Warm Wishes and...

Frosty Kisses! Happy Tuesday, everyone! We hope you are all having a superb week so far. We have a fun project to share with you today. It is a little banner we made to go with this week's Winter Woodland theme.

The picture is a little light, but is says "frosty kisses", hence the title of the post! We used pale green and blue paper, along with matching decorative prints. The color scheme is perfect for winter projects. The next two pictures show close-ups of the words:

(You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.) It's a little hard to see, if at all, but the letters were outlined with some more buffalo snow. The next two pictures show the snowflakes and the center space.

 

The snowflakes on the end are folded to look 3D and are accented with some more 'snow'. They came out better than planned- they were a little hard to fold down the middle. And the last picture is the center space, which is decorated with a cute little snow couple. We used the same colors and paper for their accessories, and of course, some more snow. It's a little hard to tell, but the snow is behind them.
It would be a cute addition to winter couple pictures! Thanks for stopping by!

A Winter Treat

Welcome to another week! It's back to work for a lot of us after the holiday. It was definitely a little hard to wake up this morning, both physically and mentally. But, on the bright side, only a few more weeks until another break! We're looking forward to it already :)
Anyway, today's project goes along with yesterday's invitation. It uses a similar design and would work well as a party favor or gift bag. Fill it with some hot cocoa mix and it's all set to go!

We used some more buffalo snow on this bag, giving it a 'realistic'-ish touch. It is so much fun to use, until it gets all over the place. But at least it's  pretty and sparkles a little! The tree is made to be 3D, but it's a little hard to tell.

And, of course, there is the cute little bow! The ribbon has white printed snowflakes and the blue matches the bag. We decided to add the extra white yarn bow, to add another dimension. They are held together with a cute snowflake brad. Just looking at this bag is making me cold! I hope the Northeast doesn't suffer from too much snow tonight and tomorrow morning. That's one thing I don't miss!!
Thank you so much for stopping by. Join us tomorrow for a home decor project.

Lace Up Those Skates!

Happy Sunday! We hope everyone had a wonderful, restful weekend. We spent today up in Seattle, running a marathon. It wasn't our best, time-wise, but it was one of the best-run marathons we've run. It was amazing running past the Space Needle and the stadiums, and along the I-90 bridge (unfortunately we had to turn around and run back along it.) We couldn't have asked for nicer weather- mid-40's and SUN! OK, so it started off cloudy, but the sun peaked out about halfway through. Now our biggest challenge is going to be moving around and not falling down!
But, we do have a project to share with you tonight. This week's theme is a little different from our others. This week's is more of a cartridge-based theme, having to deal with the outdoors during winter. The cartridge we're using is called "Winter Woodland" and it has a bunch of cute designs on it. Today's project is an invitation we put together.

This invitation is shaped like a holiday ornament. (It would also be cute in the shape of a snow globe. Next time!) It features a little ice skater and quite a bit of snow! The next picture shows the detail a little better:

This was supposed to be a shaker card- kind of like a snow globe- but the 'snow' was too much. We used buffalo snow along the edges of the hills and there is some floating in the 'air'. The inside of the invitation uses the same green  patterned paper, with room for all of your party information.

This would be perfect for a little girl's ice-skating party, or any winter party!
Thanks for stopping by!

Cupcake Saturday!

Good morning! We hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend. Everyone is probably sleeping off all of this week's turkey and stuffing, and yesterday's shopping! (Remember, today is Small-Business Saturday. We're offering 20% off purchases of $10.00 or more from our Etsy store this weekend!)
We are slowly catching up on all of the sleep we missed this week. 12 hours of sleep is always wonderful, except when you travel for 17+ hours the day before... And, we would also like to wish our sister Sarah a very happy 29th birthday, again ;)
So, for today's post, we have another cupcake, of course! This cupcake is a sweet treat, with no calories- the best kind! It also goes along with this week's elf theme.

How adorable is this?! It is one of our cupcake ornaments. It is complete with a little 'fondant' elf and green 'sprinkles'. And his little hat is adorned with a cute little bell, that can ring in the season. It's a nice little addition to any Christmas tree! Unfortunately, he doesn't quite match ours this year.

Thank you for stopping by! Join us tomorrow for another holiday-themed week!

Santa's Little Elves

Happy Black Friday, everyone! We hope everyone had a great holiday with family and friends. We're sure everyone is out shopping now ;) We were fortunate enough to be able to go home for the week (hence the sporadic posting). It was great seeing our family, along with our friend, and some of our track kids from last year. Today was spent traveling home. Our parents dropped us off at the airport at 3:30 in the morning- super early! We were able to see sunrise over New York City, which was pretty amazing. Our layover in Newark was like 2.5 hours (silly, because that's how long it would have taken to drive there...). There wasn't really much to see until we crossed the Rocky Mountains- much better than driving through them! Once we crossed them, it got cloudy and started to rain- big surprise! We then drove up to Seattle, which was exciting, because they're getting ready for the holidays, too. They have their trees lit and decorations up. After 17+ hours of traveling, it is so nice to come home to a clean apartment and an empty one downstairs.
We do have a post for today, though. It is a quick little scrapbook layout we made with this week's elf theme.

