Super Girly Cards

Here are some ultra feminine cards I finally finished last night. They were my go-to project when I was tired of Christmas stuff. I used French Manor for the peacock, and Art Nouveau for the butterfly. I also buckled down and seriously tried to have the patience to string enough beads to go around that last card. Woo-Hoo! I did it! 

More stuff...

Here are a few gift baskets I made for Christmas. Some store-bought stuff, some homemade things. 

Here are some cute sugar scrubs that I made for each color-themed basket.

I also made some pomegranate hand scrub.

And here is a birthday card I made for my dear husband. He wanted a subscription to siriusxm internet radio. The flash is kinda weird, but it's on fancy charcoal paper. I used Birthday Bash and Hannah Montana cartridges for everything (including the sirius logo!)

What? It's already Christmas?

Hope you all had a great Christmas. And Thanksgiving. And Fall. I haven't been on here hardly at all since school started. I haven't really played in my craftroom since then, either. :-( Anyway, here's a little of what I've been up to.

Here are a few variations I made of a card back in the fall. I've had the stamp for ages, and wanted to practice my copic coloring skills just a tad. 

I found a cute idea on Pinterest of using large cut-outs of each person's initials for their gift tag. Here are the presents for Miss R and Mr. T (and a gift together). I did the same think for all family gifts. I thought they looked cute and old fashioned, which matched my tree perfectly! The others were on darker paper, with brown ink instead of green. I missed taking photos of them.

Here is a tiny christmas tree I decorated in our kitchen. I used cookie cutters and small ornaments, along with some leftover tulle from ballerina skirts I've made.

And here is a quick picture of the kitchen window, all ready for Christmas. Guess I should've put the dishes away first. Oops!

Here is my Maternity-Ward Mrs. Claus! Sophie had her pups the day after Christmas.

They are two days old here. When I let Sophie out to do her business, some of the pups crawled over to the edge of the cage where the warm heating unit kept them cozy. When Mom got back, they weren't anxious to leave.

And here they are all snuggled together. We had 9 total, 8 survived (6 boys, 2 girls)

Baby Cards (and more)

A couple weekends ago my mom asked me to make her some cards for girl and boy babies. So this is what I came up with. I think they turned out cute. I forgot to take a picture of the inside, but they all have a cute banner that says "baby," with space for the giver to write a note.

I also made some notecards for any occasion. I have 8 sets with 4 cards each. Each set uses different paper and embellishments, but the same basic layout and theme colors. I think they're cute, and would be great for simple notes. They're blank on the inside. I did use my cricut for the bird and cage- they are both cuts from French Manor.

Back to The Real World

I started back to work on August 13, and my bright-eyed, bushy-tailed students came in on the 20th. We've had a great first couple of weeks, but boy, am I wiped out! Each grade level has a webpage/blog that we're responsible to update regularly this year, so I set aside a few minutes this afternoon to get caught up.

On Wednesday I had a couple hours to hang out at school while waiting for my BFF Caty to get off work so we could celebrate her birthday, but instead of being practical and organizing paperwork, getting lesson plans together, or putting grades in our new online gradebook program, I decided to craft a little. I pulled out my hot glue gun (what, you don't keep one of those in your classroom!?) and looked around for some supplies. I've had this idea in my head for a few weeks to make a School Supply Wreath, after seeing a crayon wreath on Pinterest. I think it turned out pretty cute.

I pretty much used things laying around the room, except for the bow ribbon I brought from home, and the corkboard/chalkboard paper I got at ACMoores a few months ago. I finished gluing those on Friday after school, and now it's done. The black is actually chalk paper, so I could write "Welcome to Mrs. Lynch's Class" or whatever on it. Completely erasable. If I make anymore, I'll probably just use black paper. 

And for the record- I had purchased all of the items myself, save for the 3 paperclips. No griping on teachers wasting school supplies! 

Wow.... It's been awhile

So I didn't notice until the other day that I haven't updated my blog in a LONG time. Like going on 4 months. It's not that I haven't been crafting (though it's part of it), I just haven't taken the time to snap pictures of my projects and load them on here.

So, let's play catch up.

May: I made new curtains for my classroom to follow my 2012-2013 theme of black w/ polka dots. Here is a taste of my sewing abilities.

June was a month of "Congratulations" cards, as my little sister and SO many others I knew was graduating from High School! Here is a boyish card I made for the occasion. (And I don't know why the picture didn't rotate, so just turn your head!)

We also had our new roof installed in June (which looks fabulous!) and we also took a last-minute trip on Princess Cruiseline to Europe. We boarded the ship in Greece, and went to several beautiful places I've never been. I love love love pretty things, and picked up the bowl (with fishes) in Turkey, and the tray (with flowers) in Israel. Next time we go back, we are going to hit up Israel again, and then Egypt. We were supposed to go to Egypt on this cruise, but with the election and protesting at the time, they wouldn't let us on shore :-/. It was still a great trip and I have a ton of pictures and memories from it.

July was spent getting everything ready for Vacation Bible School at church. Here is a picture of  me going down the redneck slip-n-slide in the yard. Good times! hahaha. We had a great, dependable turn-out all week, and I was super impressed with how much the kids learned each night.

And that brings me to August. I haven't had a lot going on so far this month. The last week of July I read all 7 Harry Potter books, so I ordered the DVDs on Amazon and got them last week. I watched them all in a row and finished up around 6:30 am on Saturday morning. (Yeah, I'm a little obsessive compulsive about finishing stuff like that). They weren't quite as "magical" as I was expecting, but overall I loved them!  I had promised one of my 2nd graders that over the summer I'd read them, so I'm a little excited to go back to school and let her know that I did indeed keep my word.

I also began making a series of cards that I will share when I've completed the set, and I also got a few kits from NoelMignon.com yesterday. I first pulled out the ingredients from "Something Wicked" to play with last night. Here are 10 Halloween themed cards I came up with. I don't really do Halloween, but the papers are gorgeous and I've I've had a lot of fun playing with spiders and witches and other things that don't normally appeal to me. Maybe it's from all the Harry Potter I've been spending my mind on!

And there's no telling what else I haven't updated about. I start back to work on Monday, so maybe I'll get back into routine soon. I do need to get back into running at the Y. We were on our cruise when my 6 weeks of PT was up, so I should be able to do a little more, now, as long as I stretch appropriately. Anyway, that's all I've got.