Right Now

Here's what I'm doing these days:

-Wrapping gifts
-Creating piles of gifts and cards from my kiddos...I'll put them away and write thank you's after Christmas
-using lots of kleenex with vicks inside...a shocker to the system at first, but helps you breathe
-finishing up my Christmas cards to mail today
-finishing...or trying to..one last hand crafted gift
-trying hard to say "no" to all the sale emails that are arriving in my inbox these days....the scrap sites and kit club sales are the hardest to delete
-eating this yummy greek yogurt with blueberries and honey...how did I not find this sooner?
-working on my Christmas journal...have a few days to get caught up on than I'll post more
-drinking lots of coffee and tea with lemon
-listening to Christmas music in my car...I find it keeps me in a good mood despite all the crazies on the road
-trying not to eat too many of those holiday sweets I've been receiving as gifts

*edited to add that while I was posting this there was a fabulous 50% sale happening at SIS and before I realized I could get my Bind It All for half price, it had already sold out...so SAD!

What are you up to with 5 days left before Christmas?

Pictures pictures pictures

I warned you the next post was going to be picture heavy. I can now get to my office so the scanner and picture files are available to me. The new bathroom floor and counter tops look amazing, but I have yet to clean up the tile guy's mess and we still need to install the sink and toilet, so pictures of that will have to wait. In the mean time, I give you pictures taken this past week.

First up is my 52 Card Scrap Up Week #9...I think. I've lost track of the weeks these days! This week's prompt was from our guest prompter Andrea F., who has been the most timely member of this group in terms of posting her cards! Her prompt was "Christmas Traditions." I of course had to go with stockings, which play a big part in my family's Christmas. I've been playing with felt lately too, so I used some scraps on the front of the card.


Here's the back:


Now for the promised pictures of my tree. I stayed home sick on Monday last week and finished decorating the tree...well, mostly. You'll notice a couple boxes of ornaments under the tree that I slowly added throughout the week. Here's the close up view:

And the wider shot. You can see my angel on the floor under the tree. Unfortunately she's too big for this tree and just looks ridiculous hovering on the top the tree, so I've had to improvise with a glitter star this year.


This year I have participated in two Christmas swaps in scrapbookland. Thursday night I came home to a huge box from my Studio Calico swap partner Keya. She did such a great job with these gifts for me. When I opened the box, I found another box, opened that one and found these cute little wrapped presents. I kind of forgot about wrapping my swap gifts in my rush to package and send things off...I'm such a dork...sorry Keya! Here's the wrapped goodies:


The first box contained a yummy snack, cinnamon trail mix from Whole Foods. I don't know how Keya knew, but I love trail mixes and often buy them when I'm at Whole Foods. I've never had this one though. It might be my new favorite. It's delicious!

Here's the view of the next package. A fun little mix of journaling spots, stamps, mini albums, Scenic Route papers and the cutest little calender for 2008.


Here's a view of the envelope full of little journaling spots made by Keya herself. I think these might be my favorites in the box. I love them and they are in the perfect colors for me! Look for these in some of my upcoming creations!


Next package...Hambly goodness! She even managed to send me papers and rubs that I don't already have! I know, RED Hambly rub-ons that Erin doesn't have..shocking!


Package #4 was full of Creative Imaginations goodies. Again in the perfect colors for me! Funny thing is that I sent some of this to Keya too and had to fight the urge to buy those lined papers and felt trims for myself! She must have known somehow!


Next package..."vintage" 7 Gypsies. I do adore anything 7 Gypsies and was about out of my stash of those label stickers. Perfect!


The last package continued some KI lovelies. Including the amazing red lace paper...I must get some more of this and these cute mad lib style journaling cards. So fun! Thanks, thanks, thanks, Ms. Keya! You outdid yourself! I love it all! I can only hope she enjoyed her box from me as much as I enjoyed these goodies!


Well, I'm off to take some more Mucinex...seems that Sunday and Mondays are sinus/head cold days for me. I canceled kids last Monday, so it can't happen today. Here's hoping I can sing on this scratchy post nasal throat of mine! Happy Monday!

