A gift for Thomas

Hi everyone! How are you this week? Getting everything done for Christmas? I am telling you it has been nuts here at our house trying to wrap up some last minute things. This weekend Haley and I made carmel puff corn for her friends. We bagged it up in cute little reindeer holiday bags for her to take to school. Tomorrow is her last round of finals and that will end the first semester at BC! I can't believe how fast the time went. Sidney decided she wanted to take flavored candy canes to her friends and I am so glad that she did because Momma is pooped! Saturday some friends and I went shopping and we shopped from 9:30-9:30! I can't believe it but I got all the stocking stuffers and had a great time with my girlfriends so it was worth it...plus I am sure that I walked off some of those holiday goodies I have been indulging in *wink*

Check this out...



This is a page that I made for our son. He was home in September for our Granddaughter's baptism and we got this picture of him holding her. Isn't it the cutest picture? I just love the expression on her face! She is holding the penguin that he got for her when they went to the zoo...she just loves that thing! I knew months ago that I was going to do something for him with this picture. So I bought one of those scrapbook page frames at Michael's...they are spring loaded on the back so if you have lumpy embellishments on you page it won't matter it will fit! The whole project is matted on white 12x12 cardstock, then the top and bottom edges of the hot pink cardstock are cut with the Fiskars Threading Waters punch, the patterned paper is from the My Mind's Eye Party Time glitter slab (Hobby Lobby). It's kinda hard to see but the orange "frame" (I cut this myself so it's a little crooked) is Bazzill Bling and the lime green strip of cardstock is punched out with the Martha Stewart Doily punch.


Have you ever used Dew Drops by Robin's Nest? They are so fun! That is what I used to accent the scalloped circle below. Pretty fun huh? They come in so many colors and they give you a different look then using a brad. Just nice to change it up sometimes.



Well, thanks for peekin' in. We are supposed to get a crazy winter storm here this week. Our daughter is supposed to be coming home with her little one for Christmas on Christmas morning but I don't know if that will happen if we get the weather they say we might. We shall see. I sure want to see them open their presents this year! Merry Christmas to you all!

Class Pictures

Hi Friends! How are you doing this holiday season? I hope that you are taking time to enjoy family and friends! There are so many things that we have to be thankful for! I have been so busy the past few weeks doing fun things with my girls! We did a lot of holiday baking last weekend and Haley and I made some carmel puff corn tonight! YUM-O-LICIOUS! It is so much better than carmel popcorn! We also made Oreo truffles! One of those little suckers and you go right to heaven! They are so good. So you ask...are you sampling everything? Well...yes but I have managed to get my butt on the treadmill several times this week...just feeling guilty for eating too many sweets! A friend and I did palettes 2-3 times a week before school started this fall and when Haley started golf things got crazy so we ended up dropping that and we walked in the parking garage everyday on our lunch hour and now that it has gotten cold we of coarse aren't doing that right now so I am on the treadmill. Sometimes I find it hard to stay on for so long. Yes, I have the TV right in front of me but still I have issues...I have to tell myself "come on crazy girl...keep working...keep working!" LOL! So anyway my friend and I decided that we are going to pick back up with palettes 2 times a week starting in January and then the other three days I will hop on the treadmill. Sounds like a good plan huh?

I did manage to squeeze in a little bit of scrapbooking too. These were easy pages because the pictures are 8x10's so there is not really any journaling to do and little embellishments. I usually try to pick colors that complement what the girls are wearing. I used chipboard letters from Maya Road to state the grade they were in and I sprayed the letters/numbers with glimmer mist to change them to a pretty glittery version that blends well with the layout.






Here is a close up of the chipboard.



And here is a close up of the embellishment that I made to accent Haley's page. I have found that you can make so many fun embellishments with stamps and it saves you money too! Here is a close up of the stamped embelley that I made.



I stamped the image on off white cardstock, then punched the image out with my circle punch and inked the edges for an antique look. Then I used one of the circle Spellbinders dies to cut the scalloped circle and inked the edges of that.

Well, thanks for peekin' in! I will post some of our baking fun from last weekend soon! Can you believe that Christmas is next week already? Where oh where does the time go? Hope you have a great weekend!

