Glass box with Christmas lights and another easy card

While I was in Michael's today, I found  heavy, square, glass boxes with an opening on one side. You can insert whatever you want to put inside the glass box. The boxes came in 2 sizes, but I could only find the smaller size. The opening on the smaller glass box is a round hole with a plastic plug. The larger glass box has a rectangular shaped hole on the side. I bought a few of the glass boxes to make into Christmas gifts.

I removed the round plastic plug and inserted a strand of 20 clear mini Christmas lights into the glass box. I  then tied a sheer blue/silver bow to wrap the glass box to make it look like a gift. I used a whole roll of ribbon that was 9 feet in length. In the photos because it was already dark, the ribbon looks purplish, but it is a pretty royal blue. I can see that I need to straighten the ribbon a bit, as it is twisted on the bottom in one of the photos. I bought rolls of different colored sheer ribbon to use on my other boxes.
The lighted box was hard to get a good photo.
Below are photo's taken from the  top of my wrapped glass gift box, front and side pictures. I think this will look really pretty sitting on a table all lit up.





I love how these came out, and it took all of 5 minutes to put together.  I think it is really pretty all lit up. What do you think?

Also, this morning before I left to go shopping and go to the post office to mail out a few packages, I started a Christmas card. I used a piece of navy blue cardstock, a Dreamweaver snowflake stencil, Dreamweaver Embossing paste and glitter. I have glitter everywhere. Oooh, what a mess. When I got back home this afternoon, I put my card together as the paste had dried.

Well, that's my projects for today. I still have to finish working on the rest of my Tim tags.

AAWA 12 days of Christmas swap-Day 3

This morning was time to open my day 3 package from Dawn. How fun to get to open a small gift every morning until Christmas.  I have a confession to make. When I was a younger, I was so very bad. Yes, I was! It drove me crazy to see packages under the tree with name on them. If my parents went out, I would carefully unwrap and then rewrap my gifts after I peeked at what was inside and put them back under the tree.  When Tom and I first got married he would keep my gifts hidden somewhere else, because he knew I would peek. I didn't get my gifts from Tom until Christmas morning. I don't do peek anymore. :-)

Here is my wrapped package and gift from Dawn.

Hammered copper wire that has curled ends with little charms of a gingerbread man, candy cane and ornament. I love to read, and so I am sure this bookmark will get lots of use.

Lenna's Mail Art Swap package arrived today

Awhile back I joined an envelope mail art swap hosted by Lenna Young Andrews of Creative Swaps.  Today I received my swap envelope with the swap. Yipee!!!
Click on the photos to see an enlarged image of the fun envelopes.
Lenna's large envelope held the other mail art envelopes. I love that fun crow image with the letter in it's
mouth. Didn't Lenna use some fun images and art on her envelope?
.
Below: Front and back of envelope by JoAnn Reichert, Butler, PA...so colorful.


Below: mail art envelope by Kelly Hendrickson/Rogers, MN..love that stamped image

 
Mail art on large envelope front and back from: Julie Coon/Debary, FL

the back of the large colorful envelope has a picture of an older golden retriever, and it reminded me so much of my beloved Bear who we lost to cancer a little over a year ago.

Thanks Lenna, for hosting this fun swap, and thanks to Joann, Kelly and Julie for the fun envelopes.
If you are interested you can view the envelopes I created for this swap on my blog, in a post- November 7, 2010 you will find my envelopes, and on November 9 the fabric postcards I tucked inside my decorated envelopes.

AAWA 12 days of Christmas swap-Day 2

This morning I opened my 2nd package in our 12 days swap. Cyn, created a beautiful ceramic tile magnet. The magnet has  a red bow and the word JOY that looks like peppermint stick candy attached to the top. The photo doesn't do this piece justice, because a lot of sparkle doesn't show up. Cyn also created a gorgeous snowflake card.

AAWA Yahoo group-12 days of Christmas swap

DAY 1
I should have posted this yesterday, but I didn't get a chance, because I got home late and I was tired from hosting my dad's 92nd birthday party.
Anyway, this year on the A Affair with Art, yahoo group that I belong to, instead of having a 25 days of Christmas swap like last year, Yooper hosted a 12 days of Christmas swap. The start date was yesterday, December 12th. 12 participants in each group, and we had 3 groups. I was in group 2. Everyday we will get to open a small gift from one of the members in our group. How fun!
So, last night I opened my first gift that Candy created. Below is the wrapped gift before I opened the package, and the beautiful embossed rubber stamped tag with silk flower that I found inside. The lovely tag was tucked inside the fun tag holder. Thank you, Candy.