 This layout is titled "Santa's Helpers". It has two little elves on it, who are hanging up the lights, (which we were supposed to do this week...oops!) There are two 4"x6" photo mats, with cute little gumdrops on the paper. This layout would be perfect for little ones who help with the decorating!
Thank you for stopping by! Have a great day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We would like to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving.

We would like to say "thank you" to all of our readers and followers. We truly appreciate it! Here's to a day filled with family, food, and fun! Enjoy!

Spreading Christmas Cheer!

Good morning! We hope everyone is having a fantastic week so far. I'm sure everyone is busy with their holiday preparations getting underway. And all of the kiddies are looking forward to a few days off, too. One of our favorite ways to unwind from a busy week, or day, (although this week has been pretty relaxing for us) is to cuddle up and watch a movie with the family. One of our favorites is the classic 'Elf" (OK, so maybe it's not quite a classic, yet, but it will be!) The movie also fits quite well with this week's theme! Here is today's project:

Anyone who's seen the movie knows, "The best way to spread Christmas Cheer, is singing loud for all to hear!" The quote is finished on the inside of the card. We designed our little elf to look like Buddy and he's singing his little tune. And, according to Buddy, singing is "just like talking, except longer and louder, and you move your voice up and down", which means we are all pros at it!!
Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

ElfCom 1

Happy Monday! We have another cute little home decor project to share with you today. It's the perfect wreath to hang from the door of Santa's Workshop.

I love this green yarn we found at Michaels. I think it's Martha. The glitter in it is so festive! And it goes so well with the trespasser warning. There's nothing quite like glitter in the eyes. It should be enough to keep any little peeker away!

Thanks for stopping by!

Oh No!

Happy Sunday! We have been busy here getting ready for our trip and making some things to share with all of you here. Today's project is a cute little home decor project we whipped up using Paper Doll Dress Up.

It's laundry day in the North Pole and the littlest elf has nothing to wear! It's all hanging up on the line. (Like Dad says, as long as the sun is out, clothes can be hung up outside.... I don't exactly agree with that, but oh well!)

We added little jingle bells to the elf's shoes, and in the white areas, we added some buffalo snow to give it another sparkly dimension.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cupcake Saturday!

Happy Saturday, everyone! We hope everyone has had a fabulous week. We are getting excited for our travels home this weekend, so the week has been pretty long. Funny how that works. Anyway, since today is indeed Saturday, we have another cupcake to share with you. I'm sure you can guess what flavor they are, based on this week's theme...

 If not, they're gingerbread! They have all of the flavor of a gingerbread cookie, and cake, I guess. They are topped with a ginger-cream cheese frosting

And cute little cupcake toppers! These would be perfect for any holiday get-together!
Thanks so much for stopping by!!

A Cookie Party!

Good morning! We hope everyone is having a wonderful day! Today's post is another gingerbread-inspired project. One holiday party that we always wanted to have, but never worked out, was a cookie exchange party. What's better than getting together with a bunch of friends, and have an excuse to eat cookies?! Not much, in our opinion. So, today's card is an invitation to a "cookies and cocoa" holiday party.

 This party would be perfect for children of all ages (because, honestly, who doesn't feel like a child during the holidays?!) The invitations feature two die-cut shapes- a mug of steaming hot cocoa and a little gingerbread cookie stocking. The pieces pop out a bit, of course! The patterned paper also matches the gift bag we made earlier, which would be a super-cute bag to put your treats in
Thanks for stopping by!

A Frosted Wonderland

Happy Wednesday! I hope everyone is having a great week so far. I know we are excited for our trip home this weekend, and that's definitely pushing us through this week. Today's project is a cute little layout, perfect for those baking memories.

I don't know about when you bake, but throw some powdered sugar and flour in a mixer, and WOOSH! It goes everywhere, and looks like it snowed. What better title than "Working in a Frosted Wonderland" for a gingerbread decorating layout?!

Thanks for stopping by!

Be Merry!

Happy Tuesday! We hope everyone is having a fantastic week so far, although it just started. We were busy on our long weekend and we able to get a little bit of everything done. We also got our Christmas tree and will start to decorate the apartment this week :) So, one piece of decor we made is today's banner:

The banner reads, "Be Merry" and features two little gingerbread people and a candy cane in the middle. (The picture is a little hard to see, but I really didn't want to get my head in the mirror.) The next two pictures show the pieces of the banner.