Hugs ~Toni

Birthday Tin

Hi Friends! How are you this evening? I have had a crazy week and am so glad the weekend is here! I think this was the busiest week this month and now I can start to relax a little bit! Sidney was invited to a little birthday party tonight and I was trying to think of something fun to get the little girl for her birthday. As luck would have it I have a very creative friend, Michele AKA Whimsical Creations, and she did the cutest little birthday tin. I thought it was so cute and at the time when I was reading her blog I didn't know that Sidney had a party this weekend. So there I was sitting there last night trying to figure out what to do for a gift and I remembered that I have had one of these little tins just begging to be used so I did and this is how it turned out! A big thanks to Michele for the great idea...you should go check her blog out here! We ended up filling the tin with everything pink...nail polish, lotion, and lip gloss!

Tomorrow after I pick Sidney up the girls and I will be doing some holiday baking and Sunday afternoon we are decorating our Christmas tree. It has become a tradition that we go pick up our Godson and he helps us decorate the tree too...he is so much fun! He's only 4 years old and so full of life! I just love the little stinker!

Thanks for peekin' in! Hope this post finds you well and warm!!

Friendship Bread

Hi friends! How are you doing this wonderful weekend? I have been busy as usual! I finished up my Christmas shopping today. I am so excited that I got that done! I have a very busy week next week and am hoping that the last 2 weeks before Christmas I can just enjoy with my family. I am working on making a couple of presents for family but other than that all I have to do is wrap Christmas presents and holiday bake with my girls! Speaking of baking...have you ever made Amish Friendship Bread? One of my friends gave me a bag of the mix and a few days later (because she had it for a while) it was ready for me to separate out and make. So I decided to make the chocolate chocolate chip bread in mini loaves. YUM-O! This is super yummy bread. And the best thing about it is all the different variations you can make. As you can see I have kept all four bags for myself. I am going to make lemon poppy seed, butterscotch and vanilla. Before I started making the bread I wanted to see if there was anything online about different variations of the bread. So I googled Amish Friendship Bread variations and found this really neat blog on baking...in fact I liked it so much I added it to my favorite blogs over there on the right....it's called Mommy's Kitchen. Check her out she has got some great stuff!

Well thanks for peekin' in! I hope you get all your Christmas shopping done and have time to enjoy this blessed holiday season!

Digital Scrapbooking

Hi friends! How are you this week? Old man winter has blown into town here. It is so chilly outside and tomorrow it is going to be a little colder yet, but I guess it is that time of the year! A few months back I got invited to a digital scrapbook party and thought I would check it out. I have always been interested in checking out digi scrapping but one thing that held me back was that I have so much money already tied up in all the supplies I have that I just couldn't see switching completely...plus I don't know about you but I like to cut and glue and make lumpy pages with fun embellishments and digital just doesn't seem as real to me...this is not to say that I haven't seen some beautiful digi scrapbook pages because I have but you know...as they say...to each his own. Well anyway, I went to this party and put together the page that you see above as a gift for my husband's birthday. The idea was so neat. We did these 12 x 12 scrapbook pages and the consultant ordered the page for us. When that came in we adhered it to a 12x12 ceramic floor tile with Modge Podge and using sandpaper "roughed up" the edges to give it that distressed look. Then I covered it with Modge Podge to seal it, waited until that was dry and went over it again. When that was dry I took it outside and sealed it with a spray sealer, waited 10 minutes and did that again.

I wasn't sure how the page was going to turn out. I got frustrated using the computer to put this together because although it doesn't look like I put much into doing this page there were so many choices and options to try out with your photo, from endless background choices, to millions of embellishments. Then you could do all kinds of neat things to the photos. There were so many choices that it was a little overwhelming really. Needless to say this page took me 2 1/2 hrs to complete but I was very surprised at how good it turned out for my first time. The quote at the bottom says "Families are what make life rich. Love is what binds us together. Joy is bing surrounded by both." I like the way this turned out so much that I am doing another one for my mother in-law for Christmas.

Well thanks for peekin' in! Hope you are having a great week!