Noodle Soup

Last minute gift idea & a new class

Need a last minute gift idea? Check out my Smart Cookie Fortune Keeper class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking. It's economical, quick to make, and looks adorable packaged up in a takeout container with a gift card to a local Chinese restaurant or a handful of fortune cookies. I gave these last year, and they were a huge hit.

 

I also have a BRAND NEW class up at BPS. Consider yourself among the very first to know - the promo emails have not even begun to go out yet, but soon! If the hectic holiday season has you dreaming of warmer, lazier summer days, give yourself a little virtual vacation with my Unpack Your Vacation Memories class. Just because it's the middle of winter doesn't mean those vacation pictures aren't still sitting there waiting to be scrapped, right? And if you're in a part of the country that's snowed in, you could probably use a fun, crafty, sunshine-y distraction right about now.

   

(BIG thanks to American Crafts and Cosmo Cricket for generously providing me with product used in this class!)

Holiday hullabaloo

You may have noticed the blog has been a little neglected this month, which if you look at my archives, is not unusual for me at this time of year. I can only keep so many balls in the air, and the blog is usually the first one to hit the floor. Good thing it tends to bounce back after a while.

The past week has been filled with crazy amounts of holiday activities and tasks. I made yummy peppermint bark with cute labels for all the teachers, a handmade journal for Taite's 6th grade big buddy, helped at two class parties, finished my Christmas shopping, wrapped about 2/3 of the gifts, cleaned out closets and donated bags and bags of stuff to Goodwill, and somehow managed to squeeze in a few favorite traditions like shopping & hot chocolate dates with each of my kiddos, popcorn & holiday movie nights, and blasting the Christmas Vacation theme song in the car while we sang along with the windows down & sunroof open on the way home from school yesterday.

Still on my to do list: reading Christmas books by the tree, visiting Santa Claus at the mall, and driving around to look at lights. I also have one more journal to make, and a maybe a skirt for Taite, if I get to it. If not, her birthday is in February, so I'm not going to stress over it.

How are you holding up amongst the hustle and bustle? Are you sitting back sipping an eggnog and surveying your expanse of perfectly wrapped gifts and home-baked goodies while you revel in your organizational skills? Scrambling to pull it all together in a matter of days? Or something in between?

Vintage Hip Christmas Crafts winner

The Winner of Vintage Hip Christmas Crafts from Ella Publishing is...

(rum-pa-pum-pum)

(that was the holiday version of a drumroll)

(hee hee)

(okay, okay, the winner...)

Nicole Maki

Congratulations, Nicole! Send me your email address and I'll hook you up with a code to claim your eBook.

Vintage Hip holiday fun

All week long, some super cool bloggers have been spotlighting Ella Publishing's latest eBook, Vintage Hip Christmas Crafts by Margie Romney-Aslett and her cute, crafty daughters. I am a little bit late to the party (let's call it fashionably late...it makes it seem less like my week totally got away from me), but I'm here now to tell you that this book packs more holiday flavor than a cup of eggnog. Plus? No raw eggs involved whatsoever!

 

Aside from the nine fun and very do-able pages and projects, I think my favorite thing about this book is that Margie created it with her daughters. I have always enjoyed crafting with my kids, and it makes me get a warm, tingly feeling all the way to the tips of my Fiskars when one of my offspring shows evidence of carrying the crafty gene. So in honor of that familial crafting bond, I spread out some paper scraps on the kitchen table a few nights ago and made one of the projects from the book with Taite.

The {Sorta Simple} Holiday Garland is even more simple when you get a five year old to do the manual labor (i.e., punching). She got a great fine motor workout and stayed out of her brother's hair during homework time, and we have a fun new decoration that we made together.

 

(Roxy says please ignore the glaringly obvious empty photo spaces on my mirror - it's on my list of things to do!) 

 

Because it's the season of giving, I have a copy of Vintage Hip Christmas Crafts to give away to one lucky reader. Just leave me a comment letting me know something you enjoy doing with your kids during the holidays, or something you fondly remember doing with your parent when you were knee high to a craft table. I'll pick a winner Sunday morning.

And meanwhile, if you don't do delayed gratification well, you can use the code CRAFTY09 through 12/13 to get 25% the purchase of your own copy of Vintage Hip Christmas Crafts.

Avoiding holiday meltdowns

As much as I strive to simplify and ENJOY the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the cold truth is that there is way too much to do and keep track of. That's just how it is when you're the mommy. I love the holiday season more than any other, so to maximize my enjoyment and minimize my mommy meltdowns, I've gotta have a plan. And more importantly, a cute planner to jot it all down.

This year's version might just be my favorite yet. It wasn't exactly quick, but it was soooo much fun!

