Hawaii Bound

It's a quick post today....I'm working in the classroom for the next six days so my postings might be a little scarce....the teacher I'm subbing for is taking a trip to Hawaii, so before I met with her yesterday I put together this quick journal for her to take on her trip. I thought she might want something to journal in, or to simply record those special moments to coincide with all those fabulous pictures I'm sure she'll take.
I've had this paper in my stash forever and I thought it looked appropriate for the Hawaii-theme.

Along with the journal I gave her a little card with some pre-punched tabs held in a library pocket. Her classroom is amazing, she's very organized, so I thought the tabs would come in handy for setting up her journal. I love this punch by Stampin' Up.

Little Friend's Journal

My daughter is invited to her classmate's birthday party this Saturday. All of my girls and their friends are crazy about the Littlest Pet Shop animals, so we thought we would buy a gift card for her friend to pick out her own pet shops. Instead of giving her just a gift card, we thought we would also put together one of these personal journals. The little girls always get a big kick out of them. I also used the scraps to make a matching card...today I think I'll work on the gift card holder. Wal-Mart has Littlest Pet Shop gift cards so that's where we headed. It's too bad the scrapbook makers haven't come out with LPS patterned paper. Composition books (the basis for the journal) can be found at back-to-school sales for sometimes as low as 25 cents each. That's where this one came from.

Scraps Make it Easy

I finished up my baby boy gift by making a card and decorating a cheap gift bag this morning. (I love to buy the bags when they are on sale for 3/$1.00.) It amazes me how, by using only a few scraps and some things on hand, you can take the simplest thing and really give it that "Wow" factor. Both this card and...

this tag were made using scraps leftover from a project I did for my sister. The ribbon is leftover from the taggie football and the acrylic star I picked up in a pouch at a garage sale for 50 cents. I love this look of white, natural, baby blue and stripes for accent.

"Taggie" Football...Completed!

Well, with a little help from hubby, I completed the stitching on the "Taggie" football....it's not the most perfect work I've ever done, but going solely on a picture vs. complete instructions I don't think it looks that bad. Travis said, "Remember who your audience is." (I guess he was talking about the baby.) I wanted to show you the completed look because I wasn't getting the entire "football" vibe until I added the pigskin stitching.

"Taggie" Football

I found a really cute idea on another blog for a baby's "Taggie" football. I've made "Taggie" blankets before, but I never thought of using the idea to form a shape. This is what I started with: a lense pattern that measured 3"x7" which I used to cut 4 pieces out of brown fleece. I also had on hand some American Crafts ribbon and brown thread.

Next, once I cut the fleece out, I cut various pieces of ribbon into 4 inch lengths. Sew two sides together at a time and put all 4 sides together, stuff with batting and stitch it closed. The last thing is to add embroidery thread to create the look of real football stitching (but I haven't done that yet). I am showing you the front side of the ball with the two pacifier clips I've already made.

I need hubby's help on the stitching while I make a card. I feel confident my friend won't have two of these amongst all of her baby's gifts.

Heidi Grace Stamps

I found this set of Heidi Grace stamps at JoAnn's and thought they were so cute...and they would be just perfect for some of the Valentine projects I am planning to put together. Today, the girls and I got together and used our new blending pens from Stampin' Up. The set comes in a 3/pack, so that meant we could each have our own. This was the card I put together using my pen and some chalk squares. The girls have asked me to put the "scrapbook touch" on their cards and I'll post them as soon as I finish.

Favorite Chicken Wraps

My husband brought in this tray of chicken and veggies last night for our dinner and I had to take a quick shot of it....the veggies all lined up with perfect grill marks...just beautiful!
These chicken-veggie wraps are one of my favorite dinners. I just love them! You can take any veggies you like, we like squash, purple onion and red pepper. We marinate both the veggies and the boneless chicken breasts in olive oil and Emeril's "Bam" Seasoning (in separate bags). Then you cook everything on the grill.

When everything has been grilled, you get your cheese, tortillas and ranch dressing ready. We like to use Monterey Jack Pepper cheese. Cut all of your veggies and your chicken into strips.

Next, brush the ranch dressing on the inside of your tortilla shell and begin filling with your grilled ingredients, topping everything with the jack cheese. Roll them up and stick them with a toothpick. Now, they're ready for the grill [again] just to warm everything up, melt the cheese and crisp up the outsides of the tortilla shells.

Here's what they look like when they are finished. We usually serve them with a side of chips and salsa! They are delish! And the leftovers are just as good!

Boy Binkie Clips

I whipped up these pacifier clips yesterday for a friend having a baby boy (due any minute). The ribbon is from a set by American Crafts. I would have liked it to be a little wider, but I was using what I had on hand, plus I thought the colors would be perfect for a dapper young fellow. I replaced the felt flower on the girl clips with a felt star (cut by hand) and coordinating button. I made sure on both sets of clips to double-up all of my sewn lines, as well as using a 4-thread strength of embroidery thread to apply the buttons. I certainly don't want anything coming undone. I have another gift planned for this new Mom-to-be and I'll post it as soon as it's ready. Think football!