List list list

Ok so what I really want to blog are lots of photos I have taken recently. The Christmas tree, my SC Christmas swap goodies from my partner Keya, 52 card for this week.....problem is I can't really get to my scanner or the camera at the moment. Why, you ask? Well, we are actually having our guest bathroom tiled as we speak. Gone with the UGLY blue laminate floor and out with the gross blue sink and yellowy countertop...in new fresh new white tile floor, white tiled countertop and shiny new white sink! Hooray I say! This means more pictures of course...when I can get to it.....

So in the mean time, we shall post a little linky list of Christmas desires. This is mostly to benefit my husband who lost his paper list early this week, only to recover it with the help of his incredibly smart wife, who happens to know where most things end up....the floor, by his side of the bed. Pretty much where he dropped it immediately upon receiving it from me.

So here's a few things I would love to have this Christmas:

-I'd pretty much take anything from Anthropologie
-Pottery Barn gift cards would be lovely too, so I can eventually buy some of the things I have been coveting
-A Bind it All....think I need this for the mini book obsession
-Cute wintery tops to wear out on the rare occasion we go out to dinner or to a movie
-Jewelry from Red Envelope or Anilu's Etsy
-something from Lisa Leonard
-gift certificate to Studio Calico so I can buy add-ons guilt free in January! I really want the project kit, but it has a bigger price tag than I should allow myself!

I'm off to work on Christmas gifts and get ready to go to a production of A Christmas Carol in which one of my clients plays the ghost of Christmas past. Hope you all are enjoying your weekend! I'll be back with a picture heavy post sometime tomorrow of Monday.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

As promised, here are some pictures of my Christmas decorations. Unfortunately, they are not the greatest pictures. We've had grey sky's for several days here, so I haven't had great lighting for taking these pictures. I have two of these quirky little snowmen. The other one did not photograph well, I'll have to try again when the lighting is better. She has a red coat, white collar and green hat. They sit on either side of our television in the living room.


Since I don't have a mantle, I've hung the stockings on the bookcases that sit on either side of the television console. The green stocking photographed much better. Just like the snowman, these two are on the side closest to the window.


Not a great photo, but you get the idea.


Here's my table full of little Christmas trees. I added the button tree and the feather tree this year. I think I need one more...5 would be better!


Here's the whole table as it appeared this weekend. Notice the remote control helicopter....belongs to Shawn of course. I told him the helicopter did not fit with the Christmas display and he gave me some long winded story about how Santa needs to modernize and give up the reindeer in exchange for a helicopter.....can you feel my pain? I have since replaced the helicopter with a vase full of glass ornaments.


Here's my altered star card holder hung up on the inside of our front door. Sorry for the glare...there was no way to avoid flash photography on this one as our entry was pretty dark. I don't have any cards in it yet. I've only received two cards so far, both from friends in scrapbook land and they are both sitting with my address book and boxes of cards I need to send out soon....


I'm hoping to get the tree decorated soon and than I can post pictures of that. I also need to work on some decorations in our bedroom. We'll see what gets accomplished this week!

Christmas goodies

Finally getting around to posting my card for 52 Card Scrap Up. The prompt from Andrea was "favorite holiday decoration." I had a hard time deciding on this one, so I just went with trees in general. I love Christmas trees of all kinds and have a growing collection of little trees that I put up each year. Am hoping to add a tree to our bedroom this year, still haven't decided what I want though. Here's the front of my card:


Here's the back of the card:


I also managed to get moving on my Christmas journal. I wanted to do this last year, but never got around to it. I've been stockpiling supplies for a few weeks, but hadn't started working on it until this weekend. I think it was the fabulous December kit from Studio Calico that got me inspired to work on it. I started it last night and finished all the pre-made pages for the whole month. Today I worked on filling in the first week of December and got it done up until today. I plan on adding pictures, but haven't printed any off yet. I can easily slip those in later. I used some of the SC kit and a lot of things from my stash to create this book. Can't wait to keep working on it as the month progresses. Here's the front cover:


Page one is just some quick journaling as to why I wanted to create this little mini.


