The one with Christmas Eve

Just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!
I only have a half day of work today and then spending tongiht at my inlaws. Then all day tomorrow at my parents house. We are lucky that we don't have to drive to a million places, we can just enjoy our families!

I have so many fun things I am looking forward to in the next few weeks. I also have so much to share that I have done in the past few weeks as well... just been too busy to post it all :) Looking forward to many posts in the new year!

-Liz

The one with the sugar cookie contest

My office is very competitive! I don't know why. Maybe its because we have so many Architects? Either way its all in good fun and I love to participate. This year for our Christmas party we had a sugar cookie contest. Everyone who signed up would get a roll of sugar cookie dough. The creation had to be mostly edible and the sky's the limit!

I came in second place with my Christmas stocking. Not to shabby :) The stocking is hollow inside so I could have the candy canes spilling out the top. I made a plate that holds the cookies out of dough as well. The little glass has 'milk' in it for Santa. The note to Santa also made of cookie. Everything is completely edible! (KAHN - is the name of my company)


It was so much fun to make it.... but really I was a little sad because I miss my competition buddy :( Callista and I came in first place last year in the Gingerbread house competition with our Gingerbread Igloo entitled 'Penguins at the Pole'.....

I have a feeling that the little Penguins had something to do with the cute factor. We had the whole scene going on! Fishing penguins, show covered trees, sledding penguins and polar bears!

This week has been the most crazy so far. I think I have had something every night after work. I hope to get to enjoy the holidays a little more next week!

-Liz

P.S.- Callista I miss you lots :(

The one with what I want for christmas

Does this happen to you? When I go shopping for others I always find things that I want/need for myself! Things I didn't think I needed or knew I wanted. But the more I shop the longer my own list gets as well. Its bad!

I have a few things on my list that I really want... but probably won't buy for myself right now. Especially with the cruise coming up soon and all the Christmas presents for others. Maybe these will be some good hints for Alain ;)

The first is Tilt perfume! Two years ago I got this at a black Friday sale. It was $10 a bottle. Now it is not being made anymore and its very hard to find. I think eBay is the only place and it goes for more than the original price!

The second on my list: A super cute and practical camera strap cover for my DSLR. The one I have hurts my neck and is not cute at all. This one is padded and you can add a little pocket for your lens cap in it as well! I might have to order one of these sooner than later. They are mostly sold on Etsy. This one I found Here !!
The third thing is a nice pair of leather (or leather like) gloves to match my new winter coat! I found these at Coach but any dark brown ones would do.

Last but not least... a cozy and comfortable chair for my office. I currently use a dining room chair. But I would love to have something with wheels and height adjustable. This one is from IKEA!

I really thought I would want more scrapbooking stuff.... but I am on a mission to use what I have at the moment... and really have more than I could ever use. Once CHA is over that story might change. Most of the new stuff out right now is Christmas themed and I don't do too much Christmas scrapping. Maybe the new chair would make me more productive ;)

-Liz

The one with Strawberry Mist

Just a quick post to talk about my new favorite drink. The last few months every time we get together for dinner at my parents my brother whips these up for us girls. They are super easy to make and very yummy! All you need is strawberry daiquiri mix, ice and bailey's (real strawberries are optional!).
Just follow the directions on the back of the bottle of daiquiri mix for the ice to mix ratio you need. I just wing it and it always tastes good. Then add 1 or 2 shots of bailey's in per person. The bailey's makes the drink so smooth and more like a smoothie! If you want to be fancy you can cut the strawberries and add them on the rim of the glass for presentation.
They are great to make when you have a lot of people because you can make big batches in the blender.

PS- If you live near a Keg Steakhouse you can get the real thing. Its not on the menu but I order it there all the time! Plus their apple martini's are to die for as well ;)

The one with a belated Birthday

So the 29th of November it was my 28th birthday.... and I celebrated with my girlfriends by having a pj party + cocktails :) It turned out to be so much fun!

Pauline brought super cute cupcakes that just happen to match my pjs.... Josie made the best brownies ever... we had so much food we basically just ate for hours!lol...

We also played a mean game of Taboo. It was fun to see people get so competitive ;) but it was all in good fun! My friend Julia was so sweet... she got me the cutest wine glass that I ever saw!

