easy DIY gift tags

Hey all!!! Wow, can you believe Christmas is only a few days away?! Well, as you can tell, things have been a bit quiet over here- I only have a short time with DH this holiday season before he has to go back to his mini-deployment, so needless to say I'm spending most of my time with him ;) Not to mention I've been a bit under the weather, so unfortunately a lot of time has been spent on the couch- boo.

Anyhoo, I wanted to share these super quick and easy gift tags with ya'll!! This would make a great project to do with kids too :) The only ingredients I used are...

• The Cutting Cafe digital stamps {cut out with a circle punch}
• tag & snowflake punches
• twine
• buttons
• rhinestones & rhinestone brads
• cardstock & Christmas patterned paper scraps
• leftover Christmas stickers
• {and one leftover Christmas tree stamped image!}

I just kinda stuck things where they would fit essentially :) I think kids would have a blast using whatever crafting scraps and tidbits you have laying around! You could even use up scraps of wrapping paper for these! The possibilities are truly endless!

I may or may not be back on here before the new year, so if not, have a super

merry CHRISTmas

12 Days of Christmas Countdown Calendar

Hi all!! I wanted to share my 12 Days of Christmas display with you :) My DH is coming home from his mini-deployment just in time to count down the 12 days of Christmas. So instead of a traditional Advent calendar {which we would have had to skip the first half of, or open the first half all on one day!} I decided to go with the "12 Days of Christmas" theme!

It's our first Christmas being just the two of us- previous Christmases DH was deployed or we were hosting guests so things were crazy! So our 12 Days of Christmas calendar is filled with goodies the two of us can enjoy together. We both love tea and coffee, so each day is filled with a special tea or coffee that we haven't tried before, or one that is a favorite of ours. I'm looking forward to opening them each night and settling down together on the couch to enjoy our hot beverages, perhaps while watching a Christmas movie ;)

The best part?? Since I had all of the materials in my stash, the only expense was the items to fill the pouches- $30 {and there's lots of extras of each tea/coffee, hehe}.

Below is a tutorial of how you can make one too! I've also included a link where you can download the whole tutorial in a PDF file. Enjoy!!

{download PDF tutorial here}

linking up here...

works for me wednesday @ We are THAT Family

show and tell @ Blue Cricket Design

Crafturday Creative Mess

Christmas card

Hi all!! I'm back from my little vacation visiting family over the holidays, and thought I'd share with you our family Christmas card for 2011 :) Here's wishing you a very blessed month of celebrating Christ's birth!

I'll be back next week with baby shower decor & baby announcements - fun stuff!! :D

thankful countdown mini-album

Hey all! This is my last post for about 2 weeks- going to be spending time with family for the holiday season. But not to worry, I'll be back again at the start of December!! :)

So in counting down to Thanksgiving, I decided to make a little "thankful" mini-album, or gratitude mini-album! So I counted down to Thanksgiving by counting down the ways I'm thankful for my DH ;)

I used PTI's mat stack 3 for the basic shape. For the covers, I die cut some thin cardboard leftover bits I had. Then I covered them in some Making Memories Autumn Splendor DP! Love that line :) The inside pages I die cut some more DP and some pages from an old book. For the numbering, I used a stamp from PTI's 2009 Holiday Tags. I added some scrap pieces of paper on each page to make a space for journaling. I finished it off with a few word stickers and some ribbons!

This is the last page, inside the back cover :)

linking up here....