Day 6 Tim tag

I started my day 6 tag last evening, but finished it this morning. This is my version of Tim Holtz's day 6 tag to share with all of you.
First off, I don't have any reindeer rubber stamps, or dies to cut out a reindeer shape. So, after thinking about what I could use, I decided on a snow/snowman themed tag. For some reason on my finished tags the white snow created with a rubber stamp and Adirondacks snow white acrylic paint dabber don't end up showing up when I take a photo of my finished tags. I think the reason is that the rubber stamp I am using has really small dots on the surface, whereas the stamp Tim uses has bigger surface areas on his dotted stamp. I bought the SNOW scatterable confetti at WalMart.  I originally bought the package to use on holiday cards, but I think the piece worked out great for my tag.  Tree stamp is by G Rated, and the snowman is a scrapbook sticker. The iridescent snowflakes were something I've had for years, but the small clear snowflake was something I picked up in Michael's or AC Moore. I used a strand of small iridescent beads with a beaded pearl snowflake accent for my tag fibers. The Martha Stewart course crystal glitter on the bottom of the tag really doesn't show up in this photo.
 
I like how this tag went together.  Now, to day 7 tag.
Have a wonderful day. I have errands to run, but it is frigid outside, so I am in no hurry to go outside. :-)
P.S...figures...When I went to Tim's blog this morning, his day 10 tag has a snowman on it. :-) Oh well!
I almost used palm trees with a stamped image of Santa with a pack of stamping supplies on his back when I first started thinking about creating this tag.

My day 5 Tim tag

Earlier today I shared with all of you my first four version's of Tim Holtz's Christmas tags. I just now finished my 5th tag.
I didn't have  several of the items that Tim used and had to create my own pieces. I stamped the number25 onto grungeboard, cut the numbers out and then embossed them with white embossing powder. To the numbers I added green rhinestones. I used a piece of musical note ribbon for a banner that I adhered to torn green paper as I didn't have the die Tim used.  I also used a grungeboard oval that the center was open, and the ribbon shows through. I then added red brads to the grungeboard oval piece. The Santa face I've had for years and I don't even remember what stamp company it came from, as it wasn't marked on the back. I rubber stamped small holly leaves and added green glitter glue and then red glitter glue for the holly berries. I glittered Santa's hat and his beard. The ribbons are red/gold and a silver and white pompom that kind of looks like snow. The Merry Christmas stamp is a Posh Impressions design, but sold under by the Rubberstampede  rubber stamp company.
Anyway, this was my version of day number 5.
 

My Take on Tim Holtz 12 Tags of Christmas...Days 1-4

Yes, I know...I am so behind. Last night was the first time that I had time to sit and work on my versions of Tim's 12 Day of Christmas tags.  Check out Tim's blog to see his lovely tags. Here is my spin on Tim's tags...Day 1-4 tags. They all need to be tweaked as I couldn't put my hands on some of the items I wanted to use last night.
  Day 1:
I just bought a Big Kick Sizzex machine on Tuesday with a 50% off coupon at Michael's after debating whether to buy one or not for ages. I bought some dies the other day while I was down the Cape even before I had bought the Big Kick.  I went to use my new toy last night, and noticed while it was still in the clear packaging that a piece was broken. Ugh!!  Now, I need to bring it back to exchange it for another one. What a bummer that was. :-(
So, I had to free hand draw and cut out the house and fence of grungeboard.  Then I painted the pieces. I added a sprig of green behind the fence to use as a tree. This morning I added red glitter glue for red berries/ ornaments as the piece needed some color. Jingle bells were tied with  sheer netting ribbon. Lots of snow glitter and white enamel accents. Clear plastic was used from packaging for the window panes.

Day 2:
Tag stamped with pine branch/pine cone, swirl stamp and Happy Holidays stamp. The little bird is a cut out, but when I find my swallow charm the paper swallow image will be swapped out for the charm. Glitter  glue was added to the pine branch/cone. I updated the photo of my day 3 bird tag. Still not the bird I wanted to use, but much better looking than the first one. (LOL)

Day 3: 
Inked tag background then using Adirondack white acrylic paint dabber onto a speckle stamp I created the snowflakes. I made a rosette starting with a round grungepaper circle with tissue tape to form a rosette like Tim shared on his video on his blog. I glued a clear button in the center. The pathetic and sorry looking little bird is a free hand bird that I drew, and as you can see, I really can't draw! The bird will be swapped out with a chipboard bird that I have somewhere hidden in one of my craft room drawers. I just couldn't put my hands on it last night.  The paper piece with holly and 25 is from a Tim Holtz 12 x 12 Idea-ology seasonal stack of paper. The paper stack was a gift from Clara on the Art Haven yahoo that I belong to that arrived last week.  Thanks again, Clara for the awesome RAK . Perfect timing for using the paper. How fun to use the papers in my tags. :-)
                                                                  
Day 4:
Lots of bling. Silver tinsel decorative ribbon, sequin circles and snowflakes and tiny staples to hold the ribbon in place. Beaded dangles hanging from ribbon.
Well, now to hurry up and work on some more tags, as Tim posted his 9th day tag.  I don't have a lot of the products Tim has used on his tags, but it was fun coming up with my versions. I'd love to know what you think about my tags. Are you creating Tim inspired tags? If so, have fun.
Have a wonderful day.
 

