greetingarts

shower favors

My cousin is having a baby, a girl!  I'm so excited, because I finally get to hand down some of those precious girly infant clothes I've been hanging onto for nearly nine years. 

 
And I got to use my Sizzix Big Shot and the Stampin' Up! Baskets and Blooms die to make some shower favors in my cousin's favorite sunny color.  I wanted to put lemon drops in them with a little "Thanks for dropping by" tag (get it?), but couldn't find wrapped lemon drops... so had to make do with butterscotch disks.

 
They looked pretty cute under the gazebo in the park where her shower was held. 

Can't wait to meet that baby!

apples for the teachers

I don't know why our school district chose to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week one week after National Teacher Appreciation Day, but... there you have it, that's what we did.  So last week we had our teacher appreciation luncheon, and I made some gifts for the wonderful teachers my girls been lucky enough to have, past and present. 

 
Ever since I came across a tutorial on these apple decorations a long while back, I knew I wanted to make some.  So this year I made four, put magnets on the back, and gave them to Rebecca's past teachers and Jessica's current Kindergarten teacher (who happened to have taught Rebecca first grade - two birds, one stone paper apple!).  They were a huge hit, and to be quite honest, I didn't really feel much guilt about cutting up a library discard book about contact lenses, glasses and spectacles, published in the fifties and horribly out of date.

 
Totally worth it, I think.

happy birthday, baby

 
I brought some treats for Jessica's classmates this afternoon, Play-Doh fancied up to look like cupcakes.  I first saw the general idea here, but instead of covering the labels with scrapbooking paper (which I would have to measure and cut to length, then adhere), I simply used decorative cupcake liners (which seem to multiply in my pantry even though I haven't bought any in years).

 
 And since I had a ton of crepe paper roses lying around from last year's teacher appreciation day, taking up valuable craft space, I just snipped the heads off, used my trusty mini glue gun and stuck them directly onto the Play-Doh lids. 

 
Now, I can switch gears and get ready for Easter next Sunday if I can just shake this darn cold I've got, and, more importantly, keep the kiddos from catching anything from me.

 
Happy birthday, Jessica, my baby.  I can't wait to see what every day of being six means for you.

47 hearts in a heartbeat

With both kids in school and class sizes increasing, I thought I was going to be in a bit of trouble with handmade class gifties for parties and things this year, but we got Valentine's Day all taken care of with no problem.

Jessica will be handing out 25 origami hearts, but instead of lollipops, ours contain miniature heart crayon/pencil thingies I bought at the after-Valentine's sale at Target last year.  I love how the heart looks like an oversized jacket and the smiley face pokes out of the top.

Rebecca decided on Friday after school that she wanted little crocheted heart ornaments like these, so I got out some small balls of yarn leftover from making socks and toys, used the pattern from Little Birdie Secrets (so darn easy to remember!), and made 20 in less than an hour.  The tags were die cut with my good old Sizzix.

 
And of course a little something for the teachers, plastic wine glasses filled with Cherry Cordial M&Ms and Valentine's ribbon.  I'll show you what I made for the kiddos some other time, for now I have to run off to help out with two classroom parties!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.  May there be lots of love in your life, today and always.

small packages

Assembly line crafting... I love it.

 
The methodical, meditative kind of automatic crafting where the only thing you have to think about is which colors and patterns look nicer together.  And seeing the stack of finished product pile up... 10, 20, 30 and more... so satisfying.

 
I used my Sizzix Big Shot (mine is a pink Hello Kitty model that was discontinued) and the Stampin' Up! Matchbox die, plus some scrapbooking cardstock and decorative paper that I bought in a pack at Joann years ago.  Add four pieces of chocolate that fit perfectly inside, also decoratively wrapped, tie some thin ribbon in a knot and you're good to go.

I don't feel like Christmas is three days away.  I'm just now beginning to feel easier about Jessie's injury, it's funny how much more resilient she is than I am.  But with Christmas right around the bend, and me hosting Christmas Eve dinner, I'm amazingly relaxed and not running around like a madwoman. Which, in itself, makes me a little stressed... like, I feel like I'm forgetting something and should be doing more?  Oh, whatever, don't mind me.  Yes, I just make myself crazy, don't need any help on that front.  Oh, you know what?  I do have some last minute knitting to do for my husband, that should keep me busy enough.

full days

Can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving, the days (weeks!) have been so full.

There has been a lot of much-needed cleaning, painful purging of the girls' closets, and even some stamping, cutting, pasting and knitting.  But no time for blogging!

monster boxes and costumes

Happy Halloween!

The minute I saw these on Liz's blog, I knew I had to make them for teacher gifts this year.  They went together *so* quickly, and even though I didn't have Rolos or Reese's cups for the bolts on the sides, I think the Hershey's kisses worked fine.  Let's face it, even if I did have the Reese's cups, I would've eaten them and not used them on these boxes...

