End of another school year and Teacher Gifts!

I can't believe that it is the last week of school!  Another year has come and gone and my children are growing up so fast!  I always like to give my children's teachers thank you gifts at the end of the year.  I always have the best intentions to make them something really nice, but always put it off until the last minute.  Plus, this year, between my 3 school age kids, they have 7 teachers!  I googled ideas the other day and came across this cup and skittle idea on a blog (so sorry I don't remember the original poster - but THANK YOU!)  I changed the sentiment a bit and had my kids write their teachers a personal note on the back of the tag.  It was a fast and pretty cheap gift idea (only around $5 per gift).  Here's hoping we have a sweet summer! :)

An easy card and a rag bag made from an upcycled skirt!

 I made this card for this months card club.  I used a Mojo Monday sketch.  I love how simple it was to put together, but still looks classy. 

I've been busy making more rag bag custom orders for friends.  This particular bag has become my all-time favorite I've made so far.  My friend requested Shabby Chic with Kacki, so I went with this fun color pallette of pastel pink and grey.  I actually upcycled an old kacki skirt that had been worn beyond it's wear... I even used the two back pockets as hidden pockets on the inside of this fun bag! (you see one in the bottom front panel there?!)  It was almost hard to hand this bag over, it's a good thing I was making it for a dear friend or else I don't think I could have brought myself to give it to her! :)

Happy Easter!

For my birthday last month I gave myself a gift I have found I don't have much of...time. I would love to be papercrafting every day or at least once a week, but other obligations have taken priority over my fun free time activities. This is what I created during that time. A fun "Hoppy Easter" banner to greet our guests with.
Here's a close-up of one of the bunnies.

This is the card I came up with for last month's card group I'm in. I love this new stamp set from Close To My Heart.

A fun messanger bag!

A friend of mine who had ordered a few rag bags from me before, asked if I could make her a messanger bag that she could use for school. I was able to come up with this design and make it large enough to carry her folders and books. This bag was actually pretty easy and not as time consuming as the rag bags. I'm pleased with how it turned out and hope she enjoys it as well! Now off to make 4 more custom orders!

A few cards

This thank you card layout was inspired by a Cards September 2006 magazine card. I loved the layout when I saw it and it made it so easy for me to come up with my card. I love how rustic this card turned out.
This card layout was inspired by a Mojo Monday layout, sorry I can't remember which one. I needed several fast, but cute thinking of you cards and came up with these.

What I've been up to....

This is the card I created for my card group I am in. I wanted to do a valentine card, but make it so you could use it for another special occasion. I didn't want to do the traditional pink and red either so I went with this color combo.
Here is one of the largest bags I've made. This bag can seriously carry my 4 year old around! It is a huge bag! I just love the black polka dots!

Here is a small rag bag I recently made for a friend. I love this size. It is the perfect purse size. Sew fun! :) Until next time!

monster party!

Our two youngest children just turned 2 and 4. Their birthdays are just two weeks apart. We decided to do a combined birthday party for them and decided on a monster theme. We made monster invites (sorry, didn't get a picture of those) and invited all of their little monster friends over to help us celebrate. I had SO much fun putting this party together and wish I had a whole month to prepare for it, as I still didn't do everything I was wanting too, but the party turned out great.

We had over 20 little kiddos for the party, along with their parents. The first thing I worked on after we got the invites out, were these fun monster containers that held homemade play dough for each kiddo to take home. I originally was going to have the kids pick a monster jar and play with their large ball of play dough, but decided I didn't want that much play dough exposed to my home, so I made little jars of multi-color play dough, so the kids could "make a monster" with just a small amount of play dough. These little monsters were given out with the party favor bags.
My friend, Erin Royal, made this fun monster cake (as well as some fun monster cupcakes not pictured). I've seen a similar monster cake on Pinterest, I'm assuming that is where she got the idea for this cake!

For one of the games, I simply drew up a fun little monster on poster board including wiggly arms, horns, teeth, tons of eyeballs and a tongue for the kiddos to "build a monster". I must admit, once I got all of it cut out and ready to go, I too had to play and build my very own monster. FUN, FUN, FUN! Perfect game for this age group, and a very cheap game!

As far as the monster decor, I had a few of these metal pails from my daughters party from last year. I simply hot-glued googly eyes (on just about everything!), painted a mouth and added some fun hair using different colored boas found at the craft store! The suckers inside the pails came from Oriental Trading.

I made "eyeball" cake balls...to add to the sugar high we were already giving everyone.

Another game I made was the "feed the monster" game. I once again drew up a fun little monster with a big mouth for catching it's food the kids were to toss in. I made my own beanbags out of 4inch squares of fabric and pinto beans.

The last game I put together was inspired by this Pinterest pin.

I made each circle look like a monster by adding googly eyes and a mouth. This game was really cute for this age group as well. The little boys punched pretty good, while some of the little girls simply poked it and ripped it open with their fingers. SO cute!

Lastly, I made this fun little banner to greet the party-goers with a picture of the birthday kids. I really wanted to make a large banner, but simply ran out of time. The letters on the banner are scrapbook stickers, fast and easy to add or take off if I would like!

We had a blast at the party and hope everyone else did too! So glad we had so many friends to celebrate our little monsters special days! Thanks for coming!