sea salt...yum.


(Photo courtesy of Pioneer Woman)
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