Sunrise, Sunset

My "what I'm thankful" list below was true and accurate, but now I need to add to the list.

We had a fun and relaxing Thanksgiving day, beginning (for me) at 6:29 a.m. with the Turkey Trot.  This is an annual event sponsored by our high school wrestling team; they are required to do a 4 mile run that morning and they encourage the public to join them with a choice of running or walking.  I did the 4 mile walk which is impressive first because I AM NOT a morning person, and second because I'm really out of shape.

Later in the day we went to my parent's house for an AWESOME dinner and a really great time.  My great-nephew provided the entertainment (he's 5) with so many one-liners I can't even remember them all.  Along with the meal we had good wine, pistachios (my personal fav) and a spirited discussion about Jon & Kate +8 (Dan, you are WRONG).  Ahem.

The afternoon ended with the sunset of a lifetime.  Can you believe this picture?  My parent's live on a lake and we saw this sunset from their porch.  WOW.  How can a person not be thankful after that?

The only negative for the whole day was that my daughter wasn't there (she's across the country in college) and I missed her like crazy.  She will be home in just 22 days for a whole month and I can't wait.

I hope your holiday was wonderful as well.  I'm working on a new embellishment set that I'm really excited about!  You will have a chance to win the set later this week when I sponsor a blog challenge.  More on that later!

So Thankful

I am thankful for . . .

*

butter

weekends

custom orders

friends and family

a beautiful November

my Cricut Expression

Andrea, my internet friend

BOTH of my Bruce Springsteen tote bags

and you, my faithful blog readers

Happy Thanksgiving!

Note:  I listed the items in this shape to try to get myself excited about decorating for Christmas.  Not working.

Father's Day pocket album

I recently had a custom order for a Father's Day album of sorts.  The customer's kids have written on 4" x 6" index cards over the past few years with their memories and favorite things about their dad (fun idea!) and my customer was looking for a way to store the cards.  I came up with the idea to create a pocket album with room for photos, and I went with a denim album cover.  As shown on the photo above, the album opens by unbuttoning the jeans.

Inside the album each page has a patterned paper page, perfect for photos of embellishments, and the facing page is a pocket page decorated with a strip of matching patterned paper.  The index cards this family has can be slipped into pocket pages.  The bottom of the pocket page is craft card stock, and would be a perfect place to write the child's name or the year, depending on how they decide to store the index cards.

This style of album would also work for anniversaries, Mother's Day, Christmas, etc by changing the theme of patterned paper used.  You could do the same thing my customer did and use the pockets for index cards filled with memories, or you could store greeting cards or other momentos in the pockets.

This was a fun project that prompted me to get my sewing machine out of the closet!

Christmas Gift Bags

I was recently asked to make 12 decorated gift bags for Christmas gifts.  I've never decorated bags before, not even for myself, so this seemed like a good challenge.  I was given free reign - they could all be the same or all different, no boundaries at all which made it extra fun!

I came up with the theme "Jingle All the Way" because I had some cute little bells from a previous project and I thought it would be fun to use them.  I originally planned to use some patterned paper featuring music notes and wasn't able to find it the day I went shopping.  However, I did come across paper that said "jingle bells" and I was set!

I used my pinking blade on one edge of the paper for a fun look, and used a friend's scalloped cutter for another edge.  Those papers became the base of the decoration.

Next I decided to make music note chipboard accents to hang from ribbon.  I hoped to find a pattern on a Cricut cartridge but that didn't happen, so I opened a word document and selected "insert clipart" and searched for music notes.  Wow!  Found them!  I was very excited!  I printed them out, cut out the pattern, traced them onto chipboard and cut out my embellishments.  Next I painted them black; I painted both sides just in case someone wanted to take them off and use them for something else.

My last step was to find a ribbon that I liked.  I had something picked out ahead of time but when I tied it on the bag I didn't like how it looked.  One of my friends (I was scrapbooking with a group of friends) had some red, green and plain rafia and when I put several strands together I got the look I was hoping for.

The bags turned out cute and they make a fun jingling sound when you move them.  It was a fun project and nice to cross something off my "to do" list.

Got snow?

Although we had an early dusting of snow in October (!) here in Minnesota our weather in November has actually been quite nice.  However, we know what's coming, so it's important to enjoy each and every snow-free day.

Don't get me wrong; snow is beautiful and makes everything seem bright and clean.  However, it's also more work.  Boots, mittens, coats, etc.  The other problem is that winter here just lasts too darn long!

Anyway, in order to celebrate snow and it's cheeriness I made this set of Itty Bitty Snowman Cards and listed them in my shop today.  My Itty Bitty series of cards have been popular; in fact I had to order more itty bitty white envelopes today!  I'll be adding some new Itty Bitty Birthday Cards as soon as the envelopes arrive.

Busy shop day today; I finished up some custom orders, photographed some new items, edited the new photos, made a Thanksgiving card for a last minute request and also got a bunch of business cards made because a friend has generously offered to hand them out.  Lots more to do, so it looks like tomorrow will be a busy shop day too!

Scrapbooking Weekend

I am very lucky to attend a bi-annual Scrapbooking Weekend with 4 girlfriends.  We go for a 3 day weekend in April and again in November, and have been doing so for several years.  The first year we went to an organized event at a bible camp, where we slept in cabins and then worked in a large room and ate when the bell rang.  It was fun and the food was awesome, but it was a large group (100?) and you didn't have any say in the music that was played . . . and by the end of the weekend we were really ready for more variety!

Lucky for us one of my friends bought a cabin in northern Minnesota and from then on we've had our own organized event!  We take turns cooking and we get to pick our own music, and we only have to share the bathroom with a few people instead of 10+!  Plus the view out the window can't beat.

Here are a few pictures from our weekend:

This picture shows Laura and Peggy at their work stations - as you may guess we need lots of car space to haul all of our stuff!  Also shown here is this awesome tote bag featuring Bruce Springsteen, my FAV.  My friend Jenny gave me this bag and I hung it within view of my workspace, so I could look at Bruce for inspiration.

 Jody, Jenny and I share a space, and as you can see my space is the neatest!  I go out of my way to make sure my space is neat and cute at all times!

We have an awesome tool station that is pictured above.  Also, you can kind of see the beautiful view of the lake that we have while we are working.  Another important "tool" would be the two ipods that we have full of awesome music.  There's also a stereo and I sneak in a few Springsteen cd's throughout the weekend.

Sometimes we get adventurous and go out for a walk.  This year Jody brought along orange vests for walkers, because in Minnesota it's opening deer hunting weekend and things moving in the woods can get shot.  Peggy and Jenny were the only ones that went walking in the rain.

This year we branched out and tried a few new crafts - knitting and sewing!  Laura brought along her Knifty Knitter and here she's teaching Jen how to make a hat.

Jen is getting started on her new creation.

Here's the finished product!  It turned out really cute and Jen wore her hat the rest of the weekend.

Here's Peggy doing a little sewing!

It was a great weekend and we all accomplished a lot.  Another tradition we have is that at the end of the weekend everyone has to pick a favorite layout or project and have their photo taken with that item.  Its fun to look back and see all that we have made over the year.

If you have a chance to do a get away like this you should definitely do it.  Packing everything up is a lot of work, but spending time with girlfriends scrapping, eating and relaxing is so worth it!