Graduation Sequin Shaker Card

I can't believe all of the "children" that are graduating this year. Time really does fly. 

This was a fun shaker card that I whipped up for one of said graduates.

I tried to find "Pinto Green" to represent the local school and this was as close as I could get.

I paired the cards with some cookies that I'd made.

The tag on the cookies said, 

"You're one smart cookie!"

Have a great week.

Today is my beloved husband's birthday and in a few days we celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. 

SO EXCITING!

Families Are Forever Scrapbook Steals Daisy #2

I haven't done a Mid Week Mojo in what feels like forever. 

This is taken from their Daisy #2 Sketch

However, I had a visit from a dear friend last week who so lovingly showed me the scrapbook that she made for her daughter who lives in heaven now and it made me realize that I really need to do something for Isaiah. I need to do it for me and for my children so that they can have something to look through that is all about him and them and this special time in our lives. That's what this hobby is for, isn't it. I know I won't share every page I make here, on the blog, some are just too tender. But, I'm getting better at handling this thing we call grief and this is okay for me now.

So, I printed out one of the pictures that the nurses took at the hospital and used my Silhouette to cut out the title. I love how it wraps around the picture. I used a piece of my architectural trace paper that I actually cut from the edge of one of my college drawings and pleated it, sewed it and adhered it to the page. SRM stickers and some washi along with basic grey flare and adhesive cork finish it off.

I hope you find scrapbooking as therapeutic as I do and that it gives you as much joy as it does me.

Have a great week.

Mother's Day Lace Card

Heidi Swap Doily Spray Stencil makes a great base for this card.

 I added some vintage lace trim that actually came from my mom.

I hope she likes it.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you wonderful mothers out there.

Thanks Teacher Paper Smooches Smarty Pants

It's TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK!!!

I whipped up these cards so that my kids can write notes to their teachers and tell them

just how awesome they are...or scribble...whatever works :)

I stamped the bookworm and the sentiment from the Paper Smooches Smarty Pants set and then I used Studio Calico Spritzes to create a color wash in the corner. Finally, I stamped a few stars and the alphabet confetti stamp from Stampin' Up in Wild Wasabi to finish it off.

So CUTE! I hope that my kids share some heartfelt gratitude with their teachers.

Have a great week.

The Making and Evolution of a Fairy Garden

I was feeling pretty crummy today so I decided to do something crafty with the kids.

I've seen those fairy gardens all over the place and thought that would be a great Sunday activity to get the whole family involved in.

We started with a big rock as our fairy house (we may get something different because it was hard to come up with a roof for this one. Finding flat stones, we created a path.

Then we found some dried out stems out in the garden and clipped them down.

The fun part was finding round rocks that resembled mushroom tops. I painted them red and added white dots. The "stems" are made with round elongated stones.

It's shaping up.

This "stump" is a hollyhock stem that had a little hole in it. I glued some other stems to it for bulk.

the fence was created by cutting down dried out stems and connecting them with cross pieces.

Added in some Spanish Moss that's been in my craft area forever.

Tess HAD TO HAVE a swing. So some snipped stems and a little twine later our fairy has a swing.

 

We were wanting a stream, but this pot just isn't that big so we had to come up with a bitty pond instead. I used a little sample cup and glued flat stones all around the top of it. Added in some green and blue glass pebbles for water and called it good for now.

I think we'll add another level with a stick ladder leading from the lower pot to the upper. This is so much fun. The boys want to build a mailbox next. 

Our fairy needs a door on her house and maybe the path will be narrowed so we can plant some seeds alongside it. Hope your weekend was wonderful. 

Stay crafty my friends.

BIG NEWS Ribbon Carousel Design Team

I have some lovely news for you all. I will be joining the amazing Ribbon Carousel Design Team! 

How awesome is that?!?!

My first task was to make something that had to do with a celebration.

You can link up your creations and be entered to win some goodies.

 I had lots of fun with this one...washi and twine and ribbon...lots of spooled yumminess.

I hope you stop on by the Ribbon Carousel Blog and link up your creation. They're 

celebrating their 3rd BIRTHDAY!!! 

RCC Challenge 91

PARTY TIME

Holiday Inspirations Mother's Day

Hello and welcome to another great round of inspired goodness.

I am happy to be joining in.

