New Year's Centerpiece

Hi all! Are you counting down to the New Year yet? We are having a very low-key New Year's this year, but the boys and I still get a kick out of silly hats and noisemakers (ok, really it's me, *I* love them!) ;) Haha! My husband and children merely tolerate (and humor) my need for party supplies! LOL Anyway, I think when I was showing you my Christmas decorations a few days ago, I showed this silver tin filled with glittery silver and gold ornaments?  On the right there, in the photo below...

In thinking about it, I realized that this would be a GREAT New Year's centerpiece, with just a small addition.... I cut out the numbers on my Cricut with silver paper. I die cut some of those COOL star rosettes (TCP) from gold paper, without making them into rosettes, left them flat. I punched some stars and circles to accent. Then I attached some skewers to the backs of them with tape, and finally punched silver circles to cover the tape from the back. A gold New Year's tiara finishes off the centerpiece nicely. I even cut out a "4" so I can alter this for next year. ;) Happy New Year to you and yours!

xo, Noelle

Top 12 of 2012

Hi all! I have noticed other bloggers doing a "Top 12" post, and I thought it would be fun for me to look back over the last year... Here's my fave picks... :)

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

I will be back on New Years day with two NEW fun projects for you, new projects for a new year! ;)

Hugs, Noelle

Blog Candy WINNER!

Hi all! Sorry for the delay, but I do have a winner for you! 

The winner of this Blog Candy Prize Package is #1 Nikki who said:

"Hi Noelle

I love to create fancy tags for my presents and add on little handmade ornaments for friends. It's something different but always has that Vintage feeling. But I do create cards and bake up a storm for my friends :)
thank you for the chance 
hugs Nikki C"

Nikki, I sent you an email to set up me getting this shipped to you. Many congratulations! 

I hope everyone had a fabulous holiday and are getting back into the swing of life after Christmas. Be back soon with something fun to show you! 

Hugs, Noelle

Merry Christmas 2012! (CQC #169)

Merry Christmas blog friends! I hope you are celebrating with your families (that is, if you celebrate Christmas...) and if not, I wish you a lovely day. Today is my birthday, too. I am 38 today! I am so excited for the day, and to spend it with my family. I do have a card for you, and you could get a late Christmas present FROM me, if you enter my Blog Candy Giveaway. So, go check it out and I could be sending you a gift for my birthday! :)

I am also celebrating something else today, a return to the ColourQ DT! I am so grateful for all the ladies there being so understanding about my little break. And I have missed it so much! Glad to be back with this Christmasey palette, but if you are TOTALLY OVER holiday cards at this point, I just know you could make this into a pretty floral project, or a fun modern card, too. :)

I always love cards that I see made with these fun chipboard pieces, though I normally use chipboard for scrapping with, so I decided that would be a fun card to make, and it was!

I just kind of threw this together, no rhyme or reason, no sketch... I used the "Dec. 25" stamp I have from Paper Smooches, and the Crate Paper chipboard pieces, a Puffies tree, some washi tape, a Martha Stewart/Avery Kraft label, and a plastic snowflake + some bling. A very scrappy/collagey card!

I accented Santa's belt with another chipboard piece and some bakers twine.

I wish you the merriest of Christmases, and I will see you tomorrow with the blog candy WINNER announcement! :)

Holiday Hugs, Noelle

Christmas Decor 2012

Hi there! I promised I'd snap a few Christmas Decor photos, and I finally did! This is the first year I have separated the adult and kid stockings, and I'm not sure I like it.  I think I prefer the more evenly spaced look I did last year, here is last year's picture:

Part of my hesitation taking photos was that we recently took our TV out of the right hand alcove (below) there where you see the star now. So, it was a very EMPTY alcove for a while, until I got a few things to put in there! 

I'm going to link you up to last year's holiday decorating post, because not much changed this year. Today I just have a few pics of new ideas, or things I didn't show you last year. On the mantel wall, above, I used to have the gold grapevine deer in the left alcove, but the new things I ended up getting looked far better on the left side for some reason. 

These are the new items I picked up this year.
Hobby Lobby has everything Christmas half off already!
I wanted to keep with the gold and silver colors that
I used on the mantel and in the other alcove.
I found a silver bucket that I filled with silver and gold glittery ornaments,
and some silver branches. I love snowflakes, and I thought this big glitzy one
on a stand was pretty cool.
The candle ring was a great accent to bring more of the gold color in on this side.

This side has the gold barn star my Mom bought me a few years ago
and the gold reindeer.I got the stocking holders for my dogs' stockings
last year at 75% off after Christmas. Now I just need to add their photos
 to the little frames! A gold pillar stand makes a great accent,
and I added one of my jar candles above the cat's stocking. 

Here is a shot of the top of the fridge display. I think I missed showing you that last year. I really love the little snowman fondue set in the middle, my Mom bought him for me too. :)

and here is my new/old pantry door area all Christmas-ified. All things I already had, that cute snowman on the door was a gift from a friend last year :)

and that is all for me today! Hope your holiday season is going really well so far! Don't forget that, if you're a follower of this blog, you can comment to win my Christmas Blog Candy! :)

Holiday Hugs, Noelle

Outreach for Sandy Hook Elementary School

Hi all, I just wanted to share about the wonderful outreach that Amber from Damask Love is putting together to benefit the survivors from the Newtown, CT shooting. It has been so sad for me to think about all those kids and how they must be feeling this holiday season. Rebecca talked about this wonderful opportunity here at CraftStorageIdeas.com. Amber is asking for supplies to put together craft kits for the students from Sandy Hook. However, if like me, you don't have any of those new supplies on hand, and the idea of making another shopping run and/or trip to the post office is exhausting, the outreach also accepts donations (through PayPal, you get a donation receipt), this is what I did, it took like 2 minutes, and then Amber can get excatly what she wants for the kits. Another option is to just send a handmade card. You know you might have a few of those hanging around! ;)

I also have heard of the Snowflake project for the school. The kids will come back after the Winter Break to a different building in a neighboring town, and the PTO wants to make the new school look like a Winter Wonderland. The snowflakes need to be there by January 12, so I think my kids and I will be making some of these after Christmas. :) I know my son's class made some already.

