December 23rd, 2011
I’m sure you all can agree that it’s been a busy holiday season. At first I was excited about Christmas being on a Sunday… but now it just seems really inconvenient as far as trying to get everything ready by a Friday.
I tried to give myself a break this year and not beat myself up about doing everything that I wanted to, and one of those things that did not get done was our Christmas card. We just never had a good time to get pictures done, and ended up having my friend Gennifer take them on the fly. There was still time to get them printed and sent, but with our travel schedule, it did just not work out… so our card this year is an e-card delivered via my blog, facebook, and email. So really we are just super “green” right? So in lieu of a card in the mail, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
The decorating mostly got done – I couldn’t slack on this since its our first year in the house and I was excited to see how my existing decorations fit the new house. I still need a bit of filler since the house is so much bigger than our apartment, but I can pick some of that up on clearance on Monday! Here are a few snapshots that I took of our decorations this year:
(the iphone 4s takes THE BEST night-time christmas tree photos)
I saw the ruffled tree skirt tutorial that was floating around pinterest. I got everything ready and started to glue all of those ruffles, but only made it a few inches and decided it would be MUCH MUCH easier to just sew the ruffles on (actually my mom was visiting and she sewed them on for me – which is why this is even finished BEFORE Christmas). And trust me, if you do this, SEW the dang ruffles on, you will save your fingers and yourself from going crazy.
I totally need two more cream stockings from pottery barn! And extra points for anyone who spots the baby!
One other exciting thing that happened this week was that our back splash tile went in the kitchen! It looks amazing and I’ll share it very soon!
I hope you all have a wonderful and relaxing holiday weekend!
December 19th, 2011
Okay so I know Christmas is less than a week away, but I am so behind so this is still going to work for me! But even if you’re Christmas is all done and organized you can remember this for next year.
So I created a checklist with 5 major columns, and under each of those columns are a bunch of check-boxes for different activities, parties, gifts etc that you need to schedule, accomplish, shop for etc. This is a great over-view type of document that you can use to schedule all your various Christmas happenings. Since everyone’s Christmas activities are so vastly different, I made this form an EDITABLE PDF file. You can’t change the categories ( I should have done that too, but it’s too late now!) but you can change all the existing checkbox text as well as add text to all of the existing checkboxes. And you can save the file and reprint next Christmas so you have a good idea of all the things you need to do for Christmas.
Click on the images below to begin download of PDF file
And since Christmas is a week away, I created a simple Christmas Countdown with 7 days leading up to Christmas. This one will have to be printed out to be filled in, but you can quickly write up all the things you need to get done this week… like STARTING TO SHOP for Christmas gifts… or is that just me??
Click on the image below to begin download of PDF file
Click on the images above to download a PDF version of my printable Christmas Checklist and Countdown forms. The downloadable PDFs in this article (and across my entire site) are free for personal use only. If you would like to blog about this free download, please accompany and images from my site with a credit and link back to this article. As a courtesy please do not link directly to a downloadable file but rather to this page. At this time, no customizations of this or any of my forms are available. Forms are a free download AS IS. Also since you’ve made it this far, please subscribe to my RSS feed and facebook page so you can find me again! And don’t forget to tell your friends 
December 19th, 2011
Are you like me and sometimes sit frozen…staring at lovely patterned paper and fabulous stamps but do not have anything to jump start your creativity? How about trying out a simplified card sketch? Today I’ll show you four versions from a card sketch that I designed. All of the cards feature products from Jen’s Lost & Found Two Collection from My Mind’s Eye. This collection has so many beautiful designs that make card-making so easy!
So here’s the simple sketch:
This first card stays very true to the design, where the gray area is a patterned paper panel placed onto kraft cardstock. I skipped the sentiment because the Breeze Dream 6×6 paper already included what the card was meant to say to the recipient-You Are So Special. I inked the edges slightly to give the panel some dimension:
The following card features selective trimming of L&F2 Breeze Dream Stamping Paper, the white area within the design on the paper just called for a simple sentiment to be stamped. I carried the damask element into the card base through embossing. Did you notice how I shifted the gray panel to the middle of the card and the sentiment was moved up to the top as well?:
The next card features stamping on a one layer card (using a card base only). The images from the L&F2 Breeze Dream set are wonderful when creating your own patterned paper. Masking off the right part of the card, I stamped various images in coordinating colors on the left side then came back and stamped the filler scroll image in an ink only slightly darker than the card base to add dimension. The final element was to stitch a line to separate the sentiment from the stamping:
And finally, I used the banner stamp included in the set as a focal design element. I trimmed the panel, inked the edges and layered that onto the same card stock as the panel.
