Oh Christmas Tree

It is onward with the Christmas projects around here!  Every year I have a ton of projects I'd like to do and a ton that don't get done!  Here is something that I made as a gift.  I got the idea from a YouTuber (ILuvVintageScrap) and from Pinterest. 

This tree has jewelry grade decorations. Each silver bell was attached to the chain individually using jump rings. I had fun using beads to create the Ornaments. While I looked at glass (mason) jars, the only ones I could find locally that we're big enough were Ball jars and they had writing on all four sides. They may work as part of the charm for undecorated trees but for a decorated one it took too much of the clarity and crispness away. 

So my shabby chic tree is encased in an acrylic jar purchased in the kitchen section of Walmart. Hope you like it!

Coupons for the week of July 17th-23rd, 2011

WOO!HOO! I'm off to CHA tomorrow! I'll be updating the blog and posting video's starting Tuesday when the show opens! 

AC MOORE
Click here for the AC Moore 50% off coupon and here for this week's ad!

ARCHIVER'S
See the email ad that I got which includes a link to a 25% off coupon (one item.) which is good until July 24th.  Also buy 10 get 10 sheets of cardstock good until the 19th. Did you know that you can get 50% off copies every Tuesday in July? In addition, they have announced a contest for who makes the best decorated 7Gypsies tray with each in-store winner winning a $100 store card and the overall winner getting $1000. Last year the entries were simply amazing!

HANCOCK FABRICS 
Here is the latest email.

JOANNs
Here is the link this week's email. Lots of coupons good until the 23rd. $5 shipping, 4 40% off coupons good online or at the store and a 25% off your whole online order!

HOBBY LOBBY
Click here to see this weeks in store special and a 40% off coupon.

MICHAEL'S  
Go to their interactive weekly ad and see what they have in store for you this week! Here is a copy of the weekly email I got. 

NEW FOR KNITTERS!

LION BRAND YARN
Here is the latest email from Lion Brand.

MARY MAXIM
Here is the latest email from Mary Maxim.

Thanks and have a great week!

M-C

For the record, by posting the coupons here, I am not endorsing any of the stores, just including them for your convenience and mine! Nor do I purport to have listed everything or not made a mistake.

What a week!  I've been sick, again!  Sinus and ear infections have me down and this antibiotic is making me just a little woozy then again, maybe it's taking Zertec,or to be precise one of it's genric forms. Anyhow, I didn't get a whole lot done this week.  Just five 12x12 pages in the baby book, two cards, and a bunch of posts on Facebook. Oh and I attended part two of my favorite class ever, with the every talented Marion Smith!  I love that we learned the old fashioned art of book binding!  Maybe I'll offer a class of my own doing that!

There are a few things I haven't shared with you yet so I thought now might work! First a coupld of pictures of a larger size mini I made using the various butterfly inspired paper collections:

Next a few birthday and congratulation cards.  I'm actually pretty proud of myself!  I took out and used some cookie cutter diesfrom QuicKuts that I had purchased and put away before our last move.

So what's on my creative to do calendar?  Let me see:

A. Finish my little niece Caroline's baby book;

B. Finish and send or deliver my Mom-in-law's 70th birthday album.

C. Prepare the kits for my the class I'm giving next Wednesday.  You can see the 6 layouts on one of my previous entries, here.  This means a lot of cutting, since when my students come to the class, all they do is adhere everything to the page!  So the flowers must be cut, the doillies cut and misted, all the mats, paper pieces etc need to be ready.  Everything for each page is then packaged separately to make the class super easy.. It's a lot of work, but I really enjoy the time I spend with them each moth! And last but not least:

D. I also have 50 wedding invitations to create and put together by the end of the month! 

E. I nearly forgot, I am also hosting a Birthday card swap for an online group of crafty friends which needs to come on and go out by the end of the month!

Phew... I guess I am busy! As for July? The only things I expect to work on is my monthly layout class.  The thing I am looking forward to the most? CHA, the Craft and Hobby Association summer show in Chicago!  My room is reserved, my pass purchases and the workshops scheduled.  I am so looking forward to it!

Coupons Week of April 10 to 17, 2011

UPDATE 4/12/20011 - Michael's Coupons added and link to latest Archiver's ad (ad has no online coupons)

AC MOORE
Click here for your 40% off one regular priced item AC Moore coupon!

ARCHIVER'S
Sorry, no new online coupon this week.  Instead, they sent coupons via snail mail.  So do make sure that you register to get their coupons in the mail! Here is the link to their latest ad.

HOBBY LOBBY
Here is the link to the web version of the email sent by HL this week which includes a 40% off any regular priced item.

JOANN'S 
Here is the link to this week's email!

MICHAEL'S  Here is a link to this week's coupons!
Hope you are having a great week!

M-C

 

Catching Up... Again

If you haven't heard, I've been busy trying to keep up with a challenge on You Tube launched by Marion Smith of Prima fame! Her challenge lasts 31 Days, requires 31 videos and 31 goals! You can get to my You Tube channel here. Updating my blog today was so important to me that I made it my Day 8 challenge!