Happy 92nd birthday Dad

Today is my wonderful father's 92nd birthday. I feel so blessed to still have both of my parents at my age.  Dad is wise, honest, and hard working and very proud of his Finnish heritage. Just the very best dad!
 In May 2011, my parents will celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary.
When my dad was 89, he wrote a book. History of the Finnish Settlers of Carver, Massachusetts, written by Wilho E. Harju, and published by Cranberry Press.

I wanted to post one of my favorite pictures of my dad at age 80 riding a bicycle at the cranberry bog, but I couldn't put my hands on the photo this morning.

Love you bunches, Dad!!! Happy Birthday.

December another Holiday giveaway winner...

Thanks to all who entered my earring giveaway, and it always make me sad that I can't gift everyone who leaves a comment in my giveaways with a prize. The winner of the glass candy earrings is..... Alicia.
Alicia, please send me your mailing address. My email is EAkers@aol.com

December Martha Stewart Giveaway winner....

Sorry for not posting the winner of the Martha Stewart December giveaway winner on Saturday. I had a chance to go to the Cape for a long weekend to do some holiday shopping with my cousins and also to attend the Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra Christmas program. The shopping went well, and the Symphony music, Bell Ringers and Choral was awesome.

Anyway, I guess you are wondering who won the glitter. I won't keep you in suspense any longer.
The winner is Susan Poe. Susan, please email me your address. My email address is EAkers@aol.com
I hope you enjoy your prize. Thanks to everyone else who entered my giveaway.
Elaine

Another Giveaway to start off the Holiday Season

Can you believe it? Today is December 1st. This year has flown by so quickly. My holiday shopping is just about done. I just need to start  wrapping the gifts, and to make a few pairs of earrings and some bracelets as gifts.  As I was looking thru my bead boxes this morning ,  I found these small, red/white/clear glass beads that reminded me of cellophane wrapped, hard Christmas candy.  The beads weren't the easiest to get a good photo.    Below is a photo taken on a pink background and on plain white of the pair of the earrings.     

I decided to kick of the holiday season with a few more small giveaways this month. So here is what I will be sending off to one of you who leave a comment on why you would like to own them. I will draw a name next week.

 

 

Keep checking back, as I am going to post another giveaway real soon. Thanks for looking.

December Blog Giveaway..

Since it is the holiday season, I decided to have a giveaway.
This time I will be giving away a Martha Stewart Woodland Glitter Pack. The glitter colors in the pack are
sterling, antique silver, florentine gold, citrine, antique gold, and copper. 
So, how do you enter my giveaway for a chance to win?
1. Leave a comment on why you would like to win the Martha Stewart glitter pack.
2. If you have a blog or you are on facebook and link back to this giveaway post with a mention of  my giveaway and your name is drawn as the winner, I will send you an extra gift.

Please mention in your comment where you mentioned my giveaway.
3.Leave an email or blog address so I can contact the winner.
4. Giveaway is open to all.

I will draw the winner Sunday night. Good Luck.

Spin for the Day..

Ever have a day that you just don't know what you plan to do? Well, I created a spinner to decide for me. While downstairs doing laundry this morning, I decided to poke around in boxes of stuff that I have picked up really cheap over the years. Yes, I admit it...I love bargains. If it's cheap, and I think that I could possibly use an item in the future...it goes home with me. Unfortunately, I have lots of moments with breaks in my sanity, because I have way too many boxes of these bargains.
Anyway, I found this old plastic lottery number spinner that you spin, and it would pick numbers for you to play in one of my boxes of junk...oops, did I write junk? I meant really cool stuff just waiting to be repurposed.  My spinner cost me 19 cents. Last of the big spenders here. :-)
With the spinner in hand, a light bulb goes off in my head...don't you have a stamp that the image maybe would fit inside of the spinner circle. well, sure enough, in one of my iris cart drawers I found a Stamper's Anonymous image that had never been inked up...shame on me!!!!  The stamp image was indeed round, and has divided sections with the words...Paint, Create, Write, Dance, Sing, Play, Stamp.
Perfect!
I stamped the image onto a confetti cardstock, cut it out, plucked the spinner from the lottery spinner and glued down the stamped image. Here is my new day planner. Well, not really. I was only kidding when I mentioned this spinner would decide what to do with my day, but I thought it was a cute idea. And, I must admit, I do like lots of the options on the spinner. :-)
This is how the cheap, plastic spinner looked before I removed it from it's packaging.
 
