Mother’s Day gift packaging and card.

So I made this gift for my mom for Mother’s Day that I LOVED and I can’t show it to you because I used it on a design team application and they haven’t made their decision yet so I have to keep it to myself.  But I can show you how I very simply wrapped it.  I just got yellow tissue paper at the dollar store and used 4 or 5 layers, wrapped it around to the back and taped it on.  I wrapped ribbon around it and tied a bow.  The ribbon is from American Crafts. 

I tried my hand at making a flower out of crepe paper for this.  It’s really just twisting and turning the crepe paper while you wrap it around itself in circles until you decide your flower is large enough.  Then I flipped it over and glued it all together with clear glue on the back.  I have seen some people show instructions and they glue as they go along, but this way worked out okay for me.  I used a few gems in the middle and just attached it to the middle of my bow with a foam pop dot. 

And here’s the very simple card I made for my mother. 

I layered 3 Prima flowers together and used a pink crystal brad in the middle.

What do you think?

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Operation Write Home blog hop!

I am so happy to be participating in another blog hop with Operation Write Home.  I think it’s a fabulous organization, especially now that this young man is a soldier:

I’ve spoken about him before on the blog here.  He’s my soldier nephew and is about to turn 19 in a few weeks.  He graduated from boot camp in Fort Benning, Georgia in December and I wrote about the trip I made down to attend that and bring him home here. 

There might come a day when he’s one of the deployed soldiers and might appreciate a card from one of us, so I am happy to help make cards for the ones who are over there now fighting for our freedom. 

So…… if you didn’t come here as part of the blog hop and you want to play along with the hop and see the others’ blogs then go to the beginning right here. 

Here’s what I made and I’ll be sending in to Operation Write Home to give to the soldiers overseas.  Our theme was to make a red, white, and blue “missing you” card and this is what I came up with.

The top card has white paper flowers from Imaginisce and I inked them up with cat’s eye ink pads.  For the second card, I used a Martha Stewart butterfly punch on some vintage music pages and inked them up with a cat’s eye ink pads. 

If you’d like to participate with their cause, you can donate money for shipping costs or you can make cards and send them in to them anytime and they’ll ship them overseas to the troops.  They accept cards that are for a soldier, like a card thanking them for their service, and they also accept cards in all different themes for the soldiers to use to send cards home to their loved one.  You can read more information about the process on their website here.

And now you can go to the next blog in the hop and see what Nicolette made here.  I haven’t seen what she made for today, but she recently showed some hummingbird cards on her blog and they’re absolutely beautiful!  Go check her out!

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K is for Kiss…

This week Edie picked KISS for our theme on our photography site Sunday Shutterbugs.

Please click on over here to see our photos and share yours if you like!  Edie used a timer for hers and it’s awesome (as usual!)

Last week our theme was JAGGED.  I swear, that Edie picks the hardest words and really makes me work for my photos, really makes me use my thinking cap!  Here are a couple of my photos from last week that didn’t make the cut.

You can see which one I ultimately decided to go with here.

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Two cards.

I made two different cards with the same sheet of paper recently.  I usually only make the standard 4.25 x 5.5 or whatever that size is OR 5×7 cards, but this time I made a 5×7 card and then with the strip that got cut off I thought “Well, I’ll just use that too!”

This one was for a friend of mine who is just like me in that we are both so forgetful it’s pathetic, so I thought this Daisy Bucket rub-on was PERFECT and bought it just to use it on her card!

I sure hope you can read it!  I used American Crafts paper and American Crafts ribbon, and those diamond flourish-y things(what are those called?) are a stamp from Daisy Bucket Designs.

And here’s the card I whipped up with the leftover paper from the first card.

I’ve really been trying to use up what I have lately, and it really applied to this card.  That ribbon is something I’ve had forever sent to me by a friend and the design on the front is actually an old clear sticker from American Crafts.  I don’t think you can see in this photo how I applied rhinestones at the north, south, east, and west positions on the sticker.  Just a little something to sparkly it up.  I like my sparkly. 

