Holiday Gift Tags

This Christmas, I created holiday gift tags and gifted them to friends and family!

I cut the tag shape from card stock with my handy paper cutter, and stamped/embossed them with decorative stamps.  Stickles glitter glue added a little pizzazz to the design.

Happy Holidays!!!

Stocking Christmas Cards

After some encouragement from the team at the River North Paper Source, I decided to enter their store's holiday greeting card contest.  I adapted my String of Hearts Valentine's Day card design to the holidays with a string of stockings and snowflakes.  Paper Source's Modern Snowflakes gift wrap helped me inject a good dose of PS flavor to the design.

I lined red A7 envelopes with liners cut from the Modern Snowflakes gift wrap.  I drew a template for the stockings and then traced and cut these from the gift wrap and red card stock.  Decorative tape lines the edge and metallic silver brads connect the two pieces.  Snowflakes stamped and embossed in silver and silver Stickles glitter glue embellish the "string."

I punched holes in the foot of the stockings and used silver twist-ties to attach the bells (forgive me -- the only non-PS item on the card ;-).  I couldn't resist adding a coordinating label to address the envelope.

I used PS' shimmer silver card stock for the front page, and moss card stock for the back page.   The message "Merry Christmas," stamped and embossed in silver, completes the card.

I love card-making, and really enjoyed having this card contest as motivation to make my holiday cards extra-special!  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday for many reasons . . . quality time with family and friends, extra-long weekend, the start to the next month of holiday festivities.  It is also a special time to reflect on the long list of blessings we have in our lives.  Let's make more time to give thanks for those blessings (little or small) every day of the year!

I created these correspondence cards for this Thanksgiving holiday.  I sent a few in the mail to friends with a note about how thankful I am for their friendship, and also sent a batch to my extended family's celebration (I celebrated with Mr. B's family this year).  Everyone wrote their blessing and my cousin read them aloud before Thanksgiving dinner.  So sweet!

I printed card stock with the message "I am thankful for . . . ", stamped a turkey rubber stamp from Paper Source, and decorated with my new obsession, Stickles glitter glue!

Among many other blessings in my life, I am thankful when I find time to craft and express my creativity!

  

Bridal Shower Favor Tags

Mary's mom commissioned me to design tags to adorn the party favors she distributed at a bridal shower for her friend.  When I learned the bride's wedding colors were royal blue and gold, I instantly thought of a favorite gold paper from Paper Source, Lokta Golden Baroque.  I layered royal blue card stock, this beautiful gold paper, and a message I printed on ivory (off-white) card stock.  A heart stamped and embossed in gold and an off-white eyelet finished the job!

Congratulations to the bride, and thank you to Mary and her family for giving me excuses to craft and create! (and reasons to make blog posts :-)

Halloween Bash

This Saturday, Mr. B and I hosted our second annual Halloween bash at a new bar in our neighborhood.  I love having an excuse to dress in costume!  

Last year, we hosted the party at our condo, which allowed me to have fun getting crafty with decorations and other party elements (sadly, these details went undocumented).  On a happy note, the 2010 was such a success that we had to expand beyond our 850-square-foot love nest and move the party elsewhere!  

Since we didn't have a dedicated room for this year's party, I didn't go all-out with decorations.  However, I did create these simple prize bags for the winners of our informal contest.  I used Apple's Chalkduster font in all caps and a few stamps I picked up from a $1 bin at Michael's last year.  The fill-in ballot for "most likely to . . . " forced guests to use their creativity!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Honky Tonk Party Favors

Check out these totally silly party favors I made for my friend's hubby Hap's 29th birthday.  She gave me very loose guidelines:  a sweet treat to match the theme of his BBQ birthday dinner.

During a stroll down Walgreens' candy aisle, I found Boston Baked Beans on mega sale.  Baked beans go with BBQ, right?! (right?!)  After trips to four Walgreens stores, I had enough boxes for the favors.  (note:  Before this project, I had never actually tasted BBB.  Only after I finished the favors did I break into an extra box and realize how gross they taste.  Interesting that all four Walgreens checkout employees got VERY excited when they learned they were only 19 cents/box.  Thankfully some people like these little creatures!)  I digress . . . 

Doctoring up these boxes was simple.  I made a label to change "Boston" to "Potter's" with a tagline of "A Texas Original Since 1982" (Hap is from Texas and was born in '82) and affixed it with double stick tape.  I printed a "happy birthday" message on Paper Source's paper bag card stock and used a 3-inch circle punch to create a tag.  After finishing the tag with an eyelet, I attached it to the box with twine.

Happy Birthday, Hap!  Last birthday before fatherhood!  :-)

Marathon Party Favors

I love marathon Sunday in Chicago.  The energy in the city is unlike any other day of the year.  This year, Mr. B and I met Jen, Tiffany and Andy at the halfway point and ran the second 13.1 with our friends.  These warriors already had 13.1 miles on their legs, so we tried to be as motivating and supportive as possible.  After the race, my dear friend Mary hosted a post-party to honor Jessica's completion of her first marathon.  Mary asked me to bring a party favor, so I created mini running bibs and medals to celebrate Jessica's accomplishment.

These favors were extremely easy to make!  First, I covered the labels of mini Gatorade bottles with computer paper.  I then printed running "bibs" on card stock and affixed them to mini Gatorade bottles with double-stick tape.  I left the edges loose and poked mini safety pins through all four corners, just like an actual running bib.  Finally, I used ribbon, chocolate coins and a glue gun to create the medals.  I am pleased with the end product!    

A BIG congratulations to Jessica, Jen, Tiffany, Andy and all of our other friends who conquered the 2011 Chicago Marathon!  You guys rock!!!