Recycle for fun!

Hi girlfriends! How are you? Seems like forever since I posted! I can't believe the month is almost over (tonight in fact) and I haven't blogged that much! What can I say the girls are back in school and things have been busy around here. I have managed to get a little crafting time in which makes me so happy!! I have had these little tea tins for a long time with this idea in my head but haven't had the time to make them. One night I sat down and decided...it's time! So here is what I came up with. I thought these would be so much fun to give as a little birthday gift with a little "starter money" inside. All of the girls are bellas with the exception of the little chick with the glasses, I purchased her through All that Scraps web store. Speaking of web store did you see my new blinkie for Ellen Hutson? You gotta check those gals out! I have been trying to build up my Copic Marker collection and they have them for $4.99, which is a really great deal!

Well the first football game is Friday night but the first home game isn't until later in September, we only have 4 home games and most of them are all in a row so we will be pretty busy on Friday evenings. Sidney decided to play softball for the 7th/8th grade team so I am sure that will take up some of our evenings pretty soon too! Life is good!

Thanks for peekin' in friend! Hope all is well with you!

Silhouette

Hi friends! How are you doing on this Memorial weekend? I just want to take a minute to thank all of our service men and women for what they do for this country each and every day. Thank you for protecting the freedom that we have in this country. My heart goes out to all of those serving currently as well as all of their families, we pray for you all...God Bless You!

A few weeks ago I thought it would be fun to make Whitney a silhouette of Angelina for Mother's Day...I totally cased the idea from Emily...check her cute little blog out here. Here are my little step by step instructions should you feel so compelled to whip this fun little project out too!

It is super hard to take a profile picture of a small child! They are so fast! This picture here was the best that I could come up with. It was even a little blurry but it really doesn't matter as we will be painting it black.

Ok so I just cut her right out of the picture...I even gave her wavy hair in the back!

Then I got out the acrylic paint and a sponge brush and gave her a nice even color.



Taadaa! Here is the end result.
Picture frame...$3
Paint & Supplies...$2
Time to make the project...10 minutes plus drying time
Feeling of satisfaction...priceless!



Thanks for peekin' in on me this weekend! Hope you have a wonderful Memorial Day!

Birthday Tin

Hi Friends! How are you this evening? I have had a crazy week and am so glad the weekend is here! I think this was the busiest week this month and now I can start to relax a little bit! Sidney was invited to a little birthday party tonight and I was trying to think of something fun to get the little girl for her birthday. As luck would have it I have a very creative friend, Michele AKA Whimsical Creations, and she did the cutest little birthday tin. I thought it was so cute and at the time when I was reading her blog I didn't know that Sidney had a party this weekend. So there I was sitting there last night trying to figure out what to do for a gift and I remembered that I have had one of these little tins just begging to be used so I did and this is how it turned out! A big thanks to Michele for the great idea...you should go check her blog out here! We ended up filling the tin with everything pink...nail polish, lotion, and lip gloss!

Tomorrow after I pick Sidney up the girls and I will be doing some holiday baking and Sunday afternoon we are decorating our Christmas tree. It has become a tradition that we go pick up our Godson and he helps us decorate the tree too...he is so much fun! He's only 4 years old and so full of life! I just love the little stinker!

Thanks for peekin' in! Hope this post finds you well and warm!!

Envelope mini book

Hi friends! This is a class that I am doing for a lunch and learn at work. I have been teaching these little lunch and learn classes at work for a few years now and the ladies really seem to enjoy it. They bring their sack lunch and I show them how to make something scrappy over the lunch hour...sometimes we run a bit over but it's good to get out and do something fun at work every once in a while! I struggle to find projects that we can do in that short of time and I was so excited when this one worked out! It is so inexpensive to make and that is another nice thing...especially in this economy. Can you imagine the cool little books you could make for Christmas? Or just a fun little memory book? I made mine with photos of my grandparents. I wanted to jot down fun memories I have of them so that when I get older and forget things...which is already starting...I can flip through this book and say...hey I remember that! Plus my kids will have it to look back on too! I got this way cool idea from Marion at A Piece of Craft...check her blog out here. She does some really exciting stuff!