How the spinner looks now:
 
p.s..did I just buy one of the lottery spinners? Of course not. I bought about 4 of them. Now, what to do with the others? I am sure I will think of something....eventually.
Do you buy things that you have no idea what you will ever do with them, just because they are really cheap?
Please tell me I am not alone with this bad habit. :-)

Black Friday and Saturday shopping days

I had no time for creating art the past two days. I was in hit the stores early mode. Got up early in the morning looking for wonderful deals for those on my Christmas list at the doorbuster sales. I did really well crossing names off my list as I found the items I was looking for.

I must admit, I did a little shopping for me too. I bought a few things that I found on sale. I just couldn't resist the $1 bins at A C Moore craft store. Lots of beautiful beads that had once sold for much more, rubber stamps, scrapbooking items and  crafting supplies. I also bought a Cricut cartridge for making holiday cards on sale for $19.99.
I looked at the Big Kick by Sizzex as I had a 1/2 price coupon that would have brought the machine down to $50. I figured I could get it after Christmas with another coupon. I am still on the fence whether I really need one of the embossing machines or not. Other than embossing what does this machine do that my Cricut doesn't?  Anyway, I just needed to concentrate on getting my Christmas shopping done.

Here is a roll of ribbon that I picked up at Target for $3 for a 12 foot roll.  I found the roll amongest the holiday ribbons. I thought the snowflakes when put thru the small sticker maker Xyron machine would be great for adding to winter themed cards or scrapbook pages. The snowflakes are attached and feel like they are flocked. Maybe I should get another roll while it is still available, because if I bought a piece of the ribbon in a stamp/scrapbook store I would pay a lot more for that amount of ribbon. Just wanted to share with all of you one of my finds that maybe you could use in your cards or projects. Hopefully, if you liked this you may still be able to find some in a Target store near you.

One corner of my living room has stacks of filled shopping bags. I have to go thru everything and put things together for the different ones on my list. Can't do any wrapping yet as Mr. Fluffpuff, our kitty would have a blast undoing all the wrapping paper, tissue and ribbons. Not to mention how much he just loves jumping into bags.

Yesterday, before even leaving the house...I misplaced the second set of keys with clicker to my new vehicle. My husband, Tom and I looked thru both the new and old cars. In the kitchen, under the vehicles. No keys. Resumed my search again this morning...still NO LUCK!!! How frustrating! I can only imagine how expensive they will be to replace. The key is the strangest looking key I have ever seen. It only has channels down both sides and not to mention the clicker.

Oh, and yesterday when I got home in the late afternoon, I found 2 swap boxes in my mailbox. Always love to recieve fun mail. They were packages from Jean and Barbara from the An Affair with Art Yahoo group that I belong to.
When I receive the last fairy slipper in the mail, I will post a photo of all three that I received in this fun swap. Each slipper is different, but oh so pretty.
Jean also gifted me with a bottle of Duke's mayonaise. We don't have Duke's mayo here in the Northeast. It is a mayonaise that is very popular in the south and southwest, I believe. The gals on the group are always raving about fresh tomato sandwiches with Duke's mayonaise and how there is nothing like it. I have one tomato left from our garden, and so this afternoon...I am going to do a taste testing. :-) Thanks again, Jean.

Also wanted to share with all of you some pictures that I snapped before 8 a.m. yesterday. I happened to look out the kitchen door and spotted movement on the big cherry tree that is near our property line in the side yard. Should have guessed..our Mr. Fluffpuff Kitty was chasing a squirrel. By the time I ran and got my camera crazy kitty was sitting on the roof of the neighbors garden shed and next thing I knew...I saw the foolish kitty leaping into a 25 foot pine tree in the neighbors yard after the squirrel. Here are a few photos of him sitting on the roof of the garden shed. The fence in front is 6 feet tall. I didn't get a picture of him leaping from the roof to the tree.

 

Well, if you were one of the  brave ones and hit the stores looking for wonderful bargains...I hope you found them. Enjoy the rest of your Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to ALL

Just wanted to wish everyone safe travels for those who travel  by car or if you are flying to spend the holiday with family and friends. I hope you all have a most wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Don't count the calories in all the delicious food that will be served, just enjoy.

Last night I made more jellied cranberry sauce. This morning I put a 25 pound turkey to soak in a salt water brine, and I still have to make a few more desserts.
Then, Black Friday, November 26th, the Christmas countdown for shopping begins with big sales, and stores opening extra early with crowds galore and lots of traffic. I don't know if I will hit the stores or not. I have a lot of my shopping done already, as I shop year round. We shall see.

Wishing you all a very blessed holiday.