Safari Birthday Celebration & Thank You's

We celebrated my Mother-In-Law's birthday Safari style at my in-laws house. Here's the birthday card I made for her, along with a set of Thank You cards (with matching envelope) as a gift to send out to the people who came to her party!

A new addition to the family - Baby Congratulations!

I'm just starting to get into using the Copic markers to color in images... I won't do it in bulk but individual cards definitely!

Ariel Birthday Celebration

One of my favorite birthday die-cuts!

Baby is a Blessing - Shower

Pool Birthday Party Invite for the Boys!

Birthday Card for a Lady!

Princess Birthday for a 5 Year Old

Happy 60th Birthday BBQ

Here's a quick 60th birthday card that I made for a friend who celebrated with a BBQ cook-off!

Mother's Day Workshop

It's been a while since I've updated my crafts blog, so I deeply apologize. To get caught up to where we are at today (Nov 28), I'm going to just make simple post of the projects that I've worked on over the months, so that you don't miss out on seeing them. But if you want more detail about the projects, just contact me and let me know and I'd be happy to share!

Here was my Mother's Day Workshop that included creating a flip calendar for every month to remember the special occassions plus a cute little purse card for Mother's Day!

Sponge Bob Birthday for Tristin!

We went to a birthday party for our friend Tristin today who turned one. His party theme was Sponge Bob Square Pants. I found some Sponge Bob stickers from Michaels and had a bunch of old water related stickers that I used to make this fun card for a 1 year old. It's hard to tell from the picture but the letters and numbers (T, W, 1) all have a raised bubble on them to make them seem like bubbles coming up through the water. It's nice to do a card every once in a while that doesn't have specific lines or layout. Hope he (or his parents) enjoyed his card, I had a fun time making it.

Supplies:

Ink:

CTMH - Star Spangled Blue (Z2149) & Cocoa (Z2114)

Stamps: CTMH - Good Times (B1332), Hero Arts - Live it Up

Paper: The Paper Company - Tan (from JoAnn's), Creative Imaginations - Splash

Other: Sponge Bob Stickers (Michaels), Creative Imaginations - Bits & Baubles, Making Memories - Chunky Wave Alpha Stickers, Fiskars - Boundary Waves (Michaels)

Happy Birthday to my Mother!

This is the last of 3 birthday celebrations we had this weekend. I didn't have much time to sit down and stamp a special card, so I had to go the scrapbooking way and used patterned paper as my main feature. The 3 birds are symbolic in two ways for me, one was that my Mom had 3 daughters and two, this was the 3rd birthday celebration of the weekend. My Mom loved the card and that's all that mattered to me. (Sorry about the photo, had to take it in my car to get a copy before I gave it to my Mom).

Supplies:

Stamp: Stampendous - Birthday Whimsey

Ink: CTMH - New England Ivy Z2135

Paper: Green Cardstock (unknown mfg.), DCWV - Spring Glitter paperpack

Other: Silk flowers (unknown mfg.), Dragonfly brads (Michael's), Making Memories - Polka Dot brad, Queen & Co. - Green floral adhesive ribbon

Happy 50th Birthday

We celebrated our friend Mark's 50th birthday today and so the card was made to be masculine, simple and to the point. Whenever I get the chance, I like to make the card as personal as possible, especially by using a photo. That worked out great for this card, as I used the new "book ends" by Quickutz Silhouette. The paper was two sided, so it was the base of the card as well as the background (reverse red side) to the white cardstock and sentiment. I really like the "book ends" from Quickutz and hope to use them a lot in the future.

Supplies:

Stamps: CTMH - Good Times B1332

Paper: Cloud9Design - Dog Stripe (two sided), White cardstock

Ink: CTMH - Black Z2105, Cranberry Z2116

Other: Silhouette - 5 & 0 Book Ends

Happy Birthday - Rock Star

Today we went to a birthday party for our friend Eetu who turned 2. The theme to his birthday party was "Come Party like a Rock Star." I used my Quickutz Silhouette to cut the stars (Stars - stackables) and also cut out "Eetu" and "2" to personalize them. As you can see, I didn't add any bling to it since it was for a boy, let alone a 2 year old. Love personalizing with the Silhouette.

