Teacher Appreciation

This week is teacher appreciation week. I made these cards for all of my kids teachers to let them know that we are truely greatful for all that they do. As a former preschool teacher myself, I feel like teachers are underpaid and underaprreciated. All of my kids have wonderful teachers, so we thank each one of you- Mrs. Garlock, Mrs. Miller, Mrs. Price, Mrs. Cook, Miss Michelle, and Miss Sandy :)

Simple Joys

Happy Tuesday everyone. I had a few minutes to whip up a simple card this morning. Just enough to get the creative juices flowing so I can get started on my Mother's Day projects. This card uses an older set, called Green Thumb, from PTI. I've got the kids down for a nap now, so I'm hoping to get a lot accomplished today!

Buttons Galore!

Just a quick post this morning, as I am bleaching everything in my house. One of my daycare parents has the swine flu, so I am being overly cautious. This will be another Chritmas gift. I think it turned out so cute. And who doesn't love buttons!?

A Bun In The Oven

First let me start by saying Happy Friday & Happy 10th Anniversary to Erin and Tony. Can't wait to see you guys tomorrow night it's going to be a great time! That being said, let me share with you my latest creation , using Lauren's "A Bun In The Oven" template. This one has been out for a while, but I just decided to purchase it when a friend opened an in home bakery, appropriately named- A Bun In The Oven. I found this cute little ornament while I was out shopping, and I loved the snowman in the muffin tin, so I thought it would be a sweet little gift for her as she gets her business up and running. But I couldn't just hand it to her. It had to be all packaged up, and nothing is more fitting than this little template. I also have a couple of baby showers I'm working on, and I may make a few of these to sit on the tables, with baby socks in them. The lighting in these photos is terrible. it has been a dreary week here in Ohio. Here is a close up of the top of the oven. I had to get creative for the burners. I had no idea what I was going to use to make them. But as I was trying to figure that out, I began working on another projects using PTI"s large square trendy tubes. The Top of the tubes has the circles that reminded me of the burner, s0000 I grabbed my Chocolate Chip Stampin' Write marker and inked up the top of the lid & used it like a stamp! It worked perfect!! I was very pleased with that revolation.

Here is a shot with it open.

An here is the whole thing. Blurry & dark! lol

I am going to give this gift to her in just a little while and I hope she likes it. Who know, maybe we could go into business together. She could make little cupcakes or muffins & I could package them in this cute little box! TGIF!!!

Ghouls' Night Out Projects

I hope everyone is having a great weekend. Mine has been pretty good. I had GNO at my house on Friday night, another workshop today, and got to spend time with good friends on Saturday night. Not looking forward to tomorrow, because not only is it Monday - but my wisdom teeth are coming out. Wish me luck! So projects I have for you today are a couple that we made at Friday night's GNO. For those unfamiliar with GNO, it stands for Ghouls' Night Out. It's a Halloween themed workshop that I have held for 3 years now. I think the girls enjoy it. Some dress up, others just come to eat and chat, but it's nice to hang out with just the girls for a few hours.

Here is a card that we made for our first project. It's cased from a card swap that we got while at Cinci Regionals. We used half of the Top Note die for the owl body and several punches for the detail. We used the Season Of Friendship stamp set for the tree branch & leaves.

And here is a little pumpkin box that we created using Lauren's Pack-A-Picnic template. The pumpkin face was created from PTI's Spooky Sweets set.

I also had a stash of small pumpkins laying around that needed a little something, so the girls added rub on to them. Too cute, but I forgot to get a picture of any of them.

So there you have it!

Eat At Your Own Risk

Tomorrow evening I'm going to have a few customers & friends over for Ghouls' Night Out. We will make several Halloween projects, eat snacks, and visit with one another. This will be given away as a prize, but the girls will have a chance to make something similair using Lauren's pack-a-picnic template.

Teacher Gift #2

Here is the 2nd teacher gift I have done. I used one of Lauren's templates to hold a set of thank you cards for Cam's teacher. Weare off to take Carter to his first day of preschool. i'll be back with pics:-)

Teacher Gift #1

I have been a horrible blogger. I was trying to enjoy the last few weeks of summer vacation, but now that's over so it's back to creating. This is one gift set that I made for Austin's 5th grade teacher for Christmas. I covered a compostion notebook and decorated it, and the jar holds starter questions for journal pages. I tucked everything inside this little basket that I found at a craft store. We are camping this weekend so I hope everyone had a wonderful, safe holiday weekend. TGIF!!