I recently made this card for my local Scrapbook Store

The Hen House Paperie

The goodies Ms. Charlene gives me each month are always fun to figure out how to use. I thought they would make a perfect Mother's Day card. Hope you do too.

Such a soft and feminine card.  I sewed around each of the layers on the card.

Base: Bazzill

Patterned Paper: Authentique

Die: Memory Box Precious Butterflies Die

Pearls: KaiserCraft Champagne Pink

Ribbon: May Arts

Stamp: Penny Black From the Heart

Silver Shimmer Paper: Petallics

I hope this inspires you to go out there and make a sweet card for your mama!

Have a great weekend.

Be sure to check out all the blogs for tons of crafty Mother's Day Inspiration.

 You should have come here from Annette's Blog. Now go check out to Ardyth's.

Donna Bowman

Rachel Kleinman

Angi Barrs

Annette Allen

Misty Buck  You are HERE!

Ardyth Percy-Robb

Geri Greening

Libby Hickson

Jennifer Cuthbertson

Ceal Pritchett

Laundry Room (Area) Makeover Update

I will be sharing more pictures when things come together even more but I'm happy to say that at least ONE are of my home is complete (almost ;)).

Just a few tiny things need to get taken care of.

One of the things that I'm glad I did was buy new light bulbs. I purchased the GE Reveal bulbs and I think

that they really do make a difference in how things look.

I love our new vinyl flooring by the back door. We were going to put wood back there but realized that we get a ton of wet/muddy foot traffic back that way so we went with the floating vinyl tiles.

My washer and dryer are not a matching set...no biggie...they get the job done but you could see the hoses behind my washer so I used some leftover fabric from when I made over the stereo cabinet and made a little curtain. I honestly made it in less than fifteen minutes. It's not perfect but it gets the job done.

Oh, and the food storage containers will be going back into the kitchen when I'm finished painting in there so it will be nice and open in the laundry area (not really a room :).

I was thinking of making a cute sign to hang in there over the cabinets.

So, what do you think?

Hope you're having a great week.

Good Friends are So Good To Have

There are some people that come into your life and just make it so much more special to be alive.

They brighten each day and help burdens feel light.

I love the song "Have I Done Any Good In the World Today".

Having a friend that epitomizes this song is a true blessing. 

Hope you're having a blessed day.

We are the Lord's hands here upon the earth.

Watch it :).

Memory Box: Butterfly Die

Spellbinders: Labels Die

Penny Black: Stamp

Martha Stewart: Doily Punch

Snow Day in Spring: Impression Obsession Bouquet

So, today is the first day of my children's spring break.

Wouldn't you know that it would SNOW overnight while we 

slumbered comfortably in our beds.

Hopefully these cards will brighten the day though.

I created them for The Hen House.

I used a Wink of Stella glitter pen in dark pink to really give the flowers some shimmer.

 And here's another take on the same stamp.

This time I made an array with the papers and cropped the stamp.

Hope your week is sunny and bright and filled with spring flowers.

Head on over to The Hen House Blog for some more details.

More home remodel "PROGRESS" tearing out wall tile.

Seriously, it's like one step forward, two steps back over here.

 It all started on Saturday when I decided that the cobalt blue tile had to go. 

It was bringing my kitchen down man ;).

I have loved that tile for since we installed it years ago, but it is too dark for the new kitchen.

So, what happens when you try pulling tile off of your drywall...THIS!

It literally ripped pieces of the wall off and we had to cut out the entire section of wall to the studs.

So now I have to buy some 3/8" drywall and put it up before my vision can be realized. Sheesh.

The only good thing is that I won't really have to tape and texture because my vision involes

WALLPAPER!!!

Interestingly enough that's what this wall started out having. You can see that I never changed it out behind the stove. It's REALLY lovely (gag) country pink and blue...everybody's favorite.

Hope your weekend is shaping up to be amazing.

General Conference for my church was so uplifting. Getting to listen to that while working on my house AND having my husband home for the weekend was pretty awesome.

Stay crafty my friends and pray for me...

living in this chaos is getting old.

Welcome to the Kiwi Lane April Blog Hop. I'm so happy to be joining this wonderful group of girls in using such fun tools. This weekend I'll be featuring the 

Celebrate template set.

On this layout I used the pennant and the ticket stub templates that come with the kit. My son has a best friend that he is growing up with and I just love these "through the years" layouts. See how tiny they were and now they're getting so big. The templates are so easy to work with, just trace and cut. Little effort for lots of wow!