Here is the skinny on the project. You make this out of regular envelopes. You can either buy them or save the ones that you get in the mail with junk and recycle...cool huh? For my book I bought the regular sized bill envelopes and cut them in half. Then I sealed the sides so it makes a pocket that opens on the top. Here is the greatest part...are you ready??? NO MEASURING PAPER!! I love it! If you want step by step video instructions check Marion's video out here.

Can you believe another week has just about zipped by? I am so glad that tomorrow is Friday. We went to parent teacher conferences tonight. This was my first time going to high school conferences. We stood in line for 40 minutes to talk to one teacher! Oh well it was worth it though! Have a great day tomorrow...hope everyone is feeling well at your place!

Weekend fun!

Hi Friends! How are you doing? It is so cold here in Kansas! I can't get over how cold it was today, in fact I am not really sure we got over 43 today! Hope you are doing well this weekend. I wanted to share some pictures with you of our week. Whitney came down for a few days with the baby and we had a great time! We really wanted to go to the pumpkin patch but we had planned on doing that early on Thursday evening but the weather just wouldn't cooperate with us! It rained all day and there was just no way to go. BUT Friday I got to take Angelina for her first photos! We went to Portrait Innovations and they were pretty good. We didn't spend a whole lot of money and got a lot of very cute pictures! If my scanner was working I would scan them and show you but I am having issues with my scanner so I thought I would post these really cute pictures from this weekend.

Here Haley is helping with bath time this morning. Isn't it always fun to help give a baby a bath?



This is her OOOO face! It is so cute!

Angelina is modeling her new little boots! Aren't they a scream! Look at those chubby little legs! I tell you I just love chubby babies! I could just kiss her little cheeks off she is so stinkin' cute!

Here Grandpa thought he would be funny and see how she looked in his glasses!

Sidney got one of her stuffed animals out for Angelina to play with. I think this is such a cute picture of the two of them!

This is a frame that I made for Whitney to take home. I wanted to do something a little different for her then what I did for Thomas. I used the same color scheme since I know they both like these colors. This frame is from Creative Imaginations and it was pretty simple to decorate. I cut the black and white paper to fit the frame and then I used an exacto knife to cut out the middle. Then to distress the edges a bit and get rid of any cutting imperfections I used my Basic Grey emery board set and filed the edges of the frame. The word Family is cut from my Cricut and I used the Stone script font. The brackets were chipboard that I covered with red cardstock for a nice accent.

Thanks for peekin' in on me friends. I love it when you stop in! Hope you have a great weekend!

Good Luck Candy

Hi everyone! I wanted to share a little goody that I made for Haley's locker buddy on her golf team. On every game day they give each other a little treat or note of encouragement and I thought since I had this saaweet little Bella Golfer Girl I would make a wrapper to go around the candy bar. The stamp is from Stamping Bella, you can check them out here, I colored this trendy little gal in with Twinkling H2O's for the shirt, hat and socks. For the shorts I used a Mocha Light PrismaColor marker. For the hair, grass and golf club I used water colored pencils. I had to add a little bit of bling so I used stickles on the ponytail holder and golf ball. Pretty sassy golfer huh? Haley said that Lakin thought it was pretty cute!

Well, thanks for peekin' in. Hope that your week goes by quick! I am looking forward to this weekend. We are going to the Homecoming game on Friday night...and you know what that means about Saturday right? Yep...Homecoming dance! Very exciting around our house. I will share pics with you later this weekend! Take care!

Family Wall Decor

Hi friends! Hope you are out enjoying this beautiful day! I just love this weather! I think fall has to be my favorite season, too bad it doesn't last longer!

Earlier this month our son Thomas was here for a visit and we were able to get a family picture taken...courtesy of my sister who does amazing work! If you are in the market for family, senior or just any time photos check her out. This is her blog, girlwithanangle.blogspot.com, she is still working on it but it will give you an idea of her work.