(You can click on the pictures to get a larger view.) The letters follow the theme of the banner-gingerbread- complete with gumdrops, some of which sparkle, too! And there are two little gingerbread boys who hae been piped with "frosting", for a special extra touch.
Thank you for stopping by! Join us tomorrow for another "delicious" gingerbread treat!

It's Official!

We watched our first Christmas movie last night, which means that the holidays are here! I know, we've been saying that for like the past month...We watched "Love Actually", which is one of our all-time favorite Christmas movies. I think we wrote about it back during our Christmas in July week. But, today's project is not movie related, but another gingerbread project:

This is a little gift bag we threw together. I LOVE how it came out! It was so nice to be able to do a 'fun' bag and not a superhero! This bag would be perfect for a party favor or for a small hostess gift. It's a little hard to tell, but the bag itself is made from super-cute gingerbread paper. We were planning on making a gingerbread body scrub to go along with it, but decided to hold off for another day. These next two pictures are close-ups.

This one shows the little flowers in the corner (told you they were going to be everywhere! ;) )  You can also see that the white background was embossed with a flourish pattern.

This one shows a picture of the little tag in the corner. I think the bow is my absolute favorite part of this whole bag.
Alright, I guess that's it for now. Time to work on some more superheroes...Thank you so much for stopping by!

A Thank You and Christmas Card

I hope everyone is enjoying their three-day weekend. Today we have two projects to share with you. The first one is a card for all those we can thank for this long weekend. In honor of Veterans' Day, we have this "Land of the Free" card. The inside says "Because of the Brave." We would like to say thank you to all of the men and women and their families who make so many sacrifices everyday.

So here's our humble thank you to all of you, past, present, and future.

And for today's second project. As promised, we are starting our Christmas projects this week! We know some of you might think it's early, but it's never a bad idea to get a jump start on the holidays, because then you realize that the time just flies and before you know it, it's December, and then Christmas, and then a new year. Crazy... OK, enough rambling. This week's theme is Gingerbread! We decided to start out the week with a card:  

How cute is that?! Gingerbread people (not so much the cookies...) are one of our favorite things about the holiday. They're just so much fun to decorate and they're so cute! The word "Christmas" is cut out of the cardstock, so you can see through to the inside of the card. As long as everything goes right, cards like this are so much fun to make! Here is a close-up of the gingerbread people:

Their "piping" is actually puffy fabric paint. Now, if only our real cookies could look so good (except for his slightly-crooked smile). It might be a little hard to tell, but the design in the middle of the boy and girl is a wreath. They are also layered, so they pop out of the card a bit.
Thank you for stopping by! We'll have another fun gingerbread project tomorrow!

Cupcake Saturday!

Welcome to another Cupcake Saturday! Today we have cute little cupcakes to share with you. Here is our "colony of Pilgrims" for Thanksgiving.

The cupcakes have hats are cookies topped with chocolate covered marshmallows. Those are on top of vanilla-frosted cupcakes, with chocolate eyes and mouths. We didn't tint the frosting for the faces, because we figured, the Pilgrims would've been pretty pale out in Massachusetts at the end of November. But I suppose they could be tinted with a little food coloring next time!

Thanks for stopping by! Get ready for Christmas! It's starting tomorrow here at Two Early Birds!

I Am Thankful For...

Good morning! We hope everyone is having a wonderful week! Hopefully today and tomorrow will go by pretty quickly, and then it'll be the weekend! Anyway, today we have another Thanksgiving-themed project to share. I don't know if you can tell, but we love to make banners. We always have one hanging on our fireplace (I guess it's helpful we haven't had to use it yet). Today's project is another banner. This one is our "Thankful" banner. As Robyn put it, it looks very "regal". I like the different colors used, because they're not the typical "fall" colors used this time of year.

 This is a close up of one of the little turkeys on the end. (The two turkeys do match...how cute, they're twins! ;)) And of course, they have googly eyes!!

What's different about this banner, though, is that we decorated little clothespins to match (the three leaves are on the clothespin). Each banner piece has one. We decided that we would write down something we are thankful for and clip it to the banner. (This one is about our wonderful and supportive family!) This way, when we see the banner, we are reminded of all of the great things in our lives. This would be a cute idea with younger kids, (or for those of us who never really enjoyed going around the table and saying what you are grateful for out-loud, in case you sounded silly or cliche)
Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Thanksgiving Traditions

Happy Wednesday! I don't know about you, but this week is really dragging. Oh well. Today we have another scrapbook layout to share with you. Back in high school, 11 years ago (oh man, getting old!) we started a new family Thanksgiving tradition in running a local 5K. The Commodore Hull 5K isn't your normal "turkey trot," basically because instead of someone dressing up like a turkey, they have the Commodore walking around. It's a great way to start the day, and then you don't feel as bad eating all the good stuff later on! So here's a layout to put some pictures of this year's race.