Here’s a side view. 

I’m probably going to use this method of card making all the time, 2 cards from 1 sheet of paper!  As a former boss of mine would say, “get more bang for your buck!” 

What do you think?

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Teacher appreciation gift.

Here’s just a cute little something that my daughter took for her teacher this week (so far).  I mentioned before I had planned to do a whole week of sending a gift every day but it didn’t happen, so my new goal is at least 1 gift every week until the end of school, maybe more if I can swing it but I ain’t promisin…..

I saw this idea somewhere on the internet (can’t remember) and thought it was cute and VERY easy to do….and I’m all for EASY.

Cute, huh?  Anybody else doing teacher projects?  Leave a comment with a link.  I would love some ideas!

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Smoking Cessation For Dummies Kit.

So my Daddy-O and I struck a deal and sealed it with a handshake.  I would lose the last 30 pounds I need to attain my weight loss goal (I’ve already lost 50) and he would stop smoking once and for all.  And we will both accomplish our respective goals before the end of 2010.  Now, my dad has tried and failed to stop smoking MANY times, but this time I know he will actually DO it because we made a deal…..and we shook hands on it….and I know to my dad that means something.  But just to help him out a little bit I created this “smoking cessation for dummies kit.”  Maybe this will be his secret weapon?  ha ha

I used a super cute teal colored mini pompom trim from Inspiration Cottage on etsy (love that shop)

And here’s a shot of the lid.  There’s a lesson in this here lid….

The lesson is called “just let it go.”  See that stray pen mark on the right hand side?  I don’t have a circle cutter, okay?  Which means when I want a circle I have to use a saucer or coffee cup or something and trace it onto the paper.  Well, I traced it onto the wrong side of this paper, the actual side that I wanted to use instead of the back of it.  Argh.  And my hand slipped.  And it was the last scrap of this paper that I had.  So it was either use it with the stray pen mark or figure out a different paper to use.  Now, that stray pen mark was bugging me, okay…… but I just LET IT GO.  Dad isn’t going to care about that stupid pen mark.  And I know this little kit will be displayed in his man cave (garage) and it will get dirty and dusty and covered with who knows what, so it’s really not gonna matter in the long run.  So I let it go and as Ali Edwards would say, it is okay …….

Here’s a close-up shot of the label (I made the “bad” word smaller so my daughter wouldn’t notice so much)

Here’s a fabric flower I made for the lid just because I’ve had that strip of blue fabric in my jar of blue ribbons for literally years and I decided it was getting used today!  There are how-to videos and blog posts all over the internet on these flowers and now I know why…. because they are really cute and so easy to make!

And here is what I put INSIDE the kit:

I got a lot of these ideas from the internet by just googling “smoking cessation kit” or something like that. 

So…..what do you all think? 

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Rainy Fairy card.

A while back I showed a scrapbook page that I had made as a design team assignment using this digital stamp from The Stamping Boutique.  I printed several of them at that same time and had my daughter color them up for me.  I used one of them today for a card to a friend. 

Here’s the little fairy close up:

And here’s the card:

Just a quick little something to send her because I had some photos for her.  That fairy is called Rainy Cynthia Fairy and if you like her and you’re a digital stamp user, you can get her from The Stamping Boutique.

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Blog awards.

In the past month or so (which means probably 2-3), I have been given blog awards by two different bloggers.  Isn’t that nice?  Heidi from Cropstar gave me the “Sweet Blogger Award” and Kathy Carr gave me the “Sunshine Award.”  Seriously, how nice are these girls?  Huh?

But one of the rules is that I’m supposed to pass the award on to other bloggers! 

1.  Jennifer McGuire.  She’s just the nicest blogger and scrapbooker ever!  She’s always giving tutorials, telling in detail how she made her projects, having giveaways, and she does the Cards For Kids drive.  She’s adorable.  I look forward to her blog posts and to seeing what she’s been working on in my fave magazine, Creating Keepsakes.

