Magical

Last weekend was the Noches de Luminarias at NMSU. I don't know the history behind it but they had thousands of paper bag luminaries lining the walkways of the University. We took a stroll through that night. It seems like a whole heck of a lot of work for one night, but it was amazing. Magical even. Again taking pictures of them in the dark was quite hard. I had the night setting on my camera but no tripod so things would get blurry. If I tried to take a picture with the flash on, you couldn't tell the bags were lit. They looked like, well paper bags everywhere.
This was a layout I was going to use for a club meeting but never did. The big white area is supposed to have an 8 x 10, but none of my pictures were really all that great to go to the expense of printing that size. Later I did go back and mat the 2 pictures on a Creme Brulee mat. That softened it up a lot.

Christmas present for my sister

One of the things I forgot to bring to Las Cruces was wrapping paper, duh! Anyway, if you know me I'm too cheap to go buy more when I have a ton at home. Oh yeah, I didn't have a box either. So, I got to thinking that I had bought this big Christmas paper pack and thought I could make a box out of paper and cardstock. And if you know me, you know I LOVE two-fers! I even made the bow out of the scraps! My husband was suitably impressed.

I can't tell you what's inside because it's a gift and I don't know if my sister reads my blog. Also, after Christmas I can't show you because I was so excited about the box, I forgot to take a picture of what's inside. I also made cute little gift boxes for my brother in law and nephews but didn't even take pictures of them. Darn it!

Snow Angel

Snow is rare in Las Cruces so when we got some Leo had to go out and play. I don't know why it was so exciting for him, it snows at "home." I had this A Page 4 All Seasons layout for over a year now and finally decided to use it. I thought it was a funny sight to see snow on a palm tree. I don't think it happens all that often.

Santa!

The pictures aren't great because I don't have a tripod and night pictures are hard without one and the layout needs something, but here's our visit to see Santa. He came to the Las Cruces Railroad Museum on a diesel engine and there were crafts and the whole neighborhood was lit with paper bag luminaries. We saw Santa come and then left for other festivities around the downtown area. There were just too many people waiting to have their picture taken with Santa so we decided to come back later. The whole time we were gone Leo kept saying that Santa was going to leave and he would miss him. So we finally get back to see him and then Leo would have nothing to do with him. Argh, the frustrations of a 4 year old.

Gingerbread fun

Leo really wanted to make a Gingerbread house so I got a kit. I had thought about making it all on my own, but got lazy. Aaron had fun eating the icing and candy. Leo just had fun decorating it. The one I got was preassembled and maybe next year I will attempt to make one from scratch.
This is one of the layouts from my December A Page 4 All Seasons kit

National Papercrafting Month

The exciting National Papercrafting Month Constant Campaign featuring the Felicity Collection starts NOW!

The Felicity Collection features decorative die-cut paper, three gorgeous color schemes, and a D-size stamp set that include flowers, flourishes, argyle, birds, and an entire alphabet! This collection has a retail value of $34.95 US/ $40.95 CAN. You can buy it outright, or get it free! There are two ways to qualify for a FREE Felicity Collection:

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Click here to see all the wonderful papers and the stamp set.

Getting in the spirit

I'm determined to get into the Christmas spirit this year. The first step was to create a few holiday decorations. This is the little entry space in our apartment (it's behind the front door when you open the door)
I went to Hobby Lobby the other day and got a big pack of Christmas paper, a 12 inch styrafoam wreath and the wood letters and trim items. (EVERYTHING was on sale 50% off so total I spent less than $25, whooee!!!!)

For the wreath, I cut out and inked 120 leaves (but I didn't use them all) and just started pinning them around the wreath in a pattern that I liked. I added some of the berries here and there and tied a bow on top.

For the NOEL, I traced the letters on the same papers I used for the leaves, cut them out and then modge podged them on. I sanded and inked the edges. I was going to embellish the letters, but when I put them on the shelf, I stuck some of the extra berries on the shelf and decided that embellishing the letters themself would be overkill.