Candy Holiday Shadow Box ~ Crate Paper

So last week sometime, Christine and I were on the phone discussing projects that we could do together for the Crate Paper blog. We thought about making ornaments and then the idea of a Christmas shadow box was brought up and we just had to decide on how large to make the boxes. Because I think good things come in small packages, the smaller the box - the better. Christine mentioned using Jello Boxes for our project which meant a shallower box.... but I'm always up for a challenge!

After a couple of "rass-a-frassa's & who's idea was this again?" My shadow box came together really quickly. I completed it - from start to finish- in one evening even while being distracted by the Home Alone 2 movie that the littles were watching for the 879th time this month. ;)

The outside of my box is covered with Crate's Peppermint Collection Papers. I painted the inside of the box a warm shimmering gold color.

I used a crop-a-dile to punch a hole through the back of the box, just big enough to fit a light through. The gold paint on the inside gives my little box scene a warm glow.

I'm not sure how I did it but I managed to fit 8 pieces of Peppermint chipboard into this little box. To make them secure, I covered the bottom of the box with white modeling clay. This way, I just pushed in each of the chipboard pieces into the clay and they stayed put! To cover the clay, I used a hot glue gun, some sparkly "snow" and a few pearls for added texture.

If you visit the Crate Paper blog you'll get to see Christine's box too and she even created a tutorial to help you in creating your own mini box! I think this project would also be alot of fun to create with kids.... especially over that long Winter break that's fast approaching! I have all sorts of projects to post this week. Christmas is just around the corner!

a new month,

means a new color challenge for the Crate Paper blog! This really is my favorite challenge and I absolutely love coming up with a new combination of colors each month. This month, inspired by our unusually wintery weather, I chose colors that were cooler and more muted. (and they couldn't be further from the typical red-white-green colors that are so expected this time of year!)

I decided to create 5 pages for my December Journal. Each page is 6x6 inches and I used a combination of 4 collections by Crate Paper (Neighborhood, Peppermint, Random Farmhouse). I wish I had pulled out the Portrait collection out to play with, of course I remembered after I had finished up!

So, here are my pages:

Silver & Gold

our Wreathe

ttv Santa

vintage ornaments

home for the holidays

~ all wrapped up!

and did I mention that I get to give away a Crate Paper collection each month! How sweet is that?! I'll be choosing a winner next Friday, if you feel like participating in the challenge this month. The details are in my post on Crate's blog. :) I'll be back tomorrow to post another page for my December Journal, I'm a guest designer this month for a journaling based blog!

a quick hello

just getting the Color Challenge post ready tonight for Crate Paper. It goes up tomorrow morning!!

it's Challenge time!

hello and happy Saturday to you! I meant to post this before I left on vacation but there was way too much to do and so, here it is, on a Saturday. :) This months Color Challenge with Crate Paper ~ the details of the challenge are posted on the blog. I knew I wanted to make a mini for the Fall season and even though this month is all about orange I was determined to create a color combination that wasn't expected. No orange for this month!

This month's colors are Peacock Green ~ Mustard Yellow and Wheat ~ I think these colors are so complimentary to Autumn photos or Fall themed projects!

I created this mini album using coaster sized chipboard, Hambly transparencies, lots of Crate Paper Chipboard accent pieces and Patterned Paper. It's called Autumn Plans - think December Daily except geared towards Fall - It measures only 4x4 inches, large enough for photos & journaling and yet small enough that it's completely manageable. I think I made this entire little book in one afternoon!

I filled the album with a combination of photos, to-do lists, quotes, ATC's (from last year) and I plan on adding more photos as I take them. I still have lots of baking to do with the kids, our annual Autumn hike in Sedona, some arts & crafts time and the kids' Fall festival at school. busy-busy!

What are your Autumn Plans this year? This month is going by entirely too fast but I am happy to say that I have the house and yard all decorated for Halloween. I just need to pick up one bag of every possible candy available at the grocery store and I think I'm all set! I'm off to finish up some laundry and then it's on to making a candy garland! Hope you're are having a lovely weekend!

helloooo!

I am so bad. I meant to come back here last week but in the words of my daughter "you're busy, busy, busy. You have 2 kids," and you know what? It's true, I do have 2 kids. So, that's what I'm going to attribute my lack of blogging to. :) AND my baby started preschool this week! Little Chase is now in school, it's only been 2 days so both him and I are trying to transition ourselves into this new adventure. I wish I had photos to share, but sadly I don't. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with the camera on his 1st day and when I picked him up he immediately wanted to go home. No photo opts for us!

On the Crate Paper front, I created a few new projects, tutorials and layouts this month. It's always a good thing to be inspired..... and finding a little extra mojo doesn't hurt either. :)

I recycled this project, but I love the Random chipboard pieces from Crate. It was reason enough to re0create this canvas!

I loveeee these colors, it reminds me of a pretty shabby vintage Christmas. Everything used for this layout is Crate Papers new Peppermint collection. I may be trying to introduce an icy sea-foam blue into my holiday decor this year!

I've also done a couple of post's on gift wrapping recently. I've dubbed them "Crate Scraps to Gift-wrap." You can check out of my 5 simple must haves for a lovely gift in this post!

and if you need some ideas for Holiday gift wrap click here for my Crate Paper post!

and after all that, I still have one more Crate layout to share later this week, but here's a peek. :)

Ok, so that should bring me up to date with the creative happenings of this past week. whew~ that was quite the post! I need to run to the grocery store and then onto Starbucks for a quick pumpkin latte before dinner! Happy Wednesday all!

Crate: my home

First off, thank you for the all the positive thoughts, prayers and kind words and even though some of them made me cry, I still really appreciate the thought.

You know when you experience something on a large scale, and you know you're never going to be the same again? and yet, you also know that you have to put on a smile, muster up enough grace to get through each coming day (even if you don't have the energy to change out of your pjs) and be the wonder mommy and wife you need to be for everyone? Well, that right now, is me. I find it very peculiar how something so life altering for me could have happened not even 2 weeks ago and realistically my everyday life is much the same as it was. I don't really understand how it's possible.

So, for the past 2 weeks, I have done almost nothing on the creative front. I knew I had to prepare Crate Paper's monthly challenge post for the blog and yet I've felt anything but inspired lately. I had already chosen the word Home for the challenge and like most of my work, I just wanted to create something light hearted and simple. It was a good thought in theory but I just wasn't that into it. And then a really simple idea came to me, I'd write my grandparents a letter.



Simple and maybe not quite as lighthearted as I would have liked but this layout came together in just an hour and for the "home" theme it was perfect.





If you feel like scrapbooking this week/weekend check out my challenge here.

I'll be in and out this week, I have a bunch of projects I've completed for Crate paper that I wanted to post and I really do want to get back to creating, I just need to carve out some time! xo ~ T