Some Christmas Tags

Hello!  Happy Sunday!  Hope you've had a great weekend so far!  Our has been filled with kid birthdays so it's been fun!  This week we had some unseasonable warm weather and all the snow melted!  As nice as that was it was messy and everything was becoming brown! Yesterday we awoke to a beautiful winter wonderland as it snowed most of the night! Feels so much more like Christmas is on it's way!

I want to say thank you so much for your super kind and sweet comments on my last post regarding my first class!  You made my heart happy!  :>  I am blessed to call you friends!

Today I have some tags to share that I am entering into the Hero Arts contest for the tag challenge:

I got this Wonderful Christmas Stamp Set by Hero Arts last week and love it!  I've wanted a snowman stamp set every Christmas!  I sponged some tumbled glass distress ink on the snowman like Tami showed on the HA blog, love the definition it brings to the snowman!  Went sentiment free instead put it on the back along with the to and from!  Added some stickles the the scarf and stamped in white the snowflakes from the set!  :>

For this one I used my favorite reindeer stamp and paper pieced it with some red and cream striped paper!  And stamped in white the magical background stamp and added the joy sentiment and some twine by the twinery!  I made 8 of each of these tags.  My plan is to give 4 of each to two different teachers for Christmas.  Tags would make a good gift?  Still have a few more to work on!

So I have a cute story to share with you.  On Wednesday Carter was over at my SIL's house playing with his cousin Cameron who is 6 months older than him.  She overheard while they were playing:  Carter_ "I love you Cameron"  Cameron-  "I love you too Carter!"  LOL  Later that day at Chad's grandmother's when we were leaving Carter goes up to Cameron and hugs him and kisses his cheek, Cameron gets right in on the action hugging back and kissing!  We had to separate them to go!  :>  Last night when putting Carter to bed I told him that tomorrow we would be going to church he told me "Mommy tomorrow I tell Cameron that I love him!"  So cute!  

Oh I have another story.  Ariel is a pretty good student.  But she has been struggling with spelling.  It was almost like she wasn't trying.  And that annoys me not everything can come easy and subjects that are harder for her she should at least try.  If she tried and didn't do well that's another story!  It was frustrating to get her to study for it.  Last weekend she mentioned to me that her classmate told her that if she gets all her words right (10) her mom told her she would buy her something crafty.  I  told Ariel oh yeah if you get them all right I will buy you a crafty thing too!  They write there spelling tests twice once on Wednesday and than on Friday (if they get it all right Wednesday they don't have to write it again)  Well when I picked her up on Wednesday I asked her in passing how she did on her spelling test.  She says matter of factly oh I got them all right!  WHAT?  I was shocked!  Hmm I suppose she needed the right motivation!  So I took her right away to the dollar store (would have taken her to Michaels and bought her anything she wanted but she wanted to go there!)  And spent $2!  She was so happy and proud!  And I told her I would do it every week!  Oh and I made a big deal Wednesday and Thursday night how now she didn't have to study spelling since she got it all right.  And she gets it on the first try!!!!!!  Yesh she is so much smarter than she lets on!

This week I have a few things up the best of which is Ariel's Christmas concert!  :>  She is singing a duet and I can't wait to share that with you!  I am also going to be hard at work studying as I am going to write my second real estate test on Monday Dec 5th!  Eek but I want to get it over with before the true bussle of the season starts!

And I will leave you with a preview of a project I am working on besides my always card making!  It's not for a card or cards I am so excited but it will take a while especially with having to put studying first, oh and I hope it works out!  :>

See you soon!  Hope you have a terrific Sunday!

My First Class!

Hello!  Last Thursday I taught my first ever cardmaking class!  This month I joined my LSS design team, Scrapbooking by Design!  You can see the bio about me here.  I love that store and am so happy to be teaching there!  This is a real dream come true because I love people and I love working with them!  (The past few years I've realized what makes me happy is being around people which means I want to work with them! Another reason why I choose Real Estate!)  For my first class with this time of year I of course was going to do holiday cards!  I decided to work with my favorite stamp set by my favorite stamp company Hero Arts, The Greatest Gift! 

