valentine's day continues

Once again I called on my sweet Silhouette machine, Sybill to help me cut some hearts and she was more than happy to oblige. These first two were created with the negative that was left over from cutting the hearts that are in the next set of cards. Yup, I thought I was all that and a bag of chips!! I also sprayed the fronts of the cards with a gold mist from Heidi Swapp. Love that stuff. 

And here are the hearts! I love that some of them have the 'reflection' on them while there are others that do not. I have a ton of hearts leftover. I can see them going onto some lunch box note cards in the future. Yes that would be a reference of things to come. These cards I spritzed with the silver mist from Heidi Swapp. Kira liked these ones the best and chose to send it to her friend.

This is what the inside of all of these cards look like. Obviously the hamburger folded cards are facing the other way but they are done the exact same way. Happily using two different sets of Studio G acrylic $1 stamps and some washi tape. 

I say obviously since I totally messed up and made them all to fit into the hot dog folded cards. Seriously yes I did!! I was so proud of myself for doing the insides and then went to put the cards together and realized that I totally made a huge error. Of course I had put everything away and had to drag it all back out to make the insides over. Such is my life.

Hope you had a great Love Day!!

PSA.... Newmarket Peeps- please remember to vote and get the word out to everyone you come across in town. It is scary that some people do not realize that the Oyster River tuition agreement is off the table.

VOTE MARCH 11TH

YES FOR THE NEW SCHOOL!!

valentine's day cards

I had a fun time creating some Valentine's cards this year. I usually forget to make them but this year I was ahead of the game. So far ahead in fact, I was even able to mail some out to family and friends!! I know amazing!!

These ones below I used my Sybill (Silhouette) to cut out the circle accents. There were three of them which is where I got the hearts that are on the front of the cards. But I liked these two styles better so they made it onto the cards. I added some stickles to the red hearts. The sentiment is heat embossed with white powder. I was happy with myself for getting these to turn out pretty close to what I had in my minds eye.

These next ones were so much fun to make. I created the background myself using one wooden stamp for the large red hearts ($1 bin at Michaels), the pink hearts are from a $1 acrylic set from Studio G and then inside the red hearts there are clear embossed hearts that I had from one of my Paper Smooches stamps sets. Pretty sure it was the sewing themed set.

I then used another wooden block $1 stamp for the 'with love' circle. I heat embossed that as well. Added a bit of twine and called it done. 

I shall post more tomorrow. Lots of stuff going on around here. Have you heard there is a HUGE vote coming on March 11th?? Make sure you vote yes for the new school. Thanks!!

Even the minions know we need a new school!!

valentines a plenty

Why yes it is that time of year again. Okay maybe I am a bit early but now I can play with my Disney pictures and don't have to freak out over what to give the kids for Valentine's Day! Sad thing is I was looking for goodies to give the kids before Target even got any Valentine's Day stuff in!! They still had their storage stuff in the holiday section! Guess I was a little excited for this years fun.

We'll start with the kindergartners.... and if one of them is yours- don't let them see this post!! I want it to be a surprise!! 

I punched out circles in white and red cardstock. Stamped the heart on the white and a to/ from on the red and put them together.

Punched the holes with a heart punch. Was severely disappointed that the heart was upside down when I punched it!! I mean really??? Dumb punch. But I released and went with it anyways. 

I was going to do bouncy balls but I found bubbles instead!! Yahoo! Bubbles! I was very excited and snapped them up pretty quick. Thank you Target! Here they are all completed and ready to be handed out!

Then I had to make valentines for Alex's class. Pencils are always a good go to present in the classrooms because of the no candy rule in most classrooms nowadays. I used my Sybill (Silhouette machine) and cut out the three different heart patterns. That saved a ton of time!! Adhered them to some white cardstock that I cut and scored. Added the recipient's name on the front and stamped the sentiment on the inside. 

Attached the pencils with a bit of washi tape that I had in a red chevron pattern and had Alex sign his name.

And that is it! Valentines for three classes all bagged up and ready to go! Feeling pretty good about myself right about now!! Doesn't happen often so I am going to enjoy it.

valentine's day goodies

This year I have been working in Alex's classroom of amazing first graders and in one of the kindergarten classrooms for both the AM and PM classes (not to mention getting to hang in the art room once a week) and decided that I wanted to give Valentine's to all those kiddos. 

First came the decision as what to get them all. Since there is always a big demand for pencils in the first grade room, I went forth and found some cute ones at Target in their holiday area. Then somehow counted wrong and ended up with more boy pencils than girl pencils which did not work in a female dominated room. I then hit the dollar store and they saved the day for the girls!!

For the kindergartners, I decided on some fun colored super balls along with some foamie heart stickers. Thankfully I counted correctly when buying the super balls at Target (again in their holiday section) and managed to have a 'few' left over for my kiddos to have (or save them for next year!!)

Then came the decision of how to give these goodies to the kiddos. I decided on a pencil holder type card for the first graders. Below shows the inside of the card that I stamped. I also signed it for each of them.