Supplies:

Stamps: CTMH - Good Times B1332

Ink: CTMH - Black Z2105

Paper: DCWV - Happy Birthday, Blue A2 Card

Other: Silhouette - Stars (Stacked)

Easter Crafts

As part of decoration for my house as well as gifts for family and friends, I made these adorable Easter decorations. Well, I shouldn't say I made them because I didn't make the wood shapes... those are from a company called Total Class Creative. This is the same company that made the egg "ornaments" in a previous post. My part involved embellishing them with a little ribbon and some other fun objects like egg or flower shaped photos and a little grass (from my Silhouette). The best thing about these decorations is that you can separate the 2 pieces and they can be stored flat until the next spring or whenever else one might want to bring them out. I actually bought my wood shapes from a local store (Scrappin' Attack) but they also sell them on the company website (it was cheaper at Scrappin' Attack). I heard that they have some great Halloween and Winter shapes that I am totally looking forward to decorating in the future!

This is the large egg which I decorated with a picture of each child that was planning to come to our Easter Egg Hunt (13 kids). Most of the kids came last year, so I used their photo from the previous egg hunt, we had 3 new additions (yes, 3 new babies since last Easter) that I just added a current photo that I had of them. The boy photos were scalloped egg shapes and the girl photos were circles layered on top of a flower. This is my focal decoration and I think each year I will switch the photos out to more current photos (or the previous years Easter Hunt photos) for each of the kids who attend the Egg hunt.

This shows you the three varieties of shapes that are offered during the Spring/Easter. The shapes above are the large size except for the chick. All the shapes come in two sizes. My large chick was similar to the one shown except that it had pictures that had both the boys in each one. The chick above was made for a dear friend visiting us from the East coast. It contained pictures of our nephews and niece, whom she had helped raise. It was hopefully something that she could look at and have fond memories run through her mind as she missed them dearly.

These are the smaller eggs that I made for our two Grandmas. Each had their own personal egg with photos of their grandchildren (not just our kids). It was also embellished with some small flowers.

This is the top view of the shapes so you can see how they stand on their own. There is a top and a bottom piece and you just slide them together at their notches (in the middle) and they become free standing. Undo the pieces and they go back to being two flat pieces.

Here's a sample of the two sizes. I used the large bunny for our boys, they each had their own with only their photo on the bunny. The small bunny was a gift for a close friend that had pictures of their children as well as one with all our kids together. I tried to make it look like the bunny was sitting in grass and there were eggs in the grass being protected by the bunny. Some of the eggs were pictures, some were paper eggs. I used wiggle eyes and white pom-poms for the tail and a simple Easter ribbon (all from Michaels). I thought they turned out really cute!

Hope everyone had a great Easter!

Happy Birthday to my Dad!

Today was my Dad's birthday. I've been pretty busy getting ready for Easter that I didn't have a lot of time to put a card together for him (sorry Dad). This is what I made quickly using my Big Shot Express and Sizzix Emblosslits - some of my favorite new tools, plus a little brad for the center of the flower! It's simple, but to the point!

Supplies:

Other: Sizzix - Emblosslits (Flower & Happy Birthday), Textured Impressions (Dots); Making Memories - Flower Brad

Easter favors - not your typical plastic egg!

I love to give a little something different when it comes to the holidays for the kids, hopefully something that you can't just buy in the store. Leyton's class was having their Easter celebration and had the option of bringing in a little treat for the other kids. I had been thinking about it for a little bit and saw this project while looking through my Quickutz Silhouette products - icicle box. I looked at it and thought "that could look like a carrot if I made it orange and put some green curls on top," and voila... my Easter favor. I've handed these out to friends and teachers filled with jelly bellies and chocolate, but for the kids, I used very little candy and included stickers, stamps, Easter tattoos and a bouncy ball. The boys wanted to help assemble them, which wasn't practical but they were great helpers when it came to stuffing them. I made at least 15 for Leyton's class, thank goodness that I didn't need to make them for Lincoln's (20+ kids), but all their teacher's also got one, as well as my MOPS group. Below is a pile of the batch of carrots I made for Leyton's class. You can get more creative with them by stamping them or even using patterned paper. I put a tag on them with a CTMH Easter stamp (Celebrating Life C1128). I loved making these (in small quantities at a time) and they turned out so cute... don't you think!

