Blog Giveaway over at Sunny Skye Creations Blog by Nicole Eccles

New Year's Eve is the deadline for the giveaway.  Check out Nicole's post here for your chance to win!

Christmas Gift for my Sister

This year my sister and I decided to have a hand-made Christmas for each other. When we were younger, and had too much disposable income, I used to buy my sister a designer Bob Mackie Barbie each year for Christmas. So my thought was to design my own "fancy" Barbie, using paper of course, for her hand-made gift. She eventually became a Barbie Angel Tree Top.

Her skirt was created using paper from CTMH's Mistletoe Collection. I scored the top half of the width of several 12" strips of paper every 1/4". Then created a pleated fold, over and over, adding length until each ring was wide enough. The top tier is 2", then 2 1/2", 3", 3 1/2", and finally 4". I sewed each ring of pleates onto a piece of cardstock, which was cut into a circle and adhered into a cone shape.

Barbie's bodice was created by wrapping CTMH Colonial White Lace Ribbon around her body.

The belt is a piece of CTMH Cranberry Grosgrain Ribbon topped off with a found button placed in the center of a paper rose (CTMH Cranberry Cardstock). The paper rose was created by cutting a 2" circle into a spiral (click here for Tracey Mason's fabulous tutorial on this paper rose technique), distressing 1 edge, and rolling it around the button.

Barbie's halo was created using another piece of lace ribbon. Then I created a baker's dozen spiral roses, each from a 1" circle and adhered them to the ribbon using Liquid Glass.

Her wings were cut from 8 pieces of CTMH Colonial White Cardstock using the Cricut Expression and the Accent Essentials cartridge. I used 4 different styles of the same image, cut twice (one flipped), at 11". Then layered them together on each side. And used 2 fleur de lis, cut at 5", adhered together to create a backbone to adhere the wings together. To attach the wings to Barbie, I placed a dozen eyelets down the center "bone" of the wings. Then I wrapped them onto the Barbie using the same lace ribbon, like a corset. After the wings were attached, I took the smaller inside pieces from the wings and positioned them over the eyelets to cover them up. Once everything was done, I went over the front of the wings with Liquid Glass to adhere cranberry colored mini glass beads (seed beads) to decorate the wings.

The back of the Barbie:

Have a very Merry Christmas!
Jen Lee

What a Strange Way to Save the World

Mary Did You Know?

Ladies Day Out Crop to Benefit Operation Smile - Feb 19

Date: Saturday, February 19
Time: 10:00 am to 10:00 pm
Place: The Ponds, 2881 229th Ave NW, Saint Francis, MN
Cost: $25 includes lunch, dinner, coffee & soda, make & take, hourly prizes, and more!
RSVP: e-mail jenlee@myctmh.com

You are invited to come share in the fun! Bring your projects to work on, adhesives, and basic tools. My How To Books, computer/printer, Cricut, Big Shot, stamps, and other tools will be available for your use. It will be an open crop format to benefit Operation Smile. A FREE make and take will be available for you to create as well. Please RSVP to reserve space for you and a friend today. Hope to see you there!

Oh The Weather Outside is ... Delightful!

Sam and Lucy each had a friend for an overnight last night. Today we woke up to tons of snow outside, and it hasn't stopped falling. Darrin used the snowblower to start building a pile in the yard, tomorrow we'll begin the dig-out for the snow-fort. The kids are so excited! Today they ran around in the beautiful light fluffy snow, made snow angels and had snowball fights. It was a blast!

Let's get outside and play! It has been years since we have had so much snow. This is what I remember of December from when I was a kid. Snow Much Fun!

Watch next week for my layout of these snowy photos. My next waterfall layout class at Memories and More will use Bo Bunny's Midnight Frost collection and will be offered January 12.

Happy SNOW!!!

Jen

1st Operation Smile Fundraiser and Ladies Day Out Crop at The Ponds in Saint Francis, MN

Saturday, Dec 4, was my 1st Operation Smile Fundraiser and Ladies Day Out Crop at The Ponds in Saint Francis.  We had 15 in attendance and it was a great time!

 We cropped from 10 to 10, some came and went, but others stayed until the bitter end.

There was wonderful food catered by The Ponds.  We had chicken sandwiches and pasta salad for lunch and a taco bar for dinner - complete with taco salad shells.  Then a brownie to top it all off later in the evening!

I had my little "store" set up so croppers could purchase adhesive and cardstock at will.  As well as wonderful Close To My Heart papers, stamps and other goodies.

Everyone received a 2-page layout make and take.  Each kit was made of a little different papers, but they were all cut to make the same layout.  Here are some of the results:

We had a wonderful time.  Many smiles, laughs, and giggles were heard throughout the day.

There were prize drawings every hour.

 Some of the prizes were hand made by me.

Other prizes were donated by Leeann, pictured below on the right, who is a Pampered Chef consultant.  She was very generous and also donated 10% of her Pampered Chef sales to Operation Smile.  Thank you Leann!

A great time was had by all, and to top it all off, we raised $100 for Operation Smile!  Thank you for your generosity Ladies!

We had such a great time, we will do it again on February 19.  Hope you can join us.  Please email me for more information.

Happy Scrapping!
Jen Lee

Ladies Day Out Crop to Benefit Operation Smile

Date: Saturday, December 4
Time: 10:00 am to 10:00 pm
Place: The Ponds, 2881 229th Ave NW, Saint Francis, MN
Cost:  $25 includes lunch, dinner, coffee & soda, make & take, hourly prizes, and more!

RSVP: call 763-355-8430 or e-mail jenlee@myctmh.com

You are invited to come share in the fun! Bring your projects to work on, adhesives, and basic tools. My How To Books, computer/printer, Cricut, Big Shot, stamps, and other tools will be available for your use. It will be an open crop format to benefit Operation Smile. A FREE make and take will be available for you to create as well. Please RSVP to reserve space for you and a friend today. Hope to see you there!

To receive my monthly e-newsletter with coupons, specials, workshops, and other fun items related to scrapbooking and stamping please sign up for my mailing list. To sign-up please click this link, and follow the instructions on-line.