I had my 'strawberry mist' in it all night! (In a blender combine ice, daiquiri mix and bailey's - soooo good!) Also, being the dorky scrappy girl that I am... I had to get cute plates, napkins and cups for everyone else too.... found these cute ones at the Party Warehouse! Going to be making trips there more often!

I made this banner to match the colors of the plates :) It was really fun to make!

This past weekend we had our Christmas party with all our friends. This is our fifth year and so much fun. We had dinner at Armando's then everyone came back to our house for desserts. Norm and Emily came down all the way from Peterborough... it was so good to see them even though it was such a short night!

I am almost done my Christmas shopping now! I can't wait to get it done this weekend. Then I can concentrate on getting my tree up and everything wrapped. I hate waiting til the last minute!

-Liz

The one with 15 seconds of fame

I was so excited today when I opened my e-mail and saw the new set of PageMaps was out!
This month I got to design one of the layouts for them. I really love the one I got to work on. Here is the map:

And here is my version:

I had a lot of fun working on it. There are a lot of great maps this month so you need to head over and check it out! PageMaps

Lots of fun stuff happened over the past weekend! So much to share... where do I start? Friday Mahsa and I went Black Friday shopping... can't tell you about my great deals because everything was Christmas gifts :) But we did score at Macy's!!

Saturday I had all my girlfriends over for my birthday. So much good food and drinks... I have some funny pictures to share later as well! Sunday I went shopping again with my mom and finally found a dress! Thankfully the 4 Christmas parties I have are all with different people so I will be able to wear the same dress.

Now I am almost done my Christmas shopping.... but really worried about packing the the cruise in January. I usually pack the night before we go anywhere... but this time I don't know what to pack! I feel like I don't have enough summer clothes to bring with me and there are no stores here to buy shorts in the winter! Ugh!

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving weekend!!!

The one with the scraps purge

It sounds funny, but it felt so good to purge all my scraps! I am really conservative with paper and usually get a lot out of it so the amount of scraps I had was still relatively small. But actually throwing out all the old paper that I won't use was very freeing! lol. I don't' have to *worry* about trying to use and keep those scraps that deep down I know I will never use.

So here is what I am left with.... just two little packets, pp and solids:

I used my favorite label maker (from DYMO - got it at Target!)

I grouped all my patterned papers from each collection that I wanted to keep together with a small binder clip. I mostly use my scraps for cards so this way if I need to make a card all the coordinating papers are already together!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow - for all the Americans anyway. For me I will be shopping since the stores are open in Canada... and M's is having 25% off the entire purchase tomorrow! yay!

I will post all the goodies I buy tomorrow :)

-Liz

The one with all the ribbon

I love ribbon... especially if its a shade of brown... or if its frilly... or has polka dots... or stripes.... well pretty much all ribbon!! I used to keep it all in a clear makeup bag that I punched holes in. But now that I mostly scrapbook from home I wanted a way to organize it a little better. So here it is... my rainbow of ribbon:

There was a weird skinny bar on the inside of the closet door in my scraproom that I didn't ever know what to do with. I was going to take it down and put up some hooks... but then I saw an idea on two peas about making your own version of clip it ups! I used the black dividers from my clip it up, cut horizontal strips in each one and fed the ribbon through. The hole in the top fits perfectly on the bar!

I have to say that I love how it looks so much! It makes me smile every time I see it. The best part is that I can *see* it all and use it much more often when I scrapbook!

I have lots of scrappy stuff to share... but I can't til next week. A couple of projects I have done that I can't share just yet!

Since this Thursday is American Thanksgiving I have a short week! YAY!! I plan on getting a lot of stuff done on Thursday... and planning out my shopping trip on Black Friday! I really hope to get most of my Christmas shopping done then. Going to miss all my girls since none of them can make it this year :(

But I will see all of them on Saturday night... I am having a PJ party at my house. Drinks, Chick Flicks and lots of food and snack! Can't wait!!!

-Liz

The one with some quick cards

Literally the quickest cards I have made in a while. I had to make a wedding card for my friend Jen who is going to her cousin's wedding this weekend. I sat down with no inspiration... and a messy desk with lots of scraps. So I started to play with the scraps (from the Bloom and Grow Line) and came up with these two cards pretty quickly!

(sorry for the crummy quality... they were taken late at night)

You can never have too many birthday cards on hand!

