Do You Love Winnie the Pooh?

If so, this blog post will probably put you over the top in cuteness! (Warning: This post has a lot of images)I needed a birthday gift for a little girl turning 2. So I decided to make her a little gift set. I found this fabric at Hobby Lobby and decided to make her a little tote bag. It was super easy to make because the fabric was already in blocks for me.

I then bought enough of the matching fabric that I used to line the inside of the bag

And I made a matching fabric rag letter alphabet. To add a little variety, I also bought some cute yellow bee fabric, since Pooh loves honey.

After I finished those, I was done...except I still had 4 blocks left of the Pooh fabric. So I decided to make two little matching decorative pillows. They are small -- maybe she will use them as pillows for her dolls or something. I'm not sure, but I thought it would be a great way to use up the rest of the fabric.

And here is the complete gift set.

I'm having a hard time wanting to give it away! But since (as somebody asked in the previous post) this is not for me (no baby on the way or anything!!), I'll let a sweet little 2 year old enjoy it instead.
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Sometimes a Card Just Won't Do

Can you believe that I said that?? Well, you know sometimes you feel like you should do more then just send a little card...so I sent a little card and some delicious (if I do say so myself) homemade cinnamon rolls! Sorry the picture is so bad. My battery died so I used Jon's BlackBerry. It doesn't take very good pictures.

Supplies Used: October Afternoon Patterned Paper, Our Daily Bread Designs rubber stamps, Labels 4 Nestabilities, American Crafts lace, button, Fiskars Threading Water border punch
And if you want to make some delicious looking cinnamon rolls (with a bread machine, they are so easy!), you can find the recipe here.

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Simple Little Valentine's

Happy Valentine's Day! Somehow today just sneaked right up on me. My nieces and nephews Valentine's gifts are still sitting here in the boxes, ready to be mailed. I haven't made a card for my husband yet. And last night, it hit me. I needed Valentine's for the kids at school today. So I made these Valentine's really quick. There's nothing but a little bit of stamping and paper piecing on them. But the kids are only 4 and 5 years old, and they will appreciate the candy that I tied to them more then anything, so I think it will be okay. :)

I made 13 of these. I used Unity Stamp Co. City of Love, Sweet Affections, and Stuck on You. The paper is Kitschy Kitchen by Melissa Francis.

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Christmas Treats

If you have followed my blog for the last year, you will know that at Christmas time one of the things that I do is make treat bags for everybody at church. This is our first year at a new church and I decided to continue the tradition...however, somehow time got away from me, and I had one day to make them. I decided to make a sugar cinnamon Chex mix type thing (it would be great if I knew the official name, but I don't). After I made my 6 batches, I tied ribbon around the bag and attached a tag. At first I was using a circle Nestabilitie and a stamp...but then I decided to do what any self-respecting Silhouette owner would do, and do a print and cut of some tags. So I found this cute one by Samantha Walker and after some technical difficulties (of course), it went a whole lot faster. 11 hours and I was done! I'm glad I started small this year and didn't set the bar too high for next year! :D

The Enjoy tag was made using a set from Stampin' Up! called Holiday Collection

And these are the Samantha Walker tags:

And here's about 100 treat bags (yum! guess who is eating the leftovers?)

And when I was done with this, I finished up my 20+ Christmas cards. It was a long (but productive!) Saturday.

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Candy Cane Holder (and winner)

Today I have a fun project to share. I cut out these adorable little stockings using my Silhouette. Then I stitched around the sides to close them up. I stuffed them with polyester stuffing to puff them out. Then I added some Liquid Applique to make the tops puffy. I wanted to embellish them a little more, but I have pretty much run out of time (my Christmas cards are still not finished!). I am going to put a candy cane in each of these and give them to my kids at school. I love how they turned out!

I wrote the kids names in Stickles at the top of the stocking. I smudged them in the picture on purpose (not sure if I needed to, but just to be safe!). They are NOT smudged in person...okay, yes they are, but only a little. You all know that I hate Stickles, right? :) Imagine that there is a candy cane in there, I haven't bought them yet.

And the winner of my blog candy was Karen B. also enduring the freezing cold state of Wisconsin with me! Email me your address and I'll mail your stamp. katytipton at yahoo dot com.
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Thank You Gifts!

