BRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

I cannot believe it’s snowing outside. A good sticky snow! Now that puts me in a HUGE Christmas mood.

WHERE IS THAT CHRISTMAS MUSIC??

I’m SO into it this year. Maybe because I started early? My Christmas cards, and teacher/other gifts are made?

Or maybe its the HUGE excitement my kids have! YEAH! That has to be it.

Kids make this time of year just so magical.

Remember being a kid, and having that magical feeling during the holidays? I know I do. When I hit like 9 or 10 it went POOF!!!! Every year I so missed that feeling.

It really hadn’t come back till my kids have now gotten the Christmas Spirit.

Seeing them be so excited, and already counting down the days. We have been watching Rudolph and Frosty for like 3 weeks now! LOL!

We put up our tree the weekend after Thanksgiving, and go all out decorating inside the house. I cannot even wait.

Through Make-A-Wish Alexa gets a HOUSE visit from Santa himself! She is going to pee her pants! I dont know if it will be from TERROR, or excitement! LOL!

She loves the “idea” of him, but doesn’t like “HIM” in person. Wait till I post those photos! LOL!

I have no idea what Amber and Noah will do.

We are wrapping their most wanted toy ( Baby Alive for Alexa, Scooby Doo video game for Noah, and Dora Dance mat for  Amber) for Santa to bring them! We leave it on the porch for him and Mrs. Claus to present as they come in! Now if that doesnt make true believer’s of Santa NOTHING will!!!! I think Im more excited than they will be!

So to the shopping-

I got mega deals at Target last night, and the best part-NO ONE there!!!! It was very quiet. I have just about finished shopping for my kids 😀 Only 3 little things left to buy! GO MOMMY!!! We are only doing about 10 gifts each. Plus stocking stuffer’s. I don’t know about you, but my kids stuff is SO expensive!! Each toy is like $30 plus dollars! What is up with that??

I dont want to overwhelm them or spoil them too much either.

The cool thing was my Publications/Design  work paid for my kid’s Christmas gifts 😀

Now that is rewarding.

I also want to add that every year each of my kids picks out a toy for Toys for Tots, and we go tothe Giving Tree, which is a tree at Walmart, where you pick a gift for a child off the tree, and purchase it. I get so sad when a child asks for gloves or PJ’s or something they NEED as oppose to want. Make’s me realize how fortunate my family is. I usually add a toy to those requests.

OK now onto the stamping part. No one wants to here my blabbering. But I would LOVE to hear what you love to do this time of year to prep for the Holidays.

I’m sitting here with my steeping hot cup of Dunkin Donuts (I am a DD coffee snob) coffee, and thought I’d share some more gift idea’s with you.

One’s that will warm up even the COLDEST of days!

I made a few more samples with my sets from A Chemistry With Paper.

I used one of my fave’s Hot Holiday Drinks.

I LOVE coffee/tea sets!! You can never have too many of those. I love theirs because of the possibilities for words! Some I have never seen in a set before. So this was HIGH on my list.

Cocoa Cones

 Can you believe this SAME idea, not nearly as nice as mine (wink) retails for $4.99 in stores?? Oh My Word!!!

In case you haven’t realized it, I LOVE Archer Farms items! They are high quality, without the price tag! The cocoa you see in th photo is DELICIOUS!!! It retails for $3.99. It  comes in a variety of flavors :D, This is my personal favorite.

I put 7 tablespoons of cocoa mix, in the disposable frosting bag. This will make 1 1/2 cups of cocoa.

I added the marshmallows, and 2 delicious Ghirardelli peppermint bark squares (crushed up) to each one.

 So, to break it down for you-to make 12 Cocoa Cones-

 here is the list

3 containers of cocoa- $12 ($1 each bag)

1 pkg 12 disposeable frosting bags $4 (0.33 cents each)

1 pkg marshmallows$1 (easliy fills 12 bags 0.08 cents each)

1 9.3 oz bag of Ghirardelli Peppermint Bark  $5 (24 pieces = 0.20 each)

A grand total of $22.

That means each Cocoa Cone adds up to be about $1.83 to make! A far cry from $4.99, for cheap and stale cones.

Now that is with top of the line ingredients! This doesn’t count using a coupon, or getting items on SALE!

How cool is that?? Plus the personalized touch-PRICLESS 😀

Now to make my bag-I stamped the peppermint image from Holiday Treats with White StazOn on my frosting bag. I colored it in with a red Sharpie marker. Copic markers work as well.

For my tag I used the Hot Holiday Drinks set. Colored with Copic Markers. I colored the glass with my Clear Glaze Sakura gel pen. Makes it look so real in person.

 Tag close-up

White Liquid pearls make the “whipped cream”. YUMMY!!!

My paper is by Paper Salon -Holiday Swatches collection. Ribbon is by American Crafts. Did a bit of sponging to add to the chocolatey feel.

Now for the coffee lovers!

I covered this coffee bag! Super simple!

I just took ALL the words I wanted from the Hot Holiday Drinks set, and put them on a large acrylic block. Stamped my bkgd “paper”. EASY PEASY.

Now I have a personalized gift. You could put coffee flavored candy in there, or special cookies, like Biscotti. Possibilities are endless!!!

Hope you enjoyed. I was really long winded today-YIKES!!!

Till tomorrow.

 Falling Snow

Well, some of us “Dirty Girls” from SCS got together for a Elzybells challenge! Since they are ALL the rage, we thought it would be fun. We all had to use Winter Song image, and pink! No patterned paper either.

I included the names of all the girls playing! You can see what each of us did by either going to our individual blogs, or going to the SCS gallery and typing the keyword DCE1107

Dirty Players

Me-

Jami
SweetMissDaisy
kittie747
texasjdodylynn
Chantel
JanTInk
Lauraly
cookiestamper
waterchild12
StamperSharon
JulieHRR
genie1314
leigh obrien
Linda D
flaxychick
notimetostamp
11Valerie11
rainy
debbiedesigns
Jeanne S
Duckwaddlequack
jbalcer
BadSherry
cwilliams
tayloredexpressions
LodiChick
atomicbutterfly
Zindorf
tashers
mel mel
WaterPixie
rohla

So for my girl-

I stamped in brilliance ink-colored with my Copic Markers. Added stickles to her coat trim, and the “snow”. I got these silver snowflakes from Target. They are actually table confetti!! I thought it looked like falling snow.

The ribbon was a $1 spot Target find.

The textured paper is actually Martha Stewart wrapping paper!! Loved it. That is why my main layer isn’t on dimensionals and seems so “flat”. I wasn’t too happy about that part.

Well I hope you check them all out! If you didn’t LOVE Elzy before-you probably will now 😀

Good morning everyone!! The winner was picked by random.org

Lucky number 78 was chosen! Dee I will contact you for your address!

Thanks for the wonderful comments everyone! I’m so happy you not only liked my project but the stamp sets as well 😀

Holiday Treats looks like the #1 pick.

Here is what the winner wrote. 

Dee

Hi lauren…
What a great gift..Who wouldn’t LOVE to receive these.
You did such a wonderful job ! They look soooo good !
I went to the link the other day when you posted it and had
three choices on my list. [love them all ]
The first on my list is labels and tags… can’t wait to get them!
I do have some gingerbread men already or that would have been in first place.
Thanks for the instructions…and Thanks for the chance to WIN.

Dee

Congrats-