Here are the cards:

The class went so well!  I had four students which was perfect for my first time!  One of the ladies drove An HOUR AND A HALF to take my class!!!!!  She lived out of town and wanted to take my class and learn more about cardmaking!  They all really enjoyed each card and kept saying how much they loved which ever card they were making!  They were all so nice and we had a lot of fun which I think is super important!  I forgot to take lots of photos but I took two:

 Next time I will remember to take a photo of my "students" looking and smiling!  :>  In case any of you are reading this (you never know!)  Hi!  Thanks for taking my class!  Hope your having a great crafty day!

So there you go my first class!  I am really happy with how it turned out!  I teach my next class this Friday!  :>  

I better go, Chad's grandmother told me on Saturday that her condo is having a craft sale again and they want me to come back!  It's tomorrow so I've been busy creating as much as I can!  :>

Merriest Wishes

Hello!  It's Saturday and I am here with a new Wee Memories Scrappy Saturday Challenge!  It's a beautiful winter wonderland over here as it's been snowing!  Not much snow but still it's gorgeous!  Last winter we got sooo much snow and than such a dry summer so bring on the snow!

Very happy to share that I had a tag picked up publication in April 2012 Cards magazine!  So happy to see that email in my box yesterday!  Totally doing the happy dance!

Our challenge will run for two weeks so more time to play!  We have a fun and exciting new challenge of Woodland Animals!  , OWLS, Foxes, Squirrels, and many more to choose from!  Everyone loves them and they are so hot right now!  :>  

Our sponsor is the fantastic The Craft's Meow!  They have really great stamps and Jenny Suchin designs for them!  Check out her stamps here.

So the mail man is very slow and I haven't received my stamps yet!  :<  It should be here SOON as in I bet Monday knowing how that works!  I do have a card to share using a Reindeer as that's a woodland animal, right?

I paper pierced the reindeer with some October Afternoon paper.  I really enjoyed making this card!  The reindeer stamp was on my list last year but I never did get it you can imagine how happy I was to find it this year!

Well I am off, I will be back soon to share photos and my experience teaching my first ever class!

I hope you will join us don't forget you have two weeks to play!  Do check out the Wee Memories blog as I am kidding you not the design team did more than wowed!!!!!!!!!

Greatest Gift

Hello!  Today is a very exciting day for me!  I am teaching my first ever card making class tonight at my LSS Scrapbooking by Design!  I am beyond excited and a wee bit nervous!  I am teaching a stamping class using my favorite Christmas stamp set Greatest Gift by Hero Arts!  I am teaching four cards in my class but I created two more using the same supplies to show the class what else they could do.  Today I want to share them with you:

I stamped and embossed the nativity scene in white on watercolor paper.  Than I colored the whole paper with tumbled glass and broken china th distress inks all over and spray it with a mixture of perfect pearls and water.  After it dried I stamped the sentiment and stamped stars with versamark all over.  Than took a brush with perfect pearls and brushed it across the versamark stars, love the sparkly holy night it created!

In the class I am using two labels from North Country by Prima for this card I am using another and some scraps.  Love this design a great one for scraps!  :>

I wanted to say thank you for all your sweet comment regarding Ariel's birthday party!  I loved doing it all to celebrate her and she loved it!  Reading your sweet comments made me smile!  

Well sorry this post is so short, I still have some prep work to do!  :>  I hope to be back tomorrow with some pictures from my first class!

Ballerina Birthday Party!

Hello!  It's Saturday and I am here with a new Wee Memories Scrappy Saturday Challenge! This week we have a fun challenge, Birthday and Parties! 

 Our sponsor this week is Nikki Sivils Scrapbooker!!!!  For our winner we have a paper pack!!

This challenge is perfect for me as my daughter Ariel just celebrated her 6th Birthday (I have a birthday post underneath this one)  I have A LOT to share today!  

