Advent Calendar

Yes, I do know it's already December 5th. Life sure has been busy over here with the Holidays fast approaching. I don't want to acknowledge the amount of days I have to make and mail presents out.

I haven't liked the idea of an advent calendar in which you get a piece of candy every day until Christmas.

This house already has a sweet tooth and I've decided that more candy wasn't for us.

I saw on Pinterest that they did something for each day. It can be found Here. Love the idea!

I also saw on Ali Edwards blog that she was going to wrapping a book for every day, to unwrap and read each day. This house really loves books. Love that too! It can be found Here.

So I combined both ideas.

I raided my collection of books and then went looking at the thrift store. I came up with a total of 14 books.

We made tags with numbers to label each book & started wrapping.

We have now opened 2 books and the kids are just as excited to read them as they are to unwrap them.

It's getting warmer...

Our temperature is crawling back up.

My oldest child, Nolan was pretty scared this morning with the sounds of snow crashing off the roof. We have a metal roof and when the snow gets too heavy or the temperatures start warming up it slides off the roof. After he kicked me out of bed, he promptly turned all the lights on to confirm that no one was in the house. :)

I snapped this picture after showing him what I was taking about and it was light enough to see.

Of course he needed to put on his boots and go outside to check it out. I soon heard Naomi giggling and the sound of snow hitting the window.

These kids fill my days with laughter and joy!

Love them to pieces.

Today we will go into the crawl space and dig out the Christmas decorations.

This was on the agenda yesterday but our afternoon was spent running paperwork to my husband in Anchorage instead. It took us 1 1/2 hours to get down there. I missed the road I needed to turn on tried to whip a u turn on the next road, dropped my front tire off the pavement and got myself stuck. 45 minutes later after some kind people helped me get unstuck we were back on the road. Arg!  To make a long story short we got home late, got out of bed late and have had a slow start to the morning.

I am hoping that we will get our Christmas tree sometime over the weekend also.(My husband is on the couch today sick with the flu, hope it is a quick bug and we all don't get it.) 

Will share photos on Monday.

Cricut Card Thursday

Dust off your cricuts, it's time to make a card!

I created this beautiful card by using cricut cartridges, Paper Lace and Plantin Schoolbook, VersaMark and embossing powder.

Make card base. I made my card base to have a top fold and measures: 4 1/2 x 5 1/2

Make a template from you paper lace cartridge. 

Find a piece of paper that measures a 8 x 8 square.

Select <Mod1> and the Lace 2 option.

Cut template at 7 inches.

Tape card to a piece of scrap paper placing fold side up.

*Tip: use a move able tape so you don't  rip your paper on removal.



Then cover back of card with a piece of scrap, placing on fold line. Tape.

Arrange template over card front where you like the design and tape again.



Now take your VersaMark pad and press it over the template and card.

Sprinkle with Embossing powder. Flock would work also.

Remove template and Emboss.

After embossing I cut a piece of black cardstock 4 5/8  x 5 1/2 to outline the front of my card. I did this so, as to not have to make my card base completely out of black. I then glued it to the underside of my card front.

Using Plantin SchoolBook cartridge I cut a oval at 2 inches from Black. I then cut a oval out of white at 1 3/4 inches.

I stamped my sentiment on to the white oval. Glued it to the black oval. And finally glued it to my card.

Add rhinestone.

You now have a beautiful, elegant card!

Wordless Wednesday

Tips, Tricks & Techniques Tuesday

Creating a Christmas tag with printed sentiments

Measure tag. Mine were 2 ¼ inches wide and 4inches tall.

In a word document type
To:
From:

Then watching your rulers add sentiment closer to the 3 ½ marker.
               Happy Holidays
         From our house to yours

I copied the typing with spacing in between and pasted it again towards the bottom of my word document allowing me to print 2 tags.

Then print onto cardstock. You will need to know which way your printer feeds it’s paper through.
*Tip: if you are using a cardstock tag print onto something with the same weight.



Now tape tag directly to top of where your typing is.
*Tip you can hold your paper to the light with tag on top to align correctly
*Tip: use a moveable tape. If you don’t have a moveable tape don’t press your tape down hard
*Scotch makes a moveable tape, will share later on what other uses it can be used for.

Reprint again. This time it will print onto your tags. I used the same piece of cardstock and printed many different tags.

After you have printed, remove Tags and embellish.





 

Tips, Tricks & Techniques Tuesday

Creating sentiments without using stamps:

Can’t find the sentiment you like in a stamp or don’t have the sentiment stamp you want?
All you need is a computer and a printer.
Computers have a wide selection of fonts already on them, and you can also download free fonts from dafonts.com.
When typing up your sentiment that you are using make sure there is enough space around it for cutting out. (I usually hit enter 3 to 4 times before typing again.)
　
If I am just printing the sentiment I would like then I might print a few extra sentiments to have on hand or type up more to fill my paper up. Remember you are not restricted to just printing in black.

DIY Triangular Paper Tree

To create a triangular tree:
1. cut a 5 inch octagon.
You can cut this on cricut or silhouette or your paper cutter. If you are using your paper cutter follow steps 2 thru 4. If you can cut an octagon on your cricut or silhouette skip to step 5.

2. Measure and mark 1 ½ inches from each corner.

3. Draw a diagonal line to connect each mark.

4. Cut along each diagonal line to create an octagon

5. Cut octagon in half, then half and half again until you have 8 perfect triangular pieces.

If you are making your Christmas cards this year with trees on them this is a simple way to create a lot of perfect looking trees without all the cutting.