So then I had to make the wedding card... I like wedding cards to be clean and simple. Some people like to keep their cards and I want something that will be nice for years to come. So I used paper that I got at Archivers to make a sample wedding invite.... but never got around to it!

You can't tell from the photo put it is a creamy shimmer paper, very heavy weight.

A little rub on and lots of bling and I was done! Not too shabby for an hours work.
Oh and if anyone has a trick to getting those bling shapes to go on easily and straight... let me know! They are beautiful but drive me nuts!

I am so very glad its Friday today! Since I was away last weekend there is lots of stuff to catch up on around the house. This weekend is our 'calm before the storm' we are calling it...nothing planned this weekend and so we are going to enjoy it before the Christmas parties start! Our weekends are totally booked up with stuff until we get back from our cruise in January! I love the Christmas and the non stop parties... its my most favorite time of the year :)

-Liz

The one with a quick trip

So this has been one of the most crazy things I ever did! I had plans for the whole weekend... scrapbooking, shopping, hanging out with friends and a craft show! Well I didn't do any of it!!! Instead I flew down to Myrtle Beach to hang out and golf with my brother. On Thursday night I decided to go.... booked a flight for the next morning... stayed up almost all night packing and getting ready... less than 12 hours later I was in Myrtle Beach on a golf course!
The first day we played at Waterway Hills... it was kind of cold but so good to be out golfing again. We went to dinner at Carabas after... really good food.
The second day we golfed at the Legends - much nicer than the first course... and the weather was nice and warm as well! We played the Highlands course. The clubhouse and facilities were awesome:

Andrew posing after a good shot:

Our stuff:

After golf we went to Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville. The food and drinks were amazing :) I wish I would have taken a picture of the drink!!!

Me and the big blender:
After dinner we walked around the boardwalk, fed the ducks and played some mini putt! Andrew and I are big fans of the mini putt :)

I didn't get any scrapping done (obviously!).... but I hope to this weekend... and now I have more pics to scrap!! yay!!

Hopefully more scrapbook posts to come this week!
-Liz

The one with some Catch Up

I have been very busy lately and my blog had to take a back seat! Lots of fun stuff going on though! Spent most of the weekend with Jen at a craft sale in Maidstone. The weather was so beautiful so we didn't get the turn out we had hoped for!

Saturday night was my friend Cynthia's bachlorette party at the Room. Pauline, Josie and I met up at Paula's house to have a few drinks and some really great Chinese food. We had so much fun just hanging out. We met up with Cynthia and the rest of the girls downtown for some more fun and dancing! (I don't know why but my camera has been very fuzzy lately... might be time to upgrade my point and shoot!)

Going back to Tuesday night now.... I went to the Detroit Marathon Volunteer Party at the Motor City Casino. The best part of the night was getting to see Callista! I miss her soooo much :) The food was good and it was a really cool venue overall.

This weekend I have lots of fun stuff planned as well. Saturday, Jess, Krysti and I are doing a scrapbook shopping trip over to Scrappy Chic and Archivers. Then back to Jess' house to hang out and scrapbook. There is a new scrapbook store that has opened in Amherstburg , hopefully we get back from the states in time to check it out as well!

Sunday another craft sale with Jen in Amherstburg as well. I hope it goes better than last weeks one!

-Liz

The one with a Sceret

I am sooooo over the moon excited today! I got invited to create a page for the PageMaps December issue! I can't tell you anymore about it.... its a secret :) But I can tell you the sketch is AMAZING and I can't wait to play with it.
Head on over to Page Maps today to check out the November maps that went up last week. They have sketches for Basic Gray and cards as well. If your in a rut its a great place to get your creative juices flowing again.
I will post my sketch and creation once it goes live next month. Just a little teaser today!

Tomorrow I am heading out to a craft sale with my friend Jen. She will be selling her cute YennyBee baby products. I also made a bunch of greeting cards to sell at the show. I have only made my cards for friends and family so I have no idea how they will sell. Check out Jen's website for location and maps....... if you are in the area come visit us!!

Have a great weekend!
-Liz

The one with a BIG mini

My friend Jen (of www.yennybee.com) sent me some pictures of a mini album that I made for her. She wanted something that she could bring with her to show off what she makes and not have to bring all of her products. It started out as a few pages.... but grew to almost 20. She has so many great products I wanted to get them all in there!
Here is the cover:
Example of some product pages:

The inside back cover:

The 'Bee' of the logo I helped design in Illustrator.... i think its super cute!

