December Daily 2015

Since I finished the album in February, I figured I would wait until later in the year to share my album from last year.

This was the first time I did a "true" December Daily.  Technically, I did a December Daily in 2012 which was part of my Project Life Album and I did a Smash Book type December album in 2014 which wasn't daily.

I told myself I would never do it again, because really, who does something "Christmasy" every single day and you can only tell the story of your decor so many times before it is like "ok, I know that story!" haha.  But then I seen the new December Daily stuff from Ali's site and I had to buy some!!  Plus I have so much Christmas stuff to use.  So I may do December Daily, but I may only document the 12 or so days my kids will be home.

With completed albums like this, I really think a video is the best way to show it off :)

Please excuse my fogginess...I have no idea why I forgot a few words.  This was the 3rd video of the day...I was tired...my brain is old...the list goes on and on.  I thought about reshooting it, but I figured I would have just fumbled on other words haha.

Thank you for watching.

December Daily(ish) 2014

In 2013, I had to have this Smashbook, but didn't use it.  Since I really need to use what I buy, I decided to use it to document my December in 2014.

I opted not to take photos daily 2014, but rather used the whole album as a snapshot of our whole month.  Since the Smashbook doesn't allow you to move the papers around, I stepped out of my comfort zone and scrapbooked them out of order.

Hopefully a video of the album is easier to watch instead of seeing a bunch of pictures that go on and on forever in the post.

Thanks for watching!



I go back and forth whether I like to "vlog" or not because I always fumble my words, but sometimes when sharing a whole album it is just easier I think.

Christmas Mason Jar (with car)

Ever since I have been looking for ideas to make "snow globe" mason jars, I have been waiting to make one similar to this one from "It All Started with Paint".

It took me so long to make because I couldn't find a vintage car....all they sell are race cars!  I looked online and all I could find were cars that would cost a minimum $10 with shipping...no thank you :/

Then my daughter told me I should look through my son's box of cars I had in the garage.  I was doubtful since he mainly loved construction trucks.  But I did find 2 possible cars I could use.  One was a 50's car, but I felt it was too "lowrider" for me hahaha.  So I picked this bug...

It did need a paint job though.  I went to Michaels and just picked up Martha Stewart High Gloss Habanero.  It took a few coats to cover up the graffiti art on the car, but it was worth it.

The tree is a bit big, but I love it!  (The picture doesn't do it justice--it is red not pink.)

Thank you for looking.

Christmas Trees In A Jar 2.0

Back in September, my friend Liz hosted a Craft Day. It was so much fun that I got little done, but my friend Jossie brought jars and gold deers for us to make some cute holiday scene mason jars.  That day, I only glued the deer and added some foam snow, but when I got home, I found my deer had come undone :/

It took me a few weeks to complete, but little by little, my mason jar snow scene was almost perfect.  There were a lot of trial and errors along the way.

While working on my jar, I looked for instructions to make mine look like the ones I found via Pinterest, but I found little instructions...so I thought I would share my step by step process.

First I found some trees at Michaels in the Christmas section.  The package came with 1 "large" tree, 2 medium trees, and 5 small trees.  At first, I was only going to use the large tree, but my deer would not fit inside with the tree, so I added a medium tree to my jar as well. 

I really wanted the trees to looked snowed on, so I added some white acrylic paint to the mostly green trees.  I also used some spray glue then sprinked some gold glitter and white crystal glitter for some pop.  

The width of both trees was squished too tightly in the mouth of the jar...so I found some foam I had laying around (yes, because you never know when you need foam!) and glued it to the lid.  I let it dry overnight.  The next day, I went to put my trees in the jar and D'oh!  the large tree was too tall! ha ha ha and the jar wouldn't close.

So I carved into the foam enough to shorten the tall tree without chopping it down.

(Not pretty but it worked!)

I thought I was done and added some tiny foam balls (I got at the Dollar Tree) to the jar (see first photo), but I didn't like that the balls were sticking to my trees and the jar!  boo!

