Clay Ornaments

As some of you may not know, I also like to play with clay! All through high school I would use polymer clay and make beads, figures, and other fun clay creations. My mom found a darling clay angel ornament about 7 or 8 years ago and gave it to me for Christmas, so that's where I got the idea for these ornaments. These are the ones I have left that I have managed to not sell or give away ;-) I have more mini ornaments and still lots of clay, the girls and I might make some more while they're off for Christmas Break - their last day is Friday and they get two whole weeks - I think we'll have fun! Plus David is only working 2 more days this year and the rest of the year he's taking off, plus no kids to babysit, so we will have some great family time together!

Homemade Ornaments

I always enjoy learning how to make new ornaments - instead of plates of goodies for friends and neighbors during the holiday season, I make ornaments, which is a tradition that I stole from my mom. Over the next couple of days, I am going to post some of my favorites - most of them I learned how to make with my mom and/or Grandma Sager growing up and have enjoyed making more and teaching my girls how to make them, too. So, stay tuned for more ornaments!

I'll start with these fun stars - I came across one about a couple months ago that my mom had made and called her to remember how to make them. They are Moravian German Stars and I Googled them and found this really great website with instructions and pictures - click here if you'd like to learn how! If you make any, be sure to leave a comment with a link - I would love to see what you create! They are so much fun to make with different sizes and it's fun to experiment with the strips to see all of the different results! To get all the different sizes, I have used 1" strips, 3/4" strips, 1/2" strips, and 1/4" strips (which is the size I re-taught myself with - it's a bit tricky that small, so I suggest trying with a bigger size until you get it down). They really aren't very difficult at all, I've figured that it takes me less than 10 minutes to make one star, and that includes cutting the strips. They are the perfect project to do while sitting and watching a movie because they don't take up any room at all. NOTE: The double sided paper is the best for these as both sides of the strip will show - but they have also turned out cute with just the solid side showing. Happy paper folding!

Oh Christmas Tree

Growing up, we always would put our Christmas Tree on Grandpa Sager's birthday, which is today - Happy Birthday, Grandpa! Once David and I got married, however, that tradition changed for me ;-) He likes to put up all decorations as soon as Thanksgiving is over. This year we're still a little slow since we were out of town Thanksgiving weekend, and he's been really sick for the last few weeks and just hasn't had the motivation. We did get our tree up and finally finished decorating it this week. Here are some pictures. Maybe I'll post more of our decorations later.

In years past, David has been known as Griswald, and this year neighbors, family, and friends were getting worried when his decorations weren't up ;-) and he'll still probably worry them since he didn't end up doing everything that we've done the last 4 years.

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Here is our village...we've been collecting pieces over the last 8 years.

I would love to see your Holiday decorations - leave me a comment if you have them posted on your blog!

All Kaylee Wants For Christmas...

...are her two front teeth! And she just might get them, they are really coming in! She keeps saying 'Now I'll have buck teeth like my friend Ashley' and if she's anything like her mother, she sure will ;-)

And here is Kaylee and Brailee exactly one year ago - Kaylee had lost her first two bottom teeth and Brailee had her two top AND bottom teeth in - it's hard to tell in the first pic, so we took this other pic from below.

B'onna

When Brailee is upset or trying to get her sister's attention, she will actually say Brianna's name correctly, but really emphasize by saying Bri-onna! But when she is just playing or talking about her sister, she shortens it to B'onna, it's too cute! My girls really love each other and I am so proud of the way they play together. I thought with the two older girls that Brailee would get left out, but they all play together so well! Here they are yesterday morning before school - forgive the bed hair!

Monthly Word Puzzle Workshop

Here is my upcoming workshop - choose from the following options: (2) 6x6 layouts, 12x12 layout, or (3) cards. View the details here. If the 6x6 options look familiar, it's because I am 'stealing' the ideas for those ones from the Unit Monthly Word Puzzle Swap that we did a while ago - you can view all swap pages here. Techniques/Products featured in this workshop are Stamp Rolling, Second Generation Stamping, Sculpting Foam, 3-D Foam Squares, Waxy Flax

6x6 Option

Card Option (all patterns from Originals)




12x12 Option (pattern from Cherish)


Thanks for looking and for your comments - I really appreciate them!

Cherish Challenge

Here is my layout for this month's Cherish Challenge - the left page is also a sneak peek at this month's Monthly Word Puzzle Workshop using the February Word Puzzle and the Key To My Heart stamp set. This month's featured products/techniques are Stamp Rolling, Second Generation stamping, and using Sculpting Foam and 3-D Foam Squares.

1st Birthday Card

I made this card about a month ago, but forgot to post it - mostly because I forgot to send it and didn't want to spoil the surprise as my SIL reads my blog. My nephew turned one last month and this is the card that I made for him - I finally remembered to get it in the mail last week, and they received it, so it's safe to post ;-)

I used MCC #33 but changed Sorbet to Autumn Terracotta to make it more boyish. I used a PageMaps Card Map for the layout of this card and the fun CTMH Nursery Bash stamp set - it's one that I don't use nearly enough, but it's darling!

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Thanks for looking!

