I thought it would be fun to share our Christmas card and the process I use when making a large number of cards. I like to use the "Henry Ford" method when I have a lot of the same cards to get done. I get all the pieces for the card done and ready, (as pictured below)then simply put them together in an assembly line order. This was the order that I made them in: adhere the card sentiment, all the photos, then the strip of patterned paper, pierce the hole for the brad and then attach the brad. You would be surprised how quickly they go together when you are not constantly switching between glue, punch, piercer and brads.

And here is the finished card:

The idea for the photo came from an advertisement in a magazine that my Mother-in-law found and when I saw it I thought the hands looked like a tree, which made me think it would make a great Christmas photo - just needed to add a star at the top! If you are wondering how we got the shot here is the original photo.

We sat on the stairs starting with Daddy and going down to the youngest - Zach who had his hands straight up in the air. After some trial and error we discovered that the hands were falling right in front of Nate's head so we actually draped a black sweater over him (poor kid, the things his Momma makes him do for a photo LOL). To get the final result all I had to do was some cropping, a little bit of black fill in photoshop, change it to black and white and that was it. Have a great week! Christine

Supplies: Paper, K&Co. Border Punch, Martha Stewart. Other, star brad.

I had so much fun playing with the foam ornaments that I decided to do the same thing with a couple of foam cones that I had.  I had previous plans for button trees but thought this would be pretty cool too!  I made two different ones - one with buttons and one just using cut out shapes, sequins and gems as embellishments:

These only took about 45 minutes to make - it's really easy!  You simply punch a circle from the patterned paper and attach using stick pins.  Then you can add buttons with more stick pins, or, add gems and cut out paper shapes!  I had so much fun creating these! 

I am seriously getting a kick out of creating Holiday projects!  If you have any to share, please link me up in the comments section, I'd love to see them!!

(Supplies:  Basic Grey Patterned Paper, Scribble Scrabble Patterned Paper, Martha Stewart Punch, Buttons, Foam Cones, Therm O Web Glue Dot Adhesive, Sequins, Gems, Stick Pins)

We received some sad news last week, Deli Joe, my sweet dog of twelve years has a tumor and the vet believes it to be cancerous. Aside from all the normal emtions that come with news like that I have an urgency to take as many everyday photos of Deli that I can. I have taken photos of him through the years and scrapped some pages, but I don't think I have really recorded or captured just how important he is to me and what a special part of our family he is. I am so thankful that I still have some more time with him and I am going to make sure he has lots of pages in our family scrapbooks. I am sorry for the sad post, but I wanted to take this as an opportunity to remind you to scrap about the furry members of your family and all that they add to your life. Make sure to include them in your Holiday photos this season -especially in your family pictures. Have a great week! Christine

Hey everyone!  Can you believe that Christmas is only 24 days away?! We are planning on putting our tree up tomorrow or Tuesday - the girls are SO excited!  We've been busy making ornaments for our tree and to give as gifts.  I have been seeing these cute little handmade ornaments everywhere and had to give them a try!  They are SO easy to make and inexpensive too!  All you will need is patterned paper, circle hole punch, pins, ribbon, and styrofoam balls!

You simply punch the patterned paper and attach it to the styrofoam ball with the pins!  Then you loop the ribbon and attach it with the pins as well.  I crinkled mine up a bit for a bit of added dimension.  See?  I told you it was easy!  I hope you all enjoy making these as much as we did!  The girls can't wait to give them to their teachers!

(Supplies:  Lil' Davis Patterned Paper, Martha Stewart Punch, Ribbon, Styrofoam Balls, Pins)

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving and is finishing up with those leftovers!

My parents and one of my brothers came to my house for Thanksgiving. Anytime they are over during the holidays, I pull out so many of my scrapbooks and mini-albums for us to look through and reminisce. As I was gathering things this time, I stumbled upon this tag book I had made some time last year & totally forgotten about! It is always fun to go back and look through things I made a while ago (and may not even remember I have made)!

This little book is relatively simple.
I covered the tags with paper and then used colored paperclips to attach pictures & quotes.Then I just embellished the book with the blue flowers that I cut out of patterned paper and various "thankful" themed stickers & rub-ons from my stash.

I think I am going to make an updated tag book with pictures from this year that I will pull out at next year's Thanksgiving. And I might even see if I can get around to making a Christmas-themed version!

Thanks for looking and have a great weekend!
gretchen