New Year's Eve Treat Bags

I just had to share these fun 'treat bags' with you today.

I found the idea HERE and literally shoved my laptop over and made some of my own !!

I used the bright birthday line "Confetti" by American Crafts and am sooooo happy with how they came together.

I've filled them with fun goodies for the evening like packs of gum, M & M's, glow sticks and even some noise makers for Midnight too......and I couldn't resist these cute hats.

I am so excited to show them to Emma and Alexander as I know they're going to be so excited to start opening them at 7:00pm tonight !!!

I have to say that this may possibly become a little New Year's Eve tradition at our house.....I hope you all enjoy your night.

Whether you're snuggled at home in jammies watching movies or dressed to the nines for a night of dancing, I wish you all a very Happy New Year !!

See you in 2012....

j. xo

Christmas Day pics.....

Phewf....it's been another BUSY week around our house !! I have just gotten around to going thru some of our Christmas Day pics and thought I'd share a few of my faves with you....

......this is my absolute favorite photo of the day. These 2 puppies did NOT want to wear these Santa hats much less sit for this photo !! They were good sports just long enough to get this shot - LOVE IT !!!!

Emma and Alex loved their stockings and I love that I can capture their smiles like this.....they were soooooo happy !!!

Alexander is so interested in science and how things are made or created and he was REALLY excited about this science kit.....

....Emma had tried ordering this Playmobile pool about 6 months ago and a few weeks back she said "I guess it's not going to come in" and had put it to rest reluctantly. That very day the store called and said it came in....so me being the sneaky Mom decided to get it for her for Christmas and was she surprised. She got so excited she cried.....super sweet !!

.......and finally the finished dessert !! This was

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

from SCRATCH and it was FABULOUS if I do say so myself......Everyone loved it and I am pretty sure Christmas dessert is now going to be my job each year :))

Well, the dogs and my husband have been sleeping on the couches for hours now so I am off to bed......

j. xo

Sale @ Scrapbookin' Adventures

Scrapbookin' Adventures is having their biggest sale of the year starting tomorrow December 27th and it runs 'til the end of the week (Dec. 30th)

The shop is open from 9:30am - 4:30pm and is packed with savings.....

so call the girls and come on in to find........

- 50% off ALL CHRISTMAS PAPER and EMBELLISHMENTS

- 50% off ALL HALLOWEEN PAPER and EMBELLISHMENTS

.....AND

30% off EVERYTHING ELSE !!!!

Don't miss out on this one ladies......

j. xo

Please Note: Sale excludes AC Ribbon, All adhesive and Albums

Cannot be combined with any other offer, sale or discount. No 'full stamp cards' can be used. You will not receive stamps for sale purchases.

Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas Eve everyone !! If you are like me, you are still up puttering around the house making sure every detail is in place for the big day.....

I was up early this am down at the shop to collect all the goodies you all have been donating all month to help us feed local families in need. As always, Scrapbookin' Adventures has the best customers and you came through again this year.

The back of my jeep was full and I always get so excited to take it to the Salvation Army - thank you to each of you that gave....it's appreciated more than you know.

After dinner with family, I came home to bake dessert for tomorrow. I found this great recipe online and since I love cheesecake and raspberries I decided to try it.

For those of you that don't know me, the big joke around here is that I cook breakfast, lunch then breakfast again and I rarely bake. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't want to, it's more of a time thing....BUT, tonight I MADE the time :))

......so this pile of ingredients turned into......

THIS

and then THIS.......

I was soooo proud of myself I even did a little dance

in the kitchen when it came out of the oven !!!

Once it cools and sets for 10 hours I will decorate it for dessert tomorrow. I'll post a pic of the finished cheesecake as it still needs fresh raspberries and shaved white chocolate on top - YUMMY......

This is the pile of gifts I need to get under the tree and Santa is on his way so I need to get to bed !! I hope you all have the most wonderful Christmas and I'll be back in a day or two....

......Merry Christmas......

j. xo

"Christmas" Mini Album

I wanted to share this fun little Christmas album with you that I just finished.....

