A little bit Patriotic

We R Memory Keepers had a tutorial for an adorable banner on their blog.  This is my patriotic Twist on it.  I have the banner punch board so I used it for the banner pieces.  I used this tutorial to make the pinwheels.  The circles I cut with my good old coluzzle templates and knife.

Spring to Finish.

I did not meet this goal by 5/31 but I am still working on it!

Over at the Tallgrass Prairie Studio blog the challenge is on to get some uncompleted projects finished. So here is my list of items I would like to complete (I may add on to this as I go)

1. My knit tote - it is about - complete 7/6

2. American girl doll purple outfit - cut out, Shirt sewn

3. American girl Kirsten school dress - cut out

4. recycled purse - cut out, 3/4 done

5. Skirt for Jo from old dress - Complete 6/28

6. 5 pages in Tim's Scrapbook - Complete 6/4

I will reward myself with yarn for my next knitting project.

My Funny Valentines

These pictures are from our Valentine's day breakfast last year. I love this tradition we have. I made this page in response to challenge #50 over at the ScrapYourCrap blog. The challenge was to use glitter and hearts and of course it needed to be all stuff from your stash. It is hard to see but there are some heidi swapp acrylic hearts with pink stickles on them as well as some Making Memories glittery heart brads. I added in some Love elsie stickers and a plastic ribbon slide with a heart - I do not know who made it. I am so pleased with this page. Really captured the sense of quirky fun I wanted it to.

A valentine gift box

The All Things Crafty and Delicious blog has another cute free box svg file to use with your cricut! She issued a design challenge using it and this is what I came up with. I got a Cricut Expression this week so I was able to make it a larger size. Mine is 8 X 2 3/4 X 2 inch tall. I am going to fill this box with heart shape butter cookies for our neighbor.

I used the cover from an old Cricut mat to cut the clear window piece from.
The roses are based on this tutorial by Tim Holtz. I used ranger distress ink in lipstick pink on the edges and added distress pink Stickles as well. The centers are Doodlebug bling and the leaves are from silk flowers - I used glitter embossing powder on them. The ribbon is from Stampin Up.

Be sure to check out the other examples on her blog.

Chocolate Box with your Cricut

Head on over to the "All things crafty and delicious blog" to get your adorable free cut file for an adorable treat box file to use with your SCAL software and Cricut.

Here is the little box I made. I used some double sided Scenic Route paper to cut the box using my Cricut. I have the small Cricut so my box measures - 4 1/2 X 1 3/4 and 3/8th of an inch thick.

I think they would hold thin chocolates or even loose candies well.

I used a heavy page protector cut to size to fill the window. And then added Twill ribbon and a Fancy pants heart pin. I am not sure who makes the thank you sticker. The label inside is for writing a message and I am not sure who it is by either. Just something from my stash.

I think made in Halloween colors they could make cute favors or even place cards for Thanksgiving with after dinner mints inside. Have fun!

Handmade Ornaments

every year I make ornaments for my Nieces and Nephews and Great Nieces and Nephews. This year that meant 17!  I made 14 stars and 3 birds (for those who got stars last year) scroll down for info on the patterns for them.

Peppermint stars! they are so cute!  I will be wrapping them in white tissue paper and putting little white tags with star mints on them and the recipients name. I got the pattern from the Allsorts blog. You have plenty of time to make some of these cuties while watching Christmas movies!

and I made 3 adorable little birdies.  I am in love with them.  I got the pattern in the book

"Last Minute Patchwork + quilted gifts" by Joelle Hoverson.   Check out the authors blog as well  - The Purl Bee

Brown Paper Packages ......



Ok they are not brown but they are tied up with string! I love using my Scrapbook supplies to make gift wrap.

In the top photo I used Pattern paper to make Origami boxes to hold the little elf dolls from yesterdays post (there is a tutorial to make them in the Dec. 2007 Creating Keepsakes). I used waxy flax and scrappers floss to tie them up and added a cricut tag with a prima and snowflake button. The lager package is wraped in tissue then I used some BG frog paper as ribbon and tied it with scrappers floss and added a tag and frog charm.

Below is a cookie gift bowl. I got the bowl at the dollar store along with the pocket hotpad. There are 6 dozen cookies in there along with a cookie mix and a muffin mix and the recipes for the cookies. I added strips of paper to the mixes and on the index cards I wrote the recipes cards and of course some of thoe cute cricut tags!

