These Are A Few of My Favorite Things.....

  First off Id like to wish you all warmest wishes throughout this holiday season.  I hope that everyone made the most of the holidays whether surrounded by many family and friends or shared with only one special person it is a time to reflect on all those things that are important to us.  I was truly blessed to be able to spend some quality time with my husband and kids over the last 2 weeks as well as some dear friends while we celebrated a Christmas wedding.
  Although I know the holiday season is all about what you give as apposed to what you received, I would like to share 2 of my favorite presents that waited under the tree for me Christmas morning.
  This first one is a project my husband made for me based on a similar storage unit i saw online.  I designed this one with slanted shelves to keep the liquid and mica powders in the bottom of the bottles and so that I could easily see the tops of each of the bottles.  With so much space I was able to fit my Tim Holtz stains as well (a happy accident).  I'm so thrilled with how this project came out that I can hardly wait to get back in my craftroom to play.  I have a couple more storage units in mind now to house my ink pads and glitters and any other products I can fit on those little shelve.

   My second favorite thing (aside from the beautiful garbage can my brother bought me...) is this gorgeous vintage (circa 1950) stamp stand that holds all my Tim Holtz blending tools.  It has room for 26 of them I believe and adds such unique character to my scrappy space.

  Thank you all for stopping by to visit and share all your wonderful comments throughout the year.  I look forward to hearing how you all spent this holiday season. Love and Hugs    Glynis

 The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.  ~Thomas Jefferson

Christmas Mini Challenge

 I was chatting away with some scrappy friends one morning and catching up on watching some of my favorite YouTubers when i stumbled across an older Kathy Orta video I had not seen before. After sharing with my friends they decided it would be fun to challenge me to do something with it.  The original was a cupcake theme mini and the inside was constructed of paper bags.  I decided to modify slightly to use envelopes instead.  So here is what I came up with:

 Each of the insert fronts has been decorated slightly different using a combination of Tim Holtz Sizzix Dies and and my Noel Cricut Cartridge.  All the berries throughout were made using my 1/4" hole punch and glossy accents.

 I cut off the ends of my envelopes to make them perfectly square and then glued the cut off end to the fronts to for a pocket for tags of all shapes and sizes.

 In each of the envelope pages I inserted a card so that half was inside and half out.  This created the effect of having a flap on the front of each page that could be pulled out to see the photos attached on all sides. I had so much fun creating this little mini and feel so blessed to have those like Kathy Orta to inspire me.

At the bottom of the mini i created a Trifold with smaller envelopes. The two outer ones have flaps attached to the fronts of them for more photos or journaling.
This project was a great jumping off point to the start of my christmas crafting. Hope to post some more projects in the next coming days.
Thanks for stopping by :O)

Our Happy Halloween

 Felicity and her girlfriend took care of the messy stuff cleaning out all the guts of the pumpkins.  Was a beautiful sunny day so they hung out on the front porch.

 

This was Felicity's first time carving her own pumpkin.  She did a fantastic job carving the cyclops she drew.

 

 My Mom created a Happy pumpkin face so not to scare little Isabelle who found all things halloweeny somewhat frightening this year.

 Felicity posing in her Mad Hatter costume that Mom and I worked on together.  The Hat was so much fun to make and weighed a tonne on her little head.  I think she looked fabulous!! Her friend was a spooktacular vampire bride.

Tristan's friend dressed as Gene Simmons from Kiss poses as though he's giving his autograph.  He looked hilarious with that wig and makeup!! We had so much fun getting ready for this favorite holiday of the year.  I had a few Halloween mini's I created but didn't get posted. Perhaps will try to get them up tomorrow.  Better late than never...lol :O)

Mini Album for Deanne at Mini Album Scraps

  This is a coin envelope mini I made for my friend Deann in a swap over at http://minialbumscraps.ning.com/ .  I used the Out of Print paper by Basic Grey and the printed recollections flowers as well as some Wild Orchid Crafts flowers to embellish.  The tags are 7 Gypsies and Maya Road and the mirrored butterflies are from the dollar store.  This Mini was quite the challenge for me making for someone else that wasn't family, but in the end a lot of fun.

  I covered the flaps of the minis with patterned paper that had a decorative edge cut on my Big Shot using my Tim Holts Bracket Die.  The black cardstock was punched with a Martha Stewart edge punch. I did half the pockets horizontal and half vertical in this mini.

Double Tri Shutter Mini Photo Book

  This was a fun little mini album project I helped a girlfriend make for her Brother and SIL new baby boy.  Have always wanted to try one of these and was a lot of fun.  I found the tutorial on youtube here http://www.youtube.com/user/JohaneWilson .

 
 He's such a cutey!  I love this picture where it looks like he's winking at you..lol!!

Twilight Tag Swap

  I've discovered a great new site and a fabulous way to get my craft on over at http://minialbumscraps.ning.com/ .  They have really fun swaps and a great group of ladies who are always there to chat or answer questions.  So this is my first swap over on the site and it was a Twilight Tag swap.

   I chose to go with a woodsy theme as the pic takes place in the trees, plus I had this great leaf trim I'd been dying to use.  I made the flowers using white satin and the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die.  I cut 2 of each of the layers then melted the petals with my heat gun just till they curled a bit. Use a brad to hold all the layers together then colour with your fav dye ink spray.  The leaf was cut out of two bonded layers of canvas that I then painted with Glimmer Mist to hand dye.   The twohearts charm was coloured with 18k gold pen and then distressed with alcohol ink.

  I had so much fun putting these together and can't wait to start my next swap.  I encourage you to check out this site so you too can join in the madness of swapping....lol.

Father's Day Card for Kieth

This fabulous Father's Day card was designed by my great crafty friend Tracy.  She put together a kit for me so we could create them together.  All the pieces were made from scratch.

   The machanism was one she'd seen on youtube splitcoast site, and the rod, net and fish were inspired by some dollar store stickers she had.

   The canoe was cut on the cricut and creates a little pocket for the card which is a coupon good for one.....whatever....for hubby.  The little paddles were decorated with woodgrain drawn in with Stampin' Up markers.  The little fish were cut using funfoam and cardstock and decorated with pen.  The cardstock is covered with self adhesive drywall mesh to create a fun texture.

 Tracy hand carved the fishing reel and used wire to create the loops that hold the fishing line.  Two brads with thier prongs cut off make the reel and a couple of seed beads for the bobbers. A small wire hook finishes off the rod assembly.  She also made the net using tulle, a wire loop and a carved skewer.  She hand tied the mini flies that finish off the look.

  The vest is held closed with a small magnet insertion and in each of the inside pockets is a cute and corny saying.  I really love how this project came out! Tracy is amazing with the details...

Happy Father's Day

Isa's Birthday In Barkerville

  Isa turned 2 recently, but as Daddy was away working we waited to celebrate with him.  We decided on a family trip to one of our favorite spots....Barkerville, BC.  The kids love the ground squirells popping out of their holes, the old fashioned Horse and Carriages, and all the great Street Performances going on throughout the day.  They loved running to each of the different exibits and seeing all that "old fashioned stuff".

   Felicity dressed for the occassion in her bonnet we got from Barkerville some years back and an easter dress made of cotton eyelet.  Kieth had his Barkerville hat..and Tristan his typical teen garb.

   As always...Icecream is one of our favorite treats to end a delicious homemade style lunch.  And a great Chineese dinner ended the day.