Natural Brown Christmas Cards

Wrote this post at the airport two days ago! Forgot to hit "publish"...used that natural-feel brown paper with white or red! I love the look of the natural brown color with the white accenting it. Hope you've had lovely holidays...

Jeweled Beauty Tools

Stocking stuffers! These little cuties are for some of my favorites ladies....I bought the tweezers and the clippers at Dollar Tree, and used some of the jewels I had lying around. And of course, my trusty E6000 glue. I had bedazzled myself some tweezers a while back, and decided it would be a fun and easy gift idea this year. I bought the jewels HERE and they are really great. They are like 2.98 for a pack of 300, and the facets on these are just gorgeous. The pictures don't do them justice! I think they are every bit as beautiful as the swarovski ones at the craft stores, and much cheaper. This ebay seller has hotfix ones too. Anyway, enjoy!

Homemade Lip Balm

I am packing and getting ready to head to the east coast to spend Christmas with my family...and of course I am STILL making some last-minute gifts. We had a little get-together today with my fiance's family, and instead of a full meal, we decided to do a hot chocolate/coffee bar and cookies. I think I will have another post tomorrow (maybe written from the airport while I am waiting) with some of our favorite family recipes.

So for now I will post one of the few homemade gifts I was able to make!! I found a FABULOUS and easy recipe for homemade lip balm (via pinterest, of course!) on this wonderful blog HERE . I found all of the ingredients I need at Sprouts, and I bought THESE CONTAINERS on Amazon. The tops are pretty cheaply made, but I was able to get my prime qualifying shipping and 30 of them for about 10 bucks, so I wasn't too worried about it. The blog links to some other possible sites for nicer tins and things. The recipe called for orange essential oil, but I already had some lavender on hand, so that's what I subsituted. I printed and cut little mini labels just using microsoft word, and I hot glued the jewels on to the top. I only had a few of the big ones, so there is a mix of jewel sizes. They came out great, and I am really loving the lip balm itself! Big hit with everyone that has received one so far. Came out pretty cute! Excited to share with my family. Hope you're having a great weekend!

Little Bit of Holiday Bling Cards

Used up some more of those little paper scrap shopping bags...and who doesn't love a little bit of bling? Especially around the holidays...

Pointsettia Cards

Cut of the day was...poinsettias! 3 pieces, largest being 3 inches, then stepping down a little bit from there. Getting close to Christmas... Have you finished shopping? I haven't, yikes! Not even close...i'll just avoid it and stay in my craft room....

Jolly Holiday

Here are a couple more cards...the shopping bags were super easy! Paper scraps with bits of tissue and twine glued on the back. The coffee cup is actually from the Wall Decor and More cartridge (been meaning to some in our kitchen with vinyl!).

 

Love how the cactus ones came out! Since I am in AZ and my fam is on the east coast, the desert stuff always looks fun at the holidays.

These ones were just playing around with funkier versions of holiday colors. Don't look too close at the embossed snowflakes, didn't come out as clean as I hoped...also, I went back over the red glitter scarf later and filled in the white parts that were showing, they were bugging me!...   :)

Holiday Critters

I absolutely loooove the Create-A-Critter cartridge for the cricut. The animals are so adorable. I am sometimes intimidated by cuts that require a lot of layers, and it takes me a bit to get comfortable figuring out which papers to use for which layer. But this one, at least, is well worth it! I think the hippo card might be one of my favorites ever :) The cartridge shows using a different color paper for his muzzle area, but I used foam adhesive, and then Dusty Concord distress ink around the edges, so that I could just use the same paper, but it would still pop out. The hat is from a different cartridge, although I can't remember which one (sorry!), because I rented the holiday bundle from cricut for craft room, and now there are a BILLION holiday images in my arsenal! Hooray! I just LOVE that Cricut is doing these holiday rentals. What a fabulous idea. Anyways, the animals are all from the first Create-A-Critter cartridge, with the exception of the owl, which is from "Just Because" Cards. Enjoy!