Love Him

On the last day of school last week I went with the 8th grade class to the lake. I got there a little bit early and thought I would kill some time and walk around the school and church grounds. Behind the church is a beautiful cemetery. When you walk in the cemetery if you look straight down the path you will see this beautiful crucifix all the way at the end. It was such a gorgeous day and I thought I would walk around and take a few pictures. I just love this photo! I did play around with it a little bit in Picasa but I just love the way that it turned out! I wanted to focus on Him so saturated the photo in color then made the background black and white and blurred the edges a bit. I just can't believe what a statement this makes. Can you?

Thanks for peekin' in...hope you have a great weekend!

Teachers Gifts

Things have been busy here at our house this week! Today was the kids last day of school AND Haley had 8th Grade promotion last night! How exciting is that? I can't believe that she is finished with grade school! Time flies so quickly! I will make another post with photos from graduation soon. I took a vacation day today to go to the lake with the 8th grade students and a few other parents. It is a tradition that Fr. Eck takes the 8th grade students out to the lake for water skiing after their promotion. How cool is that? Fr. Eck is in his 80's! I was so happy to be a part of the day...we had a blast! I will make another post with photos from today in a few days!

But hey...let's chat about the teacher's gifts! I wanted to do something special for her teachers because they really are a great pair of gals and can you imagine 17 7th and 8th graders 8 hrs a day? I know teaching is rewarding but I also know as the mother of a teenager that sometimes it can be a challenge and these gals are simply wonderful! I made them personalized cards and tried to fit their personalities with the colors.




Last year I purchased the Justright stamp sets, which allow you to make really neat monogrammed cards. I also purchased a little alphabet set so that I could make the border that says "From the desk of" and personalize it with their names at the bottom. Here is a close up of the tag. To make the perfect little circles and scalloped circles I used Spellbinders dies. I put the white cardstock through my cuttlebug with the smooth circle, then proceeded to cut the scalloped circles and layer them together. To break up the white cardstock a little bit I chose a lighter color of ink that would match the card and stamped a floral design over the initials in the middle of the card.

Here is a look at the alphabet set. It comes with these cute little tweezers...and believe me they come in handy!

Here is what the Justright kit looks like. There are several sets to choose from and recently they have started to branch out and make some really cute sets. They carry them at All That Scraps online store, which if you haven't checked them out you should. They have some great products over there and their shipping is very reasonable!

Well thanks for checkin' in on me! Hope your having a great week...can't wait for the weekend...it's my birthday on Monday and a holiday weekend...BONUS!!

U did it!

Happy Friday to you! We have had some interesting weather here this evening....thunderstorms and a few tornadoes! Hopefully that is all past us now through. The kids were supposed to have a dinner/program out at the school this evening but with everything developing so quickly out by the school I opted to stay home instead. They were okay with it...I think they had a long day today and were glad to be home anyway.

Like my cards? This is one of my newest Bella stamps. I got her to make these cute little cards for some friends of mine at work. I have had my eye on her for over a year now and finally decided that I really wanted to add her to my collection! Both of my friends graduated from WSU either this weekend or last so I made the cards using the WSU colors. On the card below I used my new Martha Stewart border punch. Like it? I picked it up at Walmart for $13!



Now on this card...I used the Cuddlebug and the swirly embossing folder to make that pretty design to the right of Bella. I put the card together and decided that it needed a bit more definition so I used charcoal chalk ink and inked up the embossed swirls. The gingham ribbon on both cards is from SU. The yellow used on the Bella stamps (as well as the colored spots they are standing on) are done with Prisma markers and the gowns are colored using a black colored pencil and blender pen.



Thanks for peekin' in! Hope you guys have a great weekend! We are gearing up for a busy week here. My oldest is graduating from 8th grade on Tuesday evening! I can't believe my baby is so grown up!

Mother's Day

Hope you all had a wonderful Mother's day...I sure did! My step daughter is preggers with her first little bambino and due June 24th so I thought I would make her a Mother's Day card. She cracks me up because she looks a lot like this card right now...she just has a little basketball right in front...from behind she doesn't even look pregnant!

This is a Bella Stamp called Teddybella and I colored her using Prisma alcohol markers. I opted for the Prisma versus the Copic markers because the Copics are so darn expensive! I am not sure what brand the patterned paper is because it is scraps from another project and the ribbon is from Walmart! The little flowers are from Prisma and the brads are Making Memories.

Sorry I have been MIA for a while...May is just one of those busy months...you know how it goes! Thanks for peekin' in on me. Hope you are having a great week!

The Good Ol' Pumpkin Patch

Hi friends! Are we about tired of this wet Kansas weather yet? I sure am! I am ready for the sunshine to stay for a while!
Yesterday I thought I would finish a layout that I started working on earlier in the week. This was a trip we made to the Pumpkin Patch back in 2006. It was especially cold this year...I remember it had rained pretty good so we couldn't go out in the field to pick our own pumpkin as the road was too muddy for the tractor to pull us out there without getting stuck. So we just picked out our pumpkin from the many that they had on display. We took Mike's nephew Mark with us. He was so excited to go, he had been sick the day that his class went to the pumpkin patch so he was so happy when we asked him to go along with us.

Now for the recipe to this page...the cardstock is Bazzill and the felt accents are from Queen & Com, they are called felt fusion and here is the best part....they are self adhesive! This was the first time that I used them and they are so neat because they come in a string...just like the leaves but if you only want to use a few of them then you just cut them away from the others...like I did with the pumpkins. Pretty cool huh? We all know how much I love bling so I added a few orange adhesive gem stones that I placed here and there on the green leaves. The gem stones are from a company called My Mind's Eye.

And here is a fun little journaling block that I made. I used the Stampin Up punch but they don't sell this one anymore and I can't remember the name of it...isn't that terrible? It is a corner punch that just takes two little nips out of the corner for a decorative edge. I thought it would be fun to spice up the journaling block a little bit.

Well, thanks for peekin' in...hope you are having a great week! Talk to you soon!