I hope everyone had a Very Merry Christmas!  We celebrated a couple of days before Christmas with our kids since we rotate each year so they will have time to celebrate on Christmas with their in-laws.  I am grateful that we did since we had a Nor'easter on Christmas Day!

I did want to share the Birthday card I made for my brother-in-law! I saw this on Pinterest and had to copy it for him since he is so handy around the house.  My sister, Connie, always has him doing projects around their house.  I thought this card was perfect for Russ!

The picture below is another picture of our Christmas cards this year! It is a diorama card that is much fun to make!  Each card was a little different.  I showed some others in a previous post. 

My husband and I have decided to spend some time in Florida this year.  We are very grateful that one of our kids can stay in our house to watch and make sure all is well.  I have to say I was a little hesitant with the idea of going but I am up for it now.   The temperature is supposed to be below zero with the wind chill for the next week!  Florida here we come!  I do plan on posting on my blog from Florida since we will be taking our laptop with us.  I am also bringing some "stuff" from my craft room!  I thought I would end this post with some of my favorite pictures from Christmas!  Hope everyone has a very Happy New Year!

Making Clam Dip with Papa

Our Grandkids!  They get along so well!

Everett & Mom

Ezra and Papa snowblowing!

                                                                                                                 

Christmas Cookies

This year I am trying my hand at decorating Christmas Cookies!  I love practicing all the different designs.  The snowflake cookies above are Stain Glass cookies.  You can put Jolly Roger candies in the middle and once cooked - they melt into a stain glass look.  

The cookies are iced with Royal Icing.  Such fun to pipe the outline and then flood the centers.  I used red sprinkles on the stockings since I couldn't quite get a really red color from the food coloring.  The sprinkles really covered the cookie well. 

The Santa cookies are my favorite.  I love the size and their shape.  

I really need to practice on the design for the Santa!   You can see... I forgot the eyebrows!  I think this is going to become a fun hobby!  My husband likes it because he gets homemade cookies!

I thought I would share a couple of Christmas decorations we have at our house. We put the stockings up every year.  This year the kids are coming the Saturday before Christmas so I have to get going on my gift wrapping.  Next year we will have them on Christmas Day!

This is what you see as you enter the house.  

I just love Nutcrackers!  This is in the entry way too!

Here is the decoration on our front porch!  You can't tell from this picture- but we have lights strung on the ladder so you can see it at night. 

My hubby cut up the birch logs that fell in our woods in the last wind storm.  I love how this centerpiece came out.  They look fabulous at night with the tea lights on.  I am going to make another batch of Christmas cookies for Christmas day and finish wrapping our gifts.  I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!!

Mini Coffee Cup Tote

I love Dawn's tutorial for the Mini Coffee Cup tote!   I made these at Halloween and my friends loved them.  So I thought I would make some for Christmas!  They hold a good amount of candy or you can fill it with a cocoa packet and some marshmallows.

You can see from the picture I made a few!  I thought my former co-workers would like them and our hairdresser and well just about anyone!

I made some with big bows on the top.  There are a couple that are just totes and don't have any bows.  I really love making these too!!

Dawn does a fabulous job of explaining how to make these totes!  Here is her link-

https://dawnsstampingthoughts.net/2017/08/double-mini-coffee-cup-holder-video.html

Still working on projects for our Christmas stockings.  I will have to post pictures when those are done.  We had our first snowfall today.   !  It is so pretty - I don't even mind it.  Have a fabulous afternoon!

Christmas Cards 2017

This year's Christmas Card is a diorama card or Shadow Box card.  I love the 3D look in these cards!  I used many dies to make the scene- Lawn Fawn for the snowy hills, Memory box for the deer and Marianne Designs for the trees and houses.

I saw many tutorials on Pinterest that inspired me to make this card.  The link below shows a similar card but I made my own sized card and had several tiers to my card.   But this link gives you the idea of how it is made-

https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/linda-higgins-3178866/snowy-christmas-diorama-card-5952417701

The nice thing about these cards is that they can all be different.  I used different backgrounds and even a little different scenes.  There are 30 cards and at the end I didn't have any farm house in the scene or trees on the outside of the card.  

You can see that the top is open and that this card will collapse so that you can mail it!

 Many different paper collections were used for these cards-from Graphic 45 to Stampin Up.  I used some Washi Tape to decorate the envelope too!  This year's cards are done!  Onto more projects!

Baby Shower

Yesterday was my niece's baby shower!  Emma & Dylan are expecting a little girl in January!  My sister's and I were thrilled to be able to help out with the shower invitations!   We used the Sizzix Fold Along owl die.  I think they were so cute!