2.  Deal Seeking Mom.  She is the queen of freebies and coupons.  I subscribe to her blog via e-mail and I swear there’s always something in there that I can use.  I especially loves when she tells about photo deals on prints and photo books because I take thousands of photos a year!  Photo deals = sunshine in my life!

3.  Colleen at Fresh Vintage.  She makes me laugh with her blog posts, sometimes until my stomach hurts!  And I love people who make me laugh.

4.  Cathy Zielske.  Another person who makes me laugh so hard my stomach hurts.  I adore her.  She’s a fabulous scrapbooker too.

1.  Dorothy.  She is always leaving such nice comments on my blog.  It’s always nice to “feel the love” from other crafty people!

2.  Katie.  She participates in my photo blog challenge that I do with my friend Edie (Sunday Shutterbugs) every week without fail.  And we appreciate that!

3.  Klo.  She is the queen of the Pazzles machine and is so generous with her time and knowledge on her blog with how-to videos and free files.  Love her for that.

4.  Kim at Dear Daisy Cottage.  I love the idea of living in a cottage (mine would be at the beach!) and her photos make me drool.  But besides that she’s the sweetest thing.  And her dog?  Oh my goodness, every time I see her little Maggie it makes me think of my little Suzie (I miss her).  When I mentioned to her that I lost my Suzie, she sent me the SWEETEST email ever.  And I usually hate music on blogs and immediately turn it off if I’m able, but something about hers is very soothing and pleasant so I leave it on.

And that’s all folks!

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Making Memories ROCKS.

I just want to send some love out to Making Memories for a minute.  I have been scrapbooking for almost 14 years now (suddenly I feel old now….) and have tried every paper trimmer that Fiskars makes, several Cutterpede, Carl, all of them with no luck cutting a straight line.  It has made me nuts for years.  I have tried everything to perfect the way I’m holding the paper on the trimmer, the way I’m rolling the blade, etc., just in case it’s ME that’s defective.  ha ha  But no matter what I’ve done, it never helped.  Then I finally got the folding Making Memories paper trimmer, and I fell in love.  I’ve had it for a couple of years now.  But that’s not even my point!  It has this long plastic piece that I think is a safety guide or something, never really paid much attention to it….until it broke off.  And I wasn’t hating on Making Memories for that or anything…..shit happens, okay?  But I’ve never seen replacment pieces in a store for this and I didn’t know what to do, and I NEEDED one because the rotary blade will NOT cut without this plastic piece.  So I went to Making Memories’ website and I contacted customer service to ask how to go about getting a replacment piece for my trimmer. 

And I am not even kidding you, literally 3 days later a box was dropped off on my doorstep with a brand spanking new plastic piece thingie.  Are you kidding me?  THAT, my friends, is what you call good customer service!  I have always loved Making Memories products, they’re my favorite brand, and back in 2009 when I was begging companies for donations to auction off for my trip to Anita, Making Memories was the first company I e-mailed and believe it or not something like 4-5 days later I received a box full of stuff for the auction.  That made me love them even more, of course, but this puts the icing on the cake. 

I love this kind of service.  I can’t stand bad customer service, and I think when someone provides great customer service they should be praised, so THANK YOU Making Memories!  You guys totally ROCK!

P.S.  No, Making Memories did not ASK me to say nice things about them or give me free stuff so I would say nice things about them.  I just wanted to of my own free will. 

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Wishes in the wind.

This week the challenge for Practical Scrappers is to use punches, of which I don’t have very many so it was a bit of a challenge!  This is what I came up with:

(I love that Martha Stewart butterfly punch!  And I love the little girl rub-on from Daisy Bucket Designs!)

You can go over to Practical Scrappers and see the other design team girls’ projects here.  Perhaps you’d like to make a page or card and join in the challenge?

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