Missed you guys!! {YCU#4 - an Ornament :)}

Hi there! I've missed you my friends! How is everyone?!? Good I hope. I was M.I.A. for what seems like forever! We took a road trip up to see my in-laws in Lake City, Florida. They moved up there about a month ago. While the ride was terribly long in my opinion, (6 hrs - with the kids arguing for 3 of those hours straight!!) it was a really beautiful place to visit. Lots of open spaces, which is far different from down here in South Florida.

While there, I finished another book "The Room", which I highly recommend - it was great, and I got to check a few things of my 32 list :).

Anyway, I was super happy to get back home and back into my crafting. I missed it so much! On the way home, I was fortunate to find TWO scrapbook stores. One was a bust, but THIS store in Ocala, FL had lots of nifty stuff! When I shop at an LSS that's not MY LSS, I try to find original items - goodies I don't see at my LSS. One of the things I was most excited about at this store was packaging for sale - yup you heard me right, packaging!

So, was I was most excited about this cool packagin that Bo Bunny sells their buttons in. Awesome little plastic packages like this
Last year I began saving these packages and used them all up making cutsie little ornaments. But this store actually sold just the packaging for $0.50 each - which gets you two potential ornaments!!! YAY, awesomeness!

I spend last night making ornaments ;). Here's a look at one of them:

The house is a page of a chipboard mini I got a Michaels last year - in the dollar section (SCORE!). I covered it with Pink Paisley's Snow Day Collection (adorable!) and used my Cutlebug, Distress Ink (the new Festive Berries - which I'm in LOVE with!), some MS & ArtC chunky glitter, and Lawn Fawn's Making Frosty Friends, Bannerific, and Cozy Christmas to make it an adorable little ornament. OH! I also stamped and heat embossed (with Stampedious' Kaleidoscope glitter embossing powder) a Hero Arts slow flake background behind the frosty friends for extra sparkle. Here's a closer-upper:


I figure this may be a good entry for the die cutting challenge (#4) at Young Crafters Unite. The background (circle) and around the packaging (scallop) are both made using Spellbinders ;)

I really do LOVE using my Cuttlebug! It's SO fun & so versatile!!!

I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings!! This week I'll probably be sharing more projects I'm making with this awesome packaging!! Thanks for peeking & I hope you have a great day, I missed you guys!!!!

When in a rut... make more pretty bookmarks...

That's gunna be my new motto. It's been so hard for me to be motivated lately. Actually, I have been crafting, but it's for the upcoming Lawnscaping Blog Hop!!! It's on December 9th and I hope you'll come hop along!

I don't want to leak my idea, but it's a cool one, and very time consuming ;)

Anyway, I have made a few more corner bookmarks and thought I'd share them with you today. For this batch (seems I make them in sets of 4) I used Pink Paisley's Authentique 6x6 pad - I am in love with this patterned paper - and various Lawn Fawn sets (and even a Paper Smooches sentiment on one of them). Here ya go:

For this one, I used the cute piggie from Lawn Fawn's Critters on the Farm set. I really got a kick out of the patterned paper - the 5 Cent on it reminds me of a piggie bank! Bahahaha. The fun sentiment is from Paper Smooches' "Chit Chat" set. Cuteness.

I also really love making these cow bookmarks - with the awesome "you mooove me" sentiment! All of the stamps on this one are from Lawn Fawn's Critters on the Farm set ;)

Last, but not least, THIS ONE IS MY FAVE of this little batch: I just LOVE the layered pinwheel!! With Prima Bling - YUM!

I also wanted to share pics of my already decorated Christmas tree: I really love my Christmas tree & can hardly wait to put it up each year. Each & every ornament means something special to me.

When my dad died (almost 4 yrs ago, this month) and my mom moved back into their house with her boyfriend (my parent had separated 8 or so months before he died) they didn't want to use our family Christmas ornaments. They started fresh. I was grateful to inherit them. When I was a kid, my mom belonged to an ornament club through Disney and we have a ton of Disney ornaments. They mean alot to me, and Disney is significant to Sal & I. He took me on my 1st trip to Disney. Since then, it's just kind of our "thing". We used to go all the time before we had the kids(less, now, buying 5 tickets is much harder than 2), and we even honeymooned there.

Anyway, I wanted to share some of my favorite ornaments with you, because your my friends & all ;).
This is one of the Disney ornaments, I don't know why, but it's one of my faves
This is us as lil (and I mean LIL) 16 & 17 year olds - our 1st Christmas together. That's 1996 peeps:
2002 - my sister in law bought this for us the year we bought/moved into our home:
This one my boss brought us back from Maine one year. I really love it, and this is my 1st Christmas in 11 years that he's not here to celebrate with us and get us wacky gifts - it makes me kind of sad - but happy to remember his awesomeness.
Ha! I love this one too!! My mother-in-law gave it to us a few years ago - it's from my hubby's 1st Christmas. it says 1978 on it an everything. Way old school ;)
And these are my babies' 1st Christmas ornaments. Gets me teary even looking at them. They are growing entirely too fast, and there is no way to stop it!