We help make the party favors too!  These little baby carriages are adorable! We made about 30 of them.  I think the lace edging really added to these buggies.

 We used the template from Niki Estes blog site.  I was able to match the circles with some of the dies I have so we didn't have to cut everything by hand.  You can find the link to the template here-

http://nikiestes.typepad.com/my_paper_creations/2010/01/inside-out-baby.html

Here's what the fleet of carriages looked like at the shower!  They really hold a lot of candy too!

My "thing" is Papercrafting!  I look at each card as a gift of art!  But I have been seeing some pretty amazing decorated cookies on Pinterest lately and I wanted to give it a try! I think cookies can be a little gift of art too.  Well, not sure mine are yet but I am hoping with a little more practice ...mine might be too....Here are some pictures of the process.

 I cooked up a batch of onesies and bottles. This part of the process was fairly easy! I didn't thing decorating them would be too hard.

Next came the icing.  I used a recipe for Royal Icing.  I watched many videos and searched tons of blogs- there are many recipes for Royal Icing but I settled on one that used Meringue Powder.  It was surprisingly good.  I added the dots to the onesies using the Wet on Wet technique.  I am already talking like a cookie baker!!

The most fun was decorating these guys!  I need to practice some more!!  You really need a steady hand.   I am thinking I will give Christmas cookies a try!

Here is what the cookies looked like at the shower.  It took me quite awhile to decorate them but it was fun!  I didn't think they came out too bad for my first time!

But nothing can compare to this beautiful cake!  Dylan's Mom had a friend who made it for her!  So cute!!

Just a couple more pictures of the shower!  It really was a fun time!  I can't wait to say hello to Emma & Dylan's little one.  We were all so happy to be a part of this fun celebration!

Birthday Panda

This week I mailed off a Birthday card to someone I thought would love this little Panda Bear!  I just bought the die by Marianne Designs.  It can also make into a little Brown bear.  I think it is just adorable.  You can make it stand up or sit down.  How cute!

This is a Tri Fold card but it still closes up and can be mailed.  I just love this little guy!

I didn't decorate the back much but it has plenty of room if you want to add more to it!  Today I have been making my Lemon Icebox cake and Corn Scallop Casserole for tomorrow's Thanksgiving.  Our family is getting together at my sister's house!  I am looking forward to seeing everyone!  This is a short post but I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Scene Stepper Card

I love this type of fold for a Christmas Card!  I saw pictures on Pinterest of the Scene Stepper card from Tattered Lace.  They sell a fabulous die that will make this card but it is sold out everywhere.  So I was very happy when I found Ruth's blog that had a similar card and she gave out a template!  Her card is so adorable!  Her template is in centimeters so I googled a site that will convert centimeters to inches.  The only change I made was when I scored the fold for the "floor" of the card - I scored it at 1.25 inches from the bottom of the card.  But you can make the floor higher up if you want.  

I used lots of shiny paper on this card!  The back ground of the scene is a very shiny star (holographic?) filled paper!  The floor is a silver glitter paper and I added glitter to the snow flakes.  I decorated the card with Graphic 45 paper and used several sheets using different green tones. 

This really is a fun card to make!  The link to Ruth's blog is below!  I was so happy to find it! Thank you, Ruth!

http://apassionforcards.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/dance-stage-card-tutorial.html

I have been busy making our Christmas cards for this year!  But I wanted to give our Grandson, Everett, an Advent Calendar this year.  He is 3 years old and when our other Grandson - Ezra was 3 , we gave him an Advent Calendar and his mother is still using it!  This year the calendar is shaped like a house. 

Again, I used Graphic 45 paper to decorate.  I love how it turned out.  It is a little bit of work to cover all the boxes with cardstock but worth it when you take the final look.  Now, we are trying to find things to put in the little boxes- AND I do mean little.  I carry one of the boxes with me so I can size up whether the item will fit.  

I found the Carolers and the tree at Michael's.   After I adhere them to the base - I may use some faux snow to put around their feet.   I made the wreath out of some boxwood I found at Michael's.  It really has been a fun project. 

I should mention that when we buy something that won't fit it in the little box- we put it in the drawstring bags you seen in lower left corner of picture.  The bags will have a number on it and we will put a note in the box that says - "Open bag number 1" or something like that.  The little Gingerbread peeps are one example.   I have found mini animals and some finger puppets that will work.  I didn't want the boxes to just have candy.   

Today is really cold!  Winter is here and I am so missing the warm weather we have had ...even in October!  But the holidays are coming and I love getting ready for them. Thanksgiving is just around the corner!  I think I will take out my Santa collection.  I know it's still early but I want to enjoy them for as long as I can.

  Hope everyone will have a fabulous day!!