Monday, November 22, 2010

Christmas Planner

About a week ago mom made herself a delightful Christmas Planner for herself based on this lovely tutorial by Dawn McVey at her blog http://www.dawnmcvey.typepad.com/
She punched the holes wrong at first, so she doesn't think hers is picture worthy, but maybe she'll let me sneak it one little picture of it! :) I decided I wanted to be more organized this year - the last week before Christmas usually finds me scrambling to buy or make all my Christmas gifts, so I made one for myself, with the help of my lovely mother.

I have three dividing sections in mine - gifts, shopping lists, and a list of people I need to send out my Christmas cards to. Mom's has these sections as well as a misc. section, a baking list, and a cute envelope to keep her receipts safe.

The front cover


Gifts - I absolutely loved making this one, with all the cute gift boxes and phrases, and best of all polka dots! :)



Shopping lists... I just thought the 5 cent candy canes was perfect, since my planner is candy themed :)


And finally the Christmas card section! I love little little red reindeer, isn't he so sweet?


I'm not sure where the candy cane paper came from, but I believe it was hobby lobby. The pages between the dividers are printing paper, and the rest of the papers and stamps and the dies I used to cut some of the shapes are from Papertreyink.com

I hope you enjoyed a look at my recent project! It really came in handy this weekend as I planned out my gifts and when mom and I went on a big Christmas shopping trip yesterday. It's helped me get organized, and I have way more acomplished this year than I ever have at this point. I have all but one gift bought, and all I have left are the handmade gifts, which are actually the bulk of my gifts this year, especially for my friends.

Since I do have so many handmade gifts left to finish it might be a week or so until my next post, but I hope you enjoy the posts that are up right now.

If you love this planner but don't want to make one, I am accepting custom orders for these until the beginning of December. If you would like to order one, you can leave a comment here, or more preferably send me a conversation (convo) on etsy. You can do this by going to http://delightfulhands.etsy.com and click "contact" on the lefthand side of the page.


Have a lovely week and a wonderful Thanksgiving!
~Elissa

Don't forget to visit the shop on Friday!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

An Etsy Christmas!

Okay, this isn't the Christmas project post I promised, but that is coming. I promise!

I wanted to share something with y'all that no one else has seen and will not be displayed in the shop until Thanksgiving day! My new shop header/banner! I would really like your feedback on this... thought and suggestions please! :)
I designed this a few days ago, and all the graphics - snowflakes, snow and penguin are my own original designs. My graphics program is ancient and isn't handling text so well anymore, so I used picnik.com to do the text. They have such fun fonts anyway, much better than the ones I have, so I'm quite pleased. The transfer from picnik to my computer did leave a lot to be desired, as it has compressed the quality, but overall I am quite pleased with the finished product.
This is the one that will be up in the shop before and during my black Friday Sale (10% off everything in the shop!)



And this is the one that will be up through the rest of the year and possibly January.



So, if you have anything thoughts, leave a comment!

I also wanted to share some adorable Christmas items from my favorites and from a friend's shop
If you are looking for beautiful handmade Christmas items or gifts, etsy is a great place to go!


Pretty Wit is a shop shared by a lovely group of sisters, and their shop is so fun, whimsical and colorful, and just love to sit and browse. You can their shop's blog right here: http://prettywit.blogspot.com/

Isn't this lacy stocking adorable? Too cute! I sure wish I had an excuse to buy a stocking!
Doily Snowflake Christmas Stocking by PrettyWit



And this lovely bracelet has been on my wishlist for a very long time... as you can see, it's even the colors of this blog and our shop! :) (Girls if you see that I just recently hearted it, it's actually been in my favorites for a long long time, but I un and re hearted so it would be nearer the front, and maybe my mom will get a "hint hint" :D)
Free Shipping Cherry Blues Bracelet by Pretty Wit



And just one more from these pretty ladies. Isn't it adorable?
I heart Christmas Patchwork Ornament by Prettywit


I would also like to share this adorable bunting from heidiadnum. She has a lovely shop filled with beautiful photography and bunting! You can view her shop here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/heidiadnum
Isn't the name of the bunting adorable? Too cute! I would love to hang this on my window, which currently is curtainless. It would be so cute hanging there, with my little tree that will be sitting under the window.

Candy Cane Christmas Handmade Good Will Bunting by Heidiadnum



One last thing I wanted to share was the treasury I made last night. I bought an adorable christmas mug for my ever growing collection yesterday, the colors are red and green and aqua and pink and it has sweet wintry and christmasy words and phrases all over it.... it was so pretty I made this treasury inspired by it. Enjoy!

Eggnog and Misteltoe

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4ce8b01d0b4d8eeff85be530/eggnog-and-mistletoe


Well, that's all for now.

Right now I'm downloading pictures of my project that I'll be sharing, and I should have that post up tomorrow.

~Elissa

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Etsy and Christmasy stuff


Well stats show we still have an occasional person pop in here from time to time, goodness knows why. We haven't posted in over a year! Gracious! We've had a hard year though. Hopefully now that I plan to be posting a bit more readership will go up a bit!
I'm reopening this blog because I am finally going to try and keep my etsy shop steadily stocked and open for business, with an occasional sale here and there maybe! Speaking of sales, one of the reasons for this post is to alert you all that we are having a Black Friday sale on November 26 from Midnight to Midnight! We'll be offering everything in the store for 10% off! (and shh... maybe even a free gift tag thrown in an occasional package!)
The discount code is " HAPPYFRIDAY10 " just punch it in at checkout and your 10% will be taken off!
While we're talking of Etsy, I thought I'd share with you a few new things in the shop. I'll be adding a bunch of new tags, a few cozies, and maybe a few Christmas cards over the next few days, so keep your eyes peeled!

Here a some pictures of the tag sets I've recently posted:















You can click this cute little badge here to visit my shop and see all the pictures for these tag sets, or you can click on the etsy mini at the bottom of the post!




One of my tag sets has been featured in a beautiful treasury, alongside many beautiful items from fellow etsians!
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4ce47b6cb5d66d91703fab01/red-christmas?index=1




Well, that's all I have for now. I'll probably be posting pictures of one of my Christmas projects Sunday or Monday.

Be sure to visit the shop on November 26 for lovely new items and a black friday sale!






Thanks for reading
~Elissa