Paper Gifts: Boxed Gift Tags

Hello everyone... its Windy back to share another paper crafted gift idea... boxed gift tags. I try put together several of these when I make my holiday cards so I can stick them in gift baskets and bags with other items like baked goods or candy throughout the season.  Just a little something to enhance the treats that I make for our neighbors and teachers.

Christmas Trees, Jingle Bells, Cranberry Sauce, Happy Christmas and Sleigh Stripe patterned paper (Christmas Sleigh collection), buttons (Papertrey Ink), felt flowers (Hero Arts), flower centers (Prima), clear stamps (Mega Mixed Messages from Papertrey Ink), Ink (Stewart Superior)

When I create gifts like these in mass, I keep it simple. These tags are created with a scallop punch, a circle punch, a corner rounder, a few sentiment stamps and embellishments. By using punches, even kiddos can help by punching or assembling its parts. My girls always want to help and this is the kind of stuff that we love to do together during the holidays.

Don't forget to stop by the GCD Studio's blog on December 3rd to see Donna Salazar's new collection! See you there:)

*I wrote this blog post while participating on GCD Studios Design Team.*

Zva Creative November DT Blog Hop!

We have a NEW Zva Creative Design Team and we welcome you to join us this month for a blog hop that we feel is extra special!

There is now an added twist to our blog hops, YAY!  As you know, Zva offers so many beautiful color groupings for pearls, flowers and crystals.  We want to make sure that they shine bright for you, so each designer was asked to share a creation using a specific color or color combination on their blog hop project.  We anticipate that our hops will become even more breathtaking with such stunning products to showcase by concentrating on color.

The Blog Hop begins at Kim Hughes' blog. She will have the complete list of all blogs that are participating in case there is a glitch along the way. If you would like to play along, just follow along the blog path.  I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Be prepared to be inspired along the way. Hidden on FIVE of the blogs is a Zva Creative prize package ...YAY! Winners will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.

The Blog Hop starts today, November 29th and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, November 30th and the 5 winners will be announced on Wednesday, December 1st on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Kim Hughes's blog as well. We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday...plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there. All you need to do is leave a comment on this Zva Blog Hop post...you do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. The more times you leave a comment along the blog hop path though, the more chances you will have to be one of the lucky winners.

The blog hop begins here: Kim Hughes.
Your next stop is here: Julianne McKenna-De Lumen

Thank you SO MUCH for joining us!

Products: purple pearls (Zva Creative PEC-03CB-120), iridescent crystals (Zva Creative PEC-03CB-10), cardstock (Vintage Cream by Papertrey Ink), patterned paper (Mitten Weather: Festivities by Cosmo Cricket), punch (Martha Stewart Crafts), felt snowflake sticker (My Little Yellow Bicycle), stamp (Daily Designs Sentiments by Papertrey Ink), perfectly plum ribbon (Papertrey Ink)

Paper Crafted Gifts: Flameless Tea Light Covers

I'm always looking for cute & unique gifts to craft out of paper. Now that I have kids, I have tossed out most of my beautiful flame burning candles and swapped them for flameless ones. BUT the upside of them  is that they are safe... AND because they have no flame you can do fun things with them like make paper tea light covers for your home or to give as gifts for friends, co-workers and neighbors.

To create project:

1) cut vellum into 3" wide strips. Punch top of strip with border punch and emboss

2) use old cardboard spools from Glue Dots® packaging or a ribbon spool as base to wrap embossed vellum around. Adhere with Continuous Glue Lines

3) punch and cut patterned paper and adhere to tea light

4) embellish with ribbon and/or stickers

Caution... only use these with flameless tea lights.

Well, I'm off to work on a few projects... everyone is tucked away in bed so now is my time to get busy;) Take care & thanks visiting today!

Products: Adhesive (Continuous Glue Lines by Glue Dots®), Vellum (The Paper Company), Embossing Folder (Sizzix), Patterned Paper (GCD Studios), Border Punch (Stampin' Up), Ribbon (Michaels Stores Inc.), Stickers (Martha Stewart Crafts)

*I wrote this blog post while participating on the Glue Dots® Design Team*

GCD Studios News...

Hello! I hope everyone who celebrated Thanksgiving had a great day yesterday... did anyone venture out for a little Black Friday shopping this morning? I opted to craft late into the night last night and slept in instead:)

Anyway, there was some pretty exciting news announced over at GCD Studio's blog recently...

Pretty cool huh? You can click HERE to get more details and for a chance to win some celebratory goodies too! Take care:)

Thankful...

Hello, Happy Thursday & Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American friends! I am thankful to be able to count many, many blessing in my life this year, most importantly are ALL of the wonderful people in my life. Thank you all for being a part it!

 I wish you much love and many blessings!!

