Twelve Days of Christmas Project #2: Biscotti Baking

 Over the Thanksgiving break, my friend the Trailer Trash Diva and I got together and made these awesome little Biscotti packages for Christmas gifts.  She's not only creative when it comes to re-design, but in the kitchen, too.

 A couple scoops of this, a little of that, some chopped nuts, dark chocolate chips, and we were well on our way to creating our Biscotti.

Don't these just look so yummy? We also made a batch of peppermint, those were my favorite. If you love to bake, then this is one of those treasured gifts you can share this holiday season.

For now, we'll let these cool. Stop in tomorrow and see how we packaged them up and got them ready to hand out as Christmas gifts.

Gosh, that Peppermint smells good.

You know it's December with the peppermint feels the air.






 

Crazy 8 Crazy Sale

www.crazy8.com

My youngest daughter, Bug, loves to shop at Crazy 8! They have all kinds of pretty tops and skirts that you can mix and match with different designed leggings to make a ton of different outfits. They're having a lot of really great sales for the holidays. Today, they're having 50% off all their tops and don't forget to check out their clearance section, it's sweet!

One of the things Bug asked for Christmas this year was dresses. She loves to dress up, and when we go to into this store, they have cute little dressing area where Bug has to try on a dozen different outfits even if we tell she can only have one!

This isn't an affilate link, but if your looking for some great deals on clothes for you little ones, this is the place.

I shopped Gymboree and Children's place over the sales days, and Crazy 8 still had the best prices by far when it came to clearance and sales. It's so hard to pick and choose from this place and this store always makes me feel like they're designs are meant to preserve the age of your kid not make them look older and make them more mature when they're not.

Do your kids have a favorite store or kind of clothes?

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Tis the season of advent. And in the spirit of Christmas, this month I'm launching The Twelve Days of Christmas. Only, instead of advent readings and stories, I'm taking a break after hitting the 50,000 word mark on my latest novel draft. You can check out my post here on accomplishing my goal from last month.


But for the month of December, we'll focus on preparing our hearts, our homes, and our gifts for the season of giving.


What better why to celebrate the coming of our messiah then a month full of Christmas projects and reflections.


To start our twelve days of Christmas projects, the kiddos and I trimmed the tree and turned on the lights. When Mr. Chad comes home tonight, we can sit and admire the handy work of our children during our quiet time before bed.

In the words of the song, "On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me.... a brightly lit trimmed tree."

Teacher Notepad Gift Sets

 I've had a lot of school themed papers lately and with Christmas just over the horizon I have already been thinking of Teacher gifts. I'm one of those people who carry a note pad with me to write things down all the time. When I travel I take notes in a note book.

I've made up a bunch of these not only for the kiddo's to give their teachers, but I'm heading off to a craft fair in a few weeks at a local high school and thought these would be a neat gift set package.

I've got the tablet, the book mark, and the matching pen in this set. 

 I've tied them all together at the binding and attached a gift card that is blank inside to write an note. All the teacher has to do is pull the string tie on the gift card and the book mark and pen will slide out with the card. So you don't really even have to wrap it if you don't want.

I've added these to my shop, too.

As always all my books include a free personalized name card on the front of the cover. These tablets are no exception, so you could easily have them personalized with your child's teacher's name.

New Food Label Place Card Designs

 Birds Nest in Burgandy or Baby Blue

 White Castles

 

Tea Cup

These tented cards are perfect for food labels or place cards at bridal showers, weddings, baby showers, birthdays, or formal events. 

They're 2.5" x 4"

I've got several other designs that I'm working on in the studio. 

Got to love criciut machines, right?

Fall Leaf Dinner Party Set

It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a formal family dinner.

If your family is as large as our family when we gather, then you might appreciate these fall leaf designs.

We usually have a few adult tables and a kid table or two spread between the dinning room, kitchen, and family room to fit everyone in the house. 

Last week it rained, and all the different colored leaves were plastered on the road and on the sidewalk in front of the house. It was a beautiful sight from my office window and inspired me to make these.

I'm thinking of putting together a small pattern booklet on how to create these, what do you think?

Halloween Skull Party Package

A friend of mine gave me a great idea of adding party packages to just my regular guest book in my shop.  Since Halloween is shortly here, I decided to get creative with my artphilosphy cartridge, wall decor cartridge, some halloween scrapbook paper and green glitter.

And, I am working on creating an guest book album to match the set.

 Right now, the standard package includes 4 Table Number cards, 

5 food label cards, and 32 place cards.

 The food label cards are about 2.5" x 4" with the pop up skull. 

And, I can personalize them for an additional charge.

 The table numbers are tent cards. 

I used green glitter on the white numbers to give them some "pop".

 These place cards are 1.5" x 3.5". The papers came from a holiday stack that DCWV sold two seasons ago (yeah I know I horde paper).

What do you think? I can change up the colors and do a reverse of the purple and green. Are you planning a spook-tac-ular Halloween party this year?