I absolutely LOVE Chip/Acrylic Albums from Clear Scraps and had the most fun putting this one together. It is their holiday themed album and the shapes are so cute. It is a really fun size at 6 1/2 x 12" so I was able to really use the whole Christmas Wishes collection !!!

I added a couple more chipboard pages to include a few more photos from Christmas last year. I am a huge fan of 3D foam and used LOTS to really embellish this and make it full.

One of my favorite things about Bella product is all the fabulous cardstock stickers and shapes that I can precision cut to add to my projects. The Santa and reindeer may possibly be some all time faves.

I love how I can capture all the best moments of an event in an altered mini album and it can take me back to that time in an instant. Christmas 2010 was so much fun and creating this album was so much fun !!

Supplies:
Christmas Wishes patterned papers and stickers; Simply Simona Chipboard Alphas

I'm off to do some last minute wrapping and baking.....Hope you're almost ready at your house !!

j. xo

Birthday Blog Hop

Today is the day.....It's a Bella Blvd. Birthday Blog Hop in honour of Stephanie's special day and you're invited !!!

For those of you that are just joining me, you'll want to make sure you head over to the Bella Blog so you can start at the beginning of the Blog Hop.....you DO NOT want to miss anything :))

I loved making this cute little card featuring Sophisticates by Stephanie.

I cut a rolled (7) strips of patterned paper and 'tied' them together with twine, adhered with quick dry glue and added a birthday sticker from Bella's new miniatures card stickers....easy and sweet !!

I want to send a HUGE birthday hug to you STEPHANIE !! I am so happy that you came into my life a little more than one year ago. You are a special lady and I am happy to call you my friend. Enjoy your special day......xo

CONTEST ALERT

We know it's Stephanie's birthday....BUT....Thanks to Robin at the Bella office

we are giving away TEN collections to TEN lucky 'blog hoppers' - Yes, that's YOU !!

All you need to do to be entered in the random drawings is to post a birthday wish to Stephanie in the COMMENT SECTION !!

This means you have LOTS of opportunities to win as you can comment on every single blog as you hop :)) With (26) blogs plus Bella that gives you (27) chances to win.

Winners will be be chosen randomly from (10) randomly chosen blogs so make sure to visit us all !! Good Luck......

Now head on over to visit with my friend Sheri......have a fabulous day 'hopping' around with all of the Bella girls !!

See you soon.....

j. xo

......where I've been

I wanted to share a few photos of what I've been up to this past week and why I've been a bit of a 'bad blogger'......so sorry but I was in Washington having SO MUCH FUN with my girl and her pony !!!

Emma had the opportunity to ride for (3) days with a wonderful clinician just outside Seattle and we made the very most of the trip.

She had a fantastic time in each lesson and learned so much. I still can't believe that this girl smiles the entire time she is jumping each course - love it !!

We walked through the Pike Place Market and saw the sights.

I bought the BEST apples ever and almost got talked in to taking fresh crab home too !! Almost......

.......and I just HAD to take a pic of this sign as it made me laugh out loud. Hell yeah.......

We even made a stop to visit Santa at Nordstroms Dept. store. It was sooooo cute. They made the whole corner look like a little cottage. We were all offered coffee/hot chocolate and cookies while we were waiting.

Because we were visiting from out of town and couldn't go back to pick up our picture in (2) days, they let us use our own camera and took the pics for us !! So much fun.......

Emma was so cute whispering what she wanted into his ear..... It was so funny as she had to push his hair and beard aside to find his ear.....she had us all in the giggles, even Santa :))

We did LOTS of shopping and even got the girls party dresses at Jessica McClintock too.

Of course our horse lovin' kids had to visit this police horse and were so happy when the officer said they could get their picture taken too.

The lights on all the buildings were beautiful and I loved this incredible star at Macy's.

...and we ate VERY well. NOT healthy well but portion size well...This was my first burger ever at Red Robin. Seriously, I could barely get my mouth around it.......and true to my "I don't like onions but eat onion rings" form the burger even had french fried onions on it and they totally made the burger. I could barely move out of the booth as of course i ate the whole thing.....could not even touch the fries !!!