I just wanted to put this info out there, just in case you are feeling as helpless as we are this holiday season about the terrible loss that community and those families have suffered.

There are all things that crafty types like us can do easily.

Much love, Noelle

CAS Let It Snow (CQC168)

Hi all! Weirdly enough I don't have a lot planned for this upcoming weekend, and we have a very low-key Christmas planned, I am really looking forward to it. I had time to make this card tonight, and even though my studio is a disaster, this didn't take many supplies. ;)

I really wanted to use this gorgeous palette that Arielle came up with for ColourQ #168, I just LOVE these colors, and the two reds add such a cool sophistication to this. :) This card was inspired by this awesome card that I first found on Pinterest. I am thrilled to get in one more ColourQ before the year is out (even though I am on a little break, I really miss it!) I look forward to being back full time DT for ColourQ in 2013! :)

I thought I'd challenge myself to make a ONE LAYER, clean and simple card with not even a scrap of patterned paper... I know this is really outside my box! But it is good for me! Of course, I did end up adding some gems and that one snowflake accent, I just couldn't help myself, but I thought keeping it to one layer of cardstock was good.

So, I used my ruler to draw the lines with my Cherry Cobbler pen, then chose 4 different snowflake stamps (2 are SU!, one is TCP, and one is generic....) and I stamped them down, masking off the sides with a piece of scrap paper.

Then I added the sentiment. At first I just had the first "let it snow" in red, and I decided it needed just a smidge "more" so then I added the blue and kraft ones. I accented the sentiment with blue, red, and clear gems. (yes the bottom gem is red, as are the ones accenting that little plastic snowflake, but they are dark red-like a Cherry Cobbler, and didn't shoot well... so just FYI).

Well, I hope you like my CAS snowy card! I hope you can come play along at ColourQ, no matter how crazy your weekend is, you could use some craft therapy, and this is such a great and versatile palette to work with! :)

Holiday Hugs, Noelle

PS: Don't forget about my blog candy giveaway! There is a link on the top of the sidebar :)

Holiday Teacher Gifties 2012

Hi all! I have my shopping done, my shipping done, and my wrapping done too. It's been a chaotic few weeks, but I'm finally getting there, the Christmas cards have also been mailed! Woot woot! My kids are getting off school soon and I'll be really glad to have them home. :) We are going to do some baking and have some holiday fun. Later this week I am going out with a friend to celebrate my birthday (in case you are a new reader, I have a Christmas Day birthday, so I get to celebrate all month long, and sometimes even into January!) so it's a good week, in spite of all the sadness in the world. All we can do are count our blessings, you know?

I did want to share the teacher gifts I made this year for the boys teachers, and a few of the office staff. We had a problem earlier this year, and our school (which we have always loved) was so wonderful in helping us to right a particular situation, so I wanted to say thanks to some of the sweet office ladies who went out of their way to help us.

I like to give gift cards, and am always looking for a new and interesting way to give them outside of sticking them in a boring old envelope! You might remember some past ways I have done this, once in a Candy Bar slider, and once hanging from a bottle of hand soap. This year I decided to go with something new....

I bought these mini boxes of chocolate at the grocery store. they were only a dollar, and oh so cute. :) Most of the teachers were getting coffee gift cards, and I just kept thinking what could possibly be better than chocolate and good coffee? :) I figured the dimensions and scored to make an open ended box. To do this, figure out how wide each side is, then add 1/16" to each measurement. Then score at the measurements, and score along where you will fold the bottom. I like to use that super sticky tape with the red backing for boxes, then I KNOW they will stay together and not pop open. :) For you Stampin' Up! aficionados, it's what they call "Sticky Strip."

I wanted a little notch in the open end of the box, to make it easy to pull the candy out. You can see here, how I used a circle punch to do that.

I went to Archiver's this morning, I had my coupons and was looking for some sort of a pocket die to put the gift cards in. Sure enough they had this Quickutz library pocket die, and it was marked 24.99. Well, I'm thinkin' that' s a bit steep for me this time of year, but I had to get these done. Today. So I decided to bite the bullet and get it with my 20% off coupon. As I'm waiting in line, I realize that my coupons are EXPIRED, ugh! So, I'm sitting there debating what to do when it's my turn to go up to the counter. I explained my expired coupons and she said she could probably give me the current coupon. Then she rings it up, and it came up (drum roll please...) SIX DOLLARS and some change! :) Happy craft supply dancing! LOL

So, I added the pocket, some wide ribbon or a strip of paper, a punched snowflake, a metal snowflake, and a little holiday sticker on each one. On the card (part of the die set) I added a punched tab, where I added the name of the recipient. Here's some more pics....

And, a final shot of the whole slew of them... I actually ended up making a few more after these! Once I got going they were pretty easy, and cute! :)

Holiday Hugs, Noelle