Other than that I actually hosted a crop last night!  I don't know if you heard but we had a little bit of snow that then froze into black ice yesterday just before rush hour.  Apparently, the roads in Northern Kentucky were not salted ahead of time and there were 86 accidents in our county alone! I want to thank the three brave souls, Charlene, Juliet and Lynne who joined me last night for the crop!  Luckily, I had sanded the driveway, and the path all the way down to the craft room so none of my frieneds were included in the statistics!!

This morning I taught a scrapbooking class right here in my craftroom! Six wonderful ladies, all of them teachers, came over and we did three, 2 page layouts that I had designed using the Echo Park Wintertime collection!I had a great time! A special thanks to Sharon for getting the group together!

I am also working on a mini album, nothing terribly fancy, but for my friends in Florida, Hubby said that since we were going to Destin, for my DMIL's birthday festivities, he thought it would be a great idea to go down and see my friends in Tampa!  WooHoo!  I am really looking forward to it and I'll be calling someone with the initials MLF(M) Monday to ask if she'll put me up for a couple of nights!!!  So if you know me, you know that I'm prepping the mini album to put in my pictures and journal my trip! I can't wait!

Well that's it for now!  Don't forget to check out this month's blog candy giveaway and comment!  I'd love to hear what all of you are doing crafting wise these days!

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving and COUPON Time!

Hello everyone!  Hope you had a great week and are looking forward to all the beautiful fall weather! Though in my neck of the woods we are expecting a record high of 89 today! I'd also like to wish my Canadian family members and friends a very Happy Thanksgiving! You know with the colder weather up in Canada, they celebrate the blessings of a good harvest earlier than is done in the US.

 

AC MOORE
AC Moore has a 50% off bonus coupon here, good Monday (it was good Sunday but I missed it). If you scroll down that same link, you'll also find a 40% off coupon!

ARCHIVER'S
Archivers came out with a new ad and new coupons, 40% off any item and the buy some cardstock, get some cardstock free. The are good until Wednesday the 13th.

HOBBY LOBBY
In addition to a 40% off coupon, HL also has 40% off all Paper Studio Scrapbooking supplies and Stampabilities! Check out the entire in store weekly ad for more info!

JOANN's
I'm still waiting for those to show back up, :(

MICHAEL'S
Like AC Moore, Michael's has a 50% off coupon that is still good Monday. Under the same link you will find a 40% off anything coupon good through Saturday and a bonus 40% off coupon on Artist paints, pencils, pastels and markers!

Bussy Bee Update!

What a fun but exhausting day I've had today!  After picking up Celine at her home, off we went to the Duke Energy Center for some scrap therapy! The CKC convention is in Cincinnati for the weekend and while today we shopped, tomorrow I am teaching my class.  We planned on spending two hours, so that I could go home and finish my powere point presentation for the class!  You never know when you are going to need those office type skills again!

So what is of such interest to Celine?  She really, really liked the Technique Tuesday class board.  I have to admit that I really like the color choices and techniques on this as well! 

However, we were only there for 2 hours, right? Well not quite, we were having so much fun figuring out everything that we both like and disliked that we stayed 5+ fun filled hours!

OK, I really need to get to bed... here is the picture of the little sun catcher who wanted to be a card and grew to be a mini-album!

Finally, below is the board that my class was publisized on just outside the convenion door! 

Thanks Pat for putting the board together.

My portion was a little bigger than she expected,

but she was gracious in letting me add my 12 by 12 portion!

My Last Full Vacation Day

I'm just enjoying being away from home and responsibilities and just being able to chill! This morning I went for a walk on the beach and saw some wonderful things, but the best without doubt was a small sea turtle, who had been caught up in the surf and was being washed ashore. After observing it for a while I put it back into deeper water pointing back out to sea.  I'm not a sea turtle expert, but I can easily imagine that it isn't meant to be ashore alone, in the sun with bunches of tourists ready to play or trample it. I hope it has a safe journey!

Yesterday was truly joyous!  I got to spend some quality time with Janie!  I miss her so much! It was almost as if I'd never left! We laughed, shared, shopped at AC Moore, ate, laughed some more.  We kept from crying when it was time to go our separate ways by making silly faces at each other from our cars! Whenever you think of me, Janie, just remember the silly face, that's what I plan to do when I'm missing you!

I do have more pictures to load up from CHA, I think my camera had slipped to the wrong setting as some pictures are just a little blurry! Still amongst my favorite items are:

Tim Hotz Memory Box system:

Best Creations' Papers:

The Flip-Pal Portable Scanner:

The Ranger Scrubbie, got to get it and test it, but for those of us who always have ink on our hands, sure sounds like a winner!

As always there is a lot more to show and tell, but it will have to wait for the next post! Have a great day!

Teaching Classes

Hi all, well it is official, I will be teaching classes again.  Yeah!  I've missed it, alot! I'm busy preparing two classes for Scrap, Paper Scissors in Loveland, OH and one for C-Shore Creations, Inc in Bellevue, KY.  Here is a short video showing the mini-book we will be doing at C-Shore.  I'm hoping to put kits for that minibook up on my Etsy store early next week.

Hope you Like it! You can order your kit on my Etsy shop now for delivery within three weeks! Or, you can order it already made!