Happy Saturday!!

We hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday weekend so far. We hope everyone has gotten all the best Black Friday deals and all their holiday shopping done. We have not. We prefer to "celebrate" Small Business Saturday. It pretty much means that we make all of our holiday gifts. However, as small "shop" owners, who could blame us?! ((Holiday cards, anyone?) So, instead of having a Cupcake Saturday post, we have an adorable little holiday card to share with you today:

How stinkin' cute is she?! She has been adorned with her googly eyes, along with some little white pom-poms on her hat and shoes. Santa's little helper is holding a mighty large present, all wrapped up with ribbon. It is actually a gift card holder.

Who wouldn't want to get to get this little card?! It's such a cute little way to package a gift card! And to add a little more character to the inside of the card, we created some accents using the same paper:

This card is just too cute! We can't get enough of it! There will be a little boy to go along with her soon enough. Gift cards (and cookies) for everyone this year!
Thank you so much for stopping by! Have a wonderful day and remember to support the little guys in the neighborhood today!

A New Meaning to "Black Friday"

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with their family and friends. We spent the morning talking with the family on Skype. Not the best, but you have to take what you can get. Since this was our first Thanksgiving by ourselves, we had our own little dinner.

There's Robyn, trying to get a bit more work in before the turkey kicked in. And yes, we have our Christmas decorations out already. Who said we had to wait until Thanksgiving was over?! We made a little turkey in the slow cooker, which made the whole apartment smell delicious. We also made the necessary sides, including the stuffing and potatoes. Everything was done in two pots and a cookie sheet, within an hour.We just had one slight issue, which is the reasoning behind the title to today's post:

The sweet potatoes were the last thing to be done, and they were well done. I set the timer for the broiler, thinking to myself that it was indeed too long, but I'd take them out before it was over. So much for that. The timer went off and when I opened the door, there was a poof of smoke. I'm most thankful that the smoke detector didn't go off last night. Fortunately, the marshmallows came right off the top and the potatoes were eatable. We also made a fall sangria, with wine, apples, and pears, which we enjoyed very much! And on top of it all, we've been having nicer than average November weather- today was 50 degrees and sunny. Last night, we turned our Christmas lights on and can now not be made fun of for having our Christmas decorations up! All-in-all, it was a nice, relaxing day.
Now it's time to get cracking on our holiday projects. Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

We just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to all of our family, friends, and followers. We have so much to be thankful for this year.
Starting off with our family, thanks for always being there for us. Even from far away, we love you and know you are always there with us. We love you, miss you, and know that even Skype sometimes isn't enough!
For our friends, old and new, we are also thankful for. To our old friends, even though we are far apart, you know how to make us feel loved and important! The old saying, "Close together, or far apart, you'll be forever in my heart," is definitely true! For our new friends, that we have been making over the last year and a half, thank you for making the huge move across country worth it. For helping me realize it's okay to miss home, and still have someone to count on and help me through the tough times, even if you don't know it, thank you.
And last but not least, our followers and customers. Thank you so much for making Two Early Birds more than just a hobby. It has been an honor working for you and making all of it worth it.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

"Twas the Day Before Thanksgiving

It's finally Wednesday! Although this is the shortest week of school so far, today is most welcome. It's the day before the long holiday weekend and it couldn't have come sooner. One of the things that we do miss, though, is that today would have been a half-day at home. Oh well.
Anyway, we are sharing our Thanksgiving cards today. Since we've been so busy, we wanted to keep them short and sweet. I guess they're more like note cards...

 

We added a little poem, too. I'm pretty sure we've used the same poem in years past. Oh, well. It's a good one that says it all! Here's a close-up of the little turkey:

He is about 2.5" tall and fits in the corner perfectly. We added little googly eyes, of course. And because we had to add a little pizzazz, we added a layer of ribbon feathers.
Thank you for stopping by. We hope everyone has a fantastic day! We hope everyone gets their last minute necessities!

Happy Birthday, Sis!

Happy Sunday afternoon! We hope you are all having a superb day so far. We've been getting ready to enjoy the short school week. Hopefully the kiddos will be on their best behavior this week. Today's project is another birthday card we made. This one is for our sister. It fits her personality quite well- bright and bubbly! And who doesn't like a cupcake on their birthday?! (Especially if you can't eat them in real life.)