I had to start the month off with some Starbucks ephemera....plus I enjoyed a nice gingerbread latte on my way home from work on December 1st!


Day 2 is a clear page, so you can see day 3 peeking through too.


Christmas music, of course...


I tend to be doing basic pages on the front side of each day and than adding my journaling to the backside of that day.


Day five is a cute little tag I found in my stash.


I love the layered effect of using a mixture of tags, sheer pages, clear pages, patterned paper, envelopes, etc. I love how you can see all the layers together on some of these pages.


Day seven holds some receipts from my Christmas shopping adventures on Friday.


Of course I had to add the cute little SC tag to commemorate the day this lovely kit arrived and got me going on this project.


Love the AC velvet letters!


Day 9, today, we got our Christmas tree. It's not yet fully decorated, but when it is I plan on adding some pictures of the tree and my favorite ornaments.


Hope you enjoyed a nice weekend of Christmas magic and not too much holiday stress. I wish I had another full day of not working so I could get some more creations made. Stay tuned for photos of my Christmas tree....off to decorate!

Thursday Thankfuls

So I intended to blog lots of fun photos of Christmas stuff and other going ons today, but I am just plain old tired and will have to get to it later. Look for a big huge post sometime tomorrow evening or Saturday afternoon. In the mean time I leave you with a quick list of things I am thankful for today:

1. The big news of being published in CK's April 2008 Reader Gallery!!
2. Sitting side by side with Shawn while we both surf the internet...loving this "new" laptop!
3. haircut and color coming up tomorrow morning
4. finding my watch, which disappeared during work yesterday, at the bottom of my instrument bag
5. sending packages off today through the automated machine at the post office with no wait time!

52 Card Scrap Up & More

This is the first week I have not posted my card for 52 Card Scrap Up on Friday. It's just been one of those weeks. I'm not getting everything done that I want to get done....and you know what, it's okay. This holiday season, my goal is to be less stressed. I'm trying to finish up my shopping this week. I want to wrap presents, mail packages and get decorations up early this year so that I can really just enjoy the season. I know it's ambitious, but it's the plan. Here's to a happy December and a stress less holiday season!

This week's prompt, given by Jessie, was "your favorite autumn beverage." I'm a big fan of fun drinks, especially those that arrive during the holiday season and I've listed a few on the back of the card. I've been using up scraps on all of my cards so far and am having fun digging through my stash for things I've seemingly forgotten about or bits of papers and lonely little embellishment leftovers....hence the old KI Memories tag. Here's the front of the card:

Here's the back:

So far this weekend has consisted of lots of cleaning and laundry, billing and other work related paperwork, credit card and bank account monitoring (this will continue for sometime I think, as I do not believe the credit card representatives and their promises anymore), time with Shawn formating his old laptop into my "new" laptop, unpacking of Christmas goodies and attempts at craftiness. It rained all day Friday and most of Saturday, so I wanted to root myself in the house and enjoy some lounging around with crafts and movies and hot chocolate. Too bad I had to leave on both days to drive around town and go see my kiddos for work! I did manage to unpack some of my Christmas goodies. I love rediscovering the decorations and things that I have carefully packed away in boxes most of the year. Since we will get a live Christmas tree, I will probably wait another week before I get to pull out the rest of the decorations and ornaments. I'm thinking of buying a smaller artificial tree to put up in our bedroom this year. That way I can enjoy Christmas in my house even more! Next week's 52 Card prompt from Andrea is "Your favorite Christmas decoration" so I will spend the week deciding what I enjoy most...my table full of little trees and my funky little snowmen are tops of the list right now.

I also have ambitions for all this crafting and am wanting to use up some of my kit stash before the new year. Too bad my scrappy mojo doesn't seem to be on the same page. I keep looking at stuff in my stash and moving things around, but not much creating has taken place. I did however work on this little mini for Ms. Andrea who won it on my blog months ago when I did the "Pay It Forward" challenge. I'm still planning something fun for Jill, my other winner and hope to mail hers out by the end of the year. Andrea, yours should be on it's merry little way to you by the end of the week. Here's a little sneaky for you.