Christmas Already???

Yes! I've been making Christmas gifts already! With two kids and especially a new little one, I never know when time will allow for me to get into my room & play, so I figured I better get a head start! Both of my brother-in-laws just got married this past summer, so now I finally have some ladies to make girly things for.

I just discovered this great craft store near my house called Arnies Arts-N-Crafts. Some of the scrapbook stores around here are sooooo intimidating. They just have rows and rows and rows of stuff and I don't know where to start! So I usually browse and then end up leaving empty handed because it's just too much for my brain to handle! This store has a little bit of everything and even the new Bind-It-All that I have been eyeing for quite sometime. Maybe Santa will bring it to me :)

The first project I made today is a hanging Post-It notes and calendar holder. I used two heavy-weight chipboard coasters and covered them with SU!'s designer series double-sided paper in Au Chocolat. (I've had the paper for awhile and just finally took the plastic off! Pathetic, I know! Well, I was on bedrest for 4 months and then was busy with a new baby, so I guess I'll cut myself some slack.) I used double-sided sticky tape to adhere the paper to the coasters and then sanded the edges to give it a distressed look. The letter "n" is from an alphabet assortment package I got on clearance at JoAnn's (gotta love those clearance sections!) I covered the "n" with Au Chocolat paper and also sanded it. I used Rough Edges Alphabet stamps to make the "otes" on Very Vanilla cardstock and punched it out with the 1" punch and layered it on top of 1 1/4" inch chocolate chip cardstock circle. The ribbon is SU!'s Chocolate Chip and the ribbon used to hang it is from Creative Accents (Sheer Brown) probably from Hobby Lobby or Michael's. Then just attached the Post-It notes and mini calendar. This was fun and pretty easy to make.....maybe I'll even make one for myself! Thanks for looking!