The cupcake is layered, to pop out a bit. The little banner is also positioned to pop a little. The inside of the card has a 'sweet' saying, "Your birthday isn't about the number of candles you have to blow out, it's about the number of cupcakes you get!" Finding the right sentiment was the hardest part of making this card.
The paper we used is actually from a super-adorable new Christmas stack. It's called "Fa La La La " paper stack from Recollections. It was one of those purchases that was just calling our names. ( And on top of that, it was on sale! How can you go wrong?!)
Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a great day!

Cupcake Saturday!

Happy Saturday! We know it's been a while since we've popped on here, and now it's late (still Saturday, though, so it's all good!) It's been a crazy few weeks. There have been lots of random projects to work on and short afternoons after work. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to work on many of our own projects. Anyway, today's post is a cupcake in honor of the last (unofficial) weekend of fall- everyone knows that Thanksgiving weekend is the official start of the Christmas season! (Yep, it has it's own season!!) So, here they are:

These are our 'fall leaves' cupcakes. They are chocolate cupcakes with toffee bits baked inside. They are frosted with a green buttercream.

The trees were made with melting chocolate. They were a little hard to make- trees can be tough to draw, let alone make them with chocolate. We added some colorful sprinkles to them before they were set. Then we stuck them into the center of the cakes and added more sprinkles to the frosting. From the pictures, it's a bit hard to see, but some of the sprinkles are actually blue. We are fully aware that there aren't any blue leaves- but that would be pretty awesome! These would be a pretty cute addition to any fall-themed party.
Thanks so much for stopping by today! Have an amazing day!

Santa's Coming?!

Happy hump day! We hope everyone is having a super day so far. Luckily, it's already Wednesday and a few days closer to another weekend. We have never been guilty of rushing anything. The weekend, the holidays. Nope, not us! So, while taking a few minutes out of our orders, (and a need for change), we made a quick banner.

This banner matches the bags we made yesterday. It reads "Happy Holidays". The banner is pretty basic, with a few embellishments. We were fortunate enough to find the perfect paper to use in our scrap stash. It probably wouldn't have been used for anything else. Below are pictures of the letters, with some glitter on each, the Santa in the middle, that matches the bags, and the poinsettia on the ends, that match yesterday's tags.

 Santa has his googly eyes and spakley white trim, which is a bit hard to see. The poinsettia on the two ends have rhinestones in the center.
The plan is to create a few new matching items. Hopefully they'll be done before the holidays!
Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day.

Hey, Santa!

Good morning! We hope everyone had a great, long weekend and took some time to thank any veterans. We spent the entire day working on a ton of party favors, and after all this time, I think we have finally gotten everything down in order to bust them out. However, it's never too early to think about the holidays. (OK, maybe that depends on who you ask.) We took a break this weekend to make these little cuties: 

Our sister wanted us to make these gift baggies for her holiday gift list. We wanted to add a little holiday sparkle to Santa. We also used some rhinestones on the holly and poinsettia plants. And, of course, he has little googly eyes! We kept the tags nice and simple, since the bags are a bit more embellished.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful day!

Turkey Party Tags

Happy Sunday! We hope everyone is having a great weekend. We have been keeping super busy with party favors. We are fortunate to have two large orders to work on, which have taken up pretty much all of our long weekend. But, we were able to take some time out to do a few other quick projects. Today's project is a set of turkey tags:

These little cuties were made to match one another. Their little hats and bows have a little sparkle to add a little shine to the season. We added matching ribbon for the ties. They would be perfect favor or thank-you tags.
Thanks for stopping by! Now it's back to party favors and supplies, and hopefully more holiday projects. Have a great day.

Happy Birthday, Twins!

We hope everyone is having a Terrific Tuesday so far. Today's project is a birthday card we made for our friends, the Twins. Although we have (technically) known each other since before we were born, we have been friends since high school. It was always fun at track meets when we'd run a twin relay. Or when we ran in the same races and confuse everyone. Or told other people that we were really cousins, and have them actually believe us. And even though we don't see them nearly as much as we'd like, we know they will always be there for us. It's a twin thing, I guess.

Here is the front of the card. It doesn't look like much, especially with the white background behind the cake.To spruce it up a bit, we used some glittered paper for the flames and accented the cake with some sparkly ink.

 Here is the card, open. It is another easel card. We made the cake into an envelope, in order to hold a gift card. We were cliche when we made them the same card in different colors. Creative, I know ;)
Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!