Christmas Crackers

Hello! 

Can you believe Christmas is almost here?!  Every year for our Christmas dinner, we have Christmas crackers, and this year, I decided to make them!  I had a lot of fun doing this and am pretty sure they'll be functional when the big moment comes to pull them apart. 

Here they are! 

It really wasn't too hard to make them, especially since I used the Favor It Box 8 die from PTI.  You can, however, make crackers without a die by using toilet paper rolls and wrapping paper.  For this project, I used Lily Bee paper (Christmas cheer) and die cut all my pieces at once to make for easy assembling. 

Once everything was cut out, I glued all the pieces together, including the snapper.  Here are all the little goodies I stuffed the crackers with (chocolates, candies, gold crowns, jokes, and a little key chain (not pictured): 

And voila!  I tied the ends together with some red ribbon and cut off the extra snapper ends.  Here are all 9 of them that I made: 

And one individually: 

And there you have it!  Homemade, functional Christmas crackers!  

I'm going to enter this into the Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Anything Christmassy. 

And the Paper Crafts December 2012 Gallery Challenge. 

Thanks for visiting today! 

-Lizzy 

Santa Card

Hi Everyone! 

Can you believe it's almost Christmas??  This year has just flown by, but, before it was over, I wanted to make another Christmas card!  I thought I would try for a clean and simple look and enter it into this weeks CAS-ual Fridays Challenge: create a clean and simple project in less than 10 minutes!  You read correctly-- 10 minutes!  They've teamed up with the 10-minute craft dash for this fun challenge! 

 Okay here's how it went: 

I had the idea for the card in my head and gathered all my supplies... and it took be 9 minutes and 32 seconds!  Whew!  Just under 10 minutes! 

I used the Believe stamp set from PTI for the santa and little dove (plus the matching dies) and Think Big Favorites #20 stamp set for the sentiment.  I die cut the santa and the dove on white card stock and colored both with copics.  I also added some white enamel accents to Santa's trim-- see: 

The sentiment is stamped in gumball green ink (SU) and I finished the card by rounding the corners at the top. 

I'm also entering it into the Paper Crafts December 2012 Gallery Challenge on Flickr. 

That's it for me today!  I'm off to make some Christmas poppers, which I'll share probably tomorrow on the blog.  Thanks for stopping by! 

-Lizzy 

Christmas Shaker Card

Hello! 

Today I wanted to squeeze in one more Christmas card before the Young Crafters Unite challenge ended tonight. 

Today I made my first shaker card.  I've been wanting to try to make one for a while now, but I don't have a die cutting machine.  I know what you're thinking-- "but I've seen you use die cuts before..."  And while you're correct in that observation, I've done it by borrowing my mom's machine.  For today though, my sweet friend let me borrow her big shot for a few days... yippee!  So, naturally, I needed to make a shaker card while I had the opportunity!

This was super fun to make and, actually, not too hard either!  I used Lawn Fawn's Winter Bunny, Sweet Christmas (trees), and Let it Snow (sentiment) to make the card.  I colored the bunny with copics and added xmas red stickles to his scarf.  The trees are paper pieced.  I used patterned paper for the background and some white paper to make hills.  The hills are lined with crystal ice stickles.  See how sparkly everything is? 

Here's are some pictures of the shaker in action: 

The sentiment is stamped in gumball green ink (SU) and I used some lawn trimmings to "tie' the sentiment to the card. 

I'm also going to enter the card in the Paper Crafts December 2012 Gallery Challenge. 

Here's one last photo: 

That's it for me today!  Thanks for visiting my blog today!  

-Lizzy

So Very Proud!

Hi Everyone! 

Today our house is full of super exciting news!!  My husband is currently a 4th year medical student and, since he joined the Army, he'll be doing an Army residency.  Which brings me to the exciting news-- today is military match day, which means he finds out where he'll be doing residency, and, more importantly for me, where we'll be moving!  Needless to say, he matched into a general surgery residency and we couldn't be happier! 

