Bookworms for the Class

It's Sweet Sunday!! Here's hoping that you get to have a nice relaxing and fun day with family and/or friends. That's my plan today.

So school's out - and we have had a week off so far. Well hmm - I guess it's about time I post my end of school projects, huh? LOL

I have a bunch of pictures to share - so I'll keep this short and sweet. I had fun making gifts for the teachers, other school staff, and a bookmark for each kiddo in my son's class. The first picture is of the gifts I made for Tyler's teacher. I also included some chocolate- HAVE to give something tasty!

Then a close-up of the tin. The tin was approximately 3"x3". I put a bunch of 1.5"x2" post-it notes inside. Can't have enough of those. Isn't this apple and worm ADORABLE?!?! It is from the stamp set Bookworm by Our Craft Lounge. ACK - I was so excited to make this ensemble using this set!

I made some of Val's desktop notecard holders - OMW - they are SO CUTE and SO EASY to make - thanks to Val's brilliant mind and fantastic tutorial. THANK YOU VAL FROM CAL!

I love having bags around in the house in case I need to put a gift together. These bags were PERFECT! I just stamped up a couple of apples (Stampin' Up! image) and voila - the bags were adorable!

Here are the little tags I made for each bag. Using Nestabilities, I put a simple tag together (white version on the back so I could write the "to" and "from" information). Added a little bit of star bling and I was happy!

And last but certainly not least, the bookmarks. The stamp set Bookworm is PERFECT for any school gifts you might want to make. As soon as I saw the set, I knew that I would be making bookmarks for all of Tyler's classmates (and the teachers) at the end of the year. I loved making them - put each kid's name on the bottom of their bookmark, and laminated them.

Hope your day is AWESOME!

Some grad fun

Happy FRIDAY!!!!! I can't believe that it is the end of another week and almost the end of JUNE! Where is the time going? In Massachusetts, we have NOT had summer yet. The entire month of June was overcast and rainy - which is very unusual. The weather reporter said that we haven't had a single day of full sun. So here's hoping that July brings some sun our way!

Speaking of the ending of June - school ended! My son's last day of 1st grade was only on June 19th. And there were plenty of graduations. So today, I have 2 graduation cards that I had made to show you.

First was a simple and fun card - and I used it in a class I taught. I love using one color with black. The color just pops! So here I used Tempting Turquoise (by Stampin' Up!). I used the stamp set School's Out by Our Craft Lounge. To add some texture and interest, I used my Swiss Dots Cuttlebug embossing folder on the top portion of the turquoise layer. Do you have that folder? IF NOT - RUUUUN TO ECLECTIC PAPERIE AND GET IT - you'll NEVER regret that purchase! :) To add a little dimension to the diploma, I glued on a bauble. Using some liquid glue (instead of a glue dot) really popped the color through the bauble.

The second project I have to share is a graduation gift card holder. Again I decided to go with one color and the black. Oooh - I love using red and black together! I got this idea from my friend Pine - she posted her gift card holder here. You can also see more information and a link to a tutorial here.

Once again, I used the stamp set School's Out by Our Craft Lounge. I stamped the mortar board on the red cardstock in Versamark so that I would have a subtle background. For the main image on the front, I stamped the mortar board once on the white circle and a second time on a scrap piece of white and cut out the top part to pop it off. I poked some holes and used some black hemp for the tassel - and then added some Rockstar Red Crafty Sparkles by Our Craft Lounge - ooooh how I love adding some GLITTAH! Add the sentiment and some brads - and VOILA - a card and a gift card holder for that special grad in your life.

This stamp set is AWESOME for some quick and fun cards - but also PERFECT for scrapbooking! The stamps create crisp images - and quickly!

I hope you have a great day and a wonderful weekend!

Tide Pool Play

Happy Thursday! Today is the second to last day of school for my son Tyler. He really likes school - but is also looking forward to summer vacation. You know - playing with his friends, playing outside, staying up late, and going to the beach. Speaking of the beach . . .

Tyler's class and another class participated in a play this week. It was called the Tide Pool Play. As part of their science curriculum (1st grade), they learned all about tide pools and all the "creatures" you find in them. They performed the most DARLING play - each child had their own part, describing their sea animal and many songs were sung. I was laughing so hard at times that I was crying - IT WAS SO CUTE! Tyler doesn't really love being the center of attention - so I half expected him to be super nervous. He did FANTASTIC! He learned his lines very early on - he was articulate and confident. Boy, was I a proud Mom!