Teacher

I know it's the middle of summer vacation, and we shouldn't be thinking about school, but I like to stay a few steps ahead of the game. I was working yesterday on Christmas gifts for teachers. You may think I'm crazy, but it's less that I will have to do when the holiday season approaches. I will wait to share those teacher gifts with you until another time, I am sharing with you a card that I made. I used PTI's Teacher's Apple, along with the alphabet from last month's release at the Cat's Pajamas. I also wanted to use up my previous stock of in colors, so I used Riding Hood Red and Kiwi Kiss. The border punch is Martha Stewart. I hope the first half of your week is going well!

Sweetest Birthday Box

I tell you, Lauren is a genius when it comes to creating her templates each month. Though I only have purchased a handful of them, I use them non stop. The one I'm using today is from the newest release called, Ready, Set, Wrap! They are available for download at PTI. I still had some of that fun patterned paper from Doodlebug Design on my desk from my last post so I used it to create a box that hold a Dairy Queen gift card. I have a total of 10 birthdays (including my own) during the month of June, so I am going with easy to reproduce gifts like this! I also have created a bunch of these for family that will be coming home over the 4th of July. But you will just have to wait to see those! Hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

Home Tweet Home

*2nd post for today so be sure to scroll down for my earlier post!*

So here is the bird house project that I have promised you. I think it turned out perfect. I love it! I created this using a template on Nichole Heady's blog. If you want the link to the template please email me and I will get that to you. I don't have it handy, other wise I would have linked it here. How cute would this be to give someone who just moved, or to someone that has been away for a while as a welcome home gift? I plan to give this to friends of ours that are moving this summer. I tucked a bag of bird seed inside:-) I used the SU! scallop border punch to create the shingled look on the roof. I love how it turned out. The template or sample doesn't call for a perch, but I added one by adding a small piece of a dowel roll I had around here. If you untied the bow at the top the roof lifts off allowing access to the bird seed. The sentiment on the tag if from PTI, called Boards & Beams. The sentiment actually says Home Sweet Home, but I didn't ink up the S in Sweet and added a T instead to coordinate with the whole "bird" theme. I hope you enjoy it. I had a lot of fun making it.

Smell The Flowers

Good Tuesday morning. I got a chance to work on Julee's mojo Monday sketch this week, so here is my take on it. The card is actually 4 1/4x 4 1/2, rather than the standard A2 size. It's pretty simple, not much to explain, other than the set that I used is Forest Friends from PTI. Plus I am shampooing the carpets while the kids are at school, so I better get busy! Have a great day!

Thanks Deer

I pulled out my Forest Friends set from PTI again to stock up on more thank you's. My neighbor stopped by and bought out my stash so it's time to replenish it. I used my new d.p. from 3 Bugs In A Rug. The collection is called Snip N' Snails. I also used Lauren's Saturday sketch for this card. I hope everyone had a great weekend and is ready for another week!

What A Stinky Week

I am so glad the week is behind us and hope for a much better one next week. The kids had another snow day yesterday, so I decided to take the day off from blogging to referee mostly. This weekend I am preping my house and food for our Super Bowl party that we are having tomorrow. I could care less about football, but love having people over so I'll be in the kitchen most of time making sure everyone is full and happy. The last card I have this week using the Forest Friends set was for this week's SCS sketch challenge. It's been a while since I've participated in that challenge! I again used the black and white polka dotted d.p. I wanted a splash of color so I added Always Artichoke. It's a pretty simple card, but I like it. Today I hope to get my Super Bowl project posted for you, but no promises. Have a great day!

Such A Deer

I'm posting this a little later than usual. The kids had a two-hour delay this morning. Imagine that! Then Carter and I headed to town to get groceries. The roads were pretty crumby so it took us forever to get there and back. But we are back and it's time to get down to business. This is the card that I made for Julee's Mojo Monday sketch. I love her sketches! The card size this time is 4.25"x 4.25" square. The d.p. I used is from the Mr.Campy line by Cosmo Cricket. The set again is Forest Friends from PTI. At the end of the week I'm hoping to share with you some ideas for Super Bowl. Stay tuned!

