A Happy New Year To All!

Hi Everyone,
Just a quick shout out to wish you all a very Happy and Healthy New Year!  It was a crafty good 2012 and I can't wait to see and play with all the new crafty good toys that will be shown at CHA Winter.  I bet there will be some awesome new things that will get our MOJO going.  I have been so busy this Christmas season and surly wish I had posted more through out the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  So much to do when you work full time out of the home.  I must say with the help of the family I was able to stay one step ahead of things.  I have been planning a Valentine's Day favor and will share it here sometime soon.  Thanks to you all for visiting I look forward to many crafty shares in 2013.  Blessings to you and yours.
Lysa

Digi Christmas

Hi Everyone,
Wow! Here we are at the end of 2012! The year just flew by a bit to quick for me.  I just wanted to check in as the year comes to close.  We had a wonderful Christmas here at our home this year.  Great family time, great food and a lot of laughs.  We got a few pictures and I already made a digi page for my Mother in Law. I love how it came out. 

Just look how happy Mom is singing with her grand daughter Amanda (my niece) and Rory, her great grand daughter (my grand daughter). I made this page in CA2 using Stampin 'Up digital art.  I just love my CA2!  I still am hooked on 8 1/2 X 11 pages.  This software is amazing.  I used the palette creator and pulled all the colors from the strip of holly paper in the background.  I also used the cutout studio to create the holly leaves embellishments. The shadow tool is awesome too!  There is a free download of this software available at the DaisyTrail website. You can find it here at this link:
http://www.daisytrail.com/freestuff.html
It doesn't have all the full features but once you play with it I know you will want the full version.  The interface is easy to use.
New Years Eve is here at our house so I won't have much more time to play today.  As soon as I get a handle on putting away all the Holiday things I am going to make an album for sure.
I just want to send wishes to you all for a Happy and Healthy New Year! Thanks for visiting and I will see you in 2013!
Lysa 

Reindeer Food 2012

Hi Everyone,
Oh my!, Christmas is upon us all, I am still forging forward toward the day when I can sit down with my family, take a breath, and thank the Lord for all I have.  I have hit the holiday wall!  Have you?  I just long to be finished and to able to enjoy the season, but the mad dash is on!  It's all good though because we are pulling as a team here. Baking and Reindeer Food is now done.  Shopping is done too!  I am so lucky to have the Hubs, my Daughter and Grand Daughter here to help with all the prep for the big day!! This past weekend, Rory and I (between baking with her Mom) were able to complete our annual Reindeer Food! Here is a pic of the "big bowl":

See all that oatmeal goodness.  Please notice no GLITTER!  I beg each year that all my crafty good friends use no glitter in the Reindeer Food.  Not only is it not "GREEN" it hurts all our wildlife friends.  There is just no need for it when sugar, oats, cinnamon, and candy will do the trick!  As always Rory had a blast mixing up broken candy canes and all kinds of sugary goodness to create the magic.  You can see she was really into it, worried about just the right ratio of oats to sugar!

 Then the awesome mix was poured into tubes and decorated, and place into the perfect spot for all her friends to grab when they leave the house after a play date.  Here is how they look sitting by the door:

We created the tags in CraftArtist2 and quickly punched them with a Stampin 'Up tag punch. On the back of the tag is our standard Reindeer Food poem.  You know it. It goes
Sprinkle on the lawn at night
The moon will make it sparkle bright
As Santa's Reindeer fly and roam
This food will quide them
To your home.
What a quick and easy craft we completed while we waited for cookies to cool so that they could be decorated.
I hope everyone of you is organized and moving forward to the point of a wonderful and joyous Christmas. I am almost there!  Thanks for visiting.
Lysa

Luv, This Tree Is 4 U!

Christmas Tags Done!

Hi Everyone,
I am so happy to say I have my Christmas wrap together.  I just love to shop at Joann's for my Christmas bags because they have kraft paper bags every year. This year I went with the pine tree/cardinal bag.  I bought many of them in the 3 available sizes that they had.  The one you see above was 29 cents.  I dressed it up with a tag I made using a Just Rite stamp image.  Oh I am in love!!! I just can't wait to start filling them up with goodies to give.  I have to tell you I am a bit nutty about tags.  I just love to make them.  I have this image as a digi so I made larger ones for each of the 3 sizes of the bags.   You can see I didn't take to much time coloring them. I used Sharpie ultra fine point markers for all but the white.  The white a Uniball Signo gel pen. They went super fast and I made 30 of them so far.  I used my Stampin 'Up
1 3/4 circle punch to punch out the tag and my ZING along with my MTC software provided the scallop circle.  The back of the tag has a basic "To/From" saying on a kraft paper circle as well. The tag and the bag are sprayed with with Stampin 'Up champagne mist.  Here is a close up of the tag:

Most of the white dots that you see on the tag is really gold mist.  The camera just picked it up as white. I wish you could see how they shine.  I am excited about giving these because I really didn't make to many handmade gifts this year. So at least my gift wrap has a bit of a handmade touch.  Tomorrow is my big shopping day.  I will not come home until I have completed my gift list!  Once that is done, I will be wrapping and I must tell you wrap day is one of my most favorite days!  I hope all of you are enjoying the season and are spending time with family and friends.  Our house is filled with wonderful decorations, scents of baking and filled with excitement. I am almost to the point where I can take a breath, step back and remember to be thankful for all that is around me.  Thanks for visiting,
Lysa

Teal & Mustard Are Not Christmas Colors!

