The New Year is Upon Us!

Good Afternoon!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas break and now the New Year of 2017 is upon us!  I've got some new ideas and goals set.  I have my planners ready to go and need to complete my vision board!  I recently heard about bullet journals and I'm not quite sure yet what to think of it.  It sounds fun but daunting.  It may work great so I'm going to give it a try.  I just searched YouTube for some videos and looked at a couple different ones and really you can do it however your hear desires.

I am so excited because 2017 is full of new adventures.  I was selected as a Growing in Unity Girl (GIU) for the Unity Stamp Company!  I will be featured the week of January 30th on their blog and I will post here also.  I already have some ideas and am starting to plan it out.  For 5 days on my blog, I will feature a new card or project using Unity Stamps, so check back the end of January for some fun inspiration!

Unity Stamp will be increasing their price on their monthly memberships for the Kit of the Month and the SMAK kits so if you head over to their site, you can get some more information, https://www.unitystampco.com/product-category/memberships/.  The price will increase from $26 to $42 but you will be grandfathered in at the lower price if you enroll before January 1st.  You will not be disappointed!  I received mine a week ago and they are gorgeous and well worth the price!  Here is the video on Facebook to give you inspiration and some more info on the monthly memberships.

https://www.facebook.com/unitystampco/videos/1395111107190165/

Also, here are some other videos that truly inspired me.  It is using the same product but applied in two different ways.  You can see Facebook videos by going to https://www.facebook.com/unitystampco/ and clicking on videos and checking out their YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxLC21pDQxTdaY-_wYDNsww.

They are also having a site wide discount so go check them out!   These are some of the nicest red rubber stamps.

Have a great day!

Naomi

Birthday Card

Good Afternoon!

I recently made a birthday card for my dad and wanted to share it with you and of course I had to wait until after his Birthday to post so he wouldn't see it!

I used an already cut out card base.

Black Staz On ink.

I used 2 different Sentiment Kits and pulled out some stamps from them.  The two kits were A Joyous Season and I Consider You Special.

Since it was a winter birthday, I thought the tree and deer would be nice to use and then the Birthday Sentiment added in and I kept the color to black and white.

 Here is the outside of the card.

Here is the inside of the card.

I hope you enjoyed my card creation and have a wonderful rest of your day!

Naomi

Gift Tags

Making gift tags are so fun and easy to make!  I had made some Bath Soak and Bath Fizzies and decided to make a cute tag to go with it.  Here are the materials I used:

1. Scrap piece of paper, mine was cream colored
2. Hole punch 
3. Ink
4. Stamp of choice ( I used one from Unity Stamp Co. called My Person {Fox}
5. String to tie on tag
6. Scissors

1. I first started by cutting the piece of paper in half
2. Once you have 2 pieces, I cut off the corners on the top smaller width.  I also cut off some from the bottom so it wasn't so big.
3. Punch a hole in the top between the two cut corners.
4. Stamp the image onto the tag.
5. I then used the string to tie the tag to the jar.

Have you made gift tags?  What is one of your favorite techniques?

Have a great day!

Naomi

SNOW!

Good Afternoon!

We had a blizzard come through the last couple days here and had a snow day, meaning we had yesterday off work and a late start today!  We had greenish looking grass on Tuesday and we now have around 14.5" of snow just in time for Christmas!

The other day I started to make some Christmas gifts. Bath/foot soak with Epsom salt, pink Himalayan salt, and scented with Essential Oils in a cute little jar which came from the dollar section at Target.  The house has smelled amazing!

 I hope to make some bath fizzies, of course it will be my first time doing this!  I am also going to make my hard lotion bars out of beeswax, coconut oil, and shea butter, and try my hand at lip balm!  I will post an updated.

Also on the agenda for this weekend is to make some gift tags.  I truly want this year to be special and with homemade gifts, I feel that has a special touch.  I will post some pictures when I start the gift tag process!

I find a lot of inspiration from different places but recently, Facebook has caught my eye with all their Live videos.  Last night from Clearsnap Inc., they posted a live video on their Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Clearsnap/) page titled Faux Wood with ColorBox Blends on making your own wood grain patterned paper for cards.  They scored some lines in the paper to make it look like boards or paneling and used ColorBox Blends to make the wood grain pattern.  I am sure there are many other ways to make the wood grain pattern but this is one technique if you have their inks.

I find a lot of inspiration from watching Unity Stamp Quick tips.  They have a YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxLC21pDQxTdaY-_wYDNsww with lots of different videos featuring their stamps and techniques.  Here is one technique using Vellum and one of their new stamps called Valentine girl that I would love to try!

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day!

Naomi

Happy December!

Good Morning!

Today is the first day of December and I can't believe how fast time is flying by!  Today's post is all about the fun contests, freebies, and inspiration that is happening today.

To start the month off, Kit and Clowder group on Facebook is doing an Advent Calendar with a freebie each day from December 1 - 24th.  There will be coupons, games, prizes, freebies, and more!  You will need to join their group and then follow the instructions for the free digital image.  The free images will only be available for 24 hours so you will need to check it each day.  You can follow the group by going here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/kitandclowder.  Tell Alyce Keegan that I sent you from my blog.