I sometimes have OCD tendencies and I spent an hour and a half (while watching 2 episodes of Bones...multitasking makes me think it wasn't so bad! ha ha) pulling the foam out of my trees!!

Another trip to Michaels to find some better looking snow.  And the 2.0 version was a success!

At least I think so :)  Thank you for reading...I hope I inspire you to try your own mason jar scene :D

An Elf on the Shelf Alternative

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  (can I say that?)  I hope everyone had a wonderful [insert the Holiday you celebrate here] :D

It has been a while since I have blogged, but I wanted to share my Tinkerbell on the Shelf with those that do not follow me on Instagram.

For the past few years, Elf on the Shelf has been all the craze at Christmas time.  I really enjoyed seeing people post their elf doing crazy things, but my kids are teenagers, so I never thought I would do it.

This year, my daughter went off to college and I wanted her to feel our Christmas spirit at home, so I thought 'hey…I want to do something like the Elf'.  I searched for either a Grinch doll or Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas, but when I saw this Tinkerbell in an elf-like dress, I knew I had to get her!

The first two days of December, my daughter was still at home for the Thanksgiving holiday, so Tinkerbell stayed in the bathroom.

Day 1: It says "I [mustache] you when are you leaving so I can sleep in your room?"

Day 2:  She made snowflakes from Q-tips

Day 3:  She decorated the small tree my daughter has in her room.

Day 4:  A few of the Holiday Barbies joined her to reenact the "Call Me Maybe" Harvard baseball YouTube video.  This video was popular last year, but it holds a funny memory to us from when we visited Miami in 2012.

Day 5:  Tinkerbell made a paper chain to count the days until my daughter came home from school.

Day 6:  Tinkerbell glittered the poinsettias in her room

Day 7:  Saturday--she spent the day watching all the seasons of Jersey Shore--she is doing the fist pump here :D

Day 8:  She got a couple Holiday Barbies to do a Photo Booth shoot

Day 9:  My daughter LOVES A Christmas Story movie…so Tink was Triple Dogged Dared to stick her tongue on the frozen pole.

Day 10:  My daughter (although 18) has a Bucket-O-Soldiers--Tink opened the tub and they attacked her :D

Day 11:  The only show that my whole family watches together is Survivor.  We have had a ton of conversations of who would be voted out first of the 4 of us…Tinkerbell agrees it would be me.  It is really on my daughter's bucket list to be on Survivor :)

Day 12:  One of my favorite Christmas movies is Elf.  "We elves like to stick to the four main food groups…Candy, Candy Canes, Candy Corn, and Syrup" ~ Buddy the Elf.  I tried looking for candy corn because I know they come out with pastel ones during Easter, but didn't find any at Target.  But a few weeks after this picture, I seen that Walmart had some :/

Day 13:  This happened to be Friday the 13th and I am a big horror movie fan.  My photo had the Spice Girls…a Jason mask and knife…red ribbon…a broken head of one of the dolls…but I was told I couldn't post it because it was too demented--ha ha ha…so Instagram (and the blogosphere) could only see Tinkerbell's horror face.

Day 14:  Tinkerbell stole my phone to help me on Candy Crush.

Day 15:  All our M&M figurines took a photo with Tink.

Day 16:  Like me, Tinkerbell loves to crochet and made herself a stocking.

Day 17:  She was trying to help my daughter study for her finals

Day 18:  Wishing my daughter luck on her finals 

Day 19:  We had to kick Tinkerbell out of my daughter's room, she wasn't happy and tried to keep my daughter out :)

Day 20:  She made some tiny snowmen from marshmallows to decorate my snowman tree

Day 21:  She found the copy machine and copied herself

Day 22:  She made a "Tink's last weekend party" flyer from the previous day and since we weren't home that night, she had a party with some Peppermint Schnapps and the Holiday Barbies.

Day 23:  The Holiday Barbies made her an honorary Holiday Barbie and she fit right in my display posing.

