12 Days of Christmas...Day 10

Hi friends. We're on Day 10 of Melissa's and Mishie's 12 Days of Christmas countdown. Today we have two sspecial guests joining us. We thought Dawn McVey and Heather Nichols might enjoy playing along with today's theme...Stocking Stuffers and Gifts for Girls.
Now. You're gonna get all jumpy in your seat because of this next photo. Cuz I know you love the office supply stuff like I do. Especially markers. Especially when they come in a set of 36 colors.
Especially when they come on this cool fold out portfolio case that screams *take me back to when I was 12 and where was THIS?*
And even more so when you see a delightful rainbow of colors. When I was a kid, I would have wet my Hee Haw overalls that I received one Christmas over something like these markers. Oh how I love to collect stickers and pens. My favorite pen was one that had five colors in one. It was white and you clicked each color at a time. I know you know the one. Stuff like this just wasn't available though. I also remember making a line of perforations on paper with a needle so that I could make my own pretend checks. Back then you ripped the check off of the side and that little flap stayed in the check book. Remember those? And the stationery that was in little plastic folders with pockets. One side had the envelopes and seals and the other side had sheets of stationery. Oh! Those were the best.

Well now that I've taken you on a trip down memory lane, how about creating that same wonderful memory for our girls this year for Christmas. My girls are nuts about these Bic Mar-Its and they've requested a set of their own for Christmas. We first saw them on display at Staples where you could purchase each pen individually. I think those kiosks are no longer set up but they do sell the Mark-Its in sets like the ones I've shown. There are different sets with less number of Mark-Its that I've seen at Wal Mart too.

A story: Josey had her friend Brittney over last summer and we ran some errands in town. We went to Staples and I bought each of the girls 3 of their own Mark-Its. They got to pick the colors. We then went to Taco Bell and the girls had a great time writing all over napkins. When we went to clean up all of our trash, the girls discovered that everything they wrote on the napkins bled through and marked on the tables. It wouldn't scrub off and Josey got a big laugh when Brittney told her that the next time she went to Taco Bell that her and Josey's names were still on the table. Ha ha! Good times. That's what it's all about.

Sooo, these Mark-Its will hopefully make it into the girls' stockings this year. Or maybe under the tree if Santa brings them a big enough set.

Jordan and I love to play our own little game of Pictionary. We go through notebooks of paper playing our little game. The Mark-Its are great fun!

Josey likes to take the entire set of Mark-Its into her room.....just like any teenager, she wants to be alone...and make posters and quotes about softball and sports. She has lots of papers like these taped to her wall.
This summer for Jordan's birthday party, each party girl got a blank white gable box filled with prizes. One prize was a Mark-It that they got to use to sign each other's birthday box. Kind of like an autograph book but in 3-D form. This was Jordan's box. (You can purchase Gable Boxes from Papertrey HERE). I see that she made a color chart of the Mark-Its too. So like me. Love.
So in hopes that Santa pulls through with the Mark-Its, I wanted to create some fun notepads for the girls to scribble and scratch on. I had lots of this cute Cosmo Cricket Pixie-Licious paper, etc left over from my guest designer month so I thought it would colorful and perfect for the girls' notebooks.
I also pulled out some stickers and chipboard accents. I love to have an entire collection of something....makes it so easy to pull together a project.
Jordan likes purple and Josey likes this Chartreuse green so went with those two color schemes for my notepads. Here I've selected my Papertrey cardstock colors, my Cosmo Cricket patterned papers and cardstock stickers.
To give the girls plenty of paper, I made the notebooks double thickness. I used two White Notepads and put a strip of 1/4" Scor-Tape along the top. Then I covered that with Happy Spots paper.
I also love to personalize items because everyone loves to see their name on something. Here I've used Hero Arts alphabet letters to spell out the girl's names for tags and on their notepads. A fun tip that I use: Use capital letters for consonants and lower case letters for vowels. It gives a mixy matchy look that I so love. The die I used for the tag is Papertrey's Limitless Layers Collection.
Next, I added my base layers of patterned papers and then my cardstock sticker accents.
Oh so cute and colorful. Papertrey Vintage Buttons tied with baker's twine finish off the notebook fronts.
Here you can see the girl's names. Love.
And so that we don't have anymore Taco Bell incidents, I added a blank piece of cardstock in with the notepads. This way the girls can draw and write notes with the cardstock piece under their paper, preventing the ink from bleeding through onto the next sheet. I can add new cardstock pieces when these get all messy.
And here's the sah-weeet notepads in all their fancied glory. I used Long Sleeves from my Etsy shop so that the notepads could stick out of the top. Notebook Slicks would also work for packaging if you want to enclose the entire notepad.
I tied Papertrey Ribbon around the Long Sleeves and then tied on the glittery name tags. Oh oh I loved making these for my reds. There's nothing more fun that creating a gift for someone special. I hope you enjoyed my stories today. I hope that have fun reminiscing about your childhood favorites. And I hope you get all crafty and make something fun for a loved one this holiday season. I think I'll go play with my Mark-Its now. Maybe write Eric + Shell just like I did in high school. :) (Did you know that only people in blog land and my paper crafting friends call me Mish?....I am definitely not Mish to any of my family or friends.....I guess it's my stage name, ha!)
But before I go, I had to snap a photo of Josey's whiteboard that she has in her room. She stole this from me because *it would be perfect for her room*. She writes down each week's happenings and then draws little scribbles and pictures. So adorable. So teenager-y. Have you taken time to check out your kids' rooms lately? Sneak in there while they're at school and check out their little world. Pretty cool stuff.
We all have this whiteboard obsession at our house along with the markers. I see that Josey has also permanently borrowed my silver tray of whiteboard markers too. Maybe Santa needs to bring everyone their own whiteboard markers too. :)
I have fun ideas to share with you about how to use your whiteboards for homework, chores, lists,etc.....and a little bit how color evokes learning in kids. I'll share that post on another day.

Be sure to check out Melissa's and Dawn's and Heather's posts today too. I know they have something girly and cute up their sleeves. :) Thanks for stopping by today!

Now for my recipe today. Pioneer Woman has a section under her recipes called Cowgirl Food...totally fitting for today's girly post. I am going to try my hand at these chocolate truffles...oh how I love truffles. And with sea salt...yum.

RECIPE IS HERE

(Photo courtesy of Pioneer Woman)