Cupcake Card

I put this card together tonight in a matter of minutes. Sometimes I'm just amazed at the easiness of a cute sticker. I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to go in...I knew it had to be easy and quick...so I went looking through my stash of birthday stickers. I decided on this cute cupcake and built up the card layers from there. I would have never chosen the blue scalloped circle, but when I looked at my color companion chart I found out that pink, green and blue are all split-complementary colors on the color wheel. It wasn't until I read an article in this month's "Creating Keepsakes" about making colors pop on your layout pages and cards that I understood the reason we should all have a color wheel. Do you have one?

Circle Surprise

Every now and then I like to mail a surprise to someone. It's never anything really expensive, just a little treat for them to find in their mailbox. How many of us ever get something *nice* in our mailboxes? (All I ever see are bills and junk mail.) Anyways...I thought this would be a cute little package for the recipient to open and I made the card to match.

Happy & Easy Card

I made a quick and easy card today for a friend's birthday. I followed the color-scheme from a page out of my inspiration book. This came together in minutes and I like the simple look of it. My "happy birthday" stamp was too big to fit in the 2x2 square of white cardstock so I chopped the "birthday" sentiment off and just left it to say, "happy" - which is what I wish for her special day and always!

Bag-a-Lope Treats

I'm part of a group of 6 who meet every month for a different Stampin' Up workshop. We've really had a great time so far. This month was our 4th meeting. Our demonstrator came equipped with all of the supplies to make these really cute "Bag-a-Lopes" out of regular white legal-sized envelopes. The demonstrator gave me her bag (on the left) and the I made the other bag once I got home (I wanted to use some of my supplies that I forgot to bring). Inside each treat bag is a little cello bag holding some Necco conversation hearts. These would be great for classroom treats to celebrate the holiday.

Baby Girl on the Way

As I mentioned yesterday, my good friend is having her second child, a girl, at the end of February. I've had a few things on my "To Do" list that I wanted to make for her, the first being the heart-shaped button picture that I made yesterday. The second thing I wanted to put together are some customized "binkie" holders. I bought a few outfits for the new baby and put these pacifier holders together this morning to match the outfits. I found a tutorial on another blog and just followed along. The ribbon came from Michael's and the "mitten" clips are from JoAnn's (the pacifier will be held in place by unhooking the velcro dots attached to the end of the ribbon). These came together really quickly and cost less than $5.00 for both. I also made a quick card using the scraps from the button picture. What's next?

Scrappy Card & Baby Gift

I've had a really productive morning and I wanted to quickly share with you a few things I've finished today. First, I made this cute card using some scraps from a previous Stampin' Up workshop. I also used one of my favorite Cuttlebug embossing folders called, "Swiss Dots" to emboss my background. Second, I was able to start and finish a gift for my good friend who's having a baby girl in February. I found this cute-sized shadowbox at Michael's and used it to hold this background of pink textured paper and creamy white buttons formed in the shape of a heart. I also added a few pink buttons for contrast. The tiny chipboard butterfly was covered with pink paper (also embossed with the Swiss Dot folder) and I raised it up a bit using a dimensional dot. The last thing I did was to add a wide pink gross-grain ribbon to the outside perimeter of the frame (although you can't see it). This project was really affordable, coming in at less than $5.00.

Adding Details

I haven't had much time this week to put the finishing details on my layouts from last weekend, but I did manage to finish up a few of them. I will post some of them as I work them in - we are having a cold and restful 3-day weekend so it will be the perfect time for cropping and crafting! (These pages are from some fun we had in October.)

Quick Cricut Project

I put these two bags together in less than 15 minutes! Can you believe that? I bought some Littlest Pet Shop toys for my two girls today to celebrate their fantastic report cards. I thought they deserved a little reward for all of their hard work. Instead of just handing them their treats I thought I would design a special package to hold their surprises. These white paper bags (left over from our Christmas luminary) come in handy for stuff like this. I went through my Cricut cartridges and used the George "Way to Go" font, which I thought was appropriate to celebrate their success. I've also baked some special brownies that I found on another blog this morning. They are Betty Crocker's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies....how good does that sound?

A Successful Saturday

My sister and I attended an all-day crop this past Saturday. It was a lot of fun and boy, was I productive scrapper!! I beat my all-time record by completing a total of 14 pages of layouts. Well, I say "completed" but actually, there's a little of bit of fine tuning to do to each one. I'll show you the pictures later, but I wanted to let you know what I've been up to. We spent 13 hours Saturday playing catch-up to some overdue pages. I'm very happy with what I put together.

Gifty Gift Bag

I'm traveling to see a friend tomorrow and whenever I visit her I like to bring a small gift with me. I wanted to decorate a kraft-colored bag for this gift, but I didn't have the correct size, so I opted for this bright green bag. I pulled two coordinating papers out of my stash and started piecing away. I used the spiral punch from Stampin' Up to give the edges an interesting look. I also used one of my new Nestie sets to add the orange tag to the front. With a gift bag like this there's no need to make a card!