Products: kraft (ANW Crestwood), patterned paper (Cosmo Cricket), stamp (Unity Stamp Co.), pearls (Zva Creative), button (Jenni Bowlin)

Satin Pleated Ribbon

Hello, Windy here today:) One of my favorite things to do is to dress up holiday packages and cards with beautiful satin ribbon. Here is a simple pleated ribbon technique that can be used to dress up your holiday creations.

To create pleated ribbon:

 1) adhere adhesive strip to project

 2) randomly pleat ribbon along adhesive strip

Really. Its just that simple! The trick is not to sweat the consistency of your pleats. When using satin ribbon, a randomly placed pleat can look just as gorgeous as a meticulously spaced one. Here is an example of how I used the same pleating technique on a different project.

Thru the Woods, Tis the Season, Yorkshire Pudding patterned paper (Joyful Peace collection); kraft, tulle and ribbon (Micheals Stores Inc.); punch (EK Success), felt flower (K& Co.), bauble (Making Memories); adhesive line (Glue Dots Continuous Line)

What project could you add satin pleated ribbon to, to help dress it up?

Its beginning to look a lot like...

... Christmas. Ok, so I held off as long as I could, but I am ready to prepare for the holidays. We had such a beautiful weekend that we put Christmas lights out on the house (first time ever... Brian held off as long as he could, but the girls ganged up on him and they came home from Costco with some outdoor lights...lol). I can hear it now... "Please Daddy... PLEASE." He didn't have a chance.

Anyway, we are now in that hybrid state with turkeys, pumpkins, fall leaves, clear holiday lights and candles in the window. Everyday I'll sneak out a little Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving when all the orange & brown turns red & green! Then, my mission will be to get my shopping done by the end  of November, so I can stay home and enjoy December.

Here's a card to get the festivities rolling using a mixture of GCD Studios and Pink Paislee.

I hope you enJOY your Monday!

Today I'm thankful for...
1) 3 year old cuteness & funnies
2) 5 year old seriousness & Christmas lists
3) clean carpet

Thankful

Hello and Happy Friday! We are having the most amazing weather here... an Indian Summer with days that are sunny and heat up to nearly 75 degrees. Its simply amazing! Today I have this card featured which is up on Precocious Paper's Designer Friday. I love these dyed cardboard flowers... there is just something about the kraft and recycled components that make me gravitate toward them:)

"Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what 

you don't have, you will never, ever have enough."
-- Oprah Winfrey 

Today I'm thankful for...
1) warm weather & flip flops
2) olive, eggplant and brown sweaters
3) Thursday night TV

Have any extra buttons and pearls on hand?

Hello! I hope everyone is well. Today I'm going to share a Thanksgiving holiday project idea that can be made simply (and mess free) with Glue Dots®.  My family makes a gratitude box every year at Thanksgivingtime. We reflect on what we have been thankful for throughout the year, write it down and put our notes or lists in that year's box for safe keeping. Children too young to write can draw pictures. This is a fun family activity and great way to document things that are important to each family member and to your family as a whole. It is also nice as a parent to look through previous year's boxes and see how much your family changes and grows.

To create project:

1) cover top of box with buttons and pearls. Start by randomly laying buttons down, then adhere each with glue dots. Fill holes with various sized pearls
2) wrap body of box with patterned paper and tie ribbon on lid. Secure ribbon with glue dots
3) stamp and make tag. Tie tag on with twine
4) embellish with flower and stick pins

If you scrapbook, think about how easy it would be to convert what is in your gratitude box to a layout with photos. In my not so busy life, I hope to make an album of Thankskgivings, with all of the info that is in our gratitude boxes mixed with photos from each year.

Products: Adhesive (Craft Glue Dots, Dot N' Go Dispenser, Mini Glue Dots Perforated Sheets), Buttons (DeNami Design),  Pearls (Kaiser Craft, Mark Richards, Michaels Stores Inc.), Patterned Paper (Heidi Swapp), Ribbon (Michaels Stores Inc.), Twine (May Arts), Flower (BoBunny), Pins (Maya Road)

*I wrote this blog post while participating on the Glue Dots® Design Team*

Today I'm thankful for...
1) my 5 year old tying her own shoes
2) UPS (the best way to get your Christmas purchases home:)
3) the Kindergarten bus

Piggy Tales Academy November Kit

Hello! Just dropping in with a quick peak at the Piggy Tales Academy November Kit...

I'll have projects to share from it coming soon. For more details, click on over to the Piggy Tales Academy site HERE. Happy Friday!

