Sunday, December 27, 2015

Peppermint Gingerbread House - A Family Tradition

Eighteen years and counting,
that is how many years we decorate our family gingerbread house on
Christmas Eve.
This year we decided to do a peppermint theme - mostly.
Each year we each decorate a gingerbread person and decorate our person doing something.
David, my husband is fishing and I have a pile of snowballs. Am I aiming at my husband who is fishing or waiting for one of my kids?
My son Alex did an amazing job building construction equipment. He is a construction equipment engineer.

Alex gingerbread is directing all the equipment.
My daughter is just hanging out. Alex decided to create a CSU sign for her because just hanging out was not really an activity so now she is a CSU student hanging out:)

Love the details Laura added to her gingerbread dress.

Laura added a little angel to the top of the roof.



Love our family time together, especially on Christmas Eve. Grateful we continue our family tradition.

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Sugar Cookies- Our Annual Tradition Continues

Every year since Laura was in pre-school (she is now a freshmen at CSU) we bake and decorate sugar cookies. When we moved to Littleton 9 years ago, our tradition continues. We love to share this tradition with friends. Laura's friend Sophie joins us every year. I love to see how Sophie continues to improve on her cookie decorating skills - makes me proud! Sophie is now a pro at this! Laura loves her school so many of her cookies were decorated in her school colors. Sophie's cookies are always pretty and uses lots of pink icing.
Alex has always invited his friend Ryan, both age 12. This year the boys took their decorating skills to a different level. Their cookies were all about Star Wars. They even had various Star Wars books to use as a reference.
Love spending the morning with the 4 kids as they get flour on them (and everywhere else) when they use the cookie cutters. I bake the cookies for them while they hang out. It takes a while to bake the sheets of sugar cookie shapes. After lunch, I make several batches of buttercream icing. We split them up and all 4 kids have to come to a consensus of 12 colors plus we leave a small batch of white buttercream icing. All 4 kids then add the food colors and create a small batch of colored buttercream icing. Laura and Sophie then add the icing to the piping bags along with an assortment of decorating tips.
I love to see my kids and their friends creativity at work. This year I also decorated a handful of cookies. Always fun! For our family, this is part of what Christmas is to us.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Laura's cookies
 


Sophie's cookies
 
Alex's Cookies
 



Ryan's cookies
 
Ryan and Alex each holding their first Star Wars Sugar Cookies.  The boys did a great job!

My cookies






Wednesday, December 23, 2015

A Recap of Isa Creations Vintage Inspired Christmas

It's been a busy but wonderful time spent with my family. I had planned on sharing photos of this year's vintage inspired Christmas Isa Creations sooner but I have been taking time off.

The outside of our home may not be decorated for Christmas this year but the inside is. I hope to share photos in the future.

We did not mail our family Christmas card this year (first time in 24+ years) but we did go to the Pink Attic Cat this past Saturday and took a family photo with Santa which I shared on my personal Facebook page.

Yesterday, we spent the day baking and decorating sugar cookies (an annual family tradition). I hope to share those photos tomorrow.

I am also sad for a very dear friend in Houston who has been on my mind. I wish I could take a trip to Houston to be with her -- her beloved dad passed away. Love you Tina! We send our love, thoughts and prayers to you and your family.

Christmas reminds us of the importance of family and appreciating every single day we all have with one another.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE!

Photos previously posted on Isa Creations Vintage on Instagram and Facebook.

 

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Isa Creations at Pink Attic Cat and Sewn

I want to start this post with a heartfelt

THANK YOU!

The holiday markets are now behind me. First was Sugar Plum Bazaar, then Horseshoe Holiday Market and finally this past week, Rue de Noel, A Paris Street Christmas Market. Thank you to the organizers and all who came to support us at each market.

Thank you for making this market season a wonderful success! I appreciate all my loyal customers who come see me from year to year. Thank you to all my new customers!

My business continues to grow every year!

Thank you!

I create items that I love. Vintage Christmas has become a favorite of mine. I love to combine truly vintage Christmas finds with new materials to create one of a kind items. I will post pictures from all 3 markets in several posts.

I am happy to share you can continue to find a sampling of Isa Creations Christmas items at the Pink Attic Cat in downtown Littleton located at 5784 S. Rapp Street.

And

At Sewn Denver located on 18 S. Broadway, Denver, CO.

Now some highlights from the Christmas Markets.

I love Houses! Vintage Putz Houses is one of my personal favorites. I have admired the Christmas Putz house wreath on the cover of Martha Stewart's Living Magazine for some time. I created 2 wreaths for Sugar Plum Bazaar. One sold within 15 minutes Sugar Plum opened. The second one sold the second day. Creating these Christmas House wreaths was a favorite of mine this season. I look forward to creating more next year.

 

Vintage Putz houses have been my inspiration to create paper houses. I have been creating these paper houses for years. This year I am happy I was able to expand on that. I created many miniature houses, churches and campers using dies from Papertrey Ink. Tim Holtz created new dies for Sizzix which I absolutely love! Sizzix also created a camper die. All of my new paper houses, churches and campers were so well received. In fact, the campers ( both large and miniature) were mostly sold out after Horseshoe Holiday Market! I had only one miniature camper for Rue de Noel.