Capturing December

I'm joining in with A Content Housewife's blog to do her photo-a-day challenge.

In her own words, "This is such a fun way to get those creative juices flowing AND you capture memories that will last a lifetime! Even if you don’t want to do every day, this can still be used as a holiday photo checklist to make sure you capture some of those important moments during the Christmas season!"

Sounds wonderful to me! Today's challenge is Your View Today.

 

So I hated picking just one photo for this challenge as both boys were super helpful in decorating the house for Christmas, but I really love this one of Link showing me the ornament. In the photo he's telling me that it's purple. LOVE that he knows his colors now. He even helped choose the correct color-coded branches for our tree earlier (I'd have a real one but I have allergies to them).

 

Linking back up to A Content Housewife

It's an Infographic Christmas!

Inspired by my love for infographics, I came up with a Christmas photo card design that combines the best of two worlds: a photo card with a newsletter! Highlight your favorite moments of 2012 and showcase your beautiful family at the same time.

Love the modern and simple look of this. Completely customizable and available in my store now.

Tis the Season

So I'm way behind (big surprise, I know) with holiday designs. I just don't feel right putting out holiday/Christmas designs yet. But since everyone else is, and I risk losing business, I had better hop to! With that being said, I've posted a few in my store.

I really love the rustic feel of this one with the modern spin on typography (it's got some great fonts). Another one of my recent listings:

 

It's got a whimsical feel with the swirly Christmas tree, fun ornaments, and bright colors like coral and aqua blue. Check out my store soon for more additions.

Teacher or Caregiver Gifts

So I've been MIA. Suffice it to say that some things got crossed off my to-do list. December is always a hectic month, but I have missed posting. Hopefully now that things have calmed down a bit, I can post more. Yay! At any rate, here's one thing that I've been up to lately:

Caregiver gifts for my boys' counsellors at their daycare. One of his teachers is moving back to the states at the end of this week so I had to get them finished. I think that they turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself. They're made from the drink carrier thing (cardboard) that comes with the starbucks mochas that you can buy in any grocery store. I wrapped the box with some cute wrapping paper that I had on hand, stuffed it full of goodies (more on that later) and wrapped the whole thing in clear cellophane tied with some twine and a gift tag. Drake and Lincoln loved giving them to their teachers and I think the teachers loved receiving them.

Some of the goodies inside the basket include a snowman Hershey's bar, a giftcard, chocolates, and an empty mocha jar filled with popcorn kernels.

I also included a packet of popcorn seasoning. Mmm ranch popcorn...

I turned one of the empty Starbucks mocha bottles into a Santa jar and filled them with Hershey's holiday chocolates. They turned out too cute! Tutorial coming soon.

Another overall view of my fun caregiver baskets. I'm so glad that the teachers enjoyed them. I wanted them to know that I appreciate what they do day in, day out for my kiddoes.

Snowmen Hershey Bars

I'm in the process of creating a gift basket of sorts to give to all of Drake and Lincoln's preschool caregivers (I'll post it later once I have all the parts assembled). Anyway, one part of it is a Hershey's chocolate bar wrapped up like a snowman, which of course I totally stole from was inspired by a pin on pinterest.

Too cute, right? It's not exactly like the pin but I like my take on it. I think it would have looked even cuter if I had some black round brads for the mouth and eye dots, but alas the craft supplies in Germany are sorely lacking.

To create this incredibly simple snowman wrapped Hershey's bar, you'll need sheets of white paper (I used cheap printer paper), a pipe cleaner, clear tape, orange construction paper, glue, a black pen, three scrapbook brads and of course a Hershey's chocolate bar.

What You'll Do:
Cut a sheet of standard US paper into half, while holding it landscape orientation, cut top to bottom. Each sheet of paper will make two snowmen. Place your Hershey's bar on top of the piece of paper to get an idea of where the middle is. Once you have the middle, punch three brads into the paper right in the middle for the buttons. Then draw in two eyes up top and five dots for the mouth. You could conversely use small black round brads, but I had none. Cut a triangle from orange construction paper for the nose, and glue it onto the face. Lastly, wrap a pipecleaner "scarf" around the chocolate bar, meeting up the ends in the front just off-center. Let each end hang down to be the ends of the scarf and trim as necessary. That's it! Very easy and very cute.

Santa Free Printable Advent Countdown

Inspired by yet another pin on Pinterest, I've created a free printable. This time it's a Santa Beard Advent Countdown. It prints on two sheets of paper (make sure you set your printer to borderless printing) and I recommend printing on heavy cardstock or heavy resume paper (it'll hold up better than your regular printer paper). Link to free download below.

The poem explains it all:

"Santa's beard is very bare. On his chin there is no hair. So each day add one puff so white, and when they're all on, He'll come that night!"

Every day during the month of December, have your little helper glue with tacky glue (or you can use scotch tape balled over) a cotton puff onto the beard area. Once you get to 25 Santa will be on his way! I'm keeping mine on my fridge this year where my little guy can reach it. I'm going to store the cotton balls in a ziplock baggie next to the fridge as well so he knows how far he has to go until Christmas.

Due to convenience's sake, I've created the printable to print on two standard sheets of US paper (8.5 x 11) since I know most people don't have 8.5x22 paper sitting around. You can turn the sheets over and attach them together with a simple band of clear scotch tape along the seam. The file saves as a pdf file, and you can download adobe reader for free from http://www.adobe.com/.

DOWNLOAD SANTA'S BEARD COUNTDOWN HERE

You can see my original inspiration HERE at Oopsey Daisy..

Linking up at: Tatertots and Jello, One Artsy Mama

New Christmas Designs!

So things have been crazy hectic around here. I'm still trying to catch up. I keep adding things to my to-do list without ever crossing any off. It's kinda getting pathetic. I might just have to put things on there that are easy, like "kiss the kids." Then I can feel all accomplished for the day!

At any rate, I've been listing some new holiday Christmas card designs in my store. I'm really excited about them and I have a few more in mind that I need to work on, but that's only when I find the time. All available at my store HERE.

There's either a white or a black border aroudn these images that won't be printed on your card if you choose one of my designs. It's just the easiest way to format them and make them square for etsy's photo restrictions. All designs are completely customizable and more can be found at my store HERE.

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July! We spent some quality family time at a fair nearby. Funnel cakes, ferris wheels, and live bands...who could ask for more? Hope you had a great 4th too!

Mother's Day free printable poster card design

Did you know Mother's Day was next weekend? I didn't. I thought it would be later in May. I guess I better get my act together!

I have the world's best mom as I'm sure most of you do too. So I designed some fun printable designs to share. They are sized at 5x7 and come in four standard colors (red, pink, citrus, and teal/aqua). If you want a different color or size, just message me or drop a comment below.

These are great printed out on heavy cardstock. Then write a personal message or poem on the backside, sign and date, and frame. You don't have to frame it, but it looks really lovely in a black frame.

Here's what all four standard colors look like:

Here's the links to download them:
Click Here for the PINK version
Click Here for the RED version
Click Here for the CYAN or TEAL version
Click Here for the CITRUS version
Click HERE for the MUM version

Please respect my work and don't try to pass the design off as your own, or resell it. Please don't distribute it in any way, but if you want to share the design, please share this blog post. Thanks!

Designs copyright 2011 by Amy Proffitt.

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