Hi and welcome to Day One of Visions of Sugarplums! Join us all week long for fun projects, recipes, traditions and giveaways! More about that in a moment...
We've been decorating the house off and on for the last week and it's like seeing old friends. I love opening the boxes and even though I already know what's inside, I still feel so happy holding the old ornaments in my hands. And every year, I just have to add new decorations, too! A favorite around our house has always been "The Night Before Christmas." So, I created a Night Before Christmas Puzzle Tin.
The idea is to place puzzle pieces in the tin and beginning on Dec. 13th, remove a piece. Two puzzles are complete on Christmas Eve. Then, the poem can be read. This is when I wish Lauren was still small enough to snuggle with me drinking hot chocolate, reading together with the twinkle of the tree and light of the fireplace!
Maybe I can talk her into snuggling with me anyway! How about it Lauren?
The puzzles are the front and back cover of the book. If you're interested in making something similar, you can download my magnet squares here.
Just right click on the image above and save. I really like a heavy duty magnet. I buy mine in rolls that are 60 mil thick. I think 30 mil would work, too.
The book pages are available here.
I printed the book pages at about 4 1/2" x 6". The cover is 7 1/4" x 11 folded in half. Then I sewed right down the middle to bind it together. The puzzle pictures were printed a little larger than 3" x 3". Then I used a free puzzle svg to cut the puzzles to 3" x 3". At that size each piece will fit in the mini muffin tin. I made this in July and have made four more since then. It seems like a lot of pieces, but it goes pretty fast.
Now a little info about the giveaways. There will be a giveaway here each day Tuesday - Friday. I'll pick a random winner for my giveaways on Friday. Every comment you make here between now and Friday night and every comment made on every participating blog will be an entry for you into the drawing for my giveaways. For the sponsoring giveaways, your comments will count for that particular day. For example, your Tuesday comments will be an entry for the Tuesday giveaway. Your Tuesday comments also count for my giveaways. I will give away two packages that are identical. So, everything you see in the following pictures (and all the items I'll add throughout the week) will be given to two people.
Do you have Visions of Sugarplums dancing in your head yet? We do! Mika, of Mika's Pantry and I are hosting a fun Christmas blog party and you're invited! We'll have recipes, traditions, Christmas creations and how-tos. Ira, Linda, Jennifer, Lauren, Regina and Cassie will be joining us along the way. And we can't wait to see their posts!
We'll even have giveaways: Regina from The Cutting Cafe will be giving away some of her awesome Christmas sets, Beatrix Jennings from Iralamija's Shop will offer two collage images of your choice, and Cassie from Paper Issues will have a treat, too. I'll have two huge giveaways that will include vintage Dennison goodies!
Be sure to join us Monday December 5th, when the fun begins and come back each day through Friday, December 9th to see all the fun of Visions of Sugarplums!
This is the cutest box! Actually, it was a really hard choice choosing among all the cute Christmas boxes at The Cutting Cafe. The Snowman Treat Box won out, because I love snowmen!
The box went together beautifully and then it was just pure fun to embellish. I made clay candy canes and thought he looked like he needed one!
All the design team's boxes will be up Wednesday night at The Cutting Cafe blog. Be sure to check it out - I'm sure Regina will have a special offer for you!
Hi! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Ours was fabulous...just having Lauren here is always the best! Add that to getting to have everyone else over and sharing a wonderful meal and great company - well, it doesn't get any better than that!
I got the idea for using door knobs from the cover of Somerset magazine. I wanted to make my Thanksgiving placecard holders a little less permanent - I might want to use them for something else later! So, I totally changed up how they are decorated.
I used large paper clips as the holder for the Thanksgiving postcards. (Just wrapped masking tape around the bottom of the paper clip to hold it inside the knob.) Then I wrapped the knobs with pretty hand dyed seam binding and added tags with our names.
Here, you can see mine with the place setting:
Simple, but pretty on the table!
Monday is my day for a tutorial at The Hybrid Chick. My grandma loves to get photographs of Lauren. I thought a swing photo display would be a great way to add to her collection.
You can see the entire thing and a tutorial to make it on Monday at The Hybrid Chick blog.
Hi! I'm stopping by for just a moment. The bread dough is rising, the pie dough is waiting for all the sweet parts, last minute dusting and mopping out of the way - a quick break and then back to all the fun!
Wishing you and yours a very wonderful Thanksgiving!
I see a lot of people are working on their December Daily albums. It is such a nice way to document and enjoy the festivities and joys of December. The inspiration at The Cutting Cafe this week is the December Daily sets that Regina offers. I decided to do something a little more concise than a full month of pages. I decided to go with twelve. Perhaps I was influenced by the Twelve Days of Christmas! First I created journal cards using the numbers from the Christmas Daily set and the scallop frame from Jot It Down.
Then I printed sentiments from Christmas Daily and December Daily 2. I created the book from a Canson art paper so it has a nice heavy textured feel.
I binded the pages with red and white twine. I'm not quite through with it yet, but these pages will show you the direction I'm going with it.
I added a tag to this page that can be removed so I can use the front and back of the tag and add a picture to the journal card. Here are pages two and three:
Whatever you decide is your take on the December Daily Album, Regina has the sets to help you out. All the other DT inspiration will be up on Wednesday evening, so be sure to drop by the blog.
We went to the Farmers Market yesterday and no one had Sage! Apparently, everyone lost their plants due to the extreme weather we've had. Finally, we found a package at the new Whole Foods Market - they only had one package left! So glad we found it, I think fresh sage makes a huge difference in the dressing. I'm getting so excited as its getting closer to Thanksgiving - can't wait for Lauren to get here!
This turkey label is a favorite of mine - I used it last year to make our placecards for Thanksgiving Dinner. This year, it's a card.
Love the fabric on this. I last used it to make a purse. I also love those pinky orange leaves! We're having our Thanksgiving lunch at work on Monday. I have to remember to take goodies to decorate the table. I better make a list of everything I need to take - otherwise I'm sure to forget something!
