Merry Christmas!!!

Wow! Where has this month gone???
It's been a whirlwind of choir performances, school plays, and big school projects mixed in with all of the fun activities of Christmas. Its been a lot of fun, but I find I really would like a few more days of just some down time to enjoy and savor everything. So, I've made a few decisions, that I will implement this season:

1) I still have the Macy's Thanksgiving parade saved on Tivo (love that little machine!). So, along with some of the old Christmas movies, I will watch them between Christmas and New Year's when things seem to wind down just a bit.

2)I will start making some of the Christmas projects for next season NOW! It never fails, how I can be in the middle of a project, only to be inspired by "something better." Then, I feel overwhelmed to try to do it all. I will still "do it all," but will stash them away for next year. This way, I can enjoy the project and have it done way super early. So, we'll see how that goes. :)

3)Christmas cards will just go out sometime between Christmas and New Year's. That is just one thing I will not stress about any longer. I cherish the cards that my family receives, and I'm so happy to hear from our family and friends. I will enjoy this at any time of the year, and I hope they do too.

So, that is the list for now. :)

These are some fun little ornaments I made this year. It's such a neat little project in that I was able to "custom color" them to fit my friend's Christmas tree color schemes. These little shadow box ornaments were made with the Tattered Angels Framed Fonts Glimmer Chip frames, and with little paper mache boxes I found at Hobby Lobby. Within the little paper mache box, I layered the images and background papers, and glittered the interior sides. I then glittered the chip frame, and adhered it to the box. My favorite thing is to add all of the little embellishment finishes, such as baby pinecones, ribbons, gems, and ruffles.

How fun is this????
Just makes you want to jump right in and get crafty!



All of these fun supplies became jingly Christmas door hangers:





I hope you have a truly wonderful, magical Christmas!!!

Candy Calendars

Its Candy Calendar time again! This year, I made 12 of these-pink for the girls and blue for the boys. To make them extra sparkly, I used Glimmer Mist and Winter Crystal Glimmer Screens. Really fun and festive. For most days, I placed a coin and a piece of candy, and on a few of the days a small toy. Christmas is a homemade "cracker" in which I put a few dollars. All the sparkles look like Sugarplums. :) I really enjoy making these, and making each day leading to Christmas special. I especially enjoy carrying on a family tradition, as my great aunt made these for my brother and I every year. As we lived on opposite coasts, we didn't get to see her very often, but we always looked forward to getting these. Now, I can really appreciate the love she put into these each year.

Here is a close-up of the girls':

And, boys':

Close up of the Glimmer Misted snowflakes:



Enjoy each day of the holiday season, and make it special!

Michelle

Fa La La La La

This weekend was super productive! Had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family, and actually was able to sit down and watch most of the parade. Some day I will see that parade in person! :) Only a very small portion of the weekend was spent shopping, the rest was spent majorly cleaning out the house and preparing for Christmas decorating. After a few hours, I can now enjoy the Christmas tree. I love seeing all of my Shiny Brites and bubble lights each year. And, you can never have too much garland and tinsel. This picture does not do the tree justice-all 9 feet of this tree just sparkles! I especially love our little angel topper, made by my daughter Meghan in second grade. Family trees are fun!


After all the decorating, we decided to jump into holiday baking and make some sweet little gingerbread men...


You can never have too many decorations on your gingerbread man...



Hmmmm, I wonder how many of these decorations ended up in baker's tummies???

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and maximize all of the special little moments this holiday season.

Michelle

Happy Halloween Season!

I've been a bad blogger, but I couldn't resist posting what I've been making for the Halloween Season. And yes, it is an entire season in my house-not just a single day. :) This is a fun wooden shadow box that I found. I first painted it black, then sprayed it with a bit of Cinder Glimmer Mist. I put a vintage Bingo card as the background, and layered it with Vintage images and a trimmed out stamped tree using Tattered Angels' new Halloween Hauntings stamp set. The Spooky title is a fun little find from Hobby Lobby for a couple dollars. I have this shadow box displayed with all of my vintage Halloween decorations. It's a perfect fit!





Happy Halloween!
Michelle

Butterfly Card

I am so in love with this beautiful line from Fiskars' Kimberly Poloson called Nature's Flora. It's just stunning. I especially love how some of the papers are embossed. You can further tint with Glimmer Mist, and just wipe the mist off the embossed areas, and still get the shimmer-great resist method. This line also comes with these lovely quotes and other paper diecuts. It made making a gorgeous card super easy. Of course, this card was additionally beautifully enhanced with Tattered Angels Creme de Cocoa Nature Glimmer Glass. I even heated the butterfly and bent the wings so it looks like the butterfly is fluttering in the corner. Did you notice how the magnifying glass is a darker color than the butterfly? I just flipped it over! You can get two different looks in one piece. The magnifying glass is a great frame for the beautiful butterfly sticker.

