Goodbye 2012

Hi, have you missed me?  I have been sick for the last 12 days.  I'm starting to feel human again today.  However, I don't plan to stay up till midnight to welcome the new year in.  It is just a bit past 8 and I'm already thinking about going to bed!

I did get a card made today and started making the cards I'm going to do for my card class in January.  I'll finish them up and post the details about my classes the next couple of days.

I used one of the new Sale-a-Bration sets to make this card.  The set is called Feeling Sentimental, it has a Ferris wheel and one of those old bicycles with a big wheel on front and small one on the back as well as the phone booth and Celebrate sentiment.  Remember, if it is a Sale-a-bration set, that means it is free!  This is a great set too, I'm totally loving it.  Sale-a-bration starts on Jan 22 so this is a sneak peek for you. 

I used some of the Candlelight Christmas DSP for the background paper.  I love that one side of the DSP is something you can use later if you didn't use up all the paper on your Christmas projects.  En Frances` is stamped on Very Vanilla and torn and inked for an additional layer.  The Celebrate sentiment is stamped on one of the dies in the Lots of Tags Sizzlet set.  I thought the sentiment was a great one to post on Dec 31st.  Yall have fun and be safe when you celebrate tonight!  I reckon I'll see you next year!

It's Christmas Eve!

Where has the year gone?  It is already Christmas Eve and 2013 is just a blink or 2 away.  I created a Christmas card with MDS to share with you.  I put pictures of the grandkids on it because they are much cuter than my kids these days.  They are growing  up so fast, the oldest turned 10 this year, in no time they will be starting high school.  But I don't want to think about that!

I hope you all have a nice Christmas day and are blessed with the spirit of Christ in your home.  Merry Christmas!

Clearance Blitz and Craft Fairs

Over 300 new Clearance Rack items are being added to the Online Store at discounts up to 80 percent off retail-only while supplies last!  And for the first time ever, stamps are included at up to 40% off.  Hurry though, I've heard a lot of people saying things are selling out quickly.  I need to hurry on over there myself, there are a couple of things I want to get.  To go directly to the clearance rack click here.  You can order directly from there or call or email me with your order.  Have fun!

I have been setting up every Friday at the Winter Market in Clarksville.  It is at the Smith-Trahern Mansion and is every Friday over the Winter months until the downtown farmer's market opens again in the Spring.  The Trees of Christmas have been there the last couple of weeks so it was fun to set my table up in front the beautifully decorated trees. 

It has been fun creating all the Christmas goodies and I enjoy talking to people as they come by my booth.  This Friday will be the last one before Christmas so if I don't sell all of my specifically Christmas items I'll have a fun treat for the kids at church on Sunday!

 

Between the Winter Market and my nephew's wedding that was Saturday I have been extremely busy the last couple of weeks.  I made the sign in book for the wedding and completely forgot to take a picture of it.  I'll have to take one so you can see it.  I used glimmer paper and it looked fabulous!  I love that stuff.

 

Christmas Tree

In case you have been wondering why I haven't posted in a while, it certainly isn't because I haven't created anything the past week or so!  Every year I help with my church's Christmas tree they sponsor at the Smith-Trahern mansion's Trees of Christmas display.  The kick off for the trees was Sunday.  We also do a Festival of the Nativity at church the first weekend in December so this was an extra busy weekend.  Here is the main ornament for the tree, I was so glad I had the Simply Scored tool to make these rosettes extra easy to make!  I  bought the little "crystal" nativities and hung them over the rosettes.  A silver Shimmer Paper star and some glittery netting finished off the ornaments nicely. 

The finished tree turned out beautiful!  I was very pleased with it and enjoyed every one's compliments of it.  If you live in the Clarksville area you can see the trees Mon-Thurs next week.  There are a lot of beautiful trees in the Trees of Christmas display.