Well I haven't had much time to make any cards lately, but I do have something to share. I needed 12 thank you gifts for Christmas and they needed to be affordable (that's politically correct talk for "cheap"!). So I decided to put together some coffee mugs. They each have a packet of hot chocolate and a packet of flavored coffee in them. Then I added peppermint sticks and 4 chocolate dipped spoons for them to stir into their drink. I know the chocolate spoons are so 2002, but I liked the idea so I went with it anyway. I then used a new stamp set that I got from MFT with a matching die to make the tags. I was going to wrap each mug in cellophane and tie the ribbon and tag at the top, but I forgot to buy it. So I wrapped the ribbon and tag around the handle -- and now they can see the coffee flavors inside the mug.

This was one of my favorite coffee mugs that I picked up. The Santa Claus is just too cute. Shopping for cute and different coffee mugs was actually my favorite part of putting these together.

Oh, don't forget about my blog candy in the post below this.

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Corner Table and Some Corner Bookmarks

Jon and I were given a gift card to a restaurant and last night we decided to go. First of all, this has nothing to do with the bookmarks, so you may skip reading this part if you like. Secondly, you should understand that we eat at places like Cracker Barrel and McDonalds. Places like Applebees and Red Lobster are our fancy birthday/anniversary places. So, off we went to this restaurant. Here is what we experienced:

• They put us in our own little "private" room, right next to the, uh, entertainment. (I use the term "entertainment" loosely.) The entertainment was a keyboard/piano/little magic black box with a guy singing (again, I will use the word "singing" loosely).
  
• The wall paper was green with huge pink flowers. The ceiling was draped in fabric to match. The lamp on the table was leopard print (are you picturing it?! Pretty, huh?).
  
• The food was good
• A little girl wanted to sing, so the guy attempted to play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. However, it wasn't on his little magic black box, so... anyway, the girl was cute. Then the guy was inspired to sing a song to her. The Barney Song (I love you, you love me...). Here was where I made my mistake. I asked Jon if we could go any further downhill then this.
  
• Drunk hispanic guy decides he wants to sing with the keyboard guy too. The keyboard guy doesn't speak spanish and can't get the drunk guy to go away. Mostly all I understood was it was his birthday and he wanted to sing.
  
• The food was good -- *ETA: I had roasted chicken, mashed potatoes and carrots. Jon had a half rack of ribs, salad, and a baked potato. For dessert (the best part), was a white chocolate cheesecake. (we wanted to use up the gift card! hehe). Sorry for leaving the most important part out! :)
  

OKAY! So, onto the bookmarks. I made these cute corner bookmarks using the tutorial on Splitcoaststampers. I love how they turned out!

Supplies Used: Patterned Paper (Basic Grey Nook & Pantry), Cardstock, Border Punch (Fiskars Apron Lace), Nestabilites (Labels 4), Ribbon (May Arts), Rubber Stamps (Taylored Expressions Faith & Hope)

Supplies Used: Patterned Paper (Jillibean Soup Old World Cabbage Soup: Caraway Seeds/Diced Tomatoes), Felt Ribbon (May Arts), Cardstock (SU! Very Vanilla), Brad (Making Memories), Border Punch (Fiskars, Threading Water)

P.S. These bookmarks and more are for sale in my ArtFire store!

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Nicole Pie! (&FWF)

This weekend is my niece Nicole's 8th birthday party. How in the world she got so old, I don't know!! I gave her a nickname when she was little -- "Nicole Pie." Awhile ago, she took a picture of herself sitting in a pie pan and had her mom send it to me. So I framed it and I'm going to give it to her for her birthday.

And here's the card I made for her, using the Limelight sketch challenge.

I used Cosmo Cricket Material Girl and Joy Ride patterned paper. The pie stamp in the frame is from the Hodge Podge of Happiness set. The card uses Mix Up of Cuteness and the Happy Birthday is from Ippity's Life's Little Moments set.
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Father's Day Carnival!

Today is the big Father's Day Blog Carnival sponsored by Craft Critique. And I'm participating! Click here to see my Father's Day cards. And here's the link to the list of other carnival participants! I'm sure you will be inspired.
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Terrible Temptation!

Today I am going to show you the rest of the bookmarks I made for the kids at church (see yesterday's post if you missed the fun girly ones!)

And here's a close up:

So, I am having an awful time. It's dreadful really. I currently have enough patterned paper to wallpaper my entire house....twice! And I am IN LOVE with the new Basic Grey, Cosmo Cricket, Jillibean Soup, and Dear Lizzy American Crafts paper lines. So, how in the world do I use up all that old paper so that I can buy the new stuff?! Or, better yet, how am I going to afford all that new paper?! AND if I break down and buy the new stuff (Let's face it. I'm weak. It's gonna happen), where am I going to put it?!

For those of you comedians-who-missed your calling -- no I will not store it at your house. But thanks for the offer. Hehe.

