Don't Snicker...

I got one of my Christmas projects done... all these cute little treat "bags". Each year I like to make a little something for my coworkers and this is what I came up with this year... the little circles say "Don't snicker at least you got something"

I am really proud of this project too, because I used all paper and supplies that I had! The only supply I bought was the snicker candies!
There are so many super cute Christmas papers out there, but I refrained and used what I had!

Well, one project done and on to the next one!!!

Freakin' Awesome!

While I was studying on Sunday Kenny went out to Buckeye to spend some time with his mom. Kenny took Barb to lunch at Chipotle (my new favorite place to eat) for the first time. Afterwards they did a little shopping at Wal-mart and headed home to watch the Proposal (LOVE that movie) with his Nana. While he was out there they visited a neighbor, Tamera, who works for Hallmark doing displays and look what she gave him!!

He made me close my eyes and he brought in 4 bags full of... 77 gift bags, 16 curly ribbon bows, 8 packs of wrapping paper, 10 packs of tissue paper and 11 spools of ribbon! Oh and some of the bags sing!

WOW - Freakin' Awesome!! Even at the 99 cent only stores gift bags are 2 for 99 cents so that would be $38 just in bags!! I never buy those curly ribbon bows (just make em' myself) but I love them. It was hard to stack them all up on the table to show all the fun designs, but you get the idea... awesome.

Party!!

Look at all my free goodies! That green paper in the middle that doesn't look like much is actually a huge stack of bazzil cardstock! The little purse and flowers were my door prize. The purse is actually a "camera purse" and has places for extra cards, batteries etc. It is hard to capture all the goodies, but there were tons of stickers, a magazine, pattern paper and even a few 3D embellishments... ALL FREE for completing my 50 pages this year. I know I say it all the time, but I LOVE Scrapbooks etc. !!

Look, I know you are probably thinking.... hey wasn't she was just complaining about having so much stuff... whats the dea? This stuff was FREE and I love it... I am totally addicted to crafting stuff... My name is Amanda and I am a craft supply addict.

I passed! I passed!

It's official I am an Associate in Commercial Underwriting (AU). I took my final exam this morning and passed! What a huge relief to be done, passed and have my first professional designation! The company actually awards $400 for completing the designation and I got the day off today. Woo hoo~!

NOTE TO SELF- don't schedule a test 11 days before Christmas....

Amanda Kuhn, AU

EMC Christmas Party

This year our Christmas party was at Pinnacle Peak Patio and we brought our moms with us as our "plus ones". It was such a fun place to have a party and eat dinner. The company provided a caracaturist and we had our group cartoon drawn... it was really fun, but I only think Kenny's cartoon looks like him (not sure why he has a hunch back).

The food was pretty good, but I am not a fan of red meat (I like it well done) so I pretty much ate the potato and salad and was full anyway. Barb was smart and got chicken (which was big enough to feed all 4 of us!) The brownie with ice cream and hot fudge dessert made up for it though!

Barb and Kenny

Me and my date

Becky and Marc

Jereme and his girlfriend Melodi. Jereme is my childhood friend who just started working at EMC.

I didn't go a great job of taking pictures because I didn't charge my battery AND I was having too much fun talking with everyone and attempting to dance. We did some line dancing which wasn't bad, but then they tried to teach us Cotton Eye Joe... there was kicking and walking at the same time... and well it wasn't good. I kicked poor Kenny so much... but we sure had fun.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

When I got home from my California trip Kenny had a wonderful surprise for me! He got out some of our holiday stuff, rearranged the furniture and put up the tree! I actually wasn't even going to take the time to decorate this year because I have been so busy studying for my test, plus my trip to CA fell right in the middle of this rush and work has been crazy... but I am so glad he did it.

When I walked in from the airport Wednesday night, he had the tree lite up and Christmas music playing. Isn't he amazing?

2010 Challenges

My "stuff" is taking over my life! I have actually bought and accumulated SO much material and projects that it made me SO stressed that I didn't even want to go into my craft room. I decided I want to finish ALL my unfinished projects in 2010.... that is a whole year... that should be enough time to finish all of this... right?