This one is one my Grandma & Grandpa sent us from NY. It makes me miss them. My grandpa especially, as we lost him December 26th last year :(
THIS is one of my ALL time favorites!!!!! Sal's God mother (who I was VERY close to, and sadly, also passed away last year) gave it to me when I was pregnant with Alivia. She had gotten it from a family member when she was pregnant with her last child - almost 50 years ago. It's a preggers mouse, eating an icecream and standing on a jar of pickles!!! To die for right?!?
This one I made last year. I really love it. I upcycled packaging from a pack of Bo Bunny buttons and a Maya Road Coaster shaped like a house. The stamps are Hampton Arts (I believe) and I used some Martha Stewart Chunky glitter to make a snowglobeish ornament. My kids LOVE it!
Every year, I pick up a new ornament for the kids. This was last year's - a Stitch Elvis - I love it:
And this one, of the Nativity scene - I love this one - HE is the reason for the season :)

So, you get the idea. Obviously, these are not all of them (we'd be here forever peeps) but my all time (so far) favorites. This year, I think I'll have to get a Disney princess ornament, maybe Ariel. Alivia is REALLY into them, and the Little Mermaid is her fave right now! I always date them, so one day, when I pass them to my kids, they'll have good memories. They'll think back on these years, what we were into, places we've been. Things that made others think of us. I think our tree reflects us in a lot of ways. It really makes me happy.

I'll be out of blog world for the next week. I'm actually taking a mini road trip. My in laws moved upstate Florida last month, and we're heading up there. To "country folk" Florida. Never been. I'll be on the lookout for Scrapbook Stores ;). Wish me luck, and I honestly hope you guys all have an amazing Thanksgiving. I really am thankful for your support and friendship. See ya in a week!!

You make me HAPPY when skies are gray...

I’ve had this song in my head for days now. Trying to keep the peace in my thoughts.

Hi friends. Just a little card I wanted to share with you today. I wanted to challenge myself a little bit by not putting the sentiment on the outside of it:

Since I’m usually hyper-verbal, this truly is a challenge for me ;). I used the cute clouds from Lawn Fawn’s Bon Voyage mini set and paper pieced them onto the cool calender page from a 6x6 pad of Crate Paper’s Portrait Collection (the background page is also from that set), distressing the edges of each cloud with weathered Wood Distress Ink, then added a few pretty gems to each of them. I wanted them to look somewhat “weathered” so I used my tape runner only on the middle of the clouds and then bent them up a bit around the edges before securing them to the card. Then I finished it off by making it a grid using some awesome grey bakers twine. Just a simple card.

Aren’t the gems gorgeous though?!? They’re new from Prima and I’m so in love with them! It’s hard to get the full effect from them in a picture, but they are very sparkly and are such pretty colors!!! The inside of the card says “You make me HAPPY when skies are gray”. I forgot to take a pic of that, but I used Lawn Fawn’s Smitty’s ABCs to create the sentiment ;).

On another note, my 32 Things To Do While I’m 32 list is coming along. I’ve read 4 books so far, 28 to go (#3 on the list). Right now I’m reading The Glass Castle. So far, so good. We’ve also planned a little road trip up to visit my in laws (#18) and also plan to ride a 4 wheeler while I’m there (#27). I’ve also been spending every Friday with my mom (#28). Taking her to run errands and to lunch. Just having a nice time together. I thought I’d try to keep you guys up to date on my progress ;).

That’s all for me today. I hope you have the most awesome-est of days!

Thankful Banner - for the office - Lawnscaping #21

Good morning friends! I hope you had a great weekend. Mine was really good. I took some time to "stop & smell the roses". Just playing with my kids and spending time with my mom & my hubby. I also did a lot of organizing and put up (inside only) my Christmas decorations (oh, yes I did!). My tree looks absolutely beautious, and it makes me super happy. I've started minor Christmas shopping, so, I figured I should be able to have physical proof that Christmas is coming ;). Plus, I just needed the happy boost. So much has been chaotic, I need to SEE happy, and having my tree up definitely made me happy! Now if I can only keep my sanity while my 3 year old asks me every single day - 5 times a day - if Santa’s coming tomorrow... yep... that’s begun.

Anyway, I also spent a lot of time this weekend getting crafty YAY! I wanted to make a little banner for my office (our only Thanksgiving decoration). I love how it came out and was SO happy when I logged into Facebook this morning and saw that my banner is absolutely PERFECT for Lawnscaping's #21 Challenge (Thankful)!!