Okay, I'm off. I've got some more staring, drooling, and contemplating...I could donate plasma...sell my husband...quit eating...cancel the cable...How much is a Wii fetching these days on eBay? Yeah, like I said...more contemplating to do. :)

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Some Ippity Love

I made the bookmarks using this tutorial. It's a great way to use up scrap paper and make a cute gift for somebody. I used the Because of You set.

I made these bookmarks for the kids at church and I'm going to attach some yummy candy to them. Can you believe that it is February?! Well, for me January seemed to go forever. Probably because it's the first full month of work after the holidays. And speaking of work...it's Monday. Yay. (Complete and utter sarcasm. In case you missed it!) Enjoy your day!
Go on back to the ippity blog to keep on hopping!
Come back tomorrow and you'll see the fun ones I made for the boys!


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Pretzels, Pretzels, and Pretzels, OH MY!

Every year at Christmas, I make treat bags for everybody at our church. Last year I made Oreo balls, buckeyes, and cheesecake brownies. This year, I was on a tighter budget and the idea of being in the kitchen that long wasn't appealing to me. So, after a lot of debating about what I was going to do, I found these adorable Christmas shaped pretzels and decided to dip them in chocolate. Easy, right? Ha. Well, ok, yes they were easy. But time-consuming for sure. I also didn't realize dipping your own pretzels was all the rage this year, until I received gift after gift of dipped pretzel sticks. So look at me, I'm TRENDY! Haha. Well in case you are thinking of doing this, let me give you some advice:

~If your husband wants to help, let him. He will get in the way. But it's probably worth it in the end.
~There are a LOT more pretzels in those bulk containers then one first thinks.~White chocolate chips are a lot harder to use then chocolate. The white chocolate are prettier, but the chocolate hides more mistakes
~When your husband tells you that you need more chocolate and you assure him you have enough...you better have enough! I tried a 5 loaves/2 fish miracle...It didn't work. I heard about it.
~Expect that not everybody is going to appreciate your hard work. So eat a few pretzels yourself and enjoy it!

Not counting pretzels we ate or that broke, we made a total of 510! We made 85 gift bags (which included 4 chocolate pretzels, 2 white chocolate pretzels, 4 plain pretzels, and a handful of M&M's). And we also made 10 gift bags with just plain pretzels and M&M's in case any crazies that don't like pretzels in chocolate were in attendance on Sunday.

Thanks for listening to my rambling on about my project! It took me (with help from my husband!) about 6 hours to dip all the pretzels! Oh and be sure to use a fork!

The tags are from Cute and Curly (SU!) cut out with the coordinating punch and So Many Scallops (SU!) also punched with the coordinating punch.
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Christmas Candles

I made some more candles for a few Christmas presents this year. These are just so cute and easy to make (although I made votive candles this time and had a hard time not burning my fingers!) I used the Vintage Borders set from Gina K. Designs, Christmas Verses from Our Daily Bread Designs, and Christmas Blessings from Taylored Expressions. 3 of my favorite Christmas sets this year!

I didn't want to make boxes for the candles, and I remembered that I had some bags left from the old Unity Stamps packaging. How cute are these??

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Curly Little Christmas Tree

I found a tutorial for this cute little Christmas tree over on the Jillibean blog and just loved it, so I thought I would try it out. I could not find a tree form anywhere, but I did find these paper cones. It was a little hard to use, since it's round, but it still worked pretty good. I used SU! paper (it's retired, not sure what it's called) and Stylin' Stars (Unity Stamp Co) for the "tree topper"

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Hot Wax....OUCH!

I saw some cool candles over on SCS and just had to try it out. These are so easy and so cute! HOWEVER, overheating causes the wax to drip...and hot wax can hurt. On the positive side, I now have a very smoothly waxed thumb. HA! I am working out some kinks with the box still. I used different sized candles then the tutorial, so I am working on making a different size box...Measuring is so NOT my thing! And here's the tutorial if you want to try it out (and you DO!)

**UPDATED WITH THE FINISHED BOX BELOW**

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Live All the Days of Your Life

I made this picture frame as a gift for somebody and love it so much, I plan on making one for me too! I just LOVE this quote. "May you live all the days of your life." What a perfect reminder for me every day. I need it!
Supplies Used: Simple Life (March Kit of the Month, Unity Stamp Co.), Bo Bunny patterned paper, American Crafts ribbon, Making Memories Grommets, Basic Black Ink, Basic Black and Whisper White re-inkers, Silver Pearl Liquid Pearls
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