I want to start with the invites.  I was running out of time and was not inspired.  I came home from a few days away to a package in the mail including new goodies from my favorite things!  As soon as I got that stamp set in my hands I was inspired and came up with this fun design:

For my regular readers you may remember me mentioning these invites and how much time they took!  Now you can see why!  :> I stamped each "Polaroid" with the girl's names and colored each girl to look like them!  I paper pierced her outfit it's hard to tell but the skirt is sparkly!  I stamped the kraft  cardstock with white frost pigment colorbox ink (got a new ink pad and what a difference!) with the Hero Arts Stamp Life of the Party Dots.  I also made the polariod a magnet by applying magnet sheet to the back (may as well make it a keepsake with how much work i put into it!)

The invitations were a HUGE hit!  When the parents RSVP they had such lovely things to say!  :>  And the girls loved them!  When I started the invitation I was thinking of doing a fairy party but than I told Ariel that it could be a fairy party or a ballerina party.  And she choose ballerina!  

I made a lot of things for Ariel's birthday party.  I made tissue paper pom pom's to hang from the ceiling.  It was my first time making them, I always wanted to!  I youtubed it and watched several videos and combined the knowledge!  It wasn't perfect but a lot of the mother's complimented them, they gave the room a nice pink glow:

(By the way none of the girls tried to hit them, that was Carter when he got home from the grandparents he pulled out the chair stood on it and gave it a good go!)

Because it was a ballerina dance party I decided it would be fun to make dance skirts for all the girls.  My mom and I went to the fabric store together and decided on this fun material and she wanted to sew them!  We came up the pattern from another ballerina skirt of Ariel's:

All of the girls loved the skirts and were so excited to put them on!  We danced in the basement.  I showed them some steps than two of them showed some others.  Than we put some music on and just danced away:

I made little ballerina cupcake toppers.  I got the idea here.  I didn't have tulle and I didn't want to go back to the fabric store (another errand) so I used some fabric I had already.  All the girls loved them, the photo I took during the party was blurry so I had to take one again later.  But all the leftoevers were crumpled a bit oh well you get the idea:

I made chocolate covered oreos on a stick for her class on her birthday:

And for the party too:

They are so delicious!  The best hint I would have for making them is to use double stuffed oreos!  :>

Here are a few more photos from the party:

  We made wands.  I looked online and was horrified by how many sites were to actually make magical wands instead of kids wands like I put in!  Check out this link for the ones we made.  

The party went really well.  The girls all loved the craft and the dancing!  With so many girls (13 came!!!) I was worried it would get out of control but it didn't at all.  It went really well and fast!  :>  

I hope that you will join us this week with our challenge of birthdays and parties!  Please check out the Wee Memories blog for more info and to be further inspired by all the designers!  You have until Friday November 18th at 11:59 pst!!!!  I hope that you enjoyed my post!  It took a really long time to write up!

Happy 6th Birthday Ariel!

I wrote this post yesterday and completely forgot to share it, I still want to:

Today is my daughter Ariel's 6th Birthday!  Today as we celebrate her I can't help but think of the impact she has had on my life!  I remember when she was born and Chad said it's a girl!  Oh the pure joy that I felt!  The whole pregnancy I and mostly everyone else thought she was a boy!  We never found out her gender and I really carried like what most people thought was a boy!  I was so surprised that she was a girl!  But I was also beyond happy that she was a girl!  As soon as I saw her I fell in love with her!  She was beautiful and I saw myself in her, but that didn't last long since later when you compared her newborn photo with Chad's newborn photo she was completely him!  We had her name all picked out before Ariel Brooke and she fit it perfectly!  She was a big baby at 8 pounds 14 ounces but more to love!  Chad and I were smitten with her (well we still are) and took so much joy in having a baby.  She was such a cuddly baby! I always knew I wanted to be a mother and I was so happy that I finally was!  (What was I thinking finally I was only 25!) 

