A token appreciation gift

I needed a small appreciation gift for our church board members, so I made these candy bar wrappers and gave one to each of them:



The red part is actually Christmas wrapping paper. The white doily is a rectangle doily from Dollar Tree. The image was a freebie from the weekly Dover sampler. I colored it with my BIC markers, cut it out with Labels 1 Nestabilities, and brushed the edges with red ink.

This is the candy bar inside:



I found it at Dollar Tree. Under the homemade sentiment is a Statue of Liberty so it looks like real money. It's a cute little appreciation gift, and I made up an appropriate sentiment to add:

For all you do
The whole year through --
THANKS A MILLION!

I hope you enjoyed this little project. It was fun to make!

My Christmas gift: A Netbook

My husband has quite the sense of humor. Good thing for him that I also have a good sense of humor! :)

He kept asking me what I wanted for Christmas, and I really didn't know what to tell him. I wanted a laptop or Netbook, but we never spend that much on each other for Christmas, and we hadn't yet received our Christmas bonus. In short, I knew it wasn't going to happen. So I just told him, "You can give me money toward a laptop or Netbook."

So, being the good-humored man that he is, he made his own "Netbook" to give me for Christmas. Check it out:














Good thing for him that he included that last page, right? ;) Seriously though, I got a good laugh out of it. Isn't he a genius? He made it all by himself! I knew he was up to something when he kept coming into my craft room looking for things and asking how to use those brads.

(And yes, he did give me a little toward my laptop savings, as well as a brayer!)

After-Christmas shopping

I was at Wal-Mart when it opened this morning at 6:00, and I was home by 9:30. I got some good deals, as you can see:



I generally get fragrance gifts for my husband's side of the family, since they will last until next year. I did buy a few food gifts, but those are for handing out tomorrow to a few people who have been extra-helpful to us this year.

Some of my favorite finds were the toy power tools marked down to $2.50 each, the mini coloring book packs (10/pk w/crayons, stickers and mini book) for $2.50, and the tub crayons for $1.50.

I bought all three remaining tub crayons, whether they had the cling to color or not. I'll likely just repackage them without the cling anyway, but $1.50 is a decent price for such a fun gift. My kids love them!

The mini coloring book packs are perfect for tucking in little gifts for missionary kids as they travel through.

I was also thrilled to find Lightning McQueen and Dora bubble bath dispensers for $2.50 each. These are so easy to refill, and they make bathtime a lot more fun. I have a niece and nephew who are going to love these!



Hmmm ... Does anybody really wrap their Christmas gifts in pink wrapping paper? I guess you could if your decorations were done in pink, but it would clash terribly with our decorations! :) That's okay, though, because I now have a beautiful metallic pink wrapping paper for everyday gifts throughout the year. When I buy wrapping paper after Christmas, I like to look for something that can be used year-round. All three of these designs fit the bill nicely, and I'm well-stocked for the next two years.

[I don't shop on Sundays, so next year's day-after-Christmas shopping won't be done until Monday. A lot of the good stuff is gone by then, so I'm not counting on getting anything important next year.]

I didn't find any nice Christmas cards, but that's okay. I enjoy making cards, and I can make my own next year.

I was very disappointed with the selection left in Michaels, but I did find a few things. These were probably my favorite:



They are humongous hydrangea (?) stems, and I got them for $2.40 each. Then there is the stem of leaves (eucalyptus??) for $2. I pulled all the little blossoms and leaves off, and here's what I got:



... 50 big, beautiful, glittery brown blossoms ...



... 50 big, beautiful, glittery green blossoms ... and a bunch of leaf sets for my stamped roses (I didn't count them, but there were lots).

That's a pretty good price, considering the Making Memories brand in this size come in a package of 10 for $3-4. I'm happy! :)

I hope you also found some good deals today!

Page-a-Day Calendar Card #3

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! Today is my day to shop for next year's Christmas, so I'm hoping to get some good deals.

I thought I'd share another page-a-day card today. Here I've used the same black graduation invitation and one-panel pink-strip announcement (I used two in order to get the pink strips at the top and bottom).



The stamp is from a $1 Studio G set. I used my Labels 8 Nestabilities to cut the decorative brackets at the top and bottom. The lace punch is MS and the rhinestones are just clear from Dollar Tree.

Here's the inside image (hiding "Class of 2009"):



For the inside verse, I'm thinking of a reference to, "I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord." (Psalm 121:1-2)

Enjoy!

Page-a-Day Calendar Card #2

Here's another card using images from the page-a-day calendar. This is mounted onto a 5.5x8.5" black graduation invitation.



The white paper with the pink strip is actually a one-panel announcement, too. I got a pack of 50 with envelopes at Goodwill for $2. The green patterned paper is a scrap of CM paper from years ago. The lattice is a Cuttlebug die (one of the long ones). I custom-colored the rhinestones with my Fandango Pink BIC marker.

Here's the coordinating inside image (to hide that "Class of 2009"):



Enjoy!

Page-A-Day Calendar Card #1

This past year, I bought one of those page-a-day calendars when it went on clearance for somewhere around $1. It had lots of beautiful nature images, so I knew I could use it sometime on cards. Well, sometime has just arrived. I got tired of looking at that ugly black plastic holder sitting there, so I pulled all the images off, organized them by theme, and I've made a few cards with them.

Here's the first one I made: I used my MS Punch Around the Page eyelet punch for the white paper. I accented it with pearl dimensional paint at each dot (it looks just like mini flat-backed pearls when it dries). The stamp is from a $1 Studio G set. You might have guessed that I used one of my dirt cheap graduation invitations (they're 5.5x8.5").

And since I used the invitation, I had to cover up the "Class of 2009", which is now on the inside:

As you can see, another coordinating image from my page-a-day calendar does the job quite nicely.

I love frugal, yet pretty, cards!

Box of Books Stationery Set

I hope I've given this project enough time to reach its destination! My good friend had a birthday on Saturday, and I've been sitting on this project for a month until I could get it mailed out to her.

So here it is, and I hope I haven't spoiled a surprise ...



This is called Box of Books Stationery Set. It's not original with me. I saw it on Brandie's blog a few months ago. She was going to post a tutorial, but her pregnancy has kept her pretty busy, so she said it was okay if I posted this project and offered my own instructions on my blog. (Thanks!!) I'm sure it's a little bit different than hers, since I could only fit three "books" into my box, but it's very close.



It consists of a holder (like those book sets that come in a decorative cardboard "sleeve"), three folders (to look like books), and stationery. Let's take a peek inside one of the folders:



I went a little crazy with my new MS lace punch on this project. Can you tell? I was able to fit four one-panel cards, four envelopes, and eight pieces of coordinating notepaper in each folder.

The coordinating notepaper was my "aha!" moment for this project. My friend loves to write, and I love to get her long letters. When I sent her a previous installment of stationery, she commented that she had found the perfect matching notepaper to go with it. Well, now she doesn't have to search - it's right here, with two extra writing sheets per notecard. All I did was use my lace punch on white writing paper. It's very pretty and delicate!

Now here's a closeup of the other two one-panel card designs I used in the other folders:



I wanted to keep it simple with a monogram.



As soon as I saw this project, I thought of my friend since she also loves to read. I hope she enjoys this as much as I enjoyed making it!

If you would like the instructions for assembling the box and folders, I have it as a Word document. I tried to convert it to a PDF, but it messed up the formatting of my diagrams, so I couldn't do that. I also have no idea how to link a document like that directly to my blog, so drop me an e-mail if you want it (sophia_regina77 at yahoo dot com). All I ask is that you don't sell the instructions or claim them as your own.

Enjoy!