December Daily Days 22-25

 I only went to the 25th this year with my December Daily. Here are my last entries.

 December 22nd I finished my Father in law and Stella's Christmas cards.

 December 23 Danny and I baked cookies. Pete went to jam with his brother, so Danny and I watched Christmas shows all night.

 We had a fun day on the 24th. My Father in law and Stella stayed at a local hotel on Christmas Eve, so we had extra time with them on Christmas morning!

 After Danny was sleeping, I grabbed the camera and got a picture! Finally!

We had a wonderful day. Danny  didn't open all his presents, he decided to spread them out this year.

 Pete entertained us with some guitar playing, and he took a picture with the fireplace. OK, it was the fireplace on Hallmark channel, but you work with what you have, right? LOL!

We made sure to get some pictures with Dad and Stella this year. We loved having them here with us!
The month went by so quickly. I can't believe we are already into January 2016! I hope that everyone has a happy New year!

December Daily Days 14-20

Hello Again! I am back with more of my December Daily.

 December 15th I went to my girlfriend's house for some baking and crafting! Elaine showed me how to make kruschicki and I helped her decorate  Christmas stockings. She did well with the Stickles until she put her arm down on the wet stocking! We had a blast! It is also my nephew Robert's birthday! I can't believe he is 28!

 December 16th was a quiet day, but Sabrina sent me a bunch of great pictures of her, Matt, Charles and Julia. They are the sweetest family!

 December 17th was time to get the cards going! Nothing like waiting until the last minute!

 I also made sure to get a picture of the tiny tree. It may be small, but it was festive!

Still working on those cards on the 18th!

 Foo Kitty was enjoying the holiday this year.  I finally finished the cards that had to be mailed!

The 21st was spent going shopping! Again, nothing like waiting until the last minute!

I was surprised at how full my December Daily ended up being! Tomorrow I will post my final entries.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

December Daily Days 7-13

December 7th was spent finishing up the mess I had made on the 6th! It was quite a disaster, but I have to say, it looks much less cluttered in the room now. Zakk was pretty grumpy with all the chaos going on. 

 December 8th is such a bittersweet day for me. It's my Mom's birthday. It was always such a happy day. We would usually put our tree up right around her birthday. In keeping with tradition, I put my tiny tree up.

 In my Daily, I added a folder that I put some special notes about my Mom and her picture into.

 Since the puppies are still young, only a year old now, I decided that putting up our regular tree wouldn't be a great idea. I bought a little 4 ft tree and put it on a table in front of the window where Spike, the cat, promptly knocked it down! and I was worried about the dogs!

 For the 9th, I added Kaylee's picture with Santa, She asked him for Paw Patrol toys for Christmas this year. She was such a good girl, that I am sure she will get lots and lots of Paw Patrol goodies!

 Sabrina sent me the cutest Christmas picture of Charles and Julia. Aren't they adorable!

 Kaylee decorated her Christmas tree on the 10th! She was so helpful!

The Santa on this page is on an acetate tag that my friend Nadia gave me an embroidered Angel on. The Angel is on the tree now, but I just couldn't throw out the tag. It is so pretty, she ran it through an embossing folder!

 To cover up the pop dot on the Santa, I added a small journaling spot on the back side of the tag. Kaylee had a great time decorating her tree! I love the picture of her with David! She is really into Christmas this year!

 

December 11th was spent cleaning up the front yard to get ready for the decorations.

 The pups love the warm weather we are having this winter!

 December 12 was spent putting the extra touches on the tiny tree. It's my beautiful friend Julie's birthday! I love my ornaments, there are so many memories attached to them.

 The 13th was back outside to finish out decorations and raking the leaves. Astro was jumping into the piles like a little child! It was so cute!

I am thrilled that I finished my book this year. Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

December Daily 2015 Days 1-6

My December Daily Book is finally finished! With so much happening over the holidays, I didn't even think to blog the pages, but here they are now. 

 The cover. I actually used a cover I started last year but never got any further on my daily. LOL! I added some extras to it like our name and of course a new year.

 Since Danny is a beast about taking pictures these days, I decided to start my book with one of my favorite Christmas pictures of him. I haven't decided what other pictures I am putting on the opposite pages yet.