I pulled out all my UFOs and came up with many more than I thought I had... I separated them into 11 piles. Each month (not including Dec) next year I will work on 4-5 projects and by the end of next year I should be UFO FREE ... just the sound of that makes me feel good.

I am not going to stop there... I also went through all my rubber stamps....

There are so many I have never used or just used once... SO I separated those into 11 piles as well and am challenging myself to USE them! If I don't use them this next year I am going to get rid of them. I bagged up all those UFOs and stamps into grocery bags-

This is my plan/challenge to myself to get things done, use what I have and declutter next year. And I am posting it here on my blog to kinda make myself accountable.

30

I believe my brother is 30!! To celebrate we took him and his family for pizza and some bowling. Unfortunately, I did not take any good pictures of my brother, but some here are some fun ones of everyone else--

Little Brian and Jacob (not sure why Brian is strangling Jake...)

Jacob

Ugh I just love that smile!

Little Brian's awesome hair cut he did himself... We wanted to take a picture and he kept his hood on and said "oh please no" it was really cute.

Crystal my brother's wife

Little Brian being a dinosaur

Jacob bowling, on our lane... although he did try out the lane next to us as well...

It was a wonderful night. Chrissy and Danielle were there too and of course Kenny and I, but I always seem to take all the pictures of the boys.

Craftin' Saturday

Today was sorta my last change to get my remaining 3 pages stamped off to finish up the album club for this year. So first thing when I woke up and I ran in the craft room to make this page . Number 50 for the year! This is little Brain when he was just a little guy (2005).

I can't believe I did 50 scrapbook pages this year! I know it may not sound like a lot, but I KNOW it is way more than I would have completed without the club. I was very motivated to get pages done for the 5 stamp days and any time I knew I was going to be out in Mesa I would do a page. Here is my completed list with all my stamps. Aww what an accomplishment! This Thursday night is the club party and I just cannot wait to claim my goodie bag!

That doesn't include the 3 digital pages I did from heritage makers. In fact I just got this one back this week - (the coloring looks kinda of sepia in the picture because I had to turn off the flash to get ride of the glare on the page)Anyway, I headed out to Mesa to get my last 3 stamps. It is about an hour drive and I had to be back by 11:30 for my Stampin Up Card class.... Luckily, DH drove me there and back . These are the goodies (sparkle brads, sparkle buttons and 3D stickers) I picked up-- I always love shopping there... the girls are SO nice and they know me.

Afterwards DH dropped me off at my class (2 streets from my house!) and I made these cards...

times 5!

It was a great day! And I got to spend afternoon with my friend Jackie and my mom- making cards. This Stampin Up stuff is new to me and I think I like it! We made all those cards for just $20 AND she served us soup, rolls, chips and dip along with cake! We didn't even have to bring adhesive !!

Stampin Up has more cutting, embossing and obviously stamping that we are used to, but the cards are still fun to make and cuuuuuuuuuute! I joined the club (of course) for next year, so I will be doing more stamping in 2010.

Hope you all had a productive Saturday too... ( I really should have been studying since my test is next Monday, but I had lots of fun!! )

Two Projects Completed!

This first project I can't take credit for finishing, but wanted to show it off. I made this table cloth a while ago and sent it to my friend Carol to be quilted. Well turns out she was stumped on how to quilt it so she sent it to our other quilter Sharon and asked her to do something with cupcakes.

Aren't these cupcakes awesome?! Each of the center Happy Birthday blocks have a cup cake (this is taken from the back so you can see it better)

Not only did she pay for the quilting as a surprise gift to me, but she also did the binding FOR me on her long Thanksgiving weekend!! Can you say spoiled?? Thanks Carol!!

Here is the project I finished... just 2 simple transformer pillow cases for my nephews. Total project time was just 35 mins! I went to Wal-mart last night to get pillows to go in the pillow cases and I noticed they had a whole section of Transformer bedding stuff now (they did not this summer when I bought that fabric!) and I could have bought 2 pillow cases and a twin sheet set for $19.50... I paid $10.5o for the fabric to make just the pillow cases... oh well these are special since Auntie Amanda made them for them.