My Thanksgiving Decor and a Black Friday Coupon Code

I just wanted to share a quick post with some of the pictures I took yesterday of the DIY decor I created for our Thanksgiving celebration. The mason jars and bottles were all hand painted by the two nights before—as well as the place cards and “give thanks” banner. Everything was doing kind of last minute. I went to the flower market in downtown Los Angeles and found so many pretty flowers and I got them all for a really great price. I think because they were so cheap I ended up buying way more than I really needed but that’s ok. The extra flowers will be placed all around the house.

I had such a great time spending time with family that I don’t really see that much; and, it was so nice to be able to eat all of my favorite foods! My sister is in professional baking school and she created some amazing treats for us—like the naked cake, bread, and pumpkin pie cheese cake (not pictured). Aside from doing all of the decorating I managed to make a spinach dip that only lasted about an hour and I also made my famous lemonade but this time I added cranberries, too.

To give thanks to everyone that has ever purchased from me I’m offering a 50% off coupon for my shop! If you’re in need of anything Christmas cards, stamps, baby shower decor, banner, or wedding items head over to my shop and use the coupon code: UNIFYB50

I hope you all have a great weekend! 

My First 5x7 Greeting Card

I've made a few 5x7 invitations but I've never actually made a greeting card before, and while I was sitting at my desk I was thinking of trying something new. I've made the circle card, 3x3 cards—but never the 5x7. So, I thought today would be a perfect time to try it. I used my trusty Lawn Fawn stamps for this card (of course, hehe). It’s so easy to make an adorable card with their stamps. 

Right now I’m noticing that snowy blue skies are popular in the papercrafting world—and I am pretty obsessed with it as well. I love using my distress inks to create such beautiful skies, like I did with this greeting card. I don’t have that many distress inks right now, but with only two shades of blue I was able to create a sky background that looks as though the sun is setting—or at least I hope I pulled it off to look that way, haha. 

Since I was working with a much larger space then I’m used to I decided to create a little scene using some of the critters from the set, Critters in the snow. I added in the gnome from, gnome sweet gnome, and I also used the tree from the set, critters in the forest. The little, ‘To: Santa’, card is from the set, cozy Christmas; and, the Santa hats are from the set, hats off to you. I used my Copic markers to color everything in, and I’ve been watching lots of Youtube videos to learn blending techniques—and I think I’m getting better and better each time. 

I actually really like holding a big card like this one, in my hands. It felt heavy and as though I was holding something truly precious because it was handmade. Have a fun and crafty weekend! 

Pretty Pink Posh Grand Opening Blog Hop!

Today I’m excited to be celebrating the grand opening of the Pretty Pink Posh, Shop! As a crafter it’s always fun to use embellishments and PPP has lots of sequins and things for you to choose from for all of your creative projects. You even have a chance to win Pretty Pink Posh prize packs—so don’t forget to check the details on how to win below.

I've recently started using sequins on my projects and I love it—so this celebration couldn't have come at a better time. Since we’re on the topic of celebrating I’d like to share my first project using some of the PPP sequins from the, Winter snow, pack which I used to create a festive place card shaker—Perfect for Christmas dinner. I love it because it’s a playful place card and I’m sure something like this would bring a smile to anyone’s face. You could have the shaker place card standing up in front of a place setting or even right on top of the actual place setting. Either way is super cute and I can’t even decide which one I like best. 

Since I was on the theme of Christmas I thought I’d create a cute tag for a gable box, and I used PPP, Festive Holly-days, sequins, and some of their adorable Christmas bells. The sound this little bell makes warms my heart so much and it’s seriously getting me in the mood for Christmas (my favorite holiday).

Now is your chance to win your PPP packs! You can simply leave a comment on this post on or before December 3rd and two lucky winners will be chosen and announced on Thursday, December 5th! For more details on how to win, visit the Pretty Pink Posh blog be clicking, here.

Now on to the next crafty gal in the hop! Laurie Willison is going to share what she created using PPP embellishments, and to view the blog creating before me stop by Leigh Penner’s blog. If you would like to start from the beginning click here!

This hop was so fun, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!  

Thanksgiving Gift Box and Tag

Is Thanksgiving here already?! That’s exactly what I thought today when I was thinking of my next blog post. I couldn't believe I hadn't even made anything for this holiday. But since I have my trusty Lawn Fawn stamps—making something in a snap isn't a problem at all. One of the many great things about having LF stamps is that you can make the cutest holiday paper crafts with their versatile sets. For instance I’m using the, Hats off to you, set and it comes with a variety of festive hats; such as, a Santa hat, birthday hat, cow boy hat, etc—and I’m using their super adorable pilgrim hat and paired it with Lawn Fawns gnome, from the stamp set, Gnome sweet gnome to create a tag. I also purchased a few Kraft boxes from Michaels and stamped the smiley corn stock image onto it with white pigment ink.

First I started off by die cutting a few tags, using the, tag you’re it, craft dies by Lawn Fawn. Next I used the coordinating stamp set, winter gifts, for the border around the tag.

Next I stamped the pilgrim hat on the tag, and also stamped the hat onto a piece of a sticky post-it note, cut it out, and placed it over the hat image (an easy masking technique).

 Next I inked up my gnome stamp and as you can see from the image I only inked him up from the head down.

 Next I simply stamped him onto the tag, like so…

 Look at how pretty that came out—once the mask was lifted!

Now you can color in your image, and I’m also using the little turkey leg from the stamp set, happy feast, and colored that in with the markers show in the image. I also show how I went about coloring him in—with the light color first and ending with the darkest color. Then you go over it again starting with the medium color and ending with the lightest.

Once I was done coloring everything in, I shuffled through all of my other LF stamps to add the sentiment and wooden fence. I think it looks so cute. I also die cut a piece of this pattern paper and I’m going to adhere it to the back of the tag.

Lastly, I took some of my white pigment ink by, Hampton Art, and stamped the corn image all over the box. I also used some of this awesome vintage looking hemp twine in orange—which is also sold by Lawn Fawn.

I think a set of these boxes and tags would make for a cute place setting at a Thanksgiving table. You can stuff these boxes with homemade treats or even a homemade gift. I hope you enjoyed this post and let me know what you think in the comments! I’d love to hear from you. 

Button and String Envelope Tutorial, A2 Size

Today I have a really fun tutorial over at the Lawn Fawn blog! Click here for the full tutorial, and get started on making you very own Button and String envelopes. The Lawn Fawn paper worked perfectly for this project because of the fact that their paper is double sided and super high quality. On a side note: I know I post a lot about Lawn Fawn, and some of my readers have asked if I work for them, but the truth is I just really love this company! I love to support anything in the handmade community, as well as U.S. based companies. I love the fact that Lawn Fawn is helping our economy by using American based manufacturers to create her stamps, paper, trimmings, and dies. But I also love to support them because I truly love Kelly's work and designs! I basically just love to promote and support things I truly believe in. Keep up the great work, Kelly Marie! Thanks for allowing a fan of your work to be part of the Lawn Fawn community; and, for creating so many cute things for all of us crafters to be obsessed with.