 

I tried out Claudine Hellmuth's Sticky-back Canvas for the cover. Such a cool product! I lightly painted it and then sewed on circles cut from fabric scraps. I added a couple pinches of batting to each before sewing them all the way shut, to give it some fun, puffy dimension. It was super easy to sew right through the canvas and then carefully peel the backing off and stick it to a Zutter chipboard cover. 

The inside has the usual spots for wish lists, notes, receipts, ideas, shopping lists, etc.(including a fun fabric pocket sewn into a mini file folder, because I was on a roll with the sewing machine). The back was cut from a hot cocoa box. 

 

When I saw that it said "Double Chocolate Meltdown", I just had to use it...because if you're gonna have a meltdown, that's the only kind to have.

Mama wants a brand new bag

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme
TodaysMama and Provo Craft are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What 5 items are on your holiday wish list this year? 

Magic Mouse, Cricut Expression, Trish McEvoy #9 body lotion, YuDu, and this little beauty from Kate Spade

 

2. What is your favorite handmade gift you have received? 

I really do love them all...but I have a little felt house ornament made by Kendra that I especially adore. It has been hanging on my kitchen doorknob for at least 10 years.

3. What handmade gift have you always wanted to tackle? 

Hmmm...usually if I want to, I just do it. I guess maybe a quilt is on my "someday" list.

4. What was the best Christmas gift you received as a child? 

My Lundby dollhouse, when I was 5.

5. What items are on your kid’s wish list this year?  

Reece wants an iPod. Taite wants a Cusinart soft serve ice cream maker. Yes, she's 5. Oh, and she wants a hula hoop, which makes me start singing that Chimpmunks song. 

6. What is your favorite holiday food? 

Does Starbucks peppermint mocha count? No? Okay, then it's a toss-up between pecan pie and the hash brown casserole I make on Christmas morning.

7. What will you be hand-crafting for the holidays? 

Skirts for the nieces again, and a few other odds & ends.

8. What is your favorite holiday movie? 

Christmas Vacation

9. Favorite holiday song? 

Great Big Sled by The Killers

10. Favorite holiday pastime?

Making gingerbread houses

This little piggy stayed home

That’s right folks, this little piggy has the swine flu. It was pretty awful yesterday…the washing machine was working overtime, if you know what I mean. Bleah. She’s taking Tamiflu and doing much, much better today. As you can see, she has her sense of humor back already. Yay for pharmaceuticals!

I have some things on deck to blog about, including another installment of Word On The Tweet, but you’ll have to stay tuned because right now I have laundry to put away. Lots and lots of laundry.

Word on the Tweet

Here's this week's installment of fun things I've found through Twitter.

A clever video tweeted by @Roger_von_Oech

How to Make a Baby from Cassidy Curtis on Vimeo.

The cutest cleaning accoutrements you've ever seen, tweeted by @wendysmedley

(click to go to site)

and these coin purses that make my heart go pitter-patter, tweeted by @Anthropologie

  

The bees are my favorite, but I can think of a certain friend or two who might go gaga for the elephants. 

Wise words

I am up to my eyeballs in projects right now, and this afternoon as I was trying to will the creative juices to flow, I found myself recalling an interview I read a couple of years ago. Laura Cameron, an Australian textile designer, was talking about her approach to creating. She said something that struck such a chord with me I had to print it out and pin it to my bulletin board.

“Don’t get stuck on trying to make the single most fantastic design or artwork, just try lots of different things and put it out there. It’s so easy to get stuck, you have to keep the momentum going, and you’ll only ever improve on your last piece. Sometimes I feel that you have to get the crap ideas “out” before the good ones come along.”

Let's just say I spent some time today getting the crap ideas out of the way. But I'm okay with that. It's all part of the process. Time spent creating is time well spent, no matter how the final product turns out. 

Page candy

I'm envious of all the girls who get to spend this weekend at the amazing Spark event - the pics Margie has been tweeting look fabulous.

Alas, attending was not in the cards for me (not the Visa, not the American Express, not the debit card...). However, I was asked to contribute something creative for the auction to benefit breast cancer research, so a little part of my creative spark is there!

This is what I sent:

 

Here's a closer look. It's filled with handmade layered flowers, ribbon, and paper lace, with a couple handfuls of buttons thrown in for good measure. Of course, the goodies don't actually dispense from the machine, but it makes a cute package, don't you think?

I bought a couple of these little gumball machines on clearance at Target a while back. I had the bright idea to fill them with buttons and findings so I could crank out a handful of fun 'page candy' while scrapbooking, but instead I usually found myself taking the whole thing apart so I could get to that one button near the side that was exactly what I needed. Guess the random thing wasn't really working for me. I'm more of a search by color kind of girl, so I replaced the buttons with Jelly Bellies instead.

Got a crafty friend on your holiday list? Fill any kind of jar with handmade embellies and fun bits & pieces of scrappy "page candy" for a super cute gift!