happy thanksgiving

happy thanksgiving

i hope everyone is enjoying (at least stateside) thanksgiving day. i thought before the rush of everyone arriving, i thought i'd take a couple of minutes to post some pics of our table this year.

the little envelopes were made with my big shot. to keep it easy, the little felt snowflakes were straight out of the package. **i found the instructions for folding the napkins here on bhg's site.**

the pumpkins are paper mache from michaels. i brushed some glue, and covered them in glitter.


the girls added some "fortune tellers" they folded up to each of the kids' spots on the table.

happy turkey day!

fun with kits

fun with kits
sometimes it's so nice to have everthing put together for you

my friend, latrice, is putting together some great kits for scrapbookers & card makers in her etsy shop. she asked if i would make a few projects with her very cute christmas kit that will be available starting wednesday in her shop! :) all of the supplies on each of these projects were made from supplies from the kit (excepting the "merry christmas" stamp which is made by impress rubber stamps and you can find it here.)







i'm loving my new big shot machine by sizzix! (the big shot isn't new, just new to me.) i cut a bunch of shapes for these projects out of fabric, felt, chipboard and patterned paper with it. i love things that make your supplies that much more versatile! :)

be sure to check out anyoccasion.etsy.com for this cute kit! :)

last year's christmas cards

{last year's}
christmas cards

for the last two years i've had such a hard time deciding on just one family picture to send out with christmas cards. to appease my indecision i made little booklets with pictures from the entire year. i made them on my computer and had them printed at a local copy store.

the cover was printed double-sided on 65# cardstock, cut in half length wise. the inside pages were printed double-sided on text weight paper, and cut into quarter sheets. to keep things simple, i just stapled the edges of the booklets. the inside pages were all the same design, the page was simply flipped so the flourishes would be on opposite corners on facing pages.

happy anniversary

from:
the luckiest girl on earth

to: the best guy a girl could dream of having

thank you for the best, hardest, happiest, funniest, love filled 9 years of my life. you make everyday a little brighter, and filled with that laugh-at-yourself fun that drudges through hard times and celebrates the best of times. i can't imagine my life without you.
i love you.

christmas cards

i've been working on designing christmas cards... trying to decide what to make. the last couple of years i've printed little digitally designed booklets filled with lots of photos throughout the year. since i've sent out about 100 cards each year, the digital option has worked well. (i'll try to post a pic of my card from last year here in the next couple of days.)

i also try to make a cluster of handmade cards to give with gifts and such. these are a few that i made last night... simple, and easy to mass produce.

all ot the supplies for these cards are by stampin up.

veterans day

have you {kissed} a vet today?

just wanted to give a shout out to every veteran out there today... THANK YOU for your service, your sacrifice, your love of country, your heart. our family is so grateful for every sacrifice you make in service to this great country!

we, of course have our very own veteran here at home, and lucky for us, he's HOME this year. stan, thank you for all you do for our family and the amazing country we're blessed to live in.

GOD bless you & GOD bless America!

diaper cake

the diaper cake

i'm hosting a shower for a friend of mine this weekend, and lucky for me the hostess with the mostest blog hooked me up with some super cute ideas. she posted one of the cutest diaper cakes i'd ever seen. so i decided to make my own version for the shower i'm having.

i put receiving blankets around the layers of diapers, and pinned them in the back. added some ribbon & paper flowers for the cuteness factor.
the top layer, though it's hard to see the pattern is banana patterned paper wrapped around a rolled receiving blanket. i glued a popsicle stick to the back of the monkey and stuck it in the roll of the blanket.

i lucked out with the monkey decor... i found this martha stewart party kit on clearance while wandering around michaels the other day. it was on clearance for $6! can't beat that with complete party schtuff for 8 people, i picked up two boxes.

another cute hwtm idea was the bedtime story theme party. so the table is done up like a bed. i picked up a cheap brown bedsheet, and a couple of yards of the $1/yard fabric (the blue polka dot stuff), and layered it like bed sheets on my table.

i love the thought of using cute scrapbook paper as placemats & center piece decor, too. this one is by making memories. (the napkins & yellow flatware is from the martha kit).

the yellow napkin was just stapled in the center to hold its shape under the brown napkin.

the yellow paper under the diaper cake is by doodlebug... that really cute flocked damask paper they make. i love that stuff!

anyway, thanks for letting me share the fun party decor. i've been having so much fun with this! :D

halloween madness

all the better to see you with, the wolf replied

the culbertsons going just over the top for halloween. do you know how hard it is to come by flannel pajamas these days? apparently they're not a hot ticket item. i had to go to 6 stores to find them... and if you're in the market, sears is the place to go! ;)

stan & i helped (in character) at the girls' school parties after he got off work, then made our halloween rounds. we do the kind of trick or treating that involves driving to 6 or 7 houses of family and friends.


the kitties before trick or treating. we were going to have a kitty and snow white. but when snow white saw the kitty costume accessories, she wanted to be a kitty too. so two kitties it was!

the kitties with great grandma & great pa.

grandpa looking a little too happy about the wolf gobbling up granny! :)

the wicked, wicked wolf and little red
the girls were singing, "hey there little red riding hood" all day

still acrylic album

stand still & dream

acrylic is so fun to work with since you kind of get double duty out of all of your supplies... especially all of those double sided papers that you hate covering up one side of. i was inspired to do this album by the website one little word, that had featured the word STILL awhile back.


to keep the album closed, i cut a strip from a hambly transparency and sewed a large snap onto the transparency strip. i had to punch a little hole for the snap to fit through, and two holes on the ends to attach the strip to the rings of the album.

the overhead view and a few of the inner pages

the back cover of the album with still stamped with stazon and technique tuesday stamps over a hambly rub-on. and of course a little bit of glitz frosting to liven things up.
i added all of the text to the photos in photoshop. i kept the the basic typography the same on every picture. if you add text layers to a photo, you can still print the photos at any developer. Simply flatten the image, and save the file as a jpg.

and the rest of the album...