Today I'm thankful for...
1) the internet
2) naps
3) breakfast for dinner

Feel the Joy

Hello, today I just wanted to pass along a few websites... for my American friends, you may find this useful for all of those leftover Halloween candy bars. For others, it may just give you some sweet baking ideas:)

Check out these sites with recipes that could use up all of those surplus Snickers, M&Ms and other chocolate goodies:

http://www.mms.com/us/baking/ (ideas for crepes to cupcakes to cookies and bars-yum!)

http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/36/Butterfinger_Cake4513.shtml (Butterfinger Cake)

http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/36/Candy_Bar_Pizza3517.shtml (Candy Bar Pizza)

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,173,147165-228207,00.html (Candy Bar Cake)

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,176,147187-250193,00.html (Hershey Bar Pound Cake)

We live in such a generous neighborhood and could never eat it all of our Halloween candy so I wanted to find something useful to do with it.  It looks like I could be baking a lot for our neighbors, teachers and friends in the next week or so.

Here's my card for the day. I used some handy dandy kraft cardstock, Unity's "Feel the Joy"stamp set, a little Basic Grey June Bug paper and a sketch from my Go-To Sketches book.

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial 

into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into 

a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today,

 and creates a vision for tomorrow."

-Melody Beattie

Take care!

Today I'm thankful for...
1) Sugarland in my iTunes
2) parents who volunteer time at their kid's schools
3) family game night

Rustic, Yet Refined

I have extremely good news to share... Zva Creative announced their design team earlier in the week... and I am one of them!! I couldn't be more excited about this opportunity. I love pearls and bling and Zva has the most beautiful ones out there.

So meet some of my new team mates... it will be a privilege and treat to be working with all of them!
Teri Anderson
Jillian Deiling Cassity
Lou Collins
Ingrid Danvers

Nancy Doren

Camilla Ekman 
Angelica Franssen
Guiseppa Gubler
Kim Hughes
Lisa Johnson
Gail Lindner
Susan Lui 
Carole Maurin
Julianne McKenna-De Lumen     

Jolanda Meurs
Debbie Olson 
Tara Orr Benedicte Raphalen

Windy L Robinson

Tanya Tahir

Tomoko Takahashi

To celebrate today, I thought I'd share one of my favorite projects using Zva crystals.

This one is currently in Paper Crafts Holiday Cards & More, Vol 5 (page 97). I love the kraft & crystal combo... rustic, yet refined... its definitely one I revisit often:)

Thanks to all who have visited with congratulations on Zva's announcement. I hope you all have a great Wednesday!

Today I'm thankful for...
1) a day at home with nothing to do but laundry and dishes
2) fall
3) chili & casseroles (I really hate to actually cook:)
4) Zva Creative

Early Christmas Give Away!!

Leave a comment over at GCD Studio's blog HERE and on Friday one lucky person will win GCD Studio's new Christmas Sleigh and Joyful Peace collection! Good luck:)
(here are a few of my favorites from each collection;)

Christmas Sleigh

 Christmas Trees

 Santa Hats

Happy Christmas

Joyful Peace

Peppermint

 Through the Woods

Yorkshire Pudding

Check out In the Studio blog throughout the month for fun gift and holiday ideas using these two collections:) Thanks for stopping in!

Today I'm thankful for...
1) piercing both ears at the same time
2) the freedom to vote
3) an awesome husband who is just the best dad to two little girls:)

Scrap that Poetry Challenge # 27

Hello & happy Monday! I hope you all had a great Halloween. Mine was the best to date... this year my kids were 3 and 5 so they got really excited about it... the whole family dressed up & we all had fun with our friends and neighbors. It was a magical night for them... so fun to watch as a parent.

I am so excited to be guest designing today at Scrap that Poetry... I don't scrap nearly enough and every time I do it I feel so good about it. STP rocks because 2 times a month they put up a poem for you to use as inspiration for a layout or project. Here is what I created...

....which was inspired by this poem...

A Red, Red Rose 

Oh my luve is like a red, red rose, 

That's newly sprung in June: 

Oh my luve is like the melodie, 

That's sweetly play'd in tune. 

As fair art thou, my bonie lass, 

So deep in luve am I; 

And I will luve thee still, my dear, 

Till a' the seas gang dry. 

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, 

And the rocks melt wi' the sun; 

And I will luve thee still, my dear, 

While the sands o' life shall run. 

And fare thee weel, my only luve! 

And fare thee weel a while! 

And I will come again, my luve, 

Tho' it were ten thousand mile! 

by Robert Burns

My dear is my husband... and this is a photo that our aspiring 5 year old photographer took of us on my 34th birthday Tuesday evening... this layout commemorates us now, I love doing quick layouts like that... a photo + a great poem or quote that summarizes life as it is now. Do you have any photos that fit this poem? Jump on over to Scrap the Poetry for more inspiration or to play along:)

Take care!

Today I'm thankful for...
1) sweat pants
2) Hadley... the 3 year old who has "projects" and makes cards with me
3) having the privledge of watching Campbell learning to read... its an amazing thing


Products: patterned paper (Stamp'in Up), thread (Coats & Clark), buttons (Jenni Bowlin), paper rose (Prima), pearls (Kaiser Craft), baubles (Making Memories)