Another Snow Day Little Stinker!

I don't know about you, but I'm REALLY tired of winter. We are stuck inside yet another day because by the time it is all said and done today, we will have gotten 10 or so inches of snow (on top of what was already on the ground!). The kids are home.....again. I don't think they have a had a full week of school since before Christmas! That brings me to my next PTI Forest Friends card. This one is for Valentine's Day. I love the skunk with the "little stinker" sentiment. The "Happy Valentine's Day" is a misc. stamp that I had laying around. The black and white d.p. is old. I have not idea where it came from. I did get to work on the Mojo Monday sketch yesterday, but will wait until tomorrow to post that card. Have a great snow day!

Such A Deer

I have had the set Forest Friends, from PTI, since it's new release last month and have had a hard time using it. I'm not sure why, but the ideas jus weren't coming to me. But everytime I look at this set, it reminds me of Bambi. We've been watching that a lot at our house lately. Now I'm on a roll and have come up with lots of cards using this set. For the next few days I'm either going to enable you to buy it or annoy you and make you want to see something else! Today's card uses the deer from the set. I made two cards with it. Same layout, just changed the sentiments. I jope you all have a great day. I'm plan to work on the Mojo Monday sketch from yesterday!

Nuts For You Acorn Treat Holder

Well, this post is coming to you 3 days later than I had planned! Our household has been battling a lot of little illnesses and we are losing! Each day has been one thing or another and today Austin has a rash on his hands and arms. What's that about? So onto my project. This wasn't my original idea, but I've had to tweak it using supplies that I had versus what the original creator had used. How cute is this little acorn treat holder? For the Sahara Sand base of the acorn I cut 2 ovals with the Coluzzle. Then with Close To Cocoa cardstock I cut out 1 Top Note Die with the Cuttlebug. I cut it in half, making 2. Then I also cut a strip of C. To. C with the Scallop Border punch. I stamped my squirrel from Forest Friends from PTI.

For the base of the treat holder, I took a 3x7" strip of Sahara Sand cardstock, scored it at 1/4" on both long sides, then I added sticky strip to the scored sections. I snipped them with papersnips, then removed the red liner of the sticky strip. This way the cardstock with bend into a oval shape and it can be attached to the front and back acorn piece. I finished it off with a tag that says Nuts About You! These cute little guys will go to the kids teachers for Valentine's Day.

Christmas Is Over, But We're Still Celebrating!

How was everyone's Christmas? Ours was great, and we still have one more tomorrow to go to. We kept things simple this year, so the kids didn't get an over abundance of toys that they'll only play with for a short time. What is crazy is that a few days ago the temps in Ohio were below zero , but today it it 65 degrees and sunny! I am in a fantastic mood because of it. I'm getting so much done today! It's the perfect day to get those outdoor Christmas decorations put away. On to the project... Using yet another of Lauren's Timeless Template found over at PTI

I was able to create this adorable holder for these chocolate covered marshmallows to be used as stir sticks for hot chocolate. I made the marshmallows by stacking two in a lollipop stick and covering them in melted bakers chocolate and covering them with crushed candy canes. I just placed them on wax paper and out them in the refridgerator for a few minutes to set up.
Here is a closer look. This went to one of my aunts that I had for a gift exchange. She thought it came from a gourmet shop we have in town! It was very inexpensive to make. Probably less than $4 all together. I am going to take advantage of this beautiful day and I hope you do too!

Gift Exchange Stocking

This year for my mom's side of the family we decided to go the gift exhange route. I drew my step dad's name. In an effort to keep the cost of the gift down, I used Lauren's (free!) stocking stuffer template to create the gift packaging for his gift card. I think that presentation of the gift is sometimes as important as the gift itself. I love how masculine this stocking turned out. I just went around house looking at my Christmas decoration trying to find the perfect "embellishments" to snatch for this project. The d.p. is by SU! called Frosty Day. I made the tag using my Marvy scallop square punch and a retired stamp from the Noble Deer set, by SU! I used that same pinecone stamp with Timber Brown Staz On to stamp the bag on the inside of the stocking that holds the gift card. I am really happy how this turned out and will be using this template a lot! Be sure to scroll down for my earlier post.