Saying Goodbye to 2010!

As 2010 draws to a close, I thought I would post my top 10 favorite creations of the year! One of my New Year's resolutions is to be more creative and CREATE more! My horoscope from this morning seems to be right on track for the New Year, so here's to staying on track and checking off my goals one by one until they are completed over this next year! We have to live life to its fullest, document our day to day lives as much as possible and cherish the time we have. With that said, here are my favorites;

One last thing...while blog hopping this morning I found this great poster (see below) here which originally came from this blog.



Stop by and check it out and get your own free download to put up as a reminder of great words to live by in 2011! Enjoy your NYE and be safe! See you next year! :-)

Happy Holidays!

Since we are now in the final days leading up to Christmas and the festivities are in full swing, I thought I would share my digital holiday card with all of you and wish you a very Merry Christmas!! Below is the card that I designed and printed to send to all of our family and also emailed (in an effort to be more "green") to more family & friends. I hope you all are enjoying this wonderful time of the year with your loved ones too!

Sentiment inside;

Wishing you

sparkle,

Wishing you cheer,

For a bright

merry Christmas

And a happy

new year!

Studio Calico- December 2010

Metropolitan is here!!!! And this my friends, is why I LOVE the beginning of every month! I always get SO excited when my new kits arrive and this month is NO exception! I'm already thinking of new ideas and looking at all the goodies makes me want to create aaaaall the time! (If only...*sigh*)

METROPOLITAN;

Coordinates with the following:

Mists: Lunch Tray, Applejack, Sunshine, Calico White, Calico Cream, Dark Calico, Warm Calico, Classic Calico
Inks & Paints: Lemon Drops, Malted Milk, Brown Sugar, Stick Candy


Complete kit contents:

Cardstock:
Kraft (Bazzill)
Hazel (Bazzill)
Lima Bean (Bazzill)
Cinder (Bazzill)
Vanilla (American Crafts)


Patterned Paper:

Exclusive Designs - 2 papers (Sassafras)
Digits (Studio Calico)
Swatch (Studio Calico)
Perfect Embossed (Pebbles)
Lagoon Calendar (KI Memories)
Metropolis (Basic Grey)
Pattern Dot (Making Memories)
Ledger (Making Memories)


Embellishments:

Tiny Type - Yellow (Cosmo Cricket)
Parisian Anthology Tickets (Pink Paislee) 5 tickets
Ledger Envelopes (Making Memories) 3 envelopes
Shimmer Alpha - Silver (Making Memories)
Entwined Blooms Turkish Turquoise (Sassafras)
Green Grid Mixtape (American Crafts)
Weekdays Black Scribbles (KI Memories)
Velvet Pleated Ribbon - Cream (Maya Road) 1/2 yd
Crystal Star Pin (Maya Road TK1411) 2 pieces
Globe Stamp (Studio Calico)

How to Create: Homemade Christmas Tree Ornaments

or·na·ment   

[n. awr-nuh-muhnt; v. awr-nuh-ment, -muhnt]
–noun
1. an accessory, article, or detail used to beautify the appearance of something to which it is added or of which it is a part

Today I wanted to share a festive idea for homemade Christmas tree ornaments. They are really easy and cheap to make- it doesn't get much better than that!

First to give you some background on these ornaments; I was in Target with my mom during Thanksgiving weekend because we were in desperate need of a tree (not just some table top decoration). So knowing that you can usually find a bargain at Target, we headed there in search of the perfect tree. I found a tree...AWESOME! But still needed all the decor- lights, ornaments, ribbon or garland and a topper! Oh my, how much money was I really willing to spend?!? I found a package of gold ornaments (shatter-proof, perfect!) but wanted to add more color to accent a gold tree. So then we found these little knitted people ornaments in packs of 4!! They were so cute, I grabbed 4 pks. But still needed more! (You can NEVER have too many ornaments especially for a 7ft tree!) I really didn't want to spend a lot more money...so we found ourselves in the gift wrapping isle and low and behold there was a package of kraft gift tags each with a yarn tie (either red or green). They were really cute and mom had the BEST idea! She said "Why don't you use these as your other ornaments!?! You can design anything you want on them, they are personalized, cheap and serve the purpose!" She was soooo right! It was a perfect idea! So we do have her to thank for this idea...