Unity Stamp Company is one of my favorites.  They do some monthly subscriptions and I just wanted to let you know that their Kit of the Month will be increasing in price after December.  If you enroll now in December, you will be grandfathered into the lower monthly price.  The kits are an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of red rubber with deeply etched images.  Here is the link to this months kit: https://www.unitystampco.com/shop/kit-of-the-month/.  You can also purchase the previous kits for a lower price being a member.  The link will give you all the information you need.

Sizzix is also doing a 12 Days of Giveaways on their Facebook page!  You will need to like their post and answer a question for a chance to win!  Winners will be picked randomly.  Here is the link to their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Sizzix/?fref=ts.  Make sure to check their Facebook page earlier in the day for a chance at some prizes!

I have one more final site for you to check out.  I am a huge Tim Holtz fan and love his vintage grunge style of work.  Today is the first day of 12 Tags of 2016 December and the last for 2016!  He does one for each month so you can check out the archives on those and get some great ideas and techniques.  Click here: http://timholtz.com/12-tags-of-2016-december/ to check it out.  You can also get a lot of inspiration from his Facebook page where he regularly does live releases and demonstrations.  Click here: https://www.facebook.com/timholtzdesigns/ for his Facebook page.

There is so much going on in December and I have a few things that I am going to be making for gifts this year.  With all this inspiration by head is full of ideas and I will share with you once the time has come!

Have a wonderful December 1st!

Black Friday

Good Afternoon!

There is a bit of quietness going on here.  It's the day after Thanksgiving and I hope that you all had a wonderful day!  There are some good deals out there on crafting items which I may purchase some tonight at Michaels!  They have a coupon for this afternoon for 40% off all regular priced items.  I did stop by there late last night and picked up a fitness journal and planner for 2017 which are $9.99 and a couple stamps that were half off and to my surprise the extra 30% off counted on the stamps!

On Wednesday evening at JoAnn Fabrics, I picked up some sewing patterns for $1, although they do have this a couple times a year, and I bought some fabric.  I just decided to buy the whole bolt since that was what they had instead of perusing all the options of cut fabric of flannel patterns since they were $2.09/yd at 8 yards, regularly $6.99/yd.  I do plan to make some pillows and stuffed animals.
Have you found any crafty deals?

The art/craft room is a complete disaster right now since we are putting actual shelving in the closet so all my crating items and storage are scattered all over the house!  In the end, it will be nice to have this room as our office and then once the basement is complete, I will have a large room downstairs.

Here is a post of an order from Unity Stamp Company from the beginning of November.  They had a grab bag, the non bagged stamps on the right, Mug of Stamps, and I have never been disappointed with the selection.    My regular order is on the left hand side.  If you want good quality stamps and great customer service, check them out!  They have a sale going on right now 3 itty bitty stamps for $8.99 and 2 kits for $13.99.  I am currently waiting for my last order to arrive and will post that as soon as it is here.

Just to give you another feel for this company, I won a bag of stamps from their Facebook page this summer and as you can see below, there is such a wide variety to please everyone and all tastes.

I am hoping this weekend to get my closet set up in my crafty place and get that organized so I can start making some pretty things!

Have a wonderful rest of your Friday!

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is upon us and it's that time of year when families gather near and far to celebrate Thankfulness.    What are you thankful for?  I'll go first.  I am thankful to have a wonderful family and a warm bed at night. 

What is a tradition that your family holds on Thanksgiving?  We watch the Macy's Day Parade in the morning. To help lighten the load on my mom making the big meal, she would have all the dishes and pots ready to go and she would set out the food unprepared.  We would then draw out of a bowl for a task to complete.  These would include making the gravy, filling the water glasses, making the stuffing, carving the turkey, and etc. There was always trading happening because someone would always be better at a specific job so I think we really ended up doing the same task every year.  We always had fresh lefse and flatbread which is a huge treat!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Crafty Craziness

Good Morning from the Woodland Fox!

Here's to the beginning of a new adventure!  Click here to see my previous posts on my previous blog, http://naomipapercrafts.blogspot.com/.

How are you all today?  The 60% off sale at Unity Stamp Company will be ending tonight so I suggest you go take a look at their awesome stamps and see what you can find!  Their website is https://www.unitystampco.com/.

Here is a card that I made back in October for a card swap for Kit and Clowder.  I use Unity Stamps, glitter washi tape, a gold brad, and some glitter glue.

I am currently in a messy state with my stamps and crafting items since I am trying to organize them the best I can!  I took out all of my stamps from my binders... long story... and place them by brand into some nice big storage containers.  Now I am doing inventory so I don't double up!  I took a notebook and on each new page will be a new manufacturer so that I can expand in the future.  It must get messy before it gets organized!  I currently have them all over the kitchen table and floor.

My next step is organize them by theme and stamp them onto card stock so I can see what they look like.  I am really hung up on the idea of keeping all the brand together but feel that theme would work better so all the same type of stamp are together.  I recently found a post that explained an idea that I think will work.  It's a numbering system so it doesn't matter where the stamp is located.  I will update you on what I decide!

I recently purchased an old cookbook from a second hand store.  Unity gave me this great idea to re-purpose it and make it into a mixed media journal/photo book.  I hope to start on it this weekend and I will keep you updated.

Have you worked on a mixed media journal of some type?  I would love to hear some of your ideas and techniques!

This week is Thanksgiving so let me know what you are Thankful for.  I will go first.  I am Thankful for my family, my friends, and the sunrise each morning.

I hope you have a wonderful day.