Part 3, The End, I Promise!

This is the coordinating gift bag to hold all of the goodies. This image was also stamped on watercolor paper, but this time I used the Watercolor Wonder Crayons.


I made an A2 card box to hold the six cards and envelopes and made the top from acetate to give a little glimpse of the goodies in side. The bottom is made out of Elegant Eggplant with a band of Whisper White stamped in EE using the Watercolor Vine Jumbo Wheel. I am sure you have noticed that I did not put any sentiments on the cards. No, I didn't forget, I just wanted Jenny to be able to use them for any occasion she chooses.


Well of course you have to have coordinating envelopes. I don't usually do this, but always admire it when I see it on other posts. Even though all the cards vary in shades of purple all the envelopes are the same. It was probably close to 3 am when I was wrapping up and at that point this was good enough!


It's a Peek-A-Boo box......


Peek-A-Boo it's chocolate....you can't have a birthday without chocolate, can you? I hope you have enjoyed this little trip through Teacher's Birthday Land :-)

Teacher Gift, Part 2

Here's the second installment of the teacher's birthday gift. Looks like I will have to make it a triple play to get the last of the pictures in. The post-it-note holder is made from chipboard coasters covered with DSP and bound together with the Bind-It -All and of course there is a matching pen. I had to use the 1" O-wire as I was out of the 3/4" which would have been much better and the only local store that carries it was out as well. I have been hoarding my Hodgepodge Hardware so I decided to step up the cover with Jenny's monogram and the HH.

This card was actually posted earlier, but as I have a habit of doing, I embellished a little more after the initial picture was taken. The center of the Filagree Flower Designer brad uses a Circle Ice Rhinestone Brad.

Jenny's favorite color is purple so I am sure you have noticed the "theme" going on here. I tried something a little different by stamping in Craft white and then mixing together SU! White EP, Iridescent Ice EP and Dazzling Diamonds Glitter then heat embossing. The glitter efffect does not quite come through in the picture.

Nothing fancy here except a rather blurry picture, sorry. This is a second stamping after coloring with markers and misting then stamping on watercolor paper. Around the edge is faux stitching and then double matted on circles using the wonderful Circle Scissor Plus. Another piece of HH was used but I mixed together some Crystal Effects with a little reinker to color the inside of the ribbon slide. The background is the En Francais stamp. I also removed the Circle Ice Rhinestones from the brad part and adhered with glue dots. I will get the last installment out in a little bit and then we'll put this project to bed! Thanks for looking.

Kindergarten Teacher Birthday Package Part 1

Ahhhhh, the sweet smell of success! I am finally finished with birthday present for my 6 y/o's kindergarten teacher. I really had a good time making this birthday package. For some reason, I had this overwhelming desire to use the Upsy Daisy set and along with the teacher's favorite color of purple the theme was set. The complete set consisted of a matching spiral bound notepad and pen, a chipboard coaster spiral bound post-it-note holder with matching pen, set of 6 gift boxed Upsy Daisy cards, and of course chocolate in a peek-a-boo box. I will post the second half of the gift set in my next post...hopefully a little later today. Oh, I almost forgot. I also altered the gift bag to coordinate with all the other goodies and included some stickers made for grading papers. The card designs were parital CASEs from Splitcoast with a "Dawn tweak" here and there. I sure do appreciate all the talent that Splitcoast showcases.

Thankful Thoughts

Okay, I am either late for last year or early for this year...you can decide. I am still uploading past projects as I have still not finished my current birthday package for my 6 y/o's teacher. Usually I get my second and third winds after everyone goes to bed, but here lately I have turned into an absolute couch potato and every other kind of lazy vegetable come 9 o'clock! I really must do better. Back to the project at hand...I made these little treat bags for my 3 y/o's Sharing Feast at Preschool this past November. This is a school wide feast where all the classes meet in the Fellowship Hall and celebrate before Thanksgiving break. Of course you will recognize the Top Note die used for the bag topper and it was actually stamped with the small background stamp in the Thoroughly Thankful set. The turkey is made from various colors of cardstock using the Scallop Punch. I included the recipe on the back of the snack bag with the meaning of each ingredient to remind us of our beginnings and our many blessings. Thanks for looking!