Don't you just LOVE Lawnscaping Challenges!?!?! I sure do. They are my all time favorite Challenge Blog - mainly because they incorporate my favorite things - Lawn Fawn Stamps and fun ways to use them!!!! Plus, their DT is out of this world. It is filled with sweet/talented ladies, and I absolutely love looking at what all of the participants do with the challenges!! You guys inspire me so much!!!

Anyway here is a look at my banner. {{*As you can see, I added a bunch of my Thanksgiving Cards to the equasion for today's little photoshoot ;). I'm sorry this picture is so small. My camera is just a point/shoot & it seems to not help with getting good close ups of things like this. If you click on the picture though, you can see it much better. Sorry about that - there are good pictures of each individual section of the banner below ;).}}

I just got a Cuttlebug a few weeks ago, but had to wait for a “C” Plate (from Simon Says Stamp) to use it, because I bought ALL Spellbinders Dies. I'm a 1st timer - what can I say. I used one of the larger scallop circles (on Neenah’s Sandstorm Cardstock) and then a smaller circle to cut out canvas. Next I misted the canvas with Maya Mist in orange and cut out a smaller circle, which I distressed/inked to place my paper pieced letters on. The stamps are ALL Lawn Fawn and the patterned paper is from Making Memories’s "Autumn Splendor" collection.

As you can see, I used tons of Lawn Fawn here: Quinn’s ABCs, Critters in the Forest, Critters on the Farm, Fly Free, the Birdies from Bannerific, Turkey Day, Hats off to You, and the birdies from Making Frosty Friends. Whew! All of the animals and birdies are colored with Copics, and the Twine is from Papertrey Ink. Now onto the close-ups ;)



I like how it came out. Very rustic, but bright & fun with the critters ;). Hope it inspires you today. Thanks for popping in to see me. Hope your day is wonderful!!

Wintery Corner Bookmarks

Hi there.

I finally felt some weight off my shoulders this week - a very welcome feeling - which allowed me to finally get into crafty mode! Does that ever happen to you? When you're overwhelmed or stressed, do you find it hard to be motivated to craft? A lot of the time creating something cute relieves my stress and makes me happier, but when I get really overwhelmed, I can't do anything but survive. That's what I've been doing for the past few weeks. For my mom, hubby, and kids, I'm still in full "normal Heather" mode, but on the inside I've been about to break into a million pieces. It's been rough.

I've had to say this to myself a lot over the past few weeks:
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And so I haven't. I can't. My family - which is my world - needs me to be strong and to laugh and be there for them. I can't go bananas just yet.

I'll tell you, I was totally unraveling when I got to work on Monday. The weekend was SO hard on me, and my husband was out of town moving his parents. It was completely overwhelming. Monday morning, I was emailing one of my most favorite blogger friends, Chari, about a really redonkulous thing I'd done & she helped me in such a HUGE way - with a small act (so she says - I have no idea HOW she did it). It wasn't so much what she did though. It was her words of encouragement. Helping me laugh at myself. Seeing that I'm not stupid and can't beat myself up over an little mistake that I made. I really and truly needed it.
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Thank you so much for being there for me Chari!! It truly meant the world to me.

I'm reminded how grateful I am for you, my friends out there in the blogging world! You've encouraged, inspired, supported, and befriended me and I am so lucky to have you in my life. There have been so many times when your kind words have made me happy! Again, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Ok, that was a lot. Sorry. Now I can officially share my bookmarks with you ;). Again, I used THIS tutorial to make them. All of the patterned paper is from Basic Grey's Jovial Collection. All of the Stamps are from Lawn Fawn - my most favorite of favorite companies! I decided to make wintery bookmarks this time, and here we go:

Isn't this one sweet?! I used Winter Fox - which I won from Lawnscaping's Facebook giveaway! Thank you Laurel! I love it and it is too much fun to play with!!! The sentiment also comes with the Winter Fox mini set, and the snow flakes are from Making Frosty Friends.


All of these are also from Making Frosty Friends. I love that set!

last not not least - in fact, this one is my favorite:


For this one I made up my own little sentiment using Sally's ABCs. Very punny huh?!? ;) The birdies are from Making Frosty Friends - these are my favorite Lawn Fawn birdies, I think - with their little scarves - cuteness! Don't ya love the bakers twine "wire". Of course it's from The Twinery.

That's it for today. Thanks for popping in on me friends! I hope you have an awesome day. My outlook completely shifted on Monday. I feel a smile in my heart. it's amazing what some kindness can do for your spirit. I've got to get on track with my 32 Things to Do While I'm 32 list. I finished the 3 Hunger Games books ;). 3 books down - 29 to go. So far that's about ALL I've accomplished. I mean, it's only been 8 days - but still. I found this on Pinterest (I'm not a "Pinner" but I do LOVE Pinterest!):
{source} and I'm still trying to make some time for myself. I think that's why I've been so stressed. Neglecting myself. Hoping to be better about that. Have a great day friends!