Day 24:  She sat on Santa's lap and sang "Santa Baby"

Day 25:  Merry Christmas!  She crossed out Santa's name and let the kids think she brought them all their gifts!

I have to say this was fun, but it is A LOT OF WORK!!!  I don't know how parents do this every single year!  

Because my daughter was away and we were actually gone one of the weekends, some of the photos were taken days in advance.  Pinterest gave me lots of ideas.  I think the only thing I had to buy was the candy for the Elf shoot.  Other than that, I had everything from my craft room.  

My favorite (well besides the Friday the 13th one--ha ha ha) was the Survivor photo.  I was so excited to make the buff, torch, and immunity idol--all with stuff in my craft room (and the printer).

Thanks for reading…

Hope you have a safe and fun New Year!

Gift Card Holder via Pinterest

Every year, I give out gift cards for Christmas.  Not because it is easy (I mean fighting the mall traffic and standing in those crowded lines isn't easy!), but because it allows the recipient to choose a gift they truly like/want and not have to either return the gift or give it to goodwill.

Normally I just wrap the gift card by placing it in a cute box or bag.  This year, I thought I could make some cards!  So off to Pinterest I went and found lots of ideas.

This idea came from Inking Idaho.

I used white card stock as the base.  Then I dug into my Christmas paper stash and everything else I used are papers/stickers from the Holiday Slab by Rob & Bob Studio (back from 2006!!!).  I rounded all the edges because I am currently into that look.

Here is a peek inside--this is not the gift card that will be accompanying this card--just the only one I had on hand.

Dimensions of the card:

White Card Base- 6.5 x 5

Striped paper-6 x 4.5

Green solid-5.5 x 4

Burgundy/Pink-4.75 x 3.75 (made from the Cricut Elegant Edges Cartridge) Here is the link

Plaid paper-5.75 x 3.75 (made from the Cricut Elegant Edges Cartridge)  This time I only put paper in 1/2 the size of the cut so that the paper fit--you can always just trace and cut the plaid paper without the Cricut machine though. 

One down...(I haven't even started shopping yet--shhhh!)

My Christmas Paper Collection

This year, I swore I wasn't going to buy any Christmas paper because I have too much Christmas paper!  But then this beautiful Kraft Christmas Theme paper followed me home from Michaels :)

Even though I have yet to make a Christmas scrapbook layout, I have used the Holiday paper to make some cards and also used it to make albums to store past Christmas cards received.  

Then there was this one time I went through my stash and gave some of the paper (from Christmas Slabs--not the good stuff--ha ha ha) to my niece for her daughter's girl scout troop.

But other than that...it just sits there waiting...wanting to be used.

I had an obsession with the Slabs and Stacks for a while.

In addition to those, I have a few single papers from various collections--aren't they so awesomely pretty!!

Basic Grey-Figgy Pudding & Blitzen

Love Elsie-Noel

Various papers

My Mind's Eye-Be Merry

Bo Bunny-Snowfall (not all that "Christmasy" but oh so yummily pretty!!!!)

I did not add links since most of these papers are so old that they are no longer available to buy.

Like my November Project Life, I plan to combine my December Project Life into a December Daily // Journal Your Christmas format.  Ali Edwards has done the Daily December for years as a mini album, but again, just like November, I don't have time or enough items to take double pictures of every day for an entire month (and why have scrapbook the same thing twice).  So this is my solution.

I tried using up my Christmas//Holiday papers that I had for my journal cards and hoped to not buy any more Christmas paper, but after going through all the papers I had, I was a few papers short of a full month (I mean I can't use the same papers twice, right?)

So I HAD to stop at my Local Scrapbook Store--Scrapbook Island for a couple more sheets.

"Week" 4x6 cards (4 weeks)

"Daily" 4x3 cards (35 cards--31 days, plus 4 date cards)

Now I am all ready for my Daily December/Project Life-December :)  I just have to take some pictures and journal :D