And here are the girls in their costumes for this year.  Kai-Lan and the Not Mad Scientist.  Rebecca was adamant that she *not* have her hair all frizzed out and looking crazy, she wanted to be a serious scientist.  We're also going to equip her with a glow stick that goes inside a plastic test tube, for her radioactive experiment.  Both girls thought of their costumes on their own, I just helped assemble them.  Jessica's came courtesy of Target's clearance rack (orange leggings - $2.48, blue T-shirt - $3.98, red hand-me-down shoes from ??? - free), and Rebecca's white lab coat  came from my closet, the goggles were free from Lowe's, and the glasses are an old pair of mine with the lenses removed.  Awesome.

Getting ready for trick-or-treating in a few hours, hope you have a fun and festive night!

last day gifts

The weeks leading up to the last day of school were absolutely crazy for me.  Knitting and crocheting deadlines, helping Rebecca's teacher take down the stuff on the walls and pack up books and everything to switch classrooms, inventory for the school library, community club meetings, another Book Fair, doing final Box Tops and Campbell's Labels mailings, and getting rewards out to the students and faculty.  I was there by 8 in the morning and left well after 3, sometimes later than most of the staff.  I'd resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to be able to make any gifts for anyone except Rebecca's amazing teacher, and though I felt a little bit bad about it, I knew it was the smart, sane thing to do.

I used the Note Taker pattern from Kathy, and made the small size with these great school-themed fabrics I've been collecting.  I left out the stabilizer and just reinforced with double layers of fusible interfacing (frankly, because that's all I had!), so now it's washable if necessary.  The girls drew their own cards, and I wrote a heartfelt note to a truly remarkable woman.

 
I finished all the sewing by Monday night (last day of school was Thursday) and when I went to the closet to pull out a notepad, dang!  Not one was to be found.  So I grudgingly went to Staples, armed with my Rewards Coupon, and went to get a 5" x 8" notepad. 

 
As I was trying to decide between yellow, white, unbleached, recycled, wide-, narrow- or college-ruled, I found these Mini Writing Tablets, in pink, green, yellow, and purple.  They came five to a pack, and were marked at 99 cents.  The wheels started turning, and suddenly I knew I could do something inexpensive, fast and easy for Rebecca's classmates, too.  And even better, when I got to the checkout counter, the packs of tablets rang up at 50 cents each!  And with my $9 rewards check, I didn't end up paying a dime for anything.  Whoo hoo!

 
I had a stack of black construction paper left over after taking down one of the teacher's bulletin boards, and I thought I could make covers for the pads so that they looked like faux chalkboards.  Of course, I first had to check with Rebecca to make sure the kids still knew what a chalkboard was, but she assured me she did.  She'd seen one in a movie before, she said.  Ha!  Anyway, I cut the paper down to size (3.5" x 5"), plus about an inch extra in length so I had enough to wrap around the top to the back of the pad.  I used double stick tape, easy peasy.  Then Rebecca drew on them with chalk, we printed "Happy Summer" labels with her name and email address on them and stuck them on the inside front cover, and that was that.  I didn't even have to stay up late!

much appreciated

I made dozens and dozens (didn't really count) of miniature crepe paper roses for the teachers' luncheon last Wednesday, using this cute video and other folded ribbon rose techniques.  I bought the same dollar store streamers, every color they had except for blue (though Jessie really wanted me to make some blue roses).  I used nearly an entire roll each of red, white, pink and yellow, and one and a half rolls of green.  Almost every teacher and staff member commented on them and wanted to know how they were made, and I think they realized the time and effort that was invested in making them.  It made me feel so nice that they were so well received. 

I found some assorted jam, salsa and baby food jars, wrapped them in tissue paper and tied a ribbon around the lip, and put in as many miniature paper roses as would fit.  Along with real cut roses and other potted plants, they lined the center of each row of tables.

You'd feel appreciated, wouldn't you?

five really fast

For Teacher Appreciation Day last Tuesday, I had five gifts to make and I got them done in less than an hour.  Only three made it into the photo, but you get the idea.

4" x 6" acrylic frames, great scrapbooking cardstock (yes, it's still the same stack but I'm starting to run low) cut to size, some ribbon and colorful 3"x3" Post-It notes, and there you go.  Super simple, but still useful for the teachers, I think, and lets them know how much we truly do appreciate them.  The girls wrote notes on the first sheet of Post-It's and signed their names before giving them out.  Jessie had two, and Rebecca gave one to each of her teachers, past and present.  Her current teacher also got little treats each day of the week.  By the time both girls are in school and in the upper grades, I'm going to have to make like a dozen things all at once!  Hmmm.  Better start collecting ideas.