****Alternative Title: Avon, What Were You Thinking!***
Hi Everyone,
As I sit down to type I realize that I am not going to have an easy go of it.  I wanted to post a lovely picture of the favors I made for the work peeps and I am still sitting here looking at them. I made 20 and I was not on board from the get go.  The "get go" would be when my adorable Avon Lady Donna L.(love her!) delivered them to me.  Now first off I love, love love Avon for that little somethin' somethin' that they have in almost every catalog.  I always buy a quantity of  either lip balms or nail files that I use for favors.  Avon even has great hand sanitizers that work great for favor making. So this year I bought a 69 cent lip balm that I knew just how to package up. O.K., so I thought I knew.  My problem was the colors.  They are teal and mustard! and they have a red Santa on them.  Really, its Christmas!  How about ... let's say ... ummm .... I don't know, maybe red and green or white, silver or gold.  Here is a picture:

Now I am not sure which is worse, the fact that Avon chose those colors or the fact that I had the perfect matching paper. Apparently I must like this color scheme because if you look closely at the picture you will see a stack of Post it Notes in the background and there are the same darn colors. Well with all that said I wanted to make a clear snowflake embossed box for these lip balms. So I gave it a try.  I made the little mini pillow box, I embossed it with a snowflake folder from Darice. I stuffed the little balm into the box with a bit of white shreds and a white bow.  It almost looked o.k. and then I made the snowflake tag using the teal and mustard. Ughhhhhh! I thought, Wow there should never ever be a mustard yellow snowflake! I know you know what I was thinking. Remember that song "Don't eat yellow snow"!  I didn't even take a picture.  So then I took the bow and tag off and tried a red bow and a white snowflake. No it wasn't a winner either. I spent way to much time switching out the paper shreds and bows. Trying tag after tag nothing was working but I had to use them.  I have 20 of them. So to save you the story of the screaming sounds that were coming from my craftspace (really, it was bad . . . but on the upside I now know how to get the family to turn tail and run) Here is a couple of pictures of how they turned out:

I still don't really love them but I at least feel o.k. about using them as favors. After all those who receive them know my heart was in the right place.  I hope you all have your crafty mojo going as there is a mere 16 days till Christmas. I still have shopping to do so it is really time to get organized.  Have a great week ahead and thanks for stopping by.
Lysa

First Of The Christmas Favors

Hi Everyone,
Whew, I have been on a bit of a holiday marathon.  It started the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and here it is December 1st. This past week was so busy with work and trying to get organized.  With all family hands on deck, we have arrived at Christmas 2012!  I am so happy to say the outside lights are up along with the big giant wreath and window candles.  The tree is glowing in the living room and I must say as I pulled into the driveway last night after work I paused and took a breath.  I was just so happy to be home so I could enjoy all the efforts we had made decorating.  Our annual "family tree day" was so much fun this year and my favorite memory is that my 9 year old grand daughter can now reach higher branches than I can.  Really, its true.  She was able to hang ornaments higher than I could.  I'll tell you this, the next time we paint she can do the ceiling! Another great memory is that this was the first year she stuck stead fast to the "No Clumping Rule"! So funny, she did an awesome job and it was so much fun for us all.  I also was able to get some favors done this week too.  I needed 20 favors for a holiday dinner that I am attending next week.  I used the single Rocher holder with the window cut out that I had posted back at Halloween.  You can view the original post and grab the file here:
http://www.lysaandhueyink.blogspot.com/2012/10/more-halloween-crafty-goodness.html
When I made it back during Halloween I knew it would be perfect Christmas treat holder as well.  Here is a picture of how they came out:

I just love how they worked out.  All the boxes, tags, and die cuts were cut using MTC and my Zing. I used plain kraft cardstock that I stamped with Stampin 'Up Crumb Cake ink and a small inkadoo clear stamp.  Don't you just love the tone on tone. You can barely see the holly leaves.  The belly strip is some old provocraft paper called holly argyle.  My favorite part is the die cut. Funny thing, I saw that exact cutout on a Teresa Collins Cricut cartridge.  But then when I was looking a Google images of holly branches I saw the exact one as clipart from Zazzles.  So who copied who?  Makes no difference to me as the Zazzles image traced perfectly in my MTC software. The die cut is less than 1.5" and it cut beautifully with my Zing. I used a multi toned piece of green paper from K&Co. and just added a bit of marker accents. I hope you like them as much as I do.  I am off to start working on the lip balms I bought from Avon.  They will be the favors for my work peeps.  It will be a simple fold over of some sort. Have a wonderful weekend and thanks for stopping by.
Lysa