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!