So here he is - Tyler, my little Moon Snail! :)

Now - when one goes to the theater and knows one of the performers, it is often customary to bring flowers. However, I knew Tyler wouldn't really be too excited about that, being a 6 year old boy and all. LOL So what is the next best thing? A "plant" full of CANDY!!! So I got a small paint can out of my stash, covered it in some paper that I had that was the image of water. I printed out a photo (the quality is poor, so I'll have to replace it at some point) of him when we had gone to the beach recently, and decorated it with some shells we had collected at the beach. I soaked the shells in bleach and then water - then let them dry so that they wouldn't smell. Attached the candy bars to some thin wood dowels and stuck them into the foam that I had put in the paint can - and VOILA! He was ECSTATIC!

And one last photo of the beach we went to. This beach is called Corporation Beach - located in East Dennis, MA - Cape Cod. It was GORGEOUS! We had an absolute blast - and will definitely be heading back there this summer.

Hope you have a beautiful day.

Flyin' Again

Happy Wednesday! It's hump day - the week is half over - and the weekend is coming up! :) This Friday is my son's last day of school - so summer vacation is around the corner. He's excited - and we are busy working on what our plans will be.

I wanted to participate in one of the challenges on SCS. I have always loved looking at them - but I tend to be a lurker. Participating was SO MUCH FUN!! And it made creating really easy! So this past Sunday, I did the Featured Stamper challenge. This week the Featured Stamper was Sumtoy - and boy does she have a fun gallery! She is also the Aunt of one of my fab friends, Cami!

This card is the one I chose to CASE. It is so much easier for me to stamp more feminine cards - but I have 2 boys - so sometimes I need to do the more masculine stuff. I knew JUST the stamps to use - Flyin' Birthday by Our Craft Lounge. It was a pretty easy card to make - just a little bit of cutting and VOILA - a card for a birthday boy!

I had tons of fun doing this challenge - and think that it will be something I do much more often in the future.

Hope you have a happy day!

Thanks Coach!

Hi there! As you probably know from a previous post, my son Tyler plays baseball. He recently played his last game for "The Angels" for the season. So I thought I would make a card for the Coach (hey - better late than never - LOL). His coach is a great guy - and deserves some acknowledgement - especially for dealing with a group of wild 6 and 7 year old boys - and volunteering to do it!!!

So I went to my stamp set Game On by Our Craft Lounge. It is perfect for both card making and scrapbooking. I just LOVE the star in the sentiment "You're A Super Star". So I decided to use that for my card. Now what? Hmmm - I need a layout. So off to Card Positioning Systems to see if something spoke to me. And BAM - there it was - CPS#20. It even had a STAR in the sketch!!! Perfection! (yes - little things make me very very happy)

For the main image using the sentiment, I used a star brad inside the star - an idea I got from my friend Kendra, who used a star brad in the middle of a star on one of her projects. And then I punched out my embellishment star with my SU! star punch. What card is complete without SPARKLE???? So I used my Lemon Drop Crafty Sparkles and blinged the star up! Oooh yeah - that's what I'm talkin' about!

Oh - and once again I made my own background - on the grey I stamped "Go Team Go" repeatedly. I love that - being able to create something to match with stamps!

Hope you have a great day!

Flyin' for You

Happy Tuesday! I hope your week has started off great!

Today I have a fun birthday card for you. I thought this would be a PERFECT card for a boy. I used this color challenge from SCS - So Saffron, Bashful Blue, and Pumpkin Pie. The set is Flyin' Birthday from Our Craft Lounge. It is a fun set - especially for boy stuff - and, well, I have 2 boys! :)

I was very happy with how the card came together. I started with cutting the airplane image out with Nestabilities. Next - on to find some ribbon. There were 3 different ones I was considering - and then a moment of *woohoo* came to me - USE THE RIC RAC and put BRADS in each groove! ACK - I don't often have those moments - LOL! The rest kind of fell into place.

I absolutely LOVE using my Crystal Effects for a nice raised glossy effect - so I added that to the goggles and the windshield. A little Sakura clear glitter pen on the propeller made it shine. Next came the hemp twine to hold the Happy Birthday sign flying behind the plane. I popped the banner up - but it looked too plain - so I pierced some holes around it to help it pop even more. VOILA - I was very happy!

Here's hoping that you have a wonderful day!

Spotlight on Bookworm

Happy Tuesday!! Yesterday was a GORGEOUS day here in Massachusetts. I was able to be outside, have my windows open, and just enjoy the day. I played basketball outside with my boys, dead-headed some flowers, and just enjoyed. Aaaah - fresh air feels awesome!

My 3-year-old (ACK - he turned 3 last week - how does time go by SO FAST???) was playing basketball with his red bouncy ball. He kept throwing it to the basket and every single time he would screech "I DID IT!!!!" and then run to me for his high 5. SO CUTE! He actually even got it in twice in a row.

