Glittered Ornament with Box....

I have had an amazing, yet exhausting weekend! Saturday was filled with not so fun stuff, like doctor's appointments and car repairs. (again) But Sunday more than made up for it. Brian and I headed to Misericordia bright and early and spent several hours packaging cookies to be shipped out. Jen's friends were all there to support us and each of us wore our white chef coat and hair net. ; ) We reminisced about Jen, laughed about growing older, and talked about life in general. As a group we were able to contribute 58 hours of volunteer time to honor Jen and give to my daughter Cortney. On top of that everyone brought Santa gifts to the residents. My heart must have grown a hundred sizes this weekend.

I have a week of ornaments for you! This entire week, I will be sharing ornaments with you that I have altered. This first one uses my most favorite thing in the whole world.....German glass glitter! I just used an ordinary glass ornament that you buy in an 8 pack. I covered the entire ornament with Modge Podge and rolled it in the glitter. I let the ornament sit in the "glitter bowl" until it was dry. I painted the ornament top with white paint.
I used the Sweet Tooth Boxes Cricut Cartridge to cut the box at 6". I folded it and adhered all of the sides. I decorated the top of the box with a bit of tulle and a large glittered snowflake that was cut from the Winter Lace cartridge. I cut the poinsettia at 3" and added pink stamens to the center and attached that to the center of my snowflake. To hide the tulle's knot I tied 3 jingle bells together and hot glued it to the back of the snowflake.

To dress up the ornament, I cut another poinsettia at 1 1/2" using hot pink paper. I inked the edges and glittered it. I added a Prima acrylic flower to the center using my hot glue gun. I added a few additional Prima acrylic sprigs, and tulle to dress it up.

Love these Prima pieces!

I am headed to work! This week the teachers and myself are doing special themed lunches all week. Today I am partly responsible for our "potato bar." Yum!

Have a wonderful day!!!

Generous Hearts...

If you have been following my blog for awhile now, you know that two years ago I lost my very best friend, Jennifer at 38 years old. It was extremely sudden and shocking. And even two years later I think about her all the time and miss her terribly. This weekend, Jennifer's sister, mother-in-law, and about 13 of her closest friends are volunteering at Misericoridia this weekend in their bakery. They are doing this in Jen's memory to help me. Misericordia is the place where I am hoping someday, Cortney will live. It is a beautifully run home for the mentally and physically disabled. And these women, who barely know me, are doing this for me and for Cort. I am speechless. Touched beyond belief. Words will never be enough to express my gratitude for this group of women. I hope I can thank them enough on Sunday..... : )

Today's card is using some of those painted, sugary jingle bells that I showed HERE a few days ago. I used a chipboard frame and skates from Tattered Angels. I painted the skates pink and silver and gave them a generous dose of glitter! The poinsettia leaves were cut using my Cricut machine. The snowflake (which you can barely see in front of the poinsettia) was cut from corrugated cardboard and a Spellbinder's die. I swiped some white paint over it. The oval and scalloped oval frame are also by Spellbinder's.
I added a bit of brown tulle, twine, and a button to finish it off.

I have a busy weekend ahead of me.....two Christmas parties, another doctor's appt. and volunteering at Misericordia! : ) So not much crafting this weekend.....but it's all good!

Have a fabulous weekend my friends!!!!

Holiday Wishes...

There are some days where I am overwhelmed with people's kind spirits and generosity. Like all of you voting for me repeatedly....and instead of getting annoyed, you have become my biggest cheerleaders. The comments you have left for me, the reposting of my lil' contest.....all of it has left me speechless. I am so grateful for you all....... : ) If you haven't voted today, please jump HERE to vote!

I have a project to share with you today that I created for the Cricut Circle last December. I found some cute paper mache boxes at Hobby Lobby. You know the ones that are brown, plain, and bit ugly? But they only cost .99 cents? I covered them with some candy cane paper that was in my stash....for a looooong time. (Think retro!) ; ) The top was covered with glittery paper by American Crafts. The circles were cut using the George and Basic Shapes Cartridge. The candy Canes were cut from the Simply Charmed cartridge. I added a tag cut from the Sentimental's Cartridge and my sentiment is by Papertrey Ink. I added a green jingle bell for contrast and some of this fuzzy, sparkly twine.

I did go to the doctor the other day and was told I have a sinus infection. I was placed on an antibiotic and steroids. Unfortunately, the antibiotic made me break out in a blotchy rash all over my body! : ( I had to stop those immediately! I am not sure I feel much better......but it has only been a couple of days, so I guess I need to give it a bit more time.

My van is also sick and going in the shop today. The exhaust system.....again...for the zillionth time! Blech!

It is happy hump day though.....so I am one happy camper! : ) Hope you have a great one today!!!

Exciting News!

