Here are some holiday projects that Topher and I have done throughout this month.  Every Sunday this month we've had Christmas Sunday!  Basically, all we do is stay at home, listen to Christmas music, watch Christmas movies, bake Christmas goodies, and work on a Christmas puzzle or crafts.  Here is our little tree that we decorated.  We were excited since it was our first Christmas as a little family together.  We bought little mini ornaments as well as made out own.  

We made ornaments using the floor wax method.  All you do is buy that magic stuff (Pledge Floor Care with the Future label) and poor it into clear glass ornaments that we picked up at Michaels.  We used Martha Stewart Glittee in Blue, Silver and White...poured just a bit in there and rolled it around!  Beautiful results and Topher loved making them!

Next, we made these snowflakes off of this idea I saw in the Martha Stewart Living Magazine.  I purchased the Snowflake snowpunch, and punched out a billion of them in grey, blue and white.  I glued three together using my zig 2 way pen to give them some stiffness and then covered them with modpodge and covered them with glitter!  Added a little ribbon loop and there you go!  I then started getting a little crazy and making dual colored snowflakes.  I kind of like the way they look!

Here's Topher hanging em up

We also spent one Sunday making scarves.  I've been dying for a cute plaid scarf all season, but I can't seem to pony up 30 bucks for a scarf that I'll wear sporadically.  So I just went to Joanns fabric, bought some material and cut it up and used fusible webbing to bond it to make it long enough.  Some of them didn't come out all too pretty (drat my lack of ability to cut in a straight line!!!) but when it's all wrapped up you can't really tell (or that's what I tell myself).  Topher has decided to be a stylish model for us, displaying all our wares. 

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Peppermint bark anyone?  So I have 40 college baseball players and so I wanted to make them a little gift for the holidays.  I figured guys would rather have sweets instead of a frou frou card, so I decided to make them little goody bags of homemade sweets.

My version of "Peppermint bark"is really simple and easy to make.  I just melt down a bag of white chocolate chips in the microwave and add rice crispy cereal until it's the consistency of rice crispy treats.  Spread it out nice and flat so it's just a thin layer on a sheet of foil and then sprinkle Andes Peppermint baking bits on top.  Pat down to make sure the baking bits are in!  Put in the fridge for about 15 minutes and break it up!  It keeps forever but it probably won't last very long.  Guys especially find it irresistible.

I just used the little reindeer guy from the Create a Critter cartridge and I believe I cut him out at 3/4 inch.    Paper was bazzil basics from Michaels and I just cut alternate scarves in green and red.  (By the way, the gypsy is a god send in mass production, thank you, thank you, thank you).  The tags were just labels I printed out on the computer and slapped on to the little treat bags!

Here's my second set of Christmas cards (and my main one, that little deer is the theme this Christmas).

All of the cuts came from the Create a Critter Cartridge.  The Season's Greeting Sentiment is from the Seasonal stamp set from Papertrey Ink and I used Tim Holtz distressed ink in red brick.  One thing I must say I'm grateful for is that I have the stamp-of-a-ma-jig since I am terrible at aligning my stamps!  For the first dozen or so cards I made I heat embossed the lightbulbs to give it sparkle, but it was inconsistent as far as thickness and would stain a bit.  I went and purchased some glossy accents and it worked BEAUTIFULLY (oh Glossy Accents, why did I not purchase you before?!)  I'm sorry I do not have a picture of the new and improved holiday lights!

Here's the inside sentiment and the corresponding envelope I made.  I must say, I wouldn't be able to make my envelopes without the envelope guideline from Scor-Pal.  That is a lifesaver!

Here's my first set of Christmas cards.  Ahh the craziness of the holidays!  So this year, I've decided to make two different card sets.  Today, I'm showing the first design.  I'll tell you, next year, I'm going to start much much earlier!  It's tough to mass produced cards when you work 10 hour days!

So this is my "elegant" and simple card.  I used the Christmas and Joys of the Season cartridge for the deer and the tree.  My cricut was being temperamental and I was only able to cut out 8 or so trees completely with no snags or tears.  I popped the deers on top of the tree, and added adhesive pears (that I colored red with copics) to the tree.  The background was cuttlebugged using the swissdots folder.

The inside sentiment came from my Christmas stamp set from papertrey inks, and I made matching envelopes with my Martha Stewart scorboard.  The lining was some patterned paper I picked up and I cuttlebugged the top of the envelope with swiss dots as well to tie it all in together.

My last birthday card for the month!  This card is for my older brother.  He's an avid White Sox fan so I decided to make him a card based off of that!  I found the logo online and converted the .jpg file into an .svg file.  I converted it into 3 cuts and cuts them out on Sure Cuts A Lot.  The happy birthday was also cut using Sure Cuts A Lot and shadowed as well.  

The inside sentiment was printed on a piece of designer paper found at Hobby Lobby.  The second sox logo was also a .jpg converted to an .svg file and cut out with sure cuts a lot. I don't know what I'd do without that program!

A card for my older sister for her birthday!  Nice and very simple, just to highlight the sheet music paper I picked up in a scrapbooking store in my travels.  The sentiment is printed onto kraft paper, and I just lightly stamped the paper with metallic inks from the Martha Stewart teardrop ink pads.  I added brads and that's it!

I made the envelope using my Martha Stewart scorboard and lined the inside with the same paper.  Nice elegant card for my older sister.

Quick card for my brother-in-law for his birthday!  I have a lot of birthday's coming up this month so I have to get cracking on the card making!  The cake is cut from the Smiley "cartridge".  The Smiley cartridge was a special download for the Gypsy, and it has a ton of really really cute cuts.  I made him a red velvet cake with white frosting since it's his favorite and the sentiment was printed from the computer.  Nice simple card with some stickles on the flame.

The cardstock for the base was using the charcoal cardstock from Papertrey Ink that I just purchased.  It's so lovely as a base since it's so heavy, I'm so glad I purchased it (in black and white as well)!