We don't have any "commodore" shapes to cut out, so the ship will have to do. And since this isn't a "regular" turkey trot, we figured we wouldn't use your "regular" fall-ish colors for the layout. (And I'm pretty sure we have race t-shirts in all of these colors.) We are looking forward to going home in a couple of weeks and continuing this tradition.

Thanks for stopping by!

Giving Thanks

Good morning! Today we have a scrapbook layout to share with you.We designed it around the sketch challenge from the Stuck On U Sketches here. It's a little bit hard to see in the picture, but the patterned paper on top of the green has some fun sparkle on the fruits.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Monday, everyone! So I know it's supposed to be a Thanksgiving project this week, but I wanted to share these birthday cards we made for two really good friends of ours. They're twins, too, and so we just had to make them the same card in different colors!

We've been friends for years, and even though we are spread across the country in Vermont, Washington, and Arizona, we've stayed close. And that's what good friends are. No matter the distance, you stick together.

Anyway, these cards are pretty cool, because they have a neat little pocket for a gift card! We folded an 4.25"x11" piece of cardstock, then folded the front back over in half. Then, some glue down the side and bottom made a pocket, the perfect size for a gift card.

We'll have another Thanksgiving project for you tomorrow, don't worry!

Thanks for stopping by!

A Turkey Treat

Happy Sunday, everyone! We hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend, and enjoyed the extra hour this morning! It's always a great day when you get an extra hour of sleep, and you can go to work in the daylight. I think that's the hardest part of living here- the fact that sunrise is around 8:00. On the plus side, the sunrises have been gorgeous recently. I just wish we could get pictures of it, instead of driving to school.
So, anyway, since today is Sunday, we are trying to get back on track (I know we've said that before) Last week, we decided that we were going to dedicate this week to Thanksgiving. (Mostly because we are so looking forward to starting our Christmas projects!) Today's project is a little card we put together.

This card would be perfect for a little girl, to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving! The little turkey is adorned with a little hair ribbon, to add a girly touch, and googly eyes, of course! The little pumpkin in the corner is layered to make it 3D, and you an see the shadow on it. The background has been embossed and we added some little flowers in the corner. We wanted to use the general "fall" color scheme, but we thought the pink would add "girlier" touch. A similar card could be made for a little boy, with red instead. The inside of the card simply reads "Happy Turkey Day!"
We have entered this card into the "Fun & Festive Bingo" challenge at Paper Crafting Inspiration. We chose to use the column with ribbon, embossing, and flowers. These bingo challenges are great in that they give you somewhat of a starting point, or use something that you normally wouldn't use. Or an excuse to make some cute little flowers!
Thanks so much for stopping by! Join us again tomorrow for another Thanksgiving project to celebrate the upcoming holiday!

Cupcake Saturday!

Welcome to another Cupcake Saturday! Today, we have cupcakes for you that use up the rest of that Halloween candy.  I don't know about you, but we had a lot of candy leftover. Our apartment complex has over 40 buildings, and A LOT of kids around. So, being new to the area, we figured, "Hey, someone will come." Well, no, not so much. No one came. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
But that means that those peanut butter cups we bought went into the freezer for a rainy day (Ha! They're all a little rainy out here.) So today's rainy day project is Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes.

They are peanut butter cupcakes with a whole peanut butter cup in the middle, covered with peanut butter frosting, and topped with a peanut butter cup. Talk about peanut butter overload!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy November!

Good evening, all! I can't believe it's already November! Where has the year gone?! We hope everyone had a fun-filled night last night. All I can say is that we were rather disappointed with our turn-out of trick-or-treaters. Back at home, the only two kids who ever came to our house were our neighbors. Over the years, it went from two to one. So, this year, we figured that there would be a ton of kids coming, especially since we live in a pretty big apartment complex. We bought some bags of candy and were all ready to hand it out. We decided a while back that we were going to have movie night on Halloween, and so we watched "Dark Shadows" (What's better than spending the night watching Johnny Depp? However creepy he might be in it...) At 10:00, when the movie was over, we still had the bowl of candy- no one showed up!! How disappointing!
Anyway, today's project is a quick little layout that we created, in order to scrap all of the fun memories of this year's festivities!

My favorite part of this project is the little ghost and his treat bag. It reminds me of Charlie Brown's Halloween costume, before he cuts all of the holes in the sheet! This layout features room for three 4x6 photos. The pumpkin paper for the photo mats sparkles, which is always a nice touch! Each mat is also bordered by a spider web, which adds a nice touch.

This is a close-up of the bottom of the page. You can see the ghost and the bare tree. The dark purple paper also has a shimmer to it.
Thanks for stopping by!