A few of my Favorite Pics of 2009

As we get ready to say goodbye to 2009 and hello to 2010, I thought I would post just a few of my favorite pictures of the year. I have taken so many this year because of the Project 365 that it was really hard to narrow them down. 

These two are favorites because they remind me of our trip to Disney World this last March. The top one because it is of the four of us and the bottom because of how exciting it was for the boys to open the Indiana Jones show. Here is the post of the video we have of this event. 

This next picture says Spring to me. The boys were in the backyard and found a four-leaf clover. It looks so perfect! 

This next one is pretty obvious. Just a silly picture of a silly boy in some silly glasses.

And my water fireworks. One of my all-time favorites!

I remember I went to take Maggie for a walk one night and got about 1/2 way down the block when I saw this huge cloud with lightening in it. So I ran back to the house, dropped Maggie off, and got my camera. Sorry Maggie, but I think this picture was worth you missing a walk!.

I love this picture of the boys in front of the Arch. When you grow up in St. Louis, I think you have to have one of these pictures. 

And how could we forget the little puppy that came to live with us. As much as she has driven me crazy this first year, she is super cute! Look at the little stub of a tail. :-)

And lastly, these two pictures of the boys at Gulf Shores. I love, love, love these pictures of them! 

Happy New Year everyone who comes to my little blog. I wish everyone a safe, healthy and happy 2010!


Thanks again for visiting me! 

Merry Christmas Eve

May all your Christmas wishes come true. 

My 18-Step Christmas Card

Here it is.........

The Christmas Card that ended up taking way more time than I thought it would. 

When I was trying to figure out what I wanted to make for my card this year, the only thing I knew for sure is that I wanted to use my Copics. I discovered these awesome markers this year, and was on the look out for a stamp that I could color with them.

I was in Archivers looking at stamps when I looked at the back of a Stampendous stamp and saw this Angel. I wanted that Angel for my card. It was perfect! I asked the nice Archivers lady if they had this stamp. Of course, she said no, that the angel is last year's stamp. So now I'm on a mission to find this stamp. I finally found it online and ordered it. This was about a week before Thanksgiving. It didn't arrive until after Thanksgiving. And since I wasn't exactly sure how big the angel was, I couldn't start cutting anything yet. 

So then the first week of December started my mass producing card assembly line. 

So here is the list of my 18 steps:

1. Cut the white squares.
2. Punch the border along one side.
3. Stamp angel.
4. Color angel with Copics.
5. Emboss Wings. (You can see that in above pic.)
6. Color Wings with Copics.
7. Round corners on white angel square.
8. Cut Red Base of card.
9. Emboss red base with Sizzix Polka Dot Embossing folder.
10. Stamp & Emboss greeting on front of card
11. Cut & Emboss inside label with the Spellbinders Nestabilities
12. Stamp Greeting on inside label.
13. Punch 1/2 circle on my picture pocket.
14. Make picture pocket.
15. Edit pictures and add swirl & Holiday brushes.
16. Print and cut pictures to 4x4 size
17. Round corners on all pictures.
18. Stamp Handmade By Christie on back. 

Yeah, I went a little crazy again. 

Here is the inside of the card. I used these three different pictures of us that we took while on vacation in the Gulf Shores. 

Here is the back with my special 

"Holiday Card" stamp.

And I made 60 of them. Yes, 60. 

Thanks for visiting me!

Super Easy Holiday Wall Art

So last week I was sitting in the doctor's office waiting room (just a check-up), when I picked up a copy of Southern Living magazine. I've never really looked at this magazine, but as I was perusing through it I came across the cutest idea.  Now I have looked all over their website for the instructions but I can't find them anywhere. And I didn't want to buy the magazine, so I just decided to improvise from my memory to make it. 

These are the supplies you will need. Three embroidery hoops (I have one 10" and two 14" hoops, orange felt, some buttons, scissors, hot glue gun, a scarf, and some fabric. I happened to have an old sweater set that was in my "to be donated/garage sale box" that I used. So this whole project cost me $5.16 for the 3 hoops and piece of orange felt since I already had everything else. Can you guess what I'm making? 

Lay your hoop over your fabric of choice

 and cut it out. 

You will end up with your three hoops

 looking like this.

Next I cut a long triangle out of the felt. 

To keep the edges of my fabric from fraying and showing, I hot glued them to the hoop. 

So your three hoops end up looking like this. 

Then lay out your face on the smallest hoop 

and hot glue them down.

 This is a no sewing project which I love!

Then hang the hoops up on the wall and you have a 3-dimensional snow man! 