 These pictures of Kaylee were taken when we went for her Christmas pictures on Nov. 30th, but since I loaded them in on the 1st and started my book. I just had to use them.

 My niece Sabrina was a sweetie and sent me some fun pictures of Matt and the children. Charles was in his school show on the 2nd. Although I missed it, I hear he was fantastic! I just adore him!

 Dec. 3rd: Time to finish and mail a Christmas pocket letter!

 I caught a rare moment of peace between Spike and Dino on the 4th!

 I also celebrate Grandma's birthday even though she isn't with us anymore. We miss her everyday. The 4th is a busy day! it's also Gemma's birthday! We have been friends since we are 18, and I can't imagine not knowing her! Since her birthday was during the week, we celebrated it on Saturday, Nov. 28th.

 The 5th was spent doing some housework, so I took a snapshot of our Christmas playlist.

On December 6th, I decided to rip down the shelves over my craft table. It left quite a mess that took a couple of days to clean up!

I will be back soon with more entries into my December Daily! Thanks for stopping by today!

Tiddly Inks Challenge: Take It Easel-y

 I am entering this card in this week's challenge at Tiddly Inks. I got this stamp, Avenger - Super Stamper as a freebie, but right now she is $1.00 at Tiddly Inks. The challenge is to create an easel card.

I created this card as a thank you for National Scrapbook Day. I used my Minc to make the thank you and colored my image with copics. All the papers are from my stash.

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Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Happy Crafting!

Colleen 

30 Day Coloring Challenge Day 1 and 2

My friend, Sara posted the other day about this super challenge for the month of June. It is from The 

Daily Marker and can be found here. So the idea is to spend a couple minutes a day coloring something. I haven't been coloring much, but recently I colored a few cards and remembered how much I loved it. I decided to participate. Here is yesterday's coloring. It's a card for a friend that I needed to mail out. I used a Tiddly Inks Wryn and my copics. 

Today's image was a challenge for me. I used a Manga Fairy from Funky Kits. I have had her for a couple of years and this was the first time I ever colored her. I decided to step out of my copic comfort zone and use tombows, distress markers and watercolor pencils.

I have no idea how to color skin with any of these mediums, lol, so it was a figure it out as I go adventure. I ended up mixing a pink tombow pen with a distress ink that I ran across a clear block to get the skin tone. I used a watercolor brush to blend them. The skin color was looks ok. It was the same process with her hair. I was just mixing and blending brown pencils, tombows and distress markers. LOL.

I used my Atyou Spica pens to add some glitter to the fairy and the mushroom. All in all, I like  the way it turned out. It was fun trying something a little different for me.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today.

Happy Crafting!

Colleen

Why I Love National Scrapbooking Day

I saw on a couple of my friend's blogs that they did a short post about NSD. I really liked this idea so this is my post to gather my thoughts on NSD.

When my sweetie husband signed me up for the Cricut Circle back when it was first introduced, I was thinking it was waste of money for us. I really liked the first "exclusive" cartridge, but I thought it wouldn't be anything different from the public message board. I was wrong.

My crafting has blossomed with my time at the Circle. I entered contests and won, I learned techniques that I may have never thought of trying, I was enabled beyond belief, and I made some wonderful crafting friends. Don't get me wrong, I still have a couple of great crafty friends that I met on the public boards, but the intimacy at the Circle was easier for me to handle. I tend to get lost in larger crowds. LOL! Over the past couple of years, we have become even smaller as Cricut barely supports the Circle anymore. There are no more special cartridges, no magazine, no contests, but there is always National Scrapbooking Day. Those challenges breathe life back into our small group. Thank you Sara for putting together the weekend for us. This year, I did something special, I entered all the challenges. I almost blogged them all too. LOL! So here is my wrap up from National Scrapbooking Day.

I made 6 layouts, 1 luminary, 1 bookmark, and a banner. These are just one's I blogged about.

 
 


  






Here are my projects that didn't make it to their own posts for one reason or another. 1 box card, an easel card, a shirt, a frame and a few tags.

I am pretty sure this was the most productive I have been all year. 

Thanks for stopping by my blog today.

Happy Crafting!

Colleen