Easter Teacher Appreciation Gifts

Every major holiday, I love to make something special for the boys' teachers. For Easter/Spring, I made these "slotted wood ornament" eggs that were embellished with flowers and alphabet stickers. The pictures don't do justice to the cuteness of the ornament. I personalized each egg with the first initial of each teacher (i.e. Ms. E). The great thing about this project is that it can be disassembled and stored flat until next Easter/Spring. I sure hope the teachers like their eggs, I sure had a great time making them! I bought the kits from a local scrapbook store (Scrappin' Attack) but the actual product is made by Total Class Creative (ironically their products were designed by a teacher). I also made the carrot in the first picture but more details on that in the next blog! Keep a look out for a couple of other projects that I'm working on that were made using the Total Class Creative products... so cute, you will love them!

Workshop #3 - Easter/Spring

Today was the third workshop that I've hosted at my house. (I apologize now if the layout of the images are disproportionate, I've been having issues with my computer and the Internet!) The theme revolved around Easter and Spring and it included a handful of crafts that took some assembling. The bulk of the projects made required the use of my new favorite tool - the Big Shot Express (Sizzix). It's a die-cutting machine, but unlike my other die-cutting tools (Quickutz Squeeze and Revolution), it is AUTOMATED... at the push of a button, it takes the die-cut and paper and cuts/embosses in a flash, no more hand turning. And the best part is that it also can use the die-cuts from my Quickutz collection, YEAH! The projects included making an Easter/Spring card that had a pop-up message inside, a pop-up ball that could be used in a card or in our case on a string, two pillow boxes and two baskets.

Here was the card we made. All the stamps were from CTMH (Eastertime D1259), the grass was cut on the Quickutz Silhouette, the eggs and the bunny die-cuts were from Quickutz, the striped background paper was from DCWV, the scalloped square is from Marvy Punches, the pop-up feature was made with a Sizzix Bigz XL die-cut and I've had the flowers for so long I don't know the manufacturer (could be Prima). Sorry the pop-up image is sideways...oops!

This pop-up ball/Easter egg was so cute, the picture does not do it justice. This project took the most work but was worth the effort! All the pieces are created from the Sizzix Bigz XL Pop-up Ball. It can actually be attached to a card and when you open the card, it would pop-up to it's current state. I'm working on some projects that has some embellishment to what we made. When it's done, I will post it. I choose to put the ribbon through the top so that it can be hung up and displayed so that all sides could be seen. So cute and amazing the way it's assembled.

The pillow box was the easiest project to make but the variety on how to decorate them was endless. The pillow box is made with a Sizzix Bigz die-cut and the Easter bunny was stamped with CTMH (Celebrating Life C1128). Some of the boxes were embossed using the Sizzix Textured Impression Embossing Folders (if you look closely at the purple and pink boxes you can see the embossing). I used both transparency and card stock, other ideas created at the workshop used printed card stock which also turned out adorable. I used a tag punch by EK Success and even though you can't tell as easily in the photo, I used an Around The Block paper tagger to attach the tag to the ribbon (love this tool).

Here are the baskets that were made using the Sizzix Bigz XL. There are plenty of ways to decorate the baskets, even just simple patterned card stock was adorable, as well as stamping on plain card stock also gave it another cute look. Embellish as you please or just leave it simple, either way this basket was adorable. Stamps used in the samples came from the two CTMH sets mentioned above.

Below are samples of the projects made by the workshop attendees:

This card was the same template as my original card except that different colors were used.

Above projects showed the variety of looks depending on the pattern of the paper used.

One of the ladies at the workshop needed a Birthday card, so we mixed up the parts from the original card and turned it into this adorable spring like card. I love how the eggs were turned upside down to become balloons!

Thanks to the ladies who attended the workshop (not all pictured above), they did a great job! Some of the projects took some patience and a little engineering but the end result was well worth the adorable products!