So here we go!

Step 1- Start out with blank holiday gift tags. (Ours were $3 at Target for a pack of 12). Then figure out what you want to put on them. For my designs, I chose to use assorted holiday stamps, black, red & green ink, glitter pens and stamp markers.

Step 2- Lay out the stamps and start creating your designs. The possibilities are endless, you can stamp, doodle, add rub-ons or any other type of embellishments. They can be simple like ours, or as elaborate as you want, it's your choice! (Gotta love that!)  I stamped both sides so that you can see the design no matter how the ornament hangs on the tree. In the image above, I started out with black ink.

 Step 3- Here I wanted to add some color to the ornaments, so I used the red & green ink on some.

 Step 4- Here are the ornaments all together and I was able to personalize a few of the tags with our names, just to add a special "one of a kind" touch!

I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial for homemade Christmas tree ornaments and hopefully you'll get a chance to make some your own festive holiday decor! Good luck! :-)

Just a glimpse...

It's been pretty busy around here lately! Between work and the holiday season its been non stop! I love this time of year, but wish that time would slow down long enough so we could catch our breath and enjoy it all...even just a little!

This past weekend was extra busy for the hubby and I! We were on a 8:30am flight to Boston on Saturday morning, which lasted all about 30mins in the air (definitely not enough time for us to catch some Zzzz's!). Once we landed it was off to my cousin's house for some preparations for a festive family gathering (more to come on that part soon). But all in all- the weekend was really nice and we were able to spend time with family which is so important, even with all the hustle and bustle...I wouldn't trade times like that in for anything. Life is for living, so we might as well LIVE more than SLEEP! Right?!?

We ended this weekend by putting up our Christmas tree! Yeay! I LOVE doing that! Makes me feel like a kid again, I would get SO excited when mom would put on the Christmas tunes and we would take out the tree/ornaments and get to work. Now we're putting up our own tree in our own place...*big sigh* so many memories to capture! Here are a couple pictures of us building our first "real size" tree (we've finally graduated from the table topper this year! :-)

There will be more pics of the finished product coming soon!

I'm also in the process of making my holiday cards! This year I have a list of about 30something, so I chose to take the digital route-to hopefully save time (especially with assembly!). Here is a sneak peak of what I'm working on. I'm hoping to finish the design by the end of this week so that I can print and send! We'll see how that goes!

That's all for now! Be back soon....

Season's Greetings!

sea·son

 1. a period of the year immediately before and after a special holiday or occasion.

[see-zuhn]
–noun

 
Origin:

1250–1300; (n.) ME sesoun, seson < OF se ( i ) son < L satiōn- (s. of satiō ) a sowing (VL: sowing time), equiv. to sa- (var. s. of serere to sow) + -tiōn- -tion; (v.) ME seso ( u ) nen < OF saisonner to ripen, make palatable by aging, deriv. of seison

I can't believe it's already December 1st! My, how this year has flown by! Which brings us to the matter at hand; its the first day of the 25 days of Christmas and 'tis the season for Holiday cards. I still need to work on mine for family and friends (which will probably end up being something simple), but I thought I would share this Christmas card that I made a few weeks ago...

The title was stamped onto textured card stock with black archival ink and then outlined with glitter gel pens. The snowflakes were stamped and then I added pearl rhinestones in the center.

To break up the card I added borders out of patterned paper and some gros grain ribbon with stitching & a loop/tie. The button is sewn onto the ribbon loop with green embroidery floss.

Below is the color palette;



Hope you've enjoyed the card for today, thank you for stopping by!