Super Simple, Yet Thoughtful Gift Ideas....

Hello everybody, Happy New Years Eve!!!! Can you believe that this is the last day of 2013?!?!?!?! Honestly, I will not be sad to leave this year behind. While I have learned and accomplished quite a bit this year, this has been a year of hard trials, both for myself and ones very dear to me. But anyhow, to a brighter topic, today I thought that I would share a gift set that I made for one of my three new sister-in-laws for Christmas. She is an English teacher and her favorite color is blue, so I thought that I would whip her up a nice, coordinating desk set.

For the Post-It note holder, I simply used a clear, acrylic frame from Dollar Tree and decorated it with a 6x6 paper pad from My Mind's Eye, some small white Basic Grey letter stickers, a blue Prima flower and a Post-It note stack.

 

 For the magnetic notepad, I took some basic tan cardstock and layered some patterned papers to add some interest behind the blue paper pad, which I picked up from Dollar Tree as well. (Side note: Dollar Tree is a great resources for picking up base materials for projects, like mini notebooks, notepads, photo frames, etc.) I used some letter stickers I got in the dollar aisle at Target and some gold pearls from Q&Co. The pen is a gel pen from a Fiskars jumbo pack. 

To attach the pen, I took a 1/16 whole punch and punches a little hole in the top left corner of the cardstock and then looped some twine through the hole and then hooked the pen cap through the twine. I used a hard core magnetic strip that I cut off from a large roll I picked up at Ace Hardware a couple of years ago. I do usually have to put some hot glue behind the magnet to get it to stick permanently to the back of the cardstock, but once the hot glue hardens, it does not come off.

 

I also whipped up a mini notebook with patterned papers from the same My Mind's Eye 6x6 paper pad, used some small white glitter Thickers from American Crafts and some ribbon from my stash (I believe the ribbon was originally wrapped around a pack of washcloths I picked up at TJMaxx a couple of years ago. The scalloped circle was punched out with a Fiskars punch.

While I did make this as a gift set for a Christmas gift, it could easily be replicated for a gift for just about any occasion.

I hope that you all have a wonderful New Years!! See you in 2014! ;)

Having fun with Dear Lizzy's Lucky Charm Collection.....

Hello friends, just thought I'd pop in and share a couple more layouts I created over the last several months, using the Dear Lizzy's Lucky Charm collection that I scored for a great deal at craftydeals.com. I have never bought an entire collection before, but for 22 dollars (including shipping... I had a 10% off coupon for first time order), I just couldn't resist. I have been eying this collection for a looooong time, but just could never justify to myself spending all of the money, but at such a great deal, I finally gave in and got it :) The only thing not from the Dear Lizzy collection are the Enamel Dots, those are from one of My Mind's Eye Cute & Paste collections.

There are just some pictures of hubby and I from the last few years.

A Winter Graduation

Recently (as in… this last weekend…), my sister-in-law graduated with her teaching degree. We are so proud of her and, even though I couldn't be there to congratulate her in person, I wanted to send her a card. I also had a birthday card and a few other things to whip up, so last night I plopped at my desk and got the cards done and some gifts wrapped for Christmas.

For the card, I used a Maggie Holmes collection from Crate Paper, and some pink and purple pearls from Q&Co. I used Basic Grey letter stickers and glittery and hot pink thickers from American Crafts for the sentiment and line all of the papers in with a lilac marker to give the layers a little depth. This card came together quite quickly and I hope that she likes it!

A Prayer for Peace and Comfort

As this year comes to a close, there are many that are suffering loss. It has been a difficult year and it seems that as this year comes to a close there will be many dear to me who are hurting, some who will never be able to say hello to little ones never born, some saying hard goodbyes to wives, friends, uncles, brothers, fathers, mothers and my prayer for each one is that the Lord our Comforter and our Father will be with them. Father God, please bring comfort to your children, please bring your peace to their hearts.

Some More Lawn Fawn….

Okay, so I am loving playing with my new Lawn Fawn goodies and I couldn't resist playing with creating some gift tags. I am also loving the Darice glitter paper that I picked up several weeks ago.

For the Lawn Fawn stamp, I used my Spectrum Noir markers in the colors:

I used BG 2, 4, and 6, and IG 2 and 4 for the body of the owl and

DR 1, 2 and 3 for the owl's scarf.

Once again, I used last year's Lawn Fawn Christmas papers and the sticker sheet and Darice glitter paper.

For the yarn and ribbon, I actually used what was tied around my goodies in the packaging.

I finished off the tags with this year's Christmas sequin pack.

The tags were the medium and large sized white tags from Hobby Lobby.

Enjoy!

It's a Lawn Fawn kind of Christmas

Hello All, I was just looking at the last time I posted on this here poor neglected blog and realized it has been a month since I last posted, poor, poor blog.  Anyhow, last week on Black Friday I took advantage of some items on clearance and free shipping with no minimum purchase at lawnfawn.com. I have a few of their stamps and I love them, but I do not like to fussy cut around small little images, so I picked up a couple of their newer additions to their shop, dies to go along with their images. I just got the package tonight and couldn't wait to play with the goodies.  

I used last years Lawn Fawn patterned papers from their Christmas collection, 

some green alphabet stickers from Basic Grey, 

some Darice glitter paper 

and some sequins from Lawn Fawn's new Christmas collection. 

For the Lawn Fawn stamp, I used my Spectrum Noir markers in the colors:

I used BG 2, 4, and 6, and IG 2 and 4 for the body of the owl and

DR 1, 2 and 3 for the owl's scarf.

Enjoy and Happy Friday!!!!