I also stamped the front of the cards and added their names. I closed the card with some heart stickers I picked up at Michaels since I didn't like how they looked open. Yes I sharpened all the pencils since the students are not allowed to use the electric pencil sharpener in the classroom (sharpen pencils too much, push too hard etc etc) and that would not be fair to the teacher to have to sharpen all those pencils before the kids can use them.

This is a side view of one of the treats. I was pretty proud of myself!!

For the kindergartners, I decided to put their goodies into snack baggies and then add a tag. As I was surfing Pinterest (cuz everyone does) I found these so adorable tags. They seemed pretty easy so off I went. Below are all my love bugs set to be made into tags.

Here is the completed project! I stamped the sentiment onto the red paper and then attached them together with some floss I have. I added who it was to on top of the love bug. Perfect!!

And since I cannot forget the teachers... I made each of them a little bag to hold some Lindt goodness.

Hope your Love Day was a wonderful one!! xx

pail of pencils

Since I have been volunteering in Alex's classroom this year, I have noticed that first graders are amazingly rough with their pencils. Erasers are worn into non existence within minutes, the points are gone even quicker than that with most being snapped off from too great of pressure from little hands and there is never enough time in the day for the teacher to sharpen all of the pencils these kids go through. I try to sharpen them when I am in the room once a week to keep on top of things. I guess it must be the OCD in me but I feel better doing it and knowing there are sharp pencils for those willing scholars.

Of course with all that sharpening, comes very small pencils. For Valentine's day I decided that the teacher needed a new pail of pencils. I picked up a few packages of Valentine pencils as well as some St. Patrick's Day pencils and a few others I had laying around here. Here is the pail from the front. I used letter stickers and then to ensure that the letters stay put for longer than a minute- I mod podged the heck out of it! 

This is one of the sides with a few flowers to help break up the silver of the pail.

I also felt the need to cover the back with three different patterns of washi tape. I like the spring feel of it. I also mod podged these. Not that they were falling off because they were not, but edges always call out to bored fingers!! I placed a few different ribbons on the top of the pail handle for decoration.

Here is the other side of the pail. I am very happy with how it all came together. I can't wait to bring it to her on Thursday!! And to save her a ton of time-- I already sharpened all those pencils!! :)

august sketch challenge

Another month and another sketch challenge from my FB group. I totally love that I have to scrap at least once a month something that I haven't previously planned out. Love it.

Here's this months sketch we had to use. Totally feeling it.

And here is what I did with it.

Such a fun day! It was so adorable to see each of the kids dressed up like mail carriers and finding their friends bags to put the Valentines in. I punched out the hearts and then sat there and looked at the negative paper that was left and decided to make it part of the layout. Added some of my hand made twine and am happy with how that worked out. I used my Sizzlit alphabet Aphrodite for the title. I probably should have fired up Sybill but wasn't feeling that adventurous yesterday. Pattern paper is DCWV Spring Stack from a few years back.

Here's hoping your days are full of love!!

a little love and fun

Oh the day of love. I went to spend the day with Alex's kindergarten class. It was a low key celebration with each of the kids decorating a bag to hold their Valentines. So cute!! This is where we set them up. Then each student had the chance to dress up like a mail person to deliver their Valentines to their classmates. Lesson learned on this one... alphabetical order is the way to do when setting these bags up. Trust me!!

Here's my little mail guy. Love the uniform they each got to wear. I am sure the school nurse would be cringing seeing the whole class wear the hats as there seems to be a small lice issue in the school. Thank goodness it hasn't gotten to the kindergarten classes.

Here is my toothless little lady. It took her over a month to get that tooth out of her head. Love how she pushed her tongue through the hole. Silly girl. Then she asks me if I am the tooth fairy. ummm... last I checked I do not have wings and I like to sleep at night. I am certainly not flying around the world collecting teeth. Not sure if she bought it or not. I hate this age since the magic seems to be slowly fading away. Darn them for growing up and questioning things. I knew I should never have taught them to talk. Too late now.

Kira has a friends birthday party to go to this afternoon and Alex has an eye appointment. Busy afternoon for this group of peoples. Enjoy your weekend with those you love.

valentines and dance pictures

I had to share some of the fun pictures that hubby took at the dance on Thursday. There were a bunch of girls and daddies dancing and having a great time, but there were some priceless friend moments as well.

This one of Kira and Cedar. You would never know that Cedar had heels on and she was still that much shorter than Kira. Such a little thing!

Here's the gang that was there! Kira, Cedar, Michaela and Cheyanne. Sweet group of girls and all so beautiful!!

Kira with her BFF Michaela. So sweet that they both ended up wearing purple. Almost like they planned it!! And they didn't!

I finally got the kids valentines packaged up and ready to go. These are the tags that I did for both sets of valentines. Both kids had the pleasure of finally doing something for their treats this year and had to write all the tags out. Alex's class will get the melted crayons heart shaped crayons which can be found here, and Kira's got some dog and cat foam clips that I made. I need to remember to take a picture of them in the morning with the good light.

I added this little note inside the bag with the crayons so that parents wouldn't think it was candy and throw it out before the kids could play. Hope it works!