CASEing Again

Just sitting here finishing my Monday night routine with CSI: Miami and thought I would upload some pictures of this year's Sale-A-Bration cards. These were pretty much a direct case with a minor tweak here and there. I did these cards for a shoebox swap in January. Well, I really need to go make a birthday gift for my 6 y/o son's teacher...nothing like waiting til the last minute, huh? Hope everyone had a thoroughly enjoyable Easter weekend!

Altered Journals

I made these altered mini journals last year for the preschool teachers of my then 2 y/o. My oldest son did not have Ms. Robin and Ms. Tammy since he didn't start until he was 3, but these two ladies were such awesome teachers and I am so grateful my little Ethan was able to spend a year with them! I am now getting ready to alter some mini spiral bound notepads. There is a really good tutorial for these by Angie Kennedy Juda at http://chicnscratch.typepad.com/stampinacademy/2008/03/notepad-tutoria.html

Once I get the new ones made I will post some pictures. I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend!

Chipboard Coaster Photo Book

When my hubby got elected to the board of directors of the IWCA he started to do a lot more traveling so I wanted him to have a little piece of family and home to take with him on each trip. I made this little book out of heavy weight chipboard coasters from the American Coaster Company. The DSP is now retired and the name completely escapes me, but I believe it was one of the western themed papers. I hinged the coasters with pieces of chocolate chip grosgrain and then covered with the DSP. Inside I placed some matted family photos we had taken at our last church directory photo shoot and embellished with some rub-ons and a personal note. The book folds in a zig-zag manner and closes with a grosgrain ribbon tied in a bow.

In February my DH was in Atlanta for the annual IWCA convention, March 19-April 1 he worked in Asheville, NC, this evening he left for Winston-Salem, NC and will return on Saturday evening, April 30-May 2 he'll be off to Houston, TX....and this is just for the beginning of 2009. Considering I made this book 2 years ago you can imagine how many travels it has been through!

Retired But Still So Cute

When my oldest son was turning 5 (2007) he decided to have a pirate themed birthday

which thrilled me so I could use my Ahoy Matey stamp set. I was so sad to see it retire last

go round :-(

I had the best time making these and received so many compliments from the parents of the invited children. It was the first time of having a birthday party at our home and even though it was a pretty involved deal with it being a pool, bouncy house, water slide, hotdog/hamburger cookout party it was so worth it. Jack and his friends had such a great time! Last year we did a rock climbing party at an indoor climbing gym and it was really nice to leave all the setup and clean up to someone else. Okay, I was bummed that I could not find any stamp sets to make the invites and had to resort to using the gym's clip art invitations.

We have another b-day coming up in June and have yet to decide what a soon to be 7 year old may want to do this year. Maybe I can pull out my stamp sets and he can pick a theme from one of them...yeah, right!

Something for Mom

Yes, I am a SU! addict, however I can be inticed by other stamping companies...guess that means I am an equal opportunity stamper! I fell in love with the Williamsburg, VA area as a child and for a couple of years after college I lived and worked there as well. I found these stamps by Impression Obsession and made these cards for my mom quite some time ago. They are very detailed stamps perfect for watercoloring. I was asked by Mitra Friant, the owner of IO, if she could post these on her website as examples. Needless to say I was overwhelmed though quite pleased. I also have several lighthouse/seashore stamps from IO and as the colonial stamps remind me of my days in VA the coastal stamps remind me of the years I lived on the Outer Banks of NC. For anyone interested you can find Impression Obsession at

http://www.impression-obsession.com/

This day has been a special day for me. My hubby, 3 y/o son, and I were treated to lunch out by my in-laws for my birthday. I am so lucky to have such wonderful in-laws and it can never hurt when your M-I-L likes to stamp and craft too. Then the afternoon was spent chatting, playing with Ethan, relaxing, getting a SU! order, attending a positive end of quarter parent/teacher conference for my 6 y/o son, and then dinner out. I received several email birthday wishes from stamping friends I have never personally met. This day has reaffirmed all the blessings of friends, family, and the small things in life I am so fortunate to have and I am very grateful to be so blessed.