I am pretty happy with these and think they make a nice gift!

Have you been using yourr supplies as wrapping?

A Very Bendy Post

I made these little elf girls for our friends little girls. This is my first attempt at them and I think I did a pretty good job! I first saw them at the Princess Nimble-Thimble blog - she makes the cutest little bendy dolls ever! check out her Etsy shop HERE. Then my friend Jackie was making them at Science and play and helped me get started on one. They took me about 2 hours each to make with the emroidery and everything. What do you think? Oh they are about 3 inches tall.

Teacher Gifts:

So it is that time of year. Tomorrow is my children's last day of school before the Holiday break. So of course I just finished the teacher/secretary gifts tonight hehe. I do really love making special things for the teachers and I hope they enjoy them. For the secretaries and Seth's class room helper I stamped up these little die cut treat boxes and filled them with Hershey kisses (cherry cordial and mint chocolate flavor) YUM. I used this great little CTMH stamp set called "So Sweet Seasons" LOVE it. (If you wanna get one email Peggy - peggyg@ptd.net) you can't see it in the pick but the blue box has "brrrr" stamped all over it in a slightly darker shade of blue.


For SarahAnn's Teacher SHE made this cute felt tissue packet holder with her teacher's initial. And I picked up 2 large size refill packs of tissues (2nd graders go through alot)


And for Timothy's Teacher I made these note cards. I sorta um wanna keep them for me :D
they are creased at the top of the card rather than the side. I totally stole the idea from a book called "Vintage Paper Crafts" by Anna Corba - awesome book and I will do a post just about it ;) But I got to play with all my yummy vintagy looking paper supplies and I used 5 different stamps sets.


For Seth's Teacher ( Kindergarten ) I made a plastic grocery bag holder. She is always in need of them and has them under her sink in the class right now and I thought she could use one of these simple organizing tools. I stuffed it full of sacks and wrapped it but forgot to take a pic so if you go to this link you can see a similar one but mine is made in cute retro kitty print. Maybe I can snap a pic of it in the class room if she uses it ;) Ok so there you go all my handy work for this week.

TRICK or Treat !!!
The kids and I made this cute little house based on an ad from doodlebug designs - check it out here - I backed the windows with colored transparency and put battery operated candles inside. If you want to make one we used Capri Sun boxes for the houses and chimeny and foam core board to make the roofs. We had lots of fun choosing fun funky papers and stickers and buttons to add on.

Today the kids and I made cute little charms out of Shrink plastic. We stamped the images on the plastic colored them in , punched a hole and shrunk them. Then we strung them on vunyl cord with beads. How cute are they? It was a really fun activity to do.

This is a long weekend for our family! Dwight got Monday and Tuesday off for the 4th of July holiday. Monday evening we are going to the local park for a fun community celebration, we will watch a movie outside on the big screen and then watch fireworks as well. Then Tuesday we will go to the city parade. I love holidays and community celebrations. It just makes me all excited and giddy. I will always be a kid at heart (at least I hope so)

Hey check out my new feature -------------------------------------------->>
I will try and post the challenges I have going on at the sights I am a DT at. Right now I have a fun Wordart challenge up at TreasurestoScrap.com. Click on the image to go right to the challenge.

Ok thats all I got for now. hope everyone is enjoying their summer!

So I love to do crafts with my kids and honestly have been a bad bad crafting mommy this year. So I have a summer of fun crafting planned. 13 projects for the 13 weeks my older 2 are off school. Some will seem a little dorky to the oldest boy, but we have had a talk about doing it and having fun with his brothers and sister because it is important. So he has agreed :D Anyway here is our list - if you want more info on any of them leave a comment with your email addy and I will answer you.

June:
1-Painting wood cutouts from the craft store.
2-making "chirping" crickets from TP rolls and popsicle sticks.
3. necklaces with charms made from shrink plastic. (check out the treasurestoscrap.com June newsletter for an article I did about making these)

July:
1. some 4th of july craft yet to be chosen
2. turtle racers- basically paper plates decorated like turtles and attached to strings to race along.
3. sea glass jewelry - fishtank sea glass pieces wrapped in wire and hung from a leather strap.
4. going to the park and painting with watercolors.

August:
1. rock painting - making friendly buggy friends for our garden area.
2. butterfly mobile
3. treasure boxes
4. mini scrapbooks of our summer activities.