I think we are ready for Valentines Day which means I may be able to play tomorrow on some of my stuff and not the kids!! oh the dreams I have.

couple projects happening here

I've been working on some stuff and sad to say not scrapping. But still being creative is a good thing. With my immense love of all things posted on Pinterest, I have been finding many projects and things to try. Some I may someday get to... others not so much but fun to have them if I ever feel the need. Anywho I found this one pin and knew I had to do it for Valentine's day. 

To start our crayon melting project, one must first strip a few boxes of crayons down to their bare naked selves. Big time hint here for anyone attempting this... use the cheapo RoseArt Crayons and not the Crayolas. Trust me. Those wrappings are down right frustrating to get off! Both of the kids gave up and left me to finish unwrapping four boxes of 24 crayons by myself. Oh the things I do for my kiddos. I left out the black and brown crayons since I didn't want the end product to be too dark and heavy feeling for Valentine's Day.

I found these heart silicone muffin trays in the dollar section at Target (they were $2.50 but so totally worth it) Here are the bits and pieces getting set to go into the oven. I believe this is a little bit before I had finished filling them in but was so ready to get them in the oven, I didn't take one right before cooking.

Here they are after I popped them out of the trays. I will say that I cooked them for about 17 minutes at 230 degrees. They are still kinda chunky looking and have since re- cooked them and they look much better. I need to take another picture of the whole collection for Alex's class. But I was pretty proud of myself for not only finding the idea on Pinterest, but actually doing it!!  I didn't scrub the trays clean since they were not that expensive and who knows... there is always next year!!

Now to figure out exactly how the tags for these will look. I have some ideas so that will be another post.

Then today, I dusted off my Silhouette (aka Sybill) and created a 100 cut out for Alex's 100th day of school celebration. We had started thinking we could punch out 100 Mickey Mouse heads and place them on a piece of cardstock. Which he thought was cool until he decided that would be a ton of work and hard on his fingers. Then he came up with the wonderful idea of 100 smiley face stickers! And wouldn't you know it, we had purchased such animals a few weeks ago on one of my shopping trips to Michaels. Even better, the package we purchased had 112 smiles in it!!

Sybill all done cutting. I bet she was quite happy to be plugged in and running. It's been way too long for her. I feel bad that I use her more for holding my agenda and my notebook than for cutting. What a waste!

This pile would be the reason that she is not used more often! I had to move all of this before I could cut since the paper has to be able to move freely back and forth. I need to clean my desk off in a big way. It's on the list. oh what a disaster. BTW... that is one small section that is overly piled up, the rest of the room looks about the same. oh the shame...

And here is Alex's project!! I glued the numbers down for him and had to help him get the stickers off the sheet (and they were hard for me and I have nails!!) But he put them all on himself. It really shows him. My happy little guy. We are ready for Tuesday!! (as long as there are no snowdays!)

Well... I need to clean up a bit around here. sigh... I don't wanna but I think I would like to have some order and then maybe I can be more creative with more space to work!!

here's to monday...

Yeah it's not so bad a day today so it can arrive. Busy one but thinking it will make it fly by and it will be Friday before I know it. LOL Actually I'm watching the weather to find out how correct they are with this coming storm. I know it's hitting pretty hard in the south (everyone there, please be safe) but they have been wrong a few times already this season so I have my doubts. Even with the doubts, I managed to get to the store to stock up on some things... just in case.

Okay I'm gonna share my POTD (picture of the day) for January 8. I love it. Does anyone remember the Animaniacs on the WB network?? oh my... I loved them so much. I have some animation pieces and old VHS tapes of their shows. I was working at the Warner Bros Studio Stores at the time and they were on our screen. LOVE THEM!! Anywho... for Christmas my wonderful fantabulous hubby picked up 3 full seasons of them on DVD for me and the kids. Yes the kids love them too!! How wonderful for them to enjoy something that I do?? ahhh... to hear them laughing at Yakko, Wakko and Dot. Gives me great joy.

And I managed to finish up Kira's Valentines!! They are all set for the big day. She did a great job writing everyone's names on the envelopes and coloring in the cat for the card. She is really big into the Warrior book series so cats it was this year. First picture are the envelopes I made and stamped.

These are the cards for inside the envies. The hearts on the front are stickled and the heart next to Kira's name is attached with a glue dot to give it a little dimension. I know... the kids won't care!!

Here is the inside of the treat box. yummy Dove chocolate treats. Alex's will have Hershey kisses.

These are the three patterns of paper I used for these. All from a DCWV spring stack. Not sure which year. There are three hearts on each one. A pink, a red and a silver. The red one is on the side that opens up. The boxes are attached to the envelopes. Neat little packages.

And here they all are!! Ready to go to school. And my aforementioned hubby did point out to me that Valentine's Day is a month away. I know that!! *giggle* But they are done. Another thing off my to do list!!

The templates and instructions for the treat boxes I can email to anyone who wants it. Let me know... daveswife1994@msn.com It was from Making Memories years ago. Good thing I saved it onto my computer when I did!! The cards are just 2X4 pieces of cardstock with the corners punched. The envelope template I got from Mirkwood Designs. Awesome site full of great templates.

That's it for now... off to pick up Alex from school. Which is good cuz I am hungry for lunch!!