You Make My Heart Smile Valentine Cards

Hello everyone!
Today I have a couple more Valentine cards to show you.

I used a piece of alcohol inked card stock from my stash

as a background.

I cut the heart our with a die and my Cuttlebug,

stamped the sentiment onto it and added little

dash lines around the heart.
It was adhered with foam tape to the front of

the card.

This card was even simpler to make.

I found the paper with the red flower petals around

the edge in my stash and used that as a front panel.

Stamped the sentiment, I adhered it to

a red card base and it was done.

For both cards I stamped 

Happy Velentine's Day

on the inside with a
Dyan Reavely alpha set

Easy peasy cards,

just use what you have, use up that

stash and people will love these cards much more

than something bought from a store.

Note the links are only to give a reference so you can

see what the products are.
I didn't necessarily purchase from these sites,

except where specified,

and you may find better prices elsewhere,

I am in no way promoting any particular site.

 

Little Envelope Message Valentine Card

Hello craft lovers!

Today I have a Valentine card to show you.

Valentine's Day will be here before we know it and if

you are sending out cards, it's time to start getting

some ideas.

This card was actually very simple to make.
I punched out some hearts and made a few little

envelopes.

The background was a piece from my stash, red is always

good for a Valentine's Day card.
I stamped greetings inside the little envelopes and

closed them with washi tape.

Hearts and envelopes were adhered to the front of

the card.
Happy Valentine's Day was stamped inside and

it was ready to go.

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you have

been inspired in some way and will come again soon.

Until next time,

think red!

 

Christmas Stocking for Asher

Hello everyone!

I know it's way past Christmas, but I wanted to share

this with y'all.
This is a tough post for me to write, but I want to do

it anyway.

When our son, Jaryd was born in 1992 we named our friends

Zoe and Dennis as his Godparents.

Uncle Dennis has always been special to Jaryd and all of us.

This is Jaryd with Dennis almost 30 yrs ago.

Now move forward in time.
Our grandson was born this past June and

Jaryd and Sara named him 
Asher Dennis

after Jaryd's Uncle Dennis.

He was very honored to have Asher named after him.

Now let's jump ahead a few months.

Dennis had cancer almost 3 yrs ago and had been 

doing fabulous.  Unfortunately, it came back

with a vengeance this past summer.
He started immuno-therapy, but 

the tumors continued to spread and grow.

We knew he was terminal, but didn't know how

long he had to live.

In early December I took our grandchildren,

Marie and Asher to visit Uncle Dennis.

Aunt Zoe got some great pictures of Asher with

Dennis.

Now for the crafty reason for this post.

When there is a new addition to our immediate family,

I make a Christmas stocking for them.

The last one I made was our son in law's.

Brad wears pajama pants all the time,

so I made his from pajama pants.
I hadn't decided what to make Asher's stocking from, 

but Sara came up with a wonderful idea.

Since Asher was named after Dennis, how about getting

something from him to make it out of.

Dennis loved his Hawaiian shirts, so 
I called and told him what I wanted to do and asked

if he would part with one of his shirts for Asher.

He gave me the shirt above.

What made this even more special, is that this

shirt is the one that Kelsie and Brad gave him from

their honeymoon in May.

I traced one of our other stockings onto 

some packing paper, cut out the pattern and 

cut the stocking from the front of the shirt.

Once I had it cut out, I sewed it together.

Turned it right side out and I had 

Asher's stocking.

I did add fusible interfacing inside the

stocking to give it more stability,

but I left the top part without the facing, so the top buttons

could be open, to give room to stuff it.

I had removed the pocket and I sewed it back on

so it was wrapping around the side of the stocking.

I added a loop to hang the stocking,

but I wanted to do one more thing.

I added a pocket inside the stocking and

made a little envelope with the same fabric.

I wrote a letter to Asher about the stocking and about

Uncle Dennis.
Dennis, did not live to celebrate Christmas with us,

he passed away on December 18th.

We all miss him terribly and are still dealing with our

grief.  

Asher will always have this Christmas stocking and the letter

to remind him of Uncle Dennis and what he meant to us all.

Thanks for stopping by today and hearing about 

this stocking and why I created it.
I hope you have been inspired in some way and

will come visit again soon.

Until then,

make something in tribute to someone you love.

Annual Cookie Decorating Competition

Hello crafty people!
This year was the 3rd year that my family has had

an Annual Cookie Decorating Competition.

This year there were 6 of us in the competition.

Each year we use a different cookie cutter and make

cut out cookies.  We each get a cookie to decorate

in what ever way we want.
On Christmas I post pictures and ask family and friends

to vote for their favorite.  The winner gets bragging

rights for the next year.

This year we posted the pictures on New Year's Day,

since we had a blizzard at Christmas time and not everyone

had their cookies ready and couldn't get out to 

get their ingredients,  Actually, my son in law was

stuck at his work place for a few days, so he couldn't do his

cookie.

This is the cut out that we used this year.
I was out antiquing with a friend when I found a

Santa cookie cutter and thought it would work great.

These cookies are 8" tall, so plenty of area to decorate.

Below are the cookies, who decorated them and how many

votes they each received.

Brad's brown sack Santa received 5 votes

Jaryd's outlined Santa received 23 votes

Kelsie's girl received 20 votes

Kristie's (that's me!) shiny Santa received 37 votes

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!!!!

Marie's no leg Santa, (she ate the legs) received 16 votes.