Anyway, I wanted to make something for Thomas for a little remembrance of his trip here and give him a copy of our most recent family photo. I thought this hanging frame was perfect! It's made by Kaisercraft and the neat thing about it is that it is made out of wood. I painted the frames red and after they dried I sanded the edges to give it that distressed look. The black and white patterned paper is Doodlebug, which is actually left over from another project...yey me for using scraps! The word family is a Heidi Swapp stamp. I stamped it in white craft ink from Stampin Up and then embossed it with clear embossing powder to give it that finished look. I used black grosgrain ribbon from Stampin Up to tie everything together.

Here are some close ups of each square.









Thanks for peekin' in on me this weekend! Take care of you!

Gift Card Holder

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas...we sure did. It is so nice to spend time with family.
I thought I would share this little mitten gift card holder with you. The mittens (I cut two out) were cut using the Cricut Cartridge Joy of the Season (thanks for letting me borrow this Nikki!) I set the dial on 5". Then after I cut them out I ran them through the Cuttlebug with the snow embossing folder. Next I glued them together using my favorite cardstock adhesive, Zip Dry (around the edges only leaving the top open so I could place the gift card inside). They just needed one little thing...a little bling! So I used a little bit of red stickles to give it that fun glittery effect. All in all I thought they turned out pretty neat!
Enabler alert!! I just happened to be in Hobby Lobby today and they are now carrying stickles...they come in a three pack and with a 40% off coupon they are pretty darn reasonable! Just thought you might like to know that, you know I do what I can to pass this sickness along to you all.
Well thanks for stoppin' in. Have a great weekend!

Clothes Pins

Hi friends! Here are some fun little clothes pins I altered this week. I purchased these at Hobby Lobby. All of the paper for this project was scraps! YES! I love being able to say that! Anyway they don't take too long to make and they turn out so cute. I plan on selling them for about $5. Thanks for checkin' in on me.

In case you are interested I am now half way through season 6 of Gilmore Girls. Good show. Funny how when you watch a show you really get into it and all of a sudden you are thinking about it like the characters in the show are friends of yours. Like right now, in Gilmore Girls I totally don't want Lorelai to marry Luke because I think he is so wrong for her and besides that they don't communicate at all. Sorry...that was a little side note...if you watched this show you could call me and we could dish about it! I went to lunch with a couple of friends this week and asked if they had ever gotten into a show like this...seriously they answered yes and totally cracked up! Good to know I am not warped!
Anyway...hope you are having a great weekend!

Crazy for Clipboards

I just love clipboards! They are such a fun way to display photos. I made one a while back that was 12x12 and I just love it. I don't know how well it would go over at the craft fair this year though because of the economy and folks being laid off I thought if I stuck with cheaper items it might be better. So I found these 9x9 clipboards from Stampin Up for around $8. All of the paper on these boards were scraps left over from other projects! Go Toni...Go Toni!! Sorry...had to do the happy dance there. The cardstock in the center of each board is 5x7. I used photo corners so that one could easily switch out the photo. Add a few little embellishments and BAM! beautiful!
Well thanks for stoppin' in today! Hugs...Toni

Craft Fair

Happy Halloween! It's hard to believe that today is the last day of October! I can't believe how quickly time is passing by!
I am participating in a craft fair at work next month and this is one of the items I will have at my booth. I picked the book up at Target in the dollar bins and covered it to match the little band aid tin. Inside the band aid tin are little glitter pens that I also found in the dollar bins at Target. Gotta love those bargain huh?
I usually try to carry a variety of items at my booth and only about 3 or 4 of the same item, just decorated up differently. This way I am not stuck with a huge amount after it is all said and done. It is difficult to get ready for one one of these shin digs because you never know what's gonna sell. Sometimes you sell the heck out of one item and so you think hum...maybe I should make a lot more of those for the next show and so you do and no one buys them the next time. Weird. Oh well...variety is the spice of life right?
Well have a safe night tonight! Hugs...Toni

