busy busy busy

Howdy stampers!  Its been another couple of busy days around here.  BUT, tomorrow is the last day of school and hopefully I'll get to take a little breather. 

I got ink today for the December Daily, so I can catch up on that this weekend hopefully. 

I wanted to show you what I made for my Secret Santa for yesterday and today.

Christmas Classics set.  Old olive and riding hood red ink.  Riding hood red cardstock.  Dotted ribbon punch, Newsprint DSP, 5/8" brad, silver glass glitter, retired ribbon and Tombow Multi Glue.

I made her a candle.  Cute eh?  Let me show you what I did.

This is a 4 oz. jelly canning jar. 

I took a votive size candle.  This one happens to be a PartyLite candle, Yuzu flavor.  I think its retired.  I love it though.  Anyway, take out the wick.......

and place it in the jar.  Place that on a cookie sheet or a pie tin.  That way you can stick it in the oven and it will sit straight.  You probably could have put it in the microwave, but I'm a chicken and didn't want the wax to boil over or anything.  The oven was slower and I could monitor it better.

Looks just like a urine sample huh? 

Sorry.

I put the oven on 275 and checked on it every 5 minutes.  After about 20 minutes I turned it up to 300.  After it all melted (another 10 minutes or so) I decided that 1 candle didn't fill it up as much as I wanted it to.  So I stuck another one in there. 

This little nub is what is left of the second one. 

After it wasn't blazing hot anymore but still liquidy, I stuck the wick back in and let it completely cool.   I have to say, it seemed like most of the smell was gone.  Did I burn it off in the oven?  I don't know.

Of course I had to make the lid cute.  Doing so probably gave my identity away but I just couldn't give her an ugly candle, could I?  I knew you'd see it my way.

I was going to try to keep it simple but you can see that didn't work.  I used the Newsprint DSP for the base.  A strip of riding hood red punch with the dotted ribbon punch on the side, old olive and riding hood red markers and a big silver brad.  I used the Tombow Multi glue to glue the lid into the lid rim. 

I put a small line of the Tombow glue around the top edge and pressed it into the glass glitter.  So pretty! 

I put sticky strip around the outside and stuck on some retired Riding hood red taffeta ribbon.  After I tied a big bow I decided it would look pretty hanging on the tree.  Just put a pic on the backside or something.  Just an idea.....

Then I needed to package it up. 

I had a white lunch sack and some kraft crinkly paper. 

I used my scalloped edge punch to pretty it up and stapled my tag to it.  TA DAH!! 

I did pretty good considering I still didn't spend any money.  This would make an excellent hostess gift or small presents for under the tree.  I think I'm going to try that ornament idea with the lid.  I'll show you if it turns out nice. 

Okay, I still have today and tomorrows gifts to show you but I'm so pooped out.  I have one last pic to show you though:

We had a cookie exchange at work today and so last night I needed to make some cookies.  That got the boy so excited.........so I told him he had to help. 


Alrighty then.  I'm going to bed.  Thanks so much for stopping by. 

Blessings, b.

ahhhh......the weekend

I'm so glad its the weekend! How about you? It is raining and windy this morning and I'm loving sitting here listening to it. So relaxing.

Then I realized I haven't shown you what we made on Thursday night yet. I had so much fun Thursday. Those ladies just crack me up!


This is what I made my hostess:

I {heart} hearts set (Occasions Mini) and Vintage Labels set(SAB). Rose red ink. Pretty in pink and very vanilla cardstock. Candle, Scallop trim border punch (SAB), Real red satin ribbon (Occasions Mini), wide oval punch, regal rose wide grosgrain and natural hemp.

I almost forgot to take a pic of it. It was already wrapped and I didn't have time to unwrap and then rewrap so I took the pic of it wrapped. I love stamping on candles. I hadn't done it in so long. So easy too.

Let me know if you'd like to know how to do this and I'll see if I can work something up for you.




This is one of the cards we made.

Well Scripted (Occasions Mini). Not quite navy and very vanilla cardstock. Not quite navy ink. Wide oval punch, kraft taffeta ribbon, Bella Bleu DSP, brads and dimensionals.

Isn't this beautiful (if I do say so myself)? So simple but just has such a WOW factor. I think this was the favorite card of the night. Everyone was trying to think of what the flower looked like. Camillia was the favorite, but I think it looks like a gardenia too.









Okay, want to know how to make this flower?



I first saw this idea on Dawn McVey's blog and she got it from someone else's blog. I'll see if I can find the link. eta: Okay, I guess I'm not supposed to link to her blog because she promotes another stamp company. But she is still a genius and I love her stuff. Google her and you'll find her.



Anyway, these flowers are everywhere right now. They are so pretty and you can make them out of any paper. The possibilities are endless.






I just used SU!'s scallop circle punch. Punch out 6 scallops. You can punch out more or less depending on how full you want your flower.

1,2,3,4,5,6.

Then stack them all together. Notice how my scallops aren't lined up with each other? You can if you want, but there is no need. I think it looks a little more natural if they aren't.







Now, take one layer at a time and scrunch the heck out of it. Get those aggressions out!

Oh no! The thumb is back! It could use a little moisturizer too by the looks of it.

Just keep scrunching away until you have a little ball of scrunched paper.

The bottom will be flat and thats a good thing.

Then loosen up the petals. You can make it as scrunchy as you like it.

How many times can I use some form of the word scrunch?

There ya go. A beautiful flower! I do leave the middle (first layer) of the flower pretty scrunched up so I don't see the brad. You like it?

One of the best things about it, you can mail it and not worry about your flower getting crushed. It may look even better! If thats possible.

I'll be back with the pics of the other cards we made. Those pics didn't turn out so great so I'm going to redo them.

Thanks for stopping by today and checking in. I love it when you do that.

Blessings, b.