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!

"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!

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.

"Thankful For You" Banner

Good morning! I hope everyone is having a fantastic week so far. We've been making decorations for around the house this week. Even though it's early, we started putting some things up to add some color around the apartment. And we definitely beat our mom and SIL, since they've been in "competition for earliest decorator" for the last few years. Here's one of the banners we made.

As you can see in the close up, there are a lot of little pieces in this one, but it was definitely worth it. And the best part was that I didn't lose any of the pieces! I love how colorful it is.

Thanks for stopping by!

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!

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!

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!

Oh, So Adora-boo!

Happy Sunday! We hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend so far! It's been kind of chilly here, with some rain, but then the sun will pop out and it makes everything better! Hopefully it will be nice enough today so we can go see some foliage!! Anyway, here is today's project:

How cute is that little ghostie?! Such a frightening card ;) The flower was outlined with a touch of purple glitter, as well. This card actually started out as a set of three, one for each of the upcoming holidays.

 

They are all based off of the same layout, but with just a few changes, it can be for any day of the year! I love the flowers on all of them! Don't you love when you get an idea and then it works out just like you want it to? That's what happened with the poinsettia and the sunflower. They also have some glitter and beads on them.
Thanks for stopping by!
 

Happy Thanksgiving!

We would like to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving. We are thankful to our family and friends who support our crafting habits by looking here! We are starting our day by “participating” in a 5k with dad, which has become a tradition for us. (Robyn’s  kind of a big deal there). We are also excited to see part of the family this weekend. Here is our card for the holiday. I know we have used this greeting before (mom’s is hanging up), but the turkey is absolutely adorable! Robyn designed and made them. The feathers are rosettes that she made all by hand- a lot more time-consuming than it looks! And then there are the googly eyes, too! I love this card! Hope everyone has a wonderful day spent with family!

(Again, happy birthday, Sarah!!)



Thanksgiving Centerpiece

Here is a centerpiece that I put together. If you look at the Christmas lights in the stores, they sell lighted tree branches. We always thought it was really neat, but who really wanted to spend that much money on something?! This is our version, using things we had on hand. The tree branches are from one of the trees that fell during the storm last month. The lights are plain white Christmas lights from last year. I covered the branches with ribbon so the unsightly tape/wire wasn’t showing. I thought of spray-painting them, but figured this would be much neater. And we can change the ribbon to white for winter. I made the flowers at the same time as yesterday’s flowers. These were the colors that I really wanted for the wreath, since they are so much darker. I added the red stones in the vase to give it more pizzazz, but as I look at the picture, I think the clear would look nicer. Now, the next step is to come up with a tablescape for Thanksgiving later this week!

 

 

(Sorry about the background- not the best choice of position for the picture!)

A Cornucopia of Thanks

This is another Thanksgiving card. It was going to be our card for this year, but Robyn came up with a much cuter one! (We’ll post it soon!) This card has a cornucopia on it, filled with fruit. It is surrounded by a couple of leaves, which might be hard to see in the pictures.  The second picture shows the cornucopia a little better. It is stamped with a “Happy Thanksgiving” greeting. The inside reads, “May the bounty of the season fill your heart and home”. It is definitely one of the more ‘mature’ cards we’ve made!!

Circle of Memories

This is a card designed based on the inside greeting. The inside reads, “Thanksgiving is a circle of memories”. Each Thanksgiving brings us back to the last year and everything that has happened. So far, this has been a pretty good year, bringing us so many new experiences! It may not end quite like e wanted to, but we’re off to a good start for next year! We made a few different versions of this card. This one has an acorn on it, another has a cornucopia, and the third has a pumpkin. The envelope has a simple "Happy Thanksgiving" greeting stamped on it.

Fall Flourish

Here is another quick Thanksgiving/Fall card we made. The borders are foiled paper, so it adds a nice little shine to the card. The flourish is stamped, and it has some leaves on it. There is a leaf sticker in the middle, to add a bit of color. The stamp is brown, but it’s a little hard to see on the orange background. The inside of the card says “Autumn days are here again”.

Something to Be Grateful For

Today begins our Holiday card postings. Well, continues it, I guess. One thing we are grateful for is our wonderful family. We may get on each others' nerves (a lot and often), without family, you have nothing! Continuing on...Today’s post is actually a card that we made last year. I didn’t realize we didn’t put it up last year. It is a step card. The flowers on the side are inked with gold.