I tried to use the wacky tac stuff to hang my hoops but it would not hold the larger hoops. I ended up just using a straight pen. For the scarf I hung it on one of those 3m hooks and then used a few straight pens to anchor it better too. 

Here is a side view. Now you could paint the hoops white if you wanted, but I like the look of them as they came. I added the vinyl hat and snowflakes. I cut the hat by hand, and used my Cricut for the snowflakes. 

The project was super fast to do. The actual snowman probably only took me a little over an hour to put together. The only thing I would have liked differently is to have the middle circle smaller than the bottom one. When I went to buy the hoops at Michaels, they didn't have any of the 12" size in stock. And I didn't want to drive all over the place for that size, so I just went with what they had. 

I hope you like my super, fast, easy, (inexpensive) Holiday wall art project!  Thanks again for visiting me! 

Scrapbookers are the Nicest People

They are. Really.

I have been fortunate to meet the nicest people through my hobby. Most of them I have met online. Now people not familiar with the online scrapbook community might think it is a little strange. I can assure that it is not.
For one example, remember my post about my December Daily from last year that I finally finished but was missing the size of Owires I needed to bind it? I posted that and within 30 minutes had someone offer to send me the size I needed. And within a week, Marcia from OH, had sent me exactly what I needed. That sort of thing happens all of the time. You post on a message board that you have been looking for X and can't find it, and you will have tons of people looking for you at their local scrapbook stores. Sometimes I think it is a contest to see who can find it first and get it sent off to the lucky recipient.

All of this takes me to today. A few years ago, I got to meet Nikki. We had met online on the Creating Keepsakes Message Board. She is from Springfield, MO and since I live in St. Louis, we decided to meet up at one of their local conventions. First time we met was in Kansas City and then at the convention here in St. Louis. There was actually a total of four of us that met up. We took some classes together and even went out to dinner.

Well about a year ago, Nikki decided to start up her own scrapbook company, Nikki Sivils Scrapbooking. I was so lucky to get to see her lines when she was developing them back in April at the St. Louis CK convention. She has some really cute lines!

And today I get this box full of her products. She sent me a kit to make an adorable Christmas Album. How awesome is that!?  About a week ago, she emailed me and said she wanted to RAK (Random Act of Kindness) me something. I can't believe all of the goodies she sent me. I can not wait to make this album!

And isn't this pen of her mascot, Willie-Bee, just the cutest?! Love it!

So THANK YOU NIKKI!!! I love all of it and I am so glad that I got to meet you through this awesome hobby of ours. And I wish you nothing but the biggest success in the new year!

As for my other accomplishment, I got the first batch of my Christmas Cards in the mail today. Yippee! Once I know that most folks have received them I will post the actual card here.

Thanks for visiting me!

Cookie Night with Santa

Last night was Cookies with Santa night at the boy's school. I will be honest and say that I wasn't really wanting to go to this. It was rainy and cold outside. And warm and cozy in our house.  But they wore me down and convinced us to go. And we had a really great time! 

They had crafts for all of the kids to do. This was just one table out of about 10 tables with different craft projects.  

They also had a shopping area. The boys brought their own money and bought gifts. I believe they bought a gift for me, their dad and each other. I told them they had to buy presents first, then they could buy a little something for themselves if they had money left over. They both managed to have a little money left over to get themselves a little something. :-) (They get that honestly from both their mother and father!)

Then we wrote some letters to Santa and went to see the big guy. Connor has been having a difficult time coming up with something to ask Santa for. Here he is thinking about it. 

And thinking about it some more. 

Aha! Something finally came to him! 

Spencer jumped in there for a quick picture and to tell his list. Spencer has no problem coming up with lots of ideas for Santa! 

Then it was off to decorate cookies. 

Spencer came up with quite a masterpiece!

I'm still working away on my Christmas cards. I took this picture myself with the self-timer today. I thought it turned out pretty good! My goal is to have them all done and ready to be mailed out next Monday. That is my goal!!!


Thanks again for visiting me! 

My Comments Came Back!

I was just looking over my blog here, trying to think of something else to post, when I noticed all the comments carried over from my old blog! I thought they were all gone. Well, they were all gone for about a week when I changed the name. How weird.......I'm just going to go with the idea that this was a Blogger Christmas miracle. Yea, I know that is a stretch but I'm trying to keep it with the season. :-)

I am actually doing a lot of creating. It just happens to be on my Christmas cards. And if I post them before they go postal it will spoil the surprise.

So I got nothing for you today. Nothing but my Blogger Christmas miracle. ;-)

Thanks for visiting.