And so is all of her stuff.... you need to head on over to www.yennybee.com . She just added a few new things to her product line... so check it out!

Happy Monday!

-Liz

The one with some Candy

Even though we only get a handful of tick-or-tearters every year we always buy way too much candy just in case.... but really its just way too tempting for us NOT to eat it! I think I should have waited until after dinner to put this by the door:
No scary plans for us tonight! Andrew and Jess are coming over for dinner then the girls are going to scrapbook.. yay :) The boys will be flipping between the many sporting events that are on tonight...... Go Yankees and Habs!!

I am planning on making a few goodies to sell at a craft show next weekend. I will be there helping out my friend Jen (Yennybee Baby Designs ----> see link in the sidebar!). Going to make some quick cards and shower invites and maybe even a layout or too if I am really feeling the mojo!
Hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloween!!!!

-Liz

The one with Shower Invites

The first set of invitations I ever made were my own Bridal Shower Invites! I had seen an example that I loved and thought.... I could do that myself... and cheaper! So after some trial and error, this is what I came up with:

I wanted an image of a dress behind the vellum and I couldn't find any clip art I liked. Not knowing about stamps and digital scrapbooking, I just drew one I liked! I scanned it into the computer and printed it out on my paper. For my first try I don't think they turned out too bad!

This Pink and Brown one I made as a sample. I love the scalloped edges!

This baby shower invite was made for my friend Jen's baby shower! Her colors for the nursery were brown with blue and green accents and very modern. We thought that we could make an invite that would reflect her style so those attending would get a feel for what she likes. This train paper from KI was just too perfect! My favorite part it the mini button brads from making memories in the corners of the stripes.

This week has been really busy at work.... and I can't wait for the weekend! No big plans for Halloween... I think when we have kids I may be more into it. Instead my brother Andrew and his girlfriend Jess are coming over to make dinner with us... and then the girls are going to do some serious scrapping!

-Liz

PS: Today is my other brother Sean's birthday! Happy 25th b-day Sean :)

The one with the Rocio Invite

So far all of my business has happened through word of mouth. No advertising... yet! Makes me so happy to know that my friends love my work and would go out of their way to tell their friends - you HAVE to get Liz to do your invites :)

This invite I did last march for my friend Jen's sister in law, Rocio. She had a very hard dress color to math.... but with all the Bazzill colors we came pretty close! Her colors were a purple-ish wine with silver and white accents.

Here is a close up of the Monogram:

And when it was fully opened up it looked like this:

She didn't want to do a pocket but we still needed some way to include her reply card. I came up with the idea of having the corners just held in place and the guests could pull them out but still look like one cohesive piece.

I am not a fan of the fonts they chose.... but its whatever the bride wants!

When we were discussing different options in the beginning, I also made this sample:

I really love the simplicity of it.... and I think the fonts are more modern and light - if that makes sense :)

The funny thing with these two is that although they look similar from the outsides (all closed up), the second would cost less to make. Its all in how you work the paper!

In the last month I got two really great referrals and had meetings with both brides. I love being able to talk with them and get the 'feeling' of their wedding, what they envision for their special day and what fits their budget. The great thing about paper is that you can make whatever you can think up! I love the challenge and the creativity of it all.

-Liz

The one with my BFF's Invitations

I finally did it! I actually took some pictures of my invitations! Funny that I started this blog to be all about my invites but haven't posted any yet. So I will start out with everything I created for my friends Liv and Andrew's wedding.

Here are two samples of 'Save the Date' cards that I made:

I ended up making this second one. At this time Liv wasn't sure about her colors but was thinking something in the green family. I really recommend sending out Save the Dates if you are having your wedding on a Friday like Liv and Andrew were. Some guests may need to know more than the standard two months in advance to take the day off from work or to travel from out of town.

For her wedding gift I made her invitations and programs. Here are the invite set:

This is the hidden pocket in the back that the reply card slips into:

Close up of the front:

Details of the swirl and pearls:

The program also turned out really well. Liv had a message to everyone in her bridal party as well as to each of their parents. It was a really nice souvenir of the day!

More invites to come!

-Liz

PS: Please don't forget to vote for me in the Scrappy Chic monthly challenge!!!! Click here: www.scrappychiclivonia.com and then click on 'monthly challenge' on the left hand side. My layout is #2!!! Thanks :)