In order to celebrate the occasion, I made him this little box:

I started by making a cute 3x3x1 box out of some pretty turquoise paper.  I then decorated the top of the box with Dewey Decimal paper by Lawn Fawn.  I thought this was so perfect for a school related gift!  At my local craft store, I found these cute doctor-themed embellishments, so I added the stethoscope and some Metzenbaum scissors to the top.  So cute, right? 

I used Smitty's ABCs for both the front and the inside sentiment: 

I also added some little pill bottles that were in the embellishments package-- so fun!  The sides of the box are decorated with the interlocking backdrops stamped in some pool ink.  Inside the box is a surgeon's cap, so he can wear his alma mater with pride!  Hooray! 

Thanks for visiting today!! 

-Lizzy 

SPARKS Challenge

Hi again! 

I guess I'm making up for lost time, but I wanted to make one more card today in order to enter the Paper Smooches SPARKS Challenge, which is a "Designer Drafts" challenge.  

Here's the sketch we're working from: 

Here's my take on it: 

This card was a lot of fun to make!  For the pattered paper I used a 6x6 paper pack (Amy Tangerine sketchbook) by American Crafts, which is full of bright, happy colors!  It was perfect to match with this adorable frog from the Paper Smooches stamp set "a little lovin."  The sentiment is from the same set.  The word bubble and exclamation point are from the Lawn Fawn set "a birdie told me."  For the background, I used my impression obsession "spatter" stamp, which I inked up with picked raspberry distress ink-- LOVE that color!  Lastly, I added ice stickles (gold and crystal ice) to the crown and exclamation point.  I really like this type of stickles because it uses larger glitter bits, which I think I like a tad better-- more sparkly!  Not sure if you can tell in the picture...but trust me, it's true!

That's my card for the Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge! 

Thanks for visiting! 

-Lizzy 

Color Challenge

Hi Everyone! 

Rest assured, I'm still alive!  *whew*  In case you were wondering, it's the end of the semester and I've been quite busy finishing up course work.  Hooray for winter break!  

Todays card is for the Lawnscaping challenge: color, in which one can only use turquoise, kraft, and red on the project. 

Here's my take on it: 

I used the Lawn Fawn sets Cozy Christmas and Sweet Christmas.  The fireplace and sentiment are embossed in black and the candy cane posts are embossed in white.  I colored the inside of the candy canes with a red copic marker and a white gel pen.  The stockings are colored with copics.  Lastly, I added some red baker's twine to "tie" the sentiment to the posts.  Some cookies and a letter to Santa finish off the card!  

I'm also going to enter it into this month's young crafters unite challenge #16: Happy Holidays. 

That's it for today!  Thanks for visiting :) 

-Lizzy 

Organizing

Happy Weekend, Everyone! 

Today I'm plum out of ideas, so I thought I would spend some time organizing my distress inks.  I've been putting it off, mostly because it seemed a bit tedious and a lot boring, but I'm happy that it's done now.  Ta-da...! 

Okay, so maybe it doesn't deserve a "ta-da" but at least it's nice to look at!  I think a lot of other people probably have their inks labeled in a similar manner, but in case you were wondering how I did it, here's how: 

I used some scrap white cardstock and stamped a solid image in each ink color.  Incidentally, I was rather surprised to find that most of my stamps are line images, so I made do by inking half of one of the trees from the Lawn Fawn set Let It Snow.  I then punched each color out using my Martha Stewart heart punch and set them aside.  I then typed all the color names in a word document, printed it out, cut the names apart, and taped the name and coordinating heart to the side of the ink pad.  Easy-peesy!  

Alright, so this wasn't the most exciting post, but at least Audie was happy...

He loves scrap paper... om-nom-nom!  

Anyways, that's all for me today!  Hope you're having a relaxing weekend!  Thanks for visiting today! 

-Lizzy