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Lots of fun things to play with!! Have a great weekend. XOXO

Here’s Nika getting her 1st glimpse of what’s under the tree. She sees the doll bed and is getting excited. She loves doll beds but has never had one of her own.

Dragging it out from under the tree.

She is so excited here and I just love how happy she looks in this photo. Standing up all tall and proud…her very own doll bed.

Setting up her baby in the bed.

It was so fun to watch her get in the bed too.

Another one of Nika’s favorite things is credit card machines. We got her this play register with a credit card swiper. She is an excellent swiper!!

Taking her baby for a stroll. I love how she has her purse on her arm and wallet in hand. There is a credit card in the wallet too!

Here’s what the weather was doing outside. It’s very rare we get a white Christmas in the NW. It snowed hard all day. We had a total of 2 feet of snow.

Here’s a close-up of the doll bed my husband made and the bedding I made to go with it.

I’m going to send this to my little crafty niece who’s birthday is coming up. I also altered a binder clip and used it to keep all the cards together. The kit is from Emily Adams and she still has 1 left in her Etsy Shop for $5. Thanks for stopping by today!! XOXO

For the card base I actually used an overhead transparency. I had a pack laying around that I had purchased from the office supply store. I cut and scored the card, then folded using a bone folder. Next I distressed the edges of the patterned paper. After matting the photo onto the paper I embellished with a rub-on, sticker and flower. I also stamped the date. To finish off I used a foam brush and painted gold metallic paint around the edges. I really like the effect the paint gave to the card.

Where to go for great Santa photos
For this years Santa photo we went to Cougar Mountain Zoo in Issaquah Washington. It’s our favorite local zoo and also the best place we’ve found for Santa photos. They have an annual reindeer festival during the month of December that includes admission to the zoo, a visit to Santa’s house, hourly stories read by elves, a place to do some holiday coloring and write Santa a letter, lots of festive holiday decorations and a cool giant sled for taking fun pics. One of my favorite things about getting the Santa photos done here is that you have the option of using your own camera! They ask for a $5 donation if you use your own camera. The Santa house is really nicely done too. Santa has a gorgeous hand carved wood chair, wonderful Christmas trees (the kind you would see in your own house), lots of toys and stuffed animals everywhere, and a bucket of candy canes and chocolate!! Santa also has a whole herd of REAL reindeer. The staff will help you take photos with the reindeer from inside the Santa house. You can also feed Santa’s reindeer while there. We went on a rainy day during the week and there was only 1 other family ahead of us in line. The weekends are much busier. If you are not a fan of the mall for Santa photos I would highly recommend a visit to Cougar Mountain Zoo.

All the papers are from Glitz Designs, overlays are Hambly Studios and the acrylic album is Clear Scraps.

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Be sure to to stop by her store and check out all the awesomeness there. She is currently having an End of the Year Clearance with $1 items!! Lots of good stuff there.

Have a wonderful weekend!! XOXO

I went to Costco yesterday to pick-up our regular toiletries and dry goods and found 2 scrappy finds in the office supplies section.

• Purple Cows 2-in-1 Combo Trimmer
• MemoryStor 2-Sided Designer (Patterned) Cardstock

I’ve been having some problems not getting straight cuts with my Fiskars portable trimmer and had heard about the Purple Cows trimmers. After checking out the stats on the box and being just under $30 I decided to give it a try. I have to say I’m loving the Purple Cows trimmer!! I’m finally getting straight cuts on a consistent basis. The trimmer has a lock feature to hold your paper in place while cutting…brilliant!! It has both the guillotine and rotary cutting options. Surprisingly it’s also very light and very portable. Love it and would highly recommend it.

My next Costco find I didn’t really need but just couldn’t resist. 300 sheets of double-sided designer printed cardstock. That’s right CARDSTOCK that looks pretty like paper! The designs are fabulous, check out all the patterns in the photo. Oh, and it comes in the coolest zippered accordian case for storage. I would have purchased this just for the case alone. The papers are gorgeous and thick. The brand is MemoryStor and this was also just under $30 (10 cents per sheet) plus you get the awesome bag too. There didn’t seem to be a lot of these paper packs at the Costco I went to. If you are interested I’d hurry over.

Brenda Pinnick has a cute holiday snow owl pattern (show in photo), you can download it here. Anna Maria Horner also has a really adorable owl template too, check it out here. Both of patterns would be great for felt ornaments or paper piecing. I love owls!

Cathy Zielske has a fabulous mini tag album you can download here. This would make a great quick and easy gift.

Claudine Hellmuth shows you how to make a fun holiday village. You can get the directions and house pattern on her blog here.

Over at the Craft Gossip blog there is a tutorial with patterns to make a festive felt Christmas tree. Check it out here.

And I love this project tutorial from Stacy Julian. She shows you how to make a very cool paper-chain kit. This would be a fun present for a little one and would be great for any time of the year.

And if you need some quick cards, Glitz Designs has a bunch of Christmas and other occasion cards you can download here.

Have a great weekend. XOXO

This is the front of our house.

This is our backyard/Parker’s pasture.

Here’s the back of our house from Parker’s view. Parker was so excited for the snow this morning. It was the cutest thing. She was running around, rolling in the snow and even licking it. And she got even more excited when we came out to play in the yard. It’s so wonderful having her home now.

Here’s my honey Vlad and little Nika. Sledding around in the back yard.