Christmas Class Party

All 24 kindergarteners received one of these festive holiday treat bags at my son's Christmas class party..  The tree was cut 4" I believe from Stretch Your Imagination.

Since I knew they would just get devoured, then thrown out, I didn't put a lot of detail into them.  I did do a bit more with a two-toned sillouette look for the teacher.

The party was fun and the kids loved their bags!

Advent Calendar

My eye caught some fun Advent Calendars last year and I've been itching all year to do this.  I was happy with the way it turned out. I am alwasy looking for teaching ideas with my kids and this was wonderful way to create great family time and add some of the true Christmas spirit into the season.

I cut the bag out in SCAL.  Here's the link to the file. The nice thing about this bag is that there is no glue involved.  When the Christmas season is over, I can just unfold the bags and they will store flat! With as much work as I put into them, this was a big plus for me.

All the numbers come from the Celebrations cart. I actually Mod Podged each one to sturdy them a bit and give them a nice finish. The paper is from a holiday paper pack from Hobby Lobby.

In each bag is a little red piece of paper.   Every other day, there is also a little green piece of paper.  The red papers tells the activity for the day. The green ones tell which part of the Christmas story we will learn about that day.  Some of the green papers coincide with the red ones.  I was particular about which activities landed on certain days since I don't always have a hubby in the evenings.  A lot of the activities we do when my oldest boy gets home from school. 

I swipped some of my ideas from other websites online.  Then others came from our own family traditions, or things I have been wanting to do. 

The kids have loved doing this advent calendar!  Even my husband gets excited about what each activity is going to be.  I am so glad I made it!

Advent Calendar

Days to Remember Card Book

When we lived in Pennsylvania, a good friend taught me how to do these.  This is a book to hold my cards and keep track of all the important dates in my life.  This makes a perfect gift for the grandma, aunt, or mother in your life who is religious about sending you birthday cards each year!

It is made out of sheet protectors, a 3-ring binder (1.5") and some paper.  On the left side of the page you see the month with a place to write down the date of the month, the person's name, and the event being held. (For example, my brother Kimball's birthday is on January 11th.)  Then on the right side of the page, there is a half-page design to fit the month.  The sheet protector is cut down both sides half way to where it meets the design.  The top portion of the sheet protector is stuffed down behind the design to give you an "envelope" or pocket folder to hold your cards.  The top white portion that you see above the design is the next month's registry.  It is still protected by the other side of the sheet protector!

Jan and Oct I used the "card" option on the cart. Then I cut down the card so it left me with a nice wide border around the design. You waste a little paper this way (or call them scraps!), but I loved the border of "let it snow" and "boo" that went around the design.

February

For March I used my SCAL software, but there are some cute Easter/Spring things on the SYI cart that you can use.

April

May

June

July month header.  I created all the month headers using SCAL.  They coordinate with the matching patterned paper on the right side.  I love the font because it is designed to flow together and I didn't have to "weld" anything!  Super simple and not a lot of little pieces to insert in the middle of letters!

August I ended up just coloring the top of the palm tree green with a marker. Lots easier and one less cut.  This one, however is cut out and not colored.

September

October.  Sorry this one is fuzzy. Paper Dolls Dress Up has two very cute pumpkins too!

November

For December I ended up using a green ornament instead of cream and a cream leaf decoration instead of red inside the ornament. The leaf decoration is actually an ornament too, I just hand cut off the top of the ornament when I was all done.

This was the back of the last page.  It is a bunch of birthday quotes to give me inspiration for what to write inside my cards.  I found most of the quotes by just looking around online. 

The font I used throughout the book is CK Vogue.

You can do additional pages in the book that have some simple categories like "thank you", "anniversary", "get well soon", gratuation", etc.  It is always nice to have a few extra cards on hand!

Here are the monthly registries.  You will need 12 of these. Once for each month of the year! Days to Remember

 These are the quotes.  They don't fit on the page in this document because I used that CK Vogue font and Scribd doesn't recognize it.  You can pick your own font to fit your fancy after you have downloaded it.
Birthday Quotes

Here is the spreadsheet of all the cuts I made.  The only reason why this is as organized as it is, is because I massed produced 12 of these (with the help of several sweet friends) for a church craft day.

There were a few cuts where I goofed on my description. Like maybe I forgot to enter "shift" on the spreadsheet. (Don't worry, I didn't do this too often!) So, with each cut, just look at your book that comes with the cart so you can make sure you are cutting what you see from the picture.

Days to Remember Cricut Details2

It is fun to see what others do as variation on the same theme. You will have to send a link of what you do differently! I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Luminaries

These are super simple and so elegant for Christmas entertaining!  I swiped the idea from here.  For mine, I used a Martha Stewart border punch instead of the triangles they have on top.  To make the bags, just trace out one half of a Christmas tree pattern on your brown paper bag, insert a piece of cardboard inside the bag and then exacto knife your tracing.  Use a small and medium sized hole punch on the side you just cut out to make your "ornaments", then fold the flap back and glue it down.  Viola!  It is that easy! 

Bag topper

Here is a fun bag topper I made to fancy up some bath salts.  I used the Martha Stewart border punch along the bottom and New Arrivals cart for the bath tub.  The scalloped circle is from Graphically Speaking.

The soaps are handmade, all natural made from my father-in-law's beehives.  Click here to learn more. These make delightful gifts for any occasion!

Some craftiness

It was my mom's birthday just after Mother's day and my aunt's 60th birthday around the same time, so I made them both this card. I'm hoping it got there okay since the card had several layers that pop out. The "B" is SCAL.  Lots of Cuttlebug embossing including the "Happy" on the outside and "Birthday" on the inside.  The rose on the inside is from Walk in My Garden cart.

The inside

I found these cute vibrating toys for babies at Carter's the other day and bought two for my two new cute nephews. Of course I had to find a way to package them! So, while I was visiting family, I dipped into some heaven and used my mom's goods to make this cute popcorn bin for the toy to go in. (Tags, Bags, Boxes & More cart and New Arrivals for the giraffe!)