samples....

Hooray for play days! No, not the kind where you do sack races and balloon tosses. I'm talking about the days where I get to work on store samples. I am so lucky to get to play around with new products and hopefully they provide some inspiration.


Here are two from the new BoBunny lines. Bobunny always does a fantastic job but these two collections in particular are outstanding.

Midnight Frost is all cool blues and greys with tiny hints of purple and green.

I crinkled up some wired ribbon and added some mini pom pom trim (they reminded me of snowballs) then used staples and glue dots to stick it down.

Crazy Love is simply adorable.

Pink and brown combined with birds and flowers, what more could you ask for?

*thanks to Cheryl for this pic of her beautiful daughter Meghan!

This collection from The Paper Loft is ideal for all of your heritage/family history layouts.

For this layout I used an old photo of my mom. The journalling reads:

"At first glance this picture is just another retro, poor quality photo. What it is to me is a connection to my mother and our shared love of photography. I can't imagine how happy she would have been to experience digital cameras!"

I must have been in the mood to crinkle and smoosh paper and trim today since there seems to be a bit of a trend with these layouts!

Anyhoo, how's that Christmas shopping going??

Pinecone Press

Over the last couple of months we have been getting these really great paper crafting kits from Pinecone Press. Each kit comes with a full colour booklet that tells you how to make loads of different projects. Since I'm the 'sample girl' I get to play with all of these fun kits and make up some of the ideas. Something I really like about these packages is that you can follow their ideas exactly or add your own creativity to them. I just finished two very different kits and thought I would share them with you.

These little holders are great for Hot Chocolate but could be used for lots of other ideas like gift cards to a favourite Coffee shop.

(If you look closely you just might notice some liquid applique on those marshmallows!!)

This holder has 4 pockets and is SUPER easy to put together. The red paper and pockets are already scored and ready to go.

How cute are these penguins?!?!?

Within each kit you will find premium papers either from Pinecone Press or other well known companies like My Mind's Eye or as in the case of the next projects, Graphic 45.

All the pieces you need to make this banner come in the kit, including the yardstick to mount it on. There are loads of details on this vintage Christmas banner. The directions give you step by step instructions on how to make the rosettes and how to put it all together. I added some Glossy Accents, a bell and some Stickles for sparkle.

Here is a closer view of some of the squares:

Something else really great about these kits is that even after making the 'main' project there are lots of leftovers to make other goodies like this gift card holder:

These kits come flat in 12X12 packages so you may not notice them when you wander the store so feel free to ask about them and watch for future kits too.

Oh and PHEW am I ever glad I don't live in London (south western Ontario or in England!) right now...although I'm sure my boys would love all the snow they are getting.

Thanks for having a peek :)

mmmmmm

I've been feeling rather domestic lately which is really unlike me. Although I am technically a stay at home Mom, I've never really embraced the stereotype (haha). However I've learned to enjoy baking over the last few months. I'm still not very adventuresome, sticking to easy recipes, but I've been happy with what I've made. This past week I made 4 enormous batches of banana chocolate chip muffins and mini-loaves. Last week was Pumpkin muffins and breads. I like the idea of having something homemade to put in the boys' lunches and it sure does make the house smell amazing! I drop them off to neighbours and bring them to the store because if I didn't they would be consumed quickly by ME!

I like to make the minis for the boys because they think it's great to have 2 or 3

I even managed to get some into the freezer this time!

Maybe I'll even attempt a cake again. The last cake I made was for Wyatt's second birthday and it fell apart into 5 pieces!