Wine Party

Inspired by a trip I just saw Mae Armstrong take, I recovered one of my favorite projects of hers.  It's a DIY blind wine tasting that you can host for your friends.  Grab four bottles of wine, invite some friends and follow this awesome tutorial.  Guaranteed great time! 

Mae started out by creating wine bags.  She placed different bottles of wine in each bag, coded them with letters, and had guests write honest feedback about each wine on a corresponding card.  This way no one is influenced by fancy labels or gimmicky names of wines.   The tasting will be based on taste alone. 

To recreate, use an old wine tote bag as your pattern like this one here.    Mae used natural canvas and retro fabric for the accent.   Sew the printed fabric on the front side of the canvas and sew the top opening to prevent from fraying. Then turn inside out and sew all sides leaving the opening.

Mae stamped onto pre-cut doily themed circle tags with PSA Essentials Archive Peel and Stick stamps.  She stamped the letters A, B, C, D – the number of letters she needed for the number of wines she was serving for the tasting.    She picked a nice thick yarn for hanging the tags.  

Cute, right? 

For the tasting cards, she used the same doily tags stamped with PSA Archive Peel & Stick stamps and the corresponding letters to match the wine totes.   To recreate, thread the yarn through and knot both ends to secure the tag.  It's easy if you use a crochet hook to pull the yarn through.   Mae also used a bamboo stick to create the holes.  This card measures 4"x9" and you can create it using Microsoft Word or In Design.

As Mae always does, she took her project and party two steps further.  She sewed a matching canvas favor bag stamped with the initials of her guests. You can fill the jars with any edible treats, Mae used olives. She used the same yarn color to tie the top of the tote bags. It all coordinates perfectly!

Surviving the Winter Blues

It happens every year to me in January.  I am flying high during the holidays, I soar through the first two weeks of January with the new year filled with such promise.   Then like a ton of bricks, I come crashing down.   The end of January and February are my least favorite times of the year.   In the Low Country, it’s the only months where the days are short and the weather is cold.   Spring and Summer feel far away, there’s not a whole lot of indoor activities for us around here.   So I asked our design team member Jennifer Holmes to create some cards to lift people’s spirits during the dark and cold winter days.   So use these ideas as inspiration and send them to a friend to help them survive the winter blues!  (Or just enjoy them from here yourself.)

This bright and cheery card may just lift the spirits of someone special in your life.  I love the flower stamped in different colors from PSA Life’s A Beach.   Jennifer’s colored them up to make them really stand out.  She’s stamped the “h” from PSA Gigi Monogram H Peel & Stick, and the “i” from PSA Vanilla Peel & Stick pack. 

To further brighten spirits, Jennifer created this “hello sunshine” card.   She’s stamped the sunglasses from PSA Life’s A Beach and colored them up with pink and green markers.   She’s used a bright and cheery yellow cardstock as the base, and framed her sunglasses and sentiment in a scalloped cut magenta cardstock.   I love that she’s tied yellow and white twine around the card – which is just an extra touch and adds some dimension.  

Hope you have a bright and cheery day! 

Crafting Coupons

Like so many people, one of my new year's resolutions is to cut down on spending. I mean seriously cut down on spending! Stop the bleeding.  But I can't eliminate it completely so I'll have to be more resourceful, smarter about my purchases, especially in my crafting especially in my crafting since it really adds up quickly. Coupons always help.  Here today are three great coupons from Michael's & JoAnn's.  Hope that you find them useful!   

For anyone looking to buy PSA Essentials personalized stamp, we've extended our sale of $30 MSRP.  Horray for saving! 

How are you planning on saving in 2013?  

Snowflakes for Sandy Hook

The unimaginable and horrific tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT has world of people coming together right now.   With the help of a crafting community, the National PTA is creating a winter wonderland of handmade snowflakes for the students when they return in January.    To help, you can create snowflakes and send them directly to Connecticut where they’ll be displayed in their new school.   If you choose to participate, be as unique as you can and remember that no two snowflakes are alike!  Read more about how you can help here and find the address of where to send your snowflakes to at the bottom of this post.    