Ariel has been such a joy and blessing in our life.  As a small baby she was a colicky baby and I remember being up many long nights trying to get her to stop crying.  She grew into such a happy baby.  She was easy to nurse and to feed to this day usually eats whatever is placed in front of her. I remember when she was two and begging me for my veggies and dip! She was a curious toddler.  She got into many things like the toilet, vaseline (many times that I finally removed all vaseline from our house!)  cornstarch, peanut butter up to her elbows and all over (that's how I figured out she wasn't allergic at 15 months!)  And anything else she could!  We found it so amusing and cute!  She was delightful and everyone loved her and commented on her beauty!  As she has grown into a little girl she amazed us with her talking and personality!  She was so happy when we told her she was going to become a sister.  She loved the baby in my belly and later her new baby brother!  She has been an amazing sister always loving on him and playing with him.  Many comment on how there children don't play together like they do!  As she has started school she has been a bit shy at school but loves it!  Ariel loves to learn and is easily taught!  And she is so crafty loving to color, play with papers and glue and all things crafty!  Ariel is a good friend and enjoys spending time with them!  She is described by everyone as a sweetheart and a pleasure to be around.  I love her so much and am so blessed that God gave me her!  I love spending my days being her mom and look forward to what the years bring!

Happy Birthday to my sweet Ariel!  I love you forever!  Thank you for being you!

Here are a few special photos:

3 weeks old:

Our first Christmas as a family:

The cutest baby:

So happy to have a baby brother:

New Years when she was three:

You can see her getting bigger here:

 

I look forward to seeing how she grows up, just not too fast!  I will be back tomorrow with a post all about her birthday party!

Baby Dedication Cards!

Hello!  It snowed!  Last night the rain turned to snow and we woke up to a blanket of snow!  At first you feel dread but having children changes that as they were so excited!  All they could talk about was snow and playing in it!  I got all excited too!  Apparently it's supposed to go to plus 2 C so I don't think it will be here by the end of the day!  On Saturday it was beautiful outside so I took the kids to the park we had so much fun and I am really happy we did as it looks like that was our last time for this year!

Today I have some baby dedication cards to share that I made for my church bookstore!  Baby Dedication was this Sunday so I spent a few days making cards for the bookstore!  I don't have any baby dedication stamps (I have been looking for them but haven't found any yet) so I use baby stamps and use a computer print out with sentiments and bible verses for the inside.  I'll start with my favorite:

I used PTI's stamp set Sweet Baby and Simple Stories baby papers to make these cards!  I enjoyed making them!  And friends let me know on facebook yesterday that they received them as they had dedicated there babies yesterday!  :>

Well I better go it's Monday which means a start to a new week and lots to do!  We had a fun busy weekend having friends over on Saturday and spending the day with both sets of parents yesterday!  I've been spending a lot more time at home during the week working on my to do list so it was good to get out this weekend!  :>  Hope your having a great start to the week too!

Wee Memories November Blog Hop!

Hello!  Yay it's Saturday!  I am here with our November Wee Memories Scrappy Saturday Challenge Blog Hop!  You should have arrived here from Amy's blog!  If not please join us and start at the beginning of the hop at Jenny's blog!  I am so excited for this week's challenge as I came up with it!  Our challenge this week is Handmade Gifts, Tags and Boxes!  And this is our 75th challenge!!! WOW right?

This week our sponsor is Oh My crafts!  Make sure to check them out as I am sure they have whatever your looking for and more!

With the holidays approaching I know I am not the only one who is thinking of gifts.  I love the idea of making my own gifts but actually knowing what to make is not easy!  I recently saw this tutorial on how to make coasters from bath tiles and got very excited!  I knew it would make a great gift for a friend of mine.  Her birthday was coming up and she had a girls night planned.  She recently had a new baby and had gorgeous photos taken!  I totally saved them off facebook and sent them to be developed! (When I gave it to her she didn't mind at all)  The next day I went and picked up my first ever bottle of Mod Podge and felt went to Home Depot and got tiles and got to work!  I used a clear acrlic sealer that I had already from another project.  Did research and both mod podge and the sealer and both are non toxic which as a mother provides a lot of relief!  They turned out great:

I am sorry that the photos aren't better.  I put a lot of coats of mod podge and sealer and worked on it until it was time to leave!  It ended up not being the best time of day to take the photos in the light.  :>  They turned out so amazing and my friend loved them!  And so did all the other girls!  (I am sure you know how I was nervous that it wouldn't go over well!)  So happy with this gift idea!  My plan is to make them as teacher gifts for Christmas for the teachers.  They are so easy and cheap to make!  I think I may make them for family too!  :>

Well that's it for me!  I hope you continue on with our hop your next stop is Brandi!