She is my 3 yr old granddaughter.

Sara's Buffalove Santa received 17 votes.

I was so proud to be the clear winner this year.

Now I have bragging rights until next Christmas when

someone will probably take me down.

Here are the winners from the past 2 yrs.

2020 our first year, Sara won.

2021 our 2nd year, Kelsie won.

Now we need to keep our eyes open for a 

great cookie cutter for next year.

Thanks for stopping by to visit,

I hope you'll come again soon.

You never know what you'll find on
Kristie Kreates!

Until then,

CREATE!

 

Poppy Card

Hello from gloomy Western NY!

It's a typical January here as far as the sun.

It is out there every day, but we don't have any

real sunshine, lots of cloud cover and gloomy weather

lately.  But, it has been fairly warm for our area.

We did have a huge blizzard at Christmas, but a couple

days after Christmas it was in the upper 40s and into the 50s.

Thus is the crazy weather of the Buffalo, NY area.

I hope you are having nice weather in your area.

I thought I'd inject a little bit of summer and brightness

into everyone's day with this card that I made.

This is one of my favorite stamps.  It is from Stacy Stamps,

but I believe she is no longer in business, so I don't have a link

to this set.

The poppy stamp I used for this card is a single poppy.

I made a few masks, so I could layer the poppies.

I then stamped them with VersaFine onyx black ink,

and colored them with colored pencils.

Once I was happy with the coloring, I fussy cut

the image and adhered it to a blue card base.

I love the colors on this card, so bright and cheerful.

Inside I stamped this sentiment, sorry, I don't know 

what set or company this is from.

I love how this card turned out and hope it brings a little

summer brightness to your day.

Thanks for stopping by today to see what I've been 

up to lately.  I hope you will come again soon.

Until then:

bring some brightness to someone.

 

Apron and Baker's Hat

Hello crafty friends!

Today I'm showing you one of the gifts I made for
our Granddaughter, Marie, for Christmas.
Marie is a huge Paw Patrol fan and when I saw this
fabric at 
JoAnna’s Craft Castle 5807 Monroe st 43560
on a visit to Toledo, Ohio for a phenomenal price,
I knew I had to get it.

It was a 2 yard piece and I had no idea what I'd
do with it, but had to have it for Marie.
I sent a picture and message to my daughter in law
and she suggested a new apron and bakers hat.
That is exactly what I did.
I searched the internet and found a few different
tutorials and then combined a few ideas and got to
work.

Here is the apron that I made for Marie.

And modeling the apron and hat is
"Mama Bear"

Here is our little chef/baker in her 
new cooking get up.
I think from the smile, she likes it.

She seems to like the little utensils Mom got
in her stocking too.  Guess I know who's going
to be using those.

Thanks for stopping by today to see what I've been up to.
Come again soon,
until then:
bake or cook something yummy!

Happy New Year

 Hello and Happy New Year!
I hope your holiday season was merry and bright!
Ours was very different this year.
I live right outside of Buffalo, NY in Tonawanda
and we were hit with a horrible blizzard just before
Christmas.  We got about 4 feet of snow, but the worst part
was the wind, which was blowing anywhere from
30-50 MPH with gusts up to about 70 MPH.
Here are a few pictures from our house.

The snow did make some interesting and beautiful
patterns on our deck door.

Dave would clean the deck and windows off,
but in no time they were covered again.
Much of the time we could not see out any of our windows.

Dave did some shoveling during the blizzard, but the snow
kept coming and building up, especially in huge drifts.

He cleared it out and it was covered right away again.

Many of the drifts in our yard were 5-7feet high.

Here I am, when the power went out.  I was working on
finishing our Grandson's Christmas stocking.
Luckily we only lost power for about 2 hours.
Many others lost it for days.
Including my brother and sister in law.
They live only about 1/2 mile away, but 
visibility was so poor and it was so cold
that you couldn't be out walking and driving was
extremely unsafe.
Once the blizzard cleared and their street was plowed,
they drove over and spent the day in our nice warm house.
They lost power for a total of 34 hours.

This is Dave, my crazy husband, after being out
clearing snow for a while.

This was out our front door late on Christmas Eve.
The snow out at the street was about 5 feet high and
the drift at the back of the car covered the back of it
a few times. There were times we couldn't even see the car.
 It was silent and beautiful, but terribly cold.
We are very lucky to have a town with wonderful services and
our streets were plowed and cleaned in a pretty timely manner.
We were lucky to be able to get out and have our Christmas with
our kids the day after Christmas.
The clean up continues now.
Pay loaders and dump trucks have been in 
Western NY cleaning up snow and dumping it
in parks for a few days now.
BUT now we're into the Great Melt of 2022.
The temps the last couple days have been in the 50s,
so the snow is melting fast and I'm sure many are having 
flooding in their basements.

Yes!  This has been a disaster and will take a bit to
have it all cleaned up, but I love where I live and
wouldn't move for anything.  We seldom get anything
like this, although this year we've had some pretty 
severe weather in WNY.
When there is a disaster like this the people of our
area come together, there are numerous stories of people
helping others, neighbors, strangers, anyone who needs it.
Yes, there are the bad ones too, but 99% of the people out there
are willing to help and that is one of the best things 
about the Buffalo area.

I'm writing this a few days before it will be posted, so things 
have likely cleared up a bit more, by the time you read this,
just know that we are recovering in the Buffalo area
and we will come out stronger.

GO BILLS!