All Decked Out

It's been snowing here just about every day this week - not much, only a skiff, nothing that really sticks, but it's been getting me in a snowy mood! I found these cards that I created last month but forgot to post, so here they are! I used November's Stamp of the Month, All Decked Out, to create a card for a gathering I had. I made two that I didn't like before I finally made one I liked and felt was good enough for the ladies to create at the party. I'll show my favorite first and then the others. For this first one I used Liquid Applique on the top of the hat, ends of the scarf, and middle of the snowflakes.

This was the first - I love the snowman, but it was a lot of cutting for not a very fun card.

This one was next - I liked it better since there was more to the card, but still too much cutting for a gathering project. I used Liquid Applique on the hat and scarf and Prisma Glitter on the swirls.

Thanks for looking!

Butterfly Wings - Sneak Peek!

I got the new Stamp of the Month sets for the upcoming Spring Catalog (which is fabulous, by the way!) - this one is for March, it's called Butterfly Wings and it's been SO much fun to play with! I made these cards for my niece and SIL who share the same birthday, which was on Monday. For my SIL I included a class picture of her in 5th grade - the school was giving away any extra pics they had so I picked this one up - I hope she enjoys the flashback ;-) My niece just turned 10 and we gave her a fun Snowflakes card kit - she should have fun creating! Oh, and I also did these cards for some of Marjorie's Color Challenges - the first one (which is my favorite) is for MCC #41 and the second is for MCC #37

EDIT: This first card is also for this month's Original's Challenge.

Thanks for looking!

Friday Fun

On Friday we got together with my mom's brothers and their families and had yummy Turkey & Dumplings and Pie. I thought it was hard to get a decent pic of all three of my girls together - that's nothing! I tried to get a pic of my mom and her brothers - impossible - they're a bunch of nuts ;-)

After that we took the girls bowling - their first time ever! We don't have a bowling alley here so it's been about 10 years since I've been bowling and even longer for David. The girls had fun but by the end, Brailee was exhausted as she had missed her nap that day. I had a hard time at first and finally switched to a lighter ball - wish I had done that sooner, my belly was sure feeling it by the next day. Kaylee did great and actually beat me the first game ;-) Lucky for me, we had the bumpers up in the gutters or my score could have been a lot worse! Brianna enjoyed it too but didn't like the heavy balls, so we finally let her use the ramp. Brailee enjoyed pushing the ball down the ramp and trying on the lovely bowling shoes. When we got there we had to wait a bit for a couple of lanes to open, but we spent the time taking goofy pictures ;-) Okay, so we're all a bunch of nuts!

Oh, yeah, the Challenges!

I completely spaced these this month - I honestly didn't think anyone missed it as I haven't had anyone participate the last couple months. I used to get 10 or more entries per month but lately it's really slowed down. Anyway, I didn't even think about it until one of my DL/friends e-mailed me this morning and said, 'Hey, where are the challenges?!?' So here they are - and it's a good motivator for me, too, as I haven't been doing many pages lately, I've been having too much fun making cards and ornaments, but I really need to get back into page mode! I hope you'll play along, and be sure to post a link to your creations! At the end of the month, I will draw a winner - they will get to pick a free stamp set from my stash of extras! I will hopefully get some samples for these challenges done this month ;-)

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Cherish Challenge - Aesthetic Balance - pg. 32-33

View my Cherish Layout here

View Melissa's Cherish Layout here

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Imagine Challenge - Three-Part Harmony - pg. 44-45

View my Imagine Layout here

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Reflections Challenge - Main Frame - Quilt Blocks - pg. 62

View my Reflections Layout here

View Melissa's Reflections Layout here

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Originals Challenge - Diamond Duo - pg. 46

View my Originals Card here

Turkey Day

We had a fun day with lots of yummy food! We got to go to Lindon, Utah to spend the weekend with Gma Nae and Gpa LaRon and finally got to meet some of LaRon's family. Here are some pics from Thanksgiving Day.

A bunch of Turkeys!

Okay, so we're not just monkeys, we're a bunch of turkeys! Here are the place cards the girls and I made for our Thanksgiving Feast - they fit around a cup to hold our 5 candy corns.

I used a circle punch for the head and used my circle Coluzzle for the body and Colonial White piece, and a small heart punch for the beak, with a larger heart punch for the wings (I just cut it in half). I used Playful Petals for the Turkey feathers, using Second Generation Stamping to get the different colors.

I will be posting pics from our Thanksgiving fun over the next couple days - we had tons of fun and I took way too many pictures, as always!

Thanksgiving Cards

Here are some cards I made for Thanksgiving using just two stamp sets - Fall, and Give Thanks. I hope you all have a great Turkey Day!

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For the first four cards, I used MCC #40 . The first one shown here is the last one I did and I think it's my favorite - it's super simple but I really like how it turned out.

I added Chocolate to this one...

This was the first one I did and I usually don't do 5x7 cards so I tried reducing it to a standard sized card but didn't like it, so I ended up doing the larger size anyway. Then the rest were all 5x7 after that - I really like that size - I just don't like using a whole 12x12 piece of CS to cut just one card base.

A Bunch of Monkeys!

David likes to bring the girls something after each of his trips - he was in Houston all of last week and brought them back these monkeys - they have hardly put them down since he got back! Plus they have magnets in the hands and feet so I find them stuck in the funniest places ;-) Now we have a house full of monkeys!