Guess who's blog made it to the final two in the Blog Guide Book's Top Blog? ; ) And it is all because of YOU! I can't thank you enough for putting me there! Voting for will resume at NOON today for the top spot! I appreciate you sticking with me and voting so many times for me......I hope you can stick with me a bit longer and vote one last time! Click HERE!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!!

Baby Cards.....

Good morning to you! I am heading to the doctor's office today to hopefully figure out why my ears have been clogged for over a month! It is really frustrating to not be able to hear! I've tried all of the tried and true remedies.....nasal sprays, decongestants etc. with no luck!

Just to keep you in the loop.....There are still 8 hours left to vote for the Top 2 over at the BlogGuide Book! Thanks to all of you, I have made it to the top two! I know I said I was done asking you to vote for me.....but I do believe there is one more round. ; ) (blushing)

I have a couple of baby cards to share with you today that were featured in the October issue of Cricut Magazine.
The first one is this onesie card I created using my Gypsy and the Wrap it Up cartridge. It was cut at 5". The flowers were cut using the Mother's Day Bouquet Cartridge. The tag was cut from the Sentimental's cartridge and the sentiment is by Papertrey Ink.

I did a bit of paper piercing around the perimeter of the onesie as well.....oh! And a bit of glitter too!

My next card uses the Just Because cartridge and the peas were cut at 2", popped up and glittered. I added a bit of lace, seam binding, and a little flower by Maya Road to finish it off.

The tag was again cut from the Sentimental's Cartridge and this time the sentiment was computer generated and the tag was run through my printer.

I have a couple more projects in this issue I'd like to share with you, so maybe tomorrow I will have to do that before I get back on the Christmas track! ; )

Thanks for sticking with me through all of this voting and such! I appreciate it so very much!!!

Have a great day my friends!!!!

Jingle Bell Tutorial!

Before I start my tutorial, I just want to remind you that there are 3 days left to vote over at The Blog Guide Book! And actually, I am about 10 votes behind 1st place.......so if you don't mind popping over there, I would REALLY appreciate it! : )

I have had many requests for a jingle bell tutorial. It has sort of become my new obsession lately. (Like I needed another obsession!) ; ) I picked up a couple of packages of these babies, in two different sizes. I got them from Hobby Lobby for a pretty reasonable price.
When I took this picture, I thought I had wanted 3 different colors of jingle bells but ended up changing my mind and actually made 4 different colors. But in any event, you need to separate them onto different paper plates. I found this worked better than newspaper, as newspaper tends to stick.

I used Krylon spray paint in four different colors. I loved this minty green color!

See? Newspaper? This is how I know not to use it! (I was peeling off the red sales add for quite a while!) ; )

This part takes a bit of patience. You spray the color lightly, let it dry, shake your paper plate, and spray again. It will take a few times to get an even coverage over the entire jingle bell.

Once all of your bells are covered, and you are satisfied with them, bring them indoors to give them a sugary coating. This part is a bit messy! I used glossy accents to coat each bell and then roll it in glitter. A spray adhesive would work too. The only problem I found with the spray, is it has a tendency to move your jingle bell around the plate too much. So I had to keep my distance a bit.

....Place them in a bowl full of glitter and roll those babies around!

It is a bit messy, but the results are worth it! And honestly, I will probably have jingle bells till I'm 80! : ) Oh! And see those brown textured bells? That was sprayed with Suede spray paint! I love the cool look of it!

Here is a Christmas card using my lil' bells. The chipboard house is from Maya Road and I covered it using the Helmar Crackle medium. It is such a cool effect! I added a bit of texture paste for snow and sprinkled it with glitter. The sweet image in the doorway is from Crafty Secret's Creative Scraps. I even added tiny curtains to the windows!

I also added some tulle, twine, rhinstones for smoke from the chimney, and a Melissa Frances flourish. And of course, those sugary jingle bells! ; )

The family and I are headed downtown tomorrow to see the Christmas lights, ice skate, and have lunch. I know the days of my 14 year old wanting to spend time doing this with us may be coming to an end. So I will take advantage of it while I can!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!!!!

A Little Christmas Cheer

Voting continues over at The Blog Guide Book........4 more days to cast your vote! : ) For those of you who have already voted, thank you for taking the time to do it! : ) I really appreciate it! If you haven't voted and would like to, just click HERE!

Good morning! I have a little Christmas card to share with you today that uses this darling stamp by Amuse! My friend Simone bought it for me last year and he was begging to be used again! I colored his cute self with my Copics and glittered his hat, beard etc. I cut him out and placed him on a small card that was actually a left over piece from another card. I added a doily behind him, added some mica flakes around his feet, and a couple of my sugary jingle bells tied with twine.
I am addicted to these jingle bells and can't seem to stop using them on my projects! ; )

My girl has a beauty shop appt. tonight. She is getting highlights in her hair for the holidays. It is so cute to see her enjoy being fussed over!

Thanks for popping by!!!