BIRTHDAY AND GIFT CARDS

I made these birthday cards and gift card holders back in February for my son's preschool teacher assistant and the support staff personel adopted by our class. The birthday cards were CASEd from Splitcoast and the gift card holder was CASEd from a shoebox swap I did in January

It's A Bun In The Oven!

No, not what you think! It's an adorable way to present a cupcake or muffin, or even a pair of socks that look like a cupcake! I found this fantastic little project through Lauren Meader's blog
http://laurenm.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/ . She designs some wonderful templates that can be found at: http://www.papertreyink.com/timeless_templates.html. I am not affliated in any way other than being a satisfied customer. I made these goodies for my 6 year old son's teachers and some staff members for Staff (Teacher) Appreciation Week. During the week of March 23-27 we celebrated Teacher Appreciation at my 3 y/o's preschool. We decided to do it then as to avoid all the chaos of having it in May when the national celebration takes place and all the other schools would be celebrating. We just knew we would have ours done, recuperate in April and do it all over again in May at the elementary school. Well, that was not to be the case! Half way through our week at the preschool we get an email and letter sent home stating the elementary school would be celebrating the week of March 30-April 3! Oh well, at least now we are done for the year.

Flash Back To March

Well, I thought I would step away from all the "girlie" posts and show my Top Note Leprechauns. I saw these little guys on at least two (possibly three) different blogs and pulled from here and there to come with with these. They are actually full cards so a message could go inside. Thanks to the ladies with the original designs at www.stamptillucramp.blogspot.com and www.technostamper.com and Beth Redding for the Top Note full card idea.

Ladies Tea

These are the favors I made for the Ladies Tea that took place the same weekend as the Mother-Daughter Tea. Their theme was "Drinking From My Saucer". I had never read that poem before, but as I was trying to come up with design ideas for the table tent cards I read it and knew that it had to be an integral part of the tent card. The friend that I made them for told me the ladies so enjoyed the favors and that she was so surprised at what I had done for the tent cards and that it was such a nice touch. I have this horrible problem of always bumping up my original project ideas and I am sure it probably hurts my bottom line financially, but I am one of those design by the seat of your pants people when it comes to original designs. I really must work on this. In this particular case the good will it extended more than made up of the extra effort. And not too mention my name did get passed on to a lady at another church that is in the planning stages for her tea party!

I Forgot the Thank You Card

I forgot to add the thank you card I made for my friend's tea party on the last post. I think it is very simple, but elegant. I used SU! Bella Toile background stamp, the new Texturz plates, square and round scallop punches and the Elegant Thank You stamp.

Mother-Daughter Tea Party

These are the party favors I made for a friend whose church was holding a mother-daughter tea party. The moms received this cute little keyring post-it-note and the daughters received the Top Note purse. Isn't amazing all the things you can make with this die? Inside this little purse is a cello bag of pastel M&M's. The purse idea I got from my upline and the keyring note was from one of the many blogs I visit. I will admit it now and very honestly. I do not consider myself very imaginative and creative, but I sure can CASE! If I ever do post an original I will certainly give it a shout out, but for the most part my projects are CASEd and I very much appreciate and admire those with that innate creativity and willingness to share! And on that note, thank you to Joyce Persenaire for finding the blog where the umbrella card was CASEd. For those wanting instructions look at Sarah Brevard's blog: http://craftaholicsanonymous.blogspot.com/

As if anyone could not tell, I am very new at this blog thing and do not know all the ins, outs, and blog etiquette....so I hope it is okay to show another person's blog address. I am also in awe of all those blogs I see that show their SU! websites, online ordering, video demos, etc...It took me way too long to verify my site for Webmaster Tools so if anyone is inclined to share their knowledge of how-to's I would be eternally grateful. As always, thanks for stopping by and I will try to add more photos in the next few days.