When you have amazing products such as the Lost & Found Two Collection and a simple card sketch, the possibilities are endless for making cards. Let the sketch serve as a starting point and really make the elements and designs from the product shine by throwing in your own twists! I hope that you will be able to use the sketch too for those last minute holiday cards that you’ve got to make!
December 17th, 2011
I can’t believe how close to Christmas we are getting! And after that the new year. So I set aside some time to get my 2012 weekly planner finished. I have gotten a ton of emails asking if I was bringing it back this year, so hopefully if you asked you are checking back to see if it’s been released.
The 2012 planner is the same as last year except – due to some great feedback – I updated the place that used to be the “shopping list” to just say “List” and below there are no categories. The “list” can be changed to say whatever you want, and when you change it once it will change for the entire year. The boxes below are still separated but with no headers and are editable but will change interdependently and not as a group or throughout the year. This should make it much easier to use this space in a custom way.
Here is a close-up of how the pages work. Each of the daily and weekly chores are editable. The Daily chores will populate throughout the year. So if you don’t like to exercise (who does??) then you can change that to say “take a shower” etc. and it will change to “take a shower” on every single week. The weekly chores are independent though, so you can add and change week by week, but not for the entire year. I believe that you can do a find & replace though that would change something like “clean garage” to “clean gutters” if you don’t have a garage, and really like cleaning your gutters.
The planner is 25% off this weekend only (Saturday & Sunday) December 17 & 18th 2011. The rest of my digital shop is 25% off as well as one free digital kit and three dollar kits (prices marked are sale prices).
Have a great holiday season!
December 14th, 2011
Believe it or not, I think I have all my Christmas gifts purchased!
No, that doesn’t mean they are all wrapped nice and pretty…..or even completed yet!
I need to {start and} finish a tshirt I’m painting for my nephew.
But, if you are in need of a gift for someone in your life, and just aren’t sure what to do,
I have an idea for you.
Check out all of Jen’s free downloads/printables, and design your own gift!
Some ideas……
A new Mom/Dad:
To Do List
Baby Log
Two Week Planner
Meal Planner
The Health Nut!:
Workout Worksheet
Goal Chart
Food Journal
Meal Planner
The Planner:
Meal Planner
Chore Chart
Project Planner
Perpetual Birthday Calendar
The Organizer:
Canister Labels
Organization Labels
Packing Labels {or for storage tubs}
Storage Container Index
The Traveler:
Ultimate Travel Checklist {This one is one of my favorites!!}
Other Ideas {without links}:
For the Blogger
The Holiday Planner
Or…print one of everything!
Once you print out all the pages you need/want, organize them somehow for that person.
Whether it is in a folder, a 3-ring binder with tabs, spiral bound, or a tear-off notepad…
that will help make the gift complete.
Tip: Many copy center/printing places are able to spiral bound items or even make them in to notepad form for a small fee.
There are so many freebies/printables out there online. Go get them!
{If you aren’t sure of where to look, check out Pinterest!
And if you’d like an invite, just let me know.}
So have fun putting together the perfect gift for someone, that won’t break the bank.
The best part with printables, if you save the file to someplace where you will find it again on your computer, you can print out new sheets for the recipient as needed.
(the iphone 4s takes THE BEST night-time christmas tree photos)
I saw the ruffled tree skirt tutorial that was floating around pinterest. I got everything ready and started to glue all of those ruffles, but only made it a few inches and decided it would be MUCH MUCH easier to just sew the ruffles on (actually my mom was visiting and she sewed them on for me – which is why this is even finished BEFORE Christmas). And trust me, if you do this, SEW the dang ruffles on, you will save your fingers and yourself from going crazy.