New Cardstock

Hi friends. I have been searching for new places to get my scrapbook supplies. I am no longer shopping at Scrapbook Garden because of the way that they treated the East store employees. Hey, I know sometimes business have their hard times and they can't afford to stay open or loose their lease whatever the case may be. We can all sympathize with that right? I understand that we are living in hard economic times right now, but the thing that gets me is the way everything was done. The way people were treated that worked for a small company. I just felt that there could have been a little more consideration for the people that helped make your store what it was. That being said I have decided that I just simply can not shop at Scrapbook Garden anymore. I really enjoyed being able to match cardstock to my projects, it was so easy to walk into the store with your stuff and just match away. So I started thinking about what I did before I worked at Scrapbook Garden. I used to order from this great little company called Memory Works. They are based out of Utah (what scrapbook company isn't) and are a Direct Sell company only there are no up or down lines or minimum quotas to meet (which is great because I don't want the hassle of selling stuff at parties). You pay $50to become a consultant and you have to purchase $75 a year in products. So I signed up for the discount (20% off the regular price). They used to carry Bazzil cardstock but had some issues with having what they needed in stock so they switched to another cardstock line called Prism. It is a nice quality cardstock as well. Not as many choices on color but they sell them in monochromatic packs and you can get 3 shades of any color you want, 12 total sheets for $5.25. Here is a picture of the Prismatics swatch book...which I picked up for $6! That is such a great deal compared to Bazzil's swatch book for $30!

On another note, here is another one of the projects that I am working on for the craft fair. I actually found this idea in a scrapbook magazine and when I saw it thought...why didn't I think of that? These are little plastic ID Badge holders that you can purchase at any office store. There are 6 plastic sleeves in each of these little books. I used all scrap paper to put them together. How fun is this? I mean isn't this great to just carry around in your purse? So tell me what you think of this idea okay?

And of naturally I have keep you updated on where we are on my favorite show right? Yep, the girls and I have made it to season 5 of the Gilmore Girls. If you haven't ever watched this show you are seriously missing out on some good stuff. I mean really. Just do it. Sign up for Netflix and start renting the series. You won't be sorry!

Well friends, that is all for now. Tune in next week for more from your creative little friend in Kansas!

She's a survivor

Recently my friend JoEtta did the race for the cure with her family. Her sister in law is a breast cancer survivor. I wanted to do something for her as a memory of this day. JoEtta is a fabulous photographer and I knew that she would be taking pictures of the day and so I asked her to email me the pics and I would make up a little memory book for her sister in law. The main color here was pink, naturally, but I wanted to accent it with other colors too. The chipboard album was from Basic Grey and the paper was from various Basic Grey lines. This is just a little sampling of the album...it had a few more pages to it. Thanks for peekin' in.

We are headed to Coxfarms to the pumpkin patch this afternoon! Hope you're having a great weekend so far!

Fall Fun

Here is a little tag book that I put together yesterday. It is the same concept as the birthday book I posted a few weeks ago. The base is orange card stock cut in 3 x 6" pieces and then cut to look like a big tag. I punched one hole and used a ring to join this mini book together. I accented with a few tags, stickers and buttons. This particular day was a day a few years ago that we took one of our nephews to the pumpkin patch with us. We had so much fun but it was bitterly cold that day. The wind was crazy! But we decided to go have some hot chocolate and warm up a bit afterwards. I just love going to the pumpkin patch! Pretty soon my girls are going to be too old to do that. *sniff*
Since my girls have taken up scrapbooking, for Christmas we purchased this great little Epson 4x6 photo printer. It is great and delivers good quality photos, but the neatest thing is that I can make these little mini books so easy! I just put my memory card from my camera into the printer and tell it what size of photo I want to print. It really comes in handy when doing different little projects like this. I used it quite a bit in the Scrappin for Sam book I made a few posts ago.
My sister and I are off to Kansas City this afternoon. She had wanted to get out of town for a bit and I decided to take a day of vacation tomorrow. We have our evening and day tomorrow all planned out. I am so excited! I got on Priceline.com and named my price for a hotel...I got a $140 room for $65 in Crown Center! *woot* Hopefully the weather will be nice to us and we can get some fun pictures. Talk to you later!