Here are a couple of pictures form the Festival of the Nativity too.  It is always a wonderful weekend of live musical performances and hundreds of nativity sets to enjoy. It is such a great way to kick off the Christmas season!  First, the way the room looked overall.  We had nearly 300 nativities set up and I couldn't even begin to imagine the number of Christmas lights there were!  It was beautifully presented and very peaceful.  I completely forgot I was in the gym.

This is a picture of the live nativity.  One of my brothers built the stable and another one of my brothers was the Joseph at the time this picture was taken.  They traded out the shepherds, wise men and Mary and Joseph every hour and a half or so.  It was great to see them  every time I walked into the gym. 

 

One of my favorite things this year was the display of these photographs.  Helen Robson is a very talented lady, she sews the costumes and gets people together and sets the scenes and takes photographs.  They are amazing!  I especially love the picture with the baby yawning, precious!  Here is her website if you want to see more of her work, http://www.capturedmiracles.org/shoppingcart/ 

This was one of my favorite nativities, I guess it is the portion of the city wall in the background that I really like.  It is so realistic and rustic.

I love this Eskimo set.  We lived in Alaska for a couple of years and I loved it there so this one reminds me of those fun years.

Last Day!

Did you notice that it is Wednesday?  Wow, that week passed fast!  I guess taking a little trip to my son's house for Thanksgiving helped it go faster.  Plus, I have been busy getting a Christmas tree up downtown at the Smith-Trahern Mansion for their Christmas Tree lane.

We had such a nice visit in Memphis with my son and his wife.  This was her first year of cooking a Thanksgiving dinner so she was nervous but she did great.  She bought a pre-cooked turkey even though I told her it was real easy to cook a turkey.  She didn't want to touch the "innards".  Right before we were ready to eat she put the corn in the microwave to heat up and completely forgot it!  I put it in the fridge about 9 that evening.  She also forgot the sweet potatoes until someone asked about them so she got them out of the oven but didn't think about the corn.  It was canned corn which I'm not crazy about since I grow my own corn and it is so much better so I didn't care about not having corn.  The late sweet potatoes tasted mighty good though.  The rolls were heated up by my son.  He forgot and left them in the oven too long.  I made the deviled eggs.  The plate was full when I sat them on the table, someone couldn't wait to eat them!

The theme this year for the trees at the mansion was Shakespeare.  WHAT????  I decided that the pleated rosettes would resemble those collars he has on in the pictures so I went with that.  I found the little crystal (ok, they are actually plastic) nativity ornaments and knew they would be perfect in the front of the rosettes.  I punched glitter stars to cover the center.  I didn't include the top of the tree in the picture, which was taken from my cell phone, because I haven't gotten/made anything yet.  I want an angel or star in silver or white.  I'll take a better picture with a real camera when it is finished.

Want to rack up the last of the bargains for the Online Extravaganza?  Go to my website and shop before 11:50 tonight!  I have a couple of other things I need to get so if you live locally you can get your order to me and I'll include it when I order.  That would need to be before 10 tonight, I plan to be in bed before 11:50!

There are 3 special items that are 20% off today only.  I've been collecting the blocks but haven't gotten the case for them yet.  I will definitely have that on my order today!  It is regularly $16.95 but will be $13.56 today.  You can also get a discount on the whole block set (reg $66.95, sale price $53.56) or the Stack and Store Caddy which is regularly $34.95 but is on sale for $27.96 today.  There are still lots of 20 - 50% off items on the list, 6 punches, a couple of dies, paper and lots of stamps.  There are some embellishments on the list too.  I reckon this is a great time to shop for yourself or your crafty friends!

Cyber Monday ends Wednesday!

Well, Cyber Monday is over.  It is straight up midnight as I type this.  I know, I need to get to bed!  But if you haven't racked up on the bargains from Stampin' Up's Online Extravaganza it isn't too late.  Our sale goes until Wednesday night at 11:50.  That is Mountain Time.  Don't forget to check out the deals, there are lots of stamp sets but also 6 punches and a couple of dies and an embossing folder as well as paper and other goodies.  The list is in my last post so just scroll on down to it.  Don't miss out!