Molly and I are working on some snowflakes at home.  We’re decorating them with PSA Essentials Fancy Flakes Peel & Stick stamps – they seemed like a good fit to keep us occupied with a project, get crafting and help out the school in a very small way.  I'll be sure to post some pictures when we're done. 

Send your snowflakes before January 12^th to:

Connecticut PTSA 

60 Connolly Parkway Building 12, Suite 103 Hamden, CT 06514

Birthday Cards

The second week of January is full of important birthdays.  My mom is January 12th (and this year she turns 60!), my best friend from college Kristin is the 13th, and then my best friend from high school Danielle is the 14^th.  These are all really important people in my life.

Ideally I’d find some time to make them some cards.  Jamie Green has inspired me with an idea and I have dug up a few of my favorite birthday cards by Carly Robertson, too.  Just in case I can find the time to whip some up.  Carly uses stamps from PSA Vanilla Peel & Stick stamps here to spell “hb2u.”   I love the pennant flag banner idea and the gingham is just adorable.

One of my other favorites by Carly is shown here. I love how she has used the Whimsy Cake stamp through the peep hole and colored it up.

This one is more frilly than I usually go for but I like the bow and the pink polka dots.  

This next one is by Jamie. She has used “h, b, 2, u” stamps from Vanilla Peel & Stick by PSA Essentials.  I like the cardstock she’s chosen for the base of the card and the glittery paper she’s framed the stamps against. 

Happy Birthday coming up to three of my favorite people!

New Year's Resolution: A Project A Day

Sometimes my house feels like it’s closing in on me.  Since having Connor, my medium sized house has become small.  Every inch of space is used up and the spaces that are mine seem to be dwindling.  With the daily grind, I haven’t had time to organize anything so it’s gotten pretty chaotic.  We have several junk drawers.   The laundry room is a mix of laundry, craft supplies, school supplies, household light bulbs, batteries, cleaning supplies, medicine and has become a general dumping ground.   I have been feeling really overwhelmed about it so I decided that 2013 is going to be more organized.  This is my new year’s resolution.    I’ve made a list of 36 projects around the house that need to be organized.   Some days are easier than others (like #6 which is cleaning out my coupons) and other days will require more effort (like #14 which is to tackle my closet!  A total disaster.)

It turns out that of the most popular new year’s resolutions, organizing is #10.  Other popular ones are getting fit, getting out of debt, spending more time with family and friends, learning something new, and eating better.   Gina Luker at Shabby Creek Cottage is getting on the organizing train with her blogging.  Check out what she’s done here.  She’s creating a blogging board. 

She’s stamped the letters from PSA Vanilla Peel & Stick stamps using an acrylic block onto her white board.

She’s made three columns to get organized:  posts, supplies {she needs} and administrative [tasks she needs to get done.}  It looks great above her desk and she can really set things straight this new year. 

So what are your new year’s resolutions? 

New Years Tradition - Noodles

Mae Armstrong has a family tradition for New Years: they always cook noodles.   The tradition originated in Japan and is common in Asian culture as it brings longevity and good luck!



Mae normally does stir fry noodles called Pancit which her twin boys absolutely love.  To celebrate the holidays even further, Mae gave the boys their very own chopsticks.   She found training chopsticks at Target and created a quick project with them to make them extra special.  



Mae created a simple chopstick holder.  She picked a red card stock and cut it lengthwise, scored and folded in half.  Mae selected two coordinating paper patterns and stamped a circle tag with "Luck" using PSA Essentials Peel & Stick stamps.  She mounted the circle tag on top of the starburst cut-out.



She secured rectangle patterned paper on the chopstick holder and glued the sentiment on top. She wrapped it with gold stretchy string for a festive touch.  How cute is this?  And what a great tradition!