......so needless to say, I am currently drinking litres of water each day and having protein shakes for breakfast and lunch.....and no crazy onion filled burgers for me for quite some time !!

I hope you all are enjoying some good fun family holiday time in the days leading up to Christmas.....tomorrow is my 'wrapping day' - wish me luck :))

j. xo

Holiday Trees

For the last few years I have wanted to do something with these styrofoam tree shapes but never felt inspired enough to sit down with them…..that was until I got Bella Blvd. "Christmas Wishes" !!!

I literally used something from every single patterned paper and sticker sheet in the collection to create these fun decorations for the holidays.

I punched several circles from both sides of the patterned papers with plain and scalloped edges and adhered them using 'tacky glue'. I then added brads for visual interest and a bit of extra security to keep the circle in place. Once the base of the trees were complete I went to work on 'decorating'….this was the super fun part !!

I adhered ribbon and a border sticker for garland, then added stickers and a few stars to tuck in on the green tree too.

The stars on the tops of the trees were cut from patterned paper and scored from each point into the center and adhere with a craft stick in behind pushed down into the foam tree.

The last step was adding chip shapes and precision cut shapes for gifts under the tree. Love it……

(Supplies: Christmas Wishes paper, Alphas & Bits, Just Write Journaling stickers. Misc: brads and ribbon)

Check back tomorrow to check out what i've been up to the past few days and why I've been away from my computer :)

Talk soon.

j. xo

....a little bit

Just a little look at what's been going on in my office the past few days.....It's been non-stop Christmas around here and I am making some good headway on cards and gifts.

Thanks to my fellow DT friend Marie-Josee Hamel for this super cute idea for candies, cookies and more.....I needed one more thing to add to my fabulous staff gift bags and this was PERFECT !!

We're having a scrapbooking party this Saturday and I got them done just in time. I had so much fun making these with my favorite

"Christmas Wishes" paper and stickers from Bella Blvd.

I punched and cut and sanded and glued and LOVE how they turned out....and I guess this part of their gift is no longer a surprise ?!

I had lots of bits leftover from making the candy bags so I finished up with this cute layout of Em and Alex on Christmas morning last year.

I am also a HUGE fan of all things American Crafts and had fun making this holiday card for a friend in Utah.

I MUST get all my cards that have to go south of the border out NOW so they get their wishes before Christmas !!!

I hope you're all having a fabulous day.......Talk soon.

j. xo

"Christmas Wishes"

I wanted to share some of my mini projects that were featured on the Bella Blog today.

I love Bog Dies for my Big Shot and this bag is one of my favourites. It is the perfect size for small gifts such as jewellery, gift cards or candies too !! I am using these for Em and Alex's teacher Christmas gifts this year....they're going to love their holiday drink cards from Starbucks.....I hope :))

Supplies:
Christmas Wishes: Borders, Cute Cuts.

This box is another die that I love to use for all occasions. It is so fun to pretty up with paper and ribbon and holds bite size treats such as homemade chocolates and little holiday cookies too! After wrapping a patterned paper strip around the box I added a border sticker and cut up a word sticker strip to add a sweet sentiment to the front of the box. The small circle alphas were the perfect size for the little gift tag.

Each year I like to create a few new handmade ornaments and I love how these ones came together. When I saw these plain white shapes at Ikea I knew I could change them up and make them the perfect addition to our tree.

After choosing the paper for the bird, I traced the shape for both sides, cut them out, adhered them to the chipboard base using quick dry glue and sanded the edges. Because the patterned paper is a heavier weight than what was used in the original piece, I reduced the length and width of the wings to be able to 'spread' the wings and have them stay open.

I then punched a hole in the bottom and used mini jump rings to add stickers from the bottom. I really had fun making these and hope to find a minute before Christmas to make a few more as gifts :)

Supplies:
Christmas Wishes: Christmas Love, Gifts Galore, North Pole, Miniatures stickers

I hope this finds you all having a great start to your week.....Talk soon.

j. xo