The beautiful fresh air and the playing outside is a glimpse of what summer will bring. School is coming to an end. And that means I need to get working on some projects for Ty's teachers. So I started out making a thank you card. I decided to try out one of the SCS challenges - the Featured Stamper. You can look HERE at the gallery of this Sunday's Featured Stamper Rox71. I chose this card to CASE. WHY have I not participated in these challenges before now????? This was super fun and super easy!!! And here is my card:

I used the stamp set Bookworm by Our Craft Lounge. This set was drawn by the FABULOUS Debbie. How CUTE is this set?! It is OCL's Spotlight stamp set this week. I used my Copics to color. I looooove my Copics!

I hope you are enjoying your day and week so far.

OCL Announcement and some FUN!

WOOHOO! Today is an exciting day! This post is going to have lots of fun information, so buckle up!


First and foremost, I am *thrilled* to tell you that I am a member of the new and fantastic Design Team for Our Craft Lounge!!! OMW - this is so exciting! And today, all of the girls on the DT are having a bog hop - look toward the bottom of this post to check out the rest of the team and see their AMAZING creations

Today I'm sharing an 8x8 scrapbook page that I created using the OCL Crafty Clear stamp set Game On. My son loves to play sports - any sport -any time - any place. Right now he is on "The Angels" on our town's Farm League. This was his first time crossing Home Plate - I was excited to capture an action shot!


It can be hard for me to create masculine cards and pages. This set makes it so easy! And as a Mom of 2 boys, I am SURE to need to do lots of sports-related pages and cards for coaches, parties, etc. This set is PERFECT for scrap pages and cards. Create your own embellishments like I did using the sentiment "You're a SuperStar". I made a litle pennant and glitterfied it using Crafty Sparkles Lemon Drop Yellow. I also used the the glitter on the star I punched out - OH BOY do they SPAHKLE!!


Oh how I had fun making my own brads. I used the Stampin' Up! create-a-brad and the baseball stamp from Game On. I stamped the baseball, punched it out with the 1/2 inch punch, and created 3 fun embellishments.





Need a background paper but can't find just the right one? MAKE YOUR OWN!! I took 5 different stamps from the Game On stamp set andcreated my own background. The stamps are clear, so I just took a large block and placed them all on the block to create myown pattern. I then stamped tone on tone - and repeated the pattern. VOILA - super easy and very effective!


Spotlight set of the Week - This is a new section in the OCL Forum. Each week, OCL and the Design Team will be showcasing one stamp set, giving some fantastic samples to inspire. Go check it out HERE. This week's set is Bookworm.


Monthly Sketch Challenge - OCL is hosting a monthly sketch challene! You can go HERE to see June's sketch and participate. Each month OCL will post a sketch challenge on the 1st -you can participate until the 25th of the month, and a winner will be posted on the 26th. Go check it out and PLAY! My scrap page from today's post is based on the Sketch Challenge. Thanks to Melissa C for such a FAB layout!


Swap - OCL is hosting it's very first swap! Go HERE to check out the details and join. It is a 5 + 1 swap and will be a super fun way to get some great cards.


So - here are the other girls on the OCL Design Team. I am beyond happy to be a part of such an incredibly talented group! Go check out their blogs.


Amber Hillman http://ambersantics.blogspot.com/2009/06/olc-blog-hop-with-announcement.html

Beth Silaika http://www.freckledandfun.com/
Carol Halvorson http://www.happinessblooms.blogspot.com/
Charmaine Ikach http://oodabugalley.blogspot.com/2009/06/our-craft-lounge-blog-hop.html
Cindy Lawrence http://onehappystamper.typepad.com/
Deb Felts http://withastampandasong.blogspot.com/
Denise Marzec http://www.thepaperlandscaper.blogspot.com/
Heather McNally http://heathermcnally.blogspot.com/
Holly McMillen http://toyzhaven.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/2009/06/01/official-our-craft-lounge-blog-hop/
Kendra Wietstock http://kendrawietstock.blogspot.com/
Kisa Peters http://kisaspapercuts.blogspot.com/
Lila Holgate http://lilascreativecorner.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/
Pam Hooten http://www.pamhooten.blogspot.com/
Valerie Stangle Val's direct link - http://valeriestangle.blogspot.com/2009/06/our-craft-lounge-dt-blog-hop.html


The OCL Chicks:
Cambria Turnbow http://cambriaturnbow.blogspot.com/
Joy Kennedy http://joyofstamping.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/
Marianne Walker (OCL Illustrator) http://ilikemarkers.com
Debbie Corbori (OCL Illustrator) http://www.dbdoodle.com/
and of course Kimberly!!!



Have a fantastic Monday and week!