The second project I created using the balloon and wavy templates. I had this great sparkly paper and I knew it would be wonderful paired with the cute balloons. I added a little twine and washi and ended up with a perfect celebration card!

 The blog hop will run through 11:59 PM MST on Sunday April 6TH. a random winner from ONE of the participating blogs (including the Kiwi Lane blog), will be given a $25 gift certificate to the Kiwi Lane Shop, for leaving a comment and will be announced on the Kiwi Lane blog on Thursday, April 10TH. 

Have fun visiting all the stops along the way.

Jennifer Nicholes is up next.

Kiwi Lane http://kiwilane.com/here/blog/

Gail Owens http://glowormdesigns.blogspot.com

Catherine Povec http://www.tybearsmom.blogspot.com

Jennifer McDermott http://wonkywares.blogspot.com

Kristy Lee http://lifescrapped.blogspot.com

Heather Conklin http://goldiecar.blogspot.com/

Misty Buck http://www.mistylynnwhat.blogspot.com/

Jennifer Nicholes http://craftingmoments.wordpress.com/

Barb Rapp http://www.mommaducksblog.blogspot.com/

Christina Steel http://tinasscrapcrap.blogspot.com/

Gracias Good Morning

Still making and handing out thnak you cards. I used my left overs from my Hen House DT post to make up this sweet card. I really like the way it came together.

What Does the Fox Say?

Seriously, loving this little set from the Sweet Stamp Shop. Washi tape is from Stampin'Up. I need to finish up my house so I can play more. ;) Hope you're having a wonderful week.

Home Remodel PROGRESS??? If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Analogy

I feel like the story of this remodel is like the book "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie".

If you give Misty new flooring then she's going to want new cupboards to go with it ;).

As you can tell, I've been MIA from paper crafting for a while. That's because I just HAD TO go and start on a LITTLE remodel project for our home. We REALLY needed new flooring as our carpet was 20+ years old. Also, the tile we had put in about six or seven years ago was cracking and coming up in places (guess you get what you pay for). So, that led to me pulling up A LOT of tile...and led to us pulling out the carpet. 

We purchased some really nice laminate flooring at Costco and we were going to do the whole house with it, minus the bedrooms.

But then we kept thinking we might not want laminate in the laundry area/mud room because it gets wet and used a lot in the winter. That led to me buying this vinyl floating floor stuff that looks like slate.

But then that led to my house looking like this!

And this. Heaven help me. I knew once we put the laminate in that I would think there was altogether TOO MUCH WOOD in my kitchen...so I'm in the middle of painting all of my cupboards Heirloom White by Rustoleum. Love that color. You can see it here on my Stereo Cabinet makeover.

But then that led to fixing a bunch of the drywall in the laundry area so that I can paint it :)

So, the floor is finished back here, not that you can tell. We'll be texturing and painting this week.

 

something along the lines of this color.

Have a super week...I have to go weave around some paint cans to get to my bed now. ;)

My Creative Daughter Harry Potter Wand #9, Name: Unknown

The other day my daughter came in and asked me where "that white box was that was by the fire". I told her where it was and later this is what she came out with.

WAND #9

This Wand:

has a golden handle with turquoise on the rest of the wand and a powerful marble at the end.

In the wrong hands it could be dangerous.

Signed

Tessa

We made these wands a while back using chopsticks and hot glue. It was such a fun afternoon activity. 

I love that she has such an imagination.

I wonder where it will take her.

Have a super duper weekend.

St.Patrick's Day Book Page Shamrock Banner

Looking for something fun to craft for St. Patty's

This banner is pretty simple. I cut out the shamrocks from book pages and then used scrap papers at angles to fill in the negative space. 

To see more follow the link

SHAMROCK BOOK PAGE BANNER

I'm over at The Hen House Paperie.

Coloring with Prismacolor pencils and Wink of Stella.

Check it out!

Thrifty Monday is here, Prada Boots for $1

I have been in search of a comfy pair of black boots pretty much all winter. I'm still on the look out for a nice pair of riding boots, but I just couldn't pass up these girls.

PRADA for $1

It's so nice when life says, "Yes, here's a sweet pair of Pradas that actually fit you!"

All leather interior and non skid soles. Perfect for our crazy weather here. Thanks LIFE!

Hope you're having a thrifty day today too!