Be sure to check out the Tattered Angels blog for the month of July-some amazing Giveaways are taking place, and you don't want to miss out! Plus, the Design Team is posting some great sneak peeks of the new product line. You will not be disappointed-this is our best EVER!

Tattered Angels/Cosmo Cricket Blog Relay

I am so excited to have Tattered Angels team up with Cosmo Cricket-what fun products they have! And, they look great with Tattered Angels products. This was really a quick tag card I made using Cosmo Cricket's Girl Friday line. To add some shimmer, I first Glimmer Misted the lined paper with Sea Glass, and spread it evenly with a paper towel. As that is very similar to the original color of the paper, it simply added some glimmer and a bit of shading in areas. To bring out the embossing of the Glimmer Chip, this one found in the Nature Embossed line, I lightly rubbed an ink pad across the top. Quick Quotes Powder Puffs are perfect for bringing out the embossing-no goopiness! (If that's a word). The flower was lightly sprayed with Sea Glass too to add some shimmer. Love the yarn ribbon. Remember those in grade school? You could buy a bunch of them in the hair aisle to top off your ponytails!

After warming up with the card, I moved onto a Glimmer Glass album. The Girl Friday line works great with the Tattered Angels Glimmer Glass window album! If you're familiar with this album, you'll know that there is a die cut butterfly in the cover of the book. For this cover, I simply covered over the butterfly-however, it is visible on the other side, and looks great. Just another way to use your album.

Here it is on the inside of the cover-even sprayed with Glimmer Mist. The inside cover was also sprayed with a combo of Patina and Sea Glass. The Framed Font pocket watch chip was sprayed with Pink Bubblegum. I'm enjoying Cosmo Cricket's ribbon that coordinates with this line...

Another tag located in the book:

Now this is a fun page... First, I used the Tattered Angels compass Glimmer Screen as the background. Really quick and simple. Then, I adhered a cute pocket which I cut from a child's pair of shorts. Re-purpose those cute kids/baby clothes! This will be a great pocket to hold little trinkets and bits of memories to include in the album, but for now, it's holding another Framed Font chip.

And, one last page, using the butterfly Glimmer Screen on the Bingo card, and accented with Glimmer Glass and a Cosmo Cricket sticker (again part of the Girl Friday line). The Chocolat butterfly chip was sprayed like a rainbow-love the control of Glimmer Mist! Then, for extra pop, I trimmed with Stickles.




Thanks to Cosmo Cricket for sharing their fun products with us! Be sure to check out Tattered Angels' Giveaway for your chance to win some great TA and Cosmo Cricket products. More projects using Tattered Angels and Cosmo Cricket can be found on these sites:

TODAY May 11: Danielle Layton, Maren Benedict, Michelle Jackson, Sally Lynn MacDonald*
May 18: Melissa Phillips, Michelle Van Etten, Yukari Takanashi
May 25: Debbie Olsen, Leah Killian, Liz Hicks, Vicki Chrisman

Tattered Angels website
Tattered Angels blog

Cosmo Cricket website
Cosmo Cricket blog

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day!!

After a few days of rain (which I totally loved!), the family went out and did a ton of yard work. Our 1 year old indoor cat Punkin got a little overzealous with his outside adventures however. Don't worry, he did get down. Just in time before the rain moved in again. Which worked just fine, because after yard work, I moved down into cleaning out the craft room. And, we're talking heavy duty organizing. What a wonderful feeling it is having that under control! I wonder how long that will last????

So, with this new clean craft room, I, of course, had to craft! So, here's a couple of cards I put together:

Love the Prima flowers. This one looks great nestled in the middle of the Creme de Cocoa Glimmer Chip.


No Glimmer Mist on this one, but I made up for it on the second card...

On this card, I used both Patina and Sweet Pea Glimmer Mist. I created a bit of a shadow effect by first placing the Flights of Fancy Glimmer Screen on the patterned paper, and spraying with Patina. Using the same Screen, I wiped it off and then sprayed with Sweet Pea, then "stamped" the image onto a piece of white cardstock. Once dry, I lightly sprayed Patina across the top, then cut the bird out. I added some feathers to the back of the tail for extra interest and detailed with Stickles. I then used dimensional adhesive dots and positioned the bird over it's " shadow." I backed the whole cardfront onto pink cardstock. This card is a bit larger measuring 6x6.

Can't wait to get back in my clean (for now) craftroom!