Have you tried the Cookie Press?  I love them, they are so fun!  They are on sale for 30% off until Wednesday night.  This set is the Special Events set, on sale for $11..87.  The set comes with the nice wooden handle and would make a great Christmas present.

The Cupcake Punch is another fun goodie to get while it is on sale.  The Petite Pennants Punch, Blossom Petals Punch, Scallop Edge Punch, Decorative Label Punch as well as the 1" Square punch are all included in this sale.  I love punches!

I have a calendar class that I will be teaching Monday morning and Tuesday night.  It is a cute 4X4 calendar that you can give as a great little Christmas present.  I will have all  pieces cut and punched and ready for you to assemble.  Here are a couple of the pages!

Monday morning will be at 10 and Tuesday night will  start at 6:30.  The calendars will be $15 for the one you make in class and $8 for each kit you want to buy to make at home.  Email me to sign up for the class, wrightplace4 @ mindspring dot com  I get some spam comments that, thankfully, my blog sends into a spam folder and I don't want them spamming my email too.  I'm sorry that you will have to adjust the email address to email me to sign up but I don't need any more spam than I already get!  I bet you totally understand, I've never heard anyone say they like spam emails!!

Well, it is 12:35, I reckon I better head to bed.  I have a Christmas tree to decorate tomorrow!

November Classes

Wow, it has been a busy couple of weeks since I posted!  First of all, thanks for your orders on Oct 29th to help Stampin' Up break it's single day sales record.  They totally shattered their record!  They average sales of 14,000 stamps a day.  That's a BUNCH of stamps!  Of course, many days during Sale-a-Bration are more than that but that is the average.  Monday, Oct 29th they sold 193,000 stamp sets!  Wow, I can't even imagine what a pile of stamps that big would look like!  It is so nice to help break records, I wonder if Guinness would publish that one . . .

November 19th Stampin' Up will release their Holiday Online Shopping Extravaganza!  Stay tuned for details.  You won't want to miss out on the sales on the creative supplies you need.

I have 3 classes scheduled the next 2 weeks of November.  Here are the cards we will be doing Tuesday, Nov 20 at 6:30PM in a Christmas Card class.  You will be able to make 6 cards, 2 each of 3 designs, class fee is $15.

On Monday, Nov 19 at 10AM I will be teaching a Christmas Gifts Class.  It will feature this fun soap flowers box.  Yes, the flowers are soap!  You can make your flowers from Poinsettias for Christmas decorating or from other colors if you want to use it as a gift.  It is fun to have this cute box by the sink and pick up a flower to wash your hands with!

Another gift will be the flower pin.  I always sew the flowers together but you can glue them if you want to.  You can choose lace or several colors of tapestry to make 2 pins.  They are beautiful gifts, and look great on a coat or jacket lapel.  The last gift will be the popular Magic Reindeer Food.  You will make 2 cute tags with the poem on the back and place your sparkly oats in 2 plastic test tubes. This class will be $20

In the Gift Card/Cash Holders Class you will make 6 clever holders to present these gifts in style.  On Nov 26th at 10AM we will make gift card holders that will please the recipient almost as much as the money or gift card you put in it!  I will be posting pictures of these fun projects soon.  This class will be $10.  I priced it lower than usual so you could afford all those gift cards  :~)

With Christmas less than 6 weeks away I reckon we all need to get busy with cards and gifts!  I'm glad to help you out a little.  email me to sign up, wrightplace4 @ mindspring.com

Rudolph Needs A Red Nose!

Have you ever been stamping with a stamp that you wanted just a little bit colored a different color?   I wanted to stamp this adorable reindeer from the new No Peeking set in Soft Suede but he needed a red nose.  We used the penguin in my Christmas card class last month and his nose obviously needed to be orange.  Here is the best way to get that accomplished without much trouble at all. 

 

Ink up the whole stamp in the desired color ink.

Clean off his nose (or the desired area) with a blender pen.  You could also use an Aqua Painter but I think it might be a little more wet than would be best.

Take a marker, using the brush tip and color the area you want to be different. 

Quick and easy!  This is for some test tubes of reindeer food that I am making for a craft fair I'm doing Saturday.  I thought I would post a super quick tutorial since I have been working like crazy trying to get things made for it.  I'll take pictures of my booth and post it when I get home Saturday night.  I'm looking forward to it but stressing because there is so much I want to make and so little time left!

I reckon I need to get back to creating!

 

Halloween Treats Class

Tuesday, Oct 23 at 10:00 AM   

At my home.  

Come create amazing Halloween treats to share with your friends and families! We will make 5 great projects, bags and boxes and even little purses to hold Halloween treats as well as a great idea for those mini hand sanitizer bottles. All these fun projects for the low price of $15 per student.

Here are samples of the projects we will be making.  The Petite Purse gang is on the left, a close-up picture is at the bottom of this post.  To the right of them are the hand sanitizer covers, the push pop treat is in the back, and a fun glassine bag embossed with the spider web folder for you to fill with Halloween goodies.  In the front right is a coffin shaped treat holder.  The bat on the glassine bag and the mummy on the coffin have fun wiggle eyes on them for a final touch. 

This is one of my favorite new ideas.  It uses a push pop container to hold mini brownies topped with orange frosting and Halloween sprinkles.  We will fill it and add the fun tag to make an irresistible Halloween treat.

Here are some ideas for the cute Petite Purses that I copied off the internet.  Aren't they adorable!  They will hold 4 of the Hershey nugget mini candy bars too.  That makes them an extra special treat.

Email me at wrightplace4 @ mindspring.com if you want to sign up for the class.  I'm sure looking forward to helping you create these fun treats to impress your family and friends on Halloween!

A Few Puch Art Cards

I've had a busy few days, a quick trip to Memphis to visit my son and daughter-in-law where we rode horses, went to a fun place called Incredible Pizza that had yummy pizza as well as an amazing game area.  We played laser tag, black light golf, ski-ball, rode go carts and bumper cars and bowled.  The kids won some fun toys after all of us pooled our tickets.  Yesterday morning I helped my daughter-in-law do a scrapbook page from a leftover page kit.  She decided she wanted to learn to scrapbook and my son (bless his heart) is fully supportive.  He knows what she is getting into since he remembers me scrapbooking from the time he was in Middle School. 

Other than helping her with that layout and cutting card stock for my card class that will be Tuesday I haven't had time to work on anything new.  I love punch art though and thought I would share some of the punch art cards from the project boards at the regional Stampin' Up meeting in Chattanooga last month.  First is half of a board full of punch art cards.  I love all the designs people can come up with using our punches. 

 

After driving home from Memphis yesterday I had a crop last night and then a meeting this morning from 9-12 and a Bridal shower from 12-3 and a baby shower from 3-5 and our yearly barn dance started at 7.  Whew!  Who planned EVERYTHING for the same day anyway!  Since the barn dance included a hay ride I thought I would include pictures of these cute tractor punch cards. 

I don't know if the same person made them, they both seem to use the same punches in the same way so they probably are.  They are very cute, I love the pink one and the Green one reminds me of my brothers.  They have lots of tractors, probably between 15 and 20 and we only have 35 acres!  I reckon you need several since different tractors are best for different jobs. 

Besides the tractors, I snapped the dog with an upside down heart for the muzzle and nose, I'm guessing his ears may be half of a heart and his arms are the wide short heart from the punch with 3 hearts on it.  Such a clever use of those punches!

I reckon I better hit the hay, and not all those bales of hay stacked in the barn we had the barn dance in.  It has been a long few days and I'm tired!