sorry I was hangry.

HANGRY, meaning a state in which you are angry, because you are hungry.

It happens a lot in my home.  When someone is weirdly irritable, my first instinct is to throw a snack and a glass of water at the person..... (but usually, I'm just fixing the snack for myself...hang on, kids.  mama forgot to eat lunch.  lemme just scarf something down before I go crazy...)

This project is super tongue-in-cheek.



I love my stainless steel oven.



I kept it pretty simple compared to the last oven I made, because it's what's inside that counts:

a little bundle of treats...



can you read what's on the wrapping?  maybe this will make it easier:



sorry for what I said while I was hungry.... a little treat will make it better.

I love the quirky side of CSS - so funny!

And for the record, after I crafted all of this, I ate the macarons....because I was hungry...

♥.

how sweet it is...

to be loved by you....



Just a quick card (quickly blogged, not quickly made - the coloring takes long sometimes!)  I love the glasses on rag doll jake.

Have a great day!

for the bébé.

When you have a beautiful embellishment, like this May Arts ribbon, it's best to keep everything else simple and let it shine:

I love how I could easily sculpt the ribbon and mold it into a pretty shape.



and the tag features a little sneak of something to come, along with a favorite oldie...

I hope you like it!

♥.

tagged 2 ways.... with avery elle

I didn't plan it this way, but with Sofia's card yesterday, and my treat packaging today, we're spending a few days with avery elle :)

Today, I have 2 different ways to use tags to package sweet gifts.  First up, with patterned paper:



I double-tagged it for fun and placed marshmallow treats inside one of CSS's muslin bags...



The way the patterned paper was cut is what makes it so cute!  I love the little "@" symbol that was included in the tag set.  I stamped the speech bubble outside one of the home windows.  From my home to yours, simple as that.

My second tagged gift uses the tags a little more intricately:



I cut long strips of the same patterned paper and only die-cut the tag until I had the shape at the top.  The rest was trimmed with my paper cutter.



It opens like this, so that you can get to what's inside...



yummy!  (I just realized that today also marks the 2nd day in a row that I feature macarons on the blog.  ha.)



The long tags are attached at the bottom of the sliding tray.  (I love this box, by the way, you can find the die over at CSS.)

I hope you like it!

an eight-year-old blog takeover.

My daughter, Sofia, has been taking advantage of my stamps lately.... when she saw the avery elle macarons, she said she had an idea right away:

I'm so proud of her for this card!  She did all of her own stamping and die-cutting, and it's the first time that she makes a card so "clean" looking!  Quick story: when the kids came to pick me up from the airport on Sunday, after my trip to Texas, they were holding flowers.  Sofia confided that she picked out the bouquet herself, and chose the smallest one (there were 3 roses and some baby's breath) because she knew I liked things "simple."  I thought that was so cute and thoughtful... and I think somehow that realization translated to her card-making!

The only thing I helped with was to draw and cut out the plate that the macarons are sitting on - she commissioned it from me :)

First time using the die-cutter herself.

First time arranging little background stamps onto a single block and stamping in a watermark ink.

First time taking a step back and deciding it was done, without going back to add a ton more elements.

My favorite part?  the glittered white icing between the strawberry macaron layers.

If you want to make her day, leave Sofia some ♥ here and I'll pass it on.



ps, my woodland party is on the lawn fawn blog this morning!

your burger. your way.

As soon as I saw the little slider tray die from CSS, I knew what I wanted to do with it.  You see, ever since her tea party birthday, Maia has been serving up slices of cake and cookies to the whole family.  Sometimes, it got shoveled into my face bride-groom-style when I wasn't expecting it.  I thought she might like a few more felt food items to add to her collection:



I created a set of 2 felt burgers, complete with a sesame-topped bun, lettuce, tomato, amercian cheese, and a charbroiled burger.



Put it into the decorated favor box and it's almost a barbecue...

The burgers were very fun and easy to construct, using circle dies!  Here's a little bit of the behind the scenes work:



The fillers.  To give them extra bulk, I cut 2 of each.  The burger was cut with a 1.75 inch circle die, as was the lettuce (which I then free-hand cut into a "lettuce" shape) and a 1.5 inch circle for the tomato.  I hand-cut some triangles for extra tomato-detail.  The cheese shape is a hand-cut square, and a flimsy single (as opposed to the double-layered fillers.  It has to look gooey and melty, after all...)

I sewed the layers together with my sewing machine, and added extra detail to the lettuce and burger layers... (you can see what I did in the very first picture at the top.)



The burger bun was a little more challenging, but not by much.  I wanted it to have the puffy shape of a real bun, so I cut the top of the bun a bit larger than the bottom of the bun.  I then went around the bun top with a gathering stitch, as shown in the picture above.  Once you sew all the way around like this, gather it in a bit so it fits over the bun bottom and pin them together (right sides together.)



It should look like this.  I then sewed around, leaving an opening so that I could flip it right side out and stuff my burger.  I hand-stitched it closed at the end.  The sesame seeds are little french knots that should be added before you sew everything together...



Decorating the party favor 11 box was so fun.  Large stripes and a loopy border and a popped up burger scream toddler diner.... no?  Is it just me? hee.



In any case, let's do lunch ♥.

ps, if you want to keep receiving notices of my blog posts, now that google reader is gone, there are some great alternatives.  I would love for you to keep coming to visit my blog - read up here or here on how to stay connected, both on the blog and on facebook.  Thank you so much for all of your support - i love it when you stop by!

missing you.

It's lawnscaping time! This one is a sketch challenge:

I kept this one simple:

It makes me smile, and I hope it does for you too!  I went back to my very first lawn fawn stamp set (!) and created this little scene.



The sketch shows a cloud in the corner, but I wanted to do something a little different.... apparently, I couldn't completely veer from the cloud shape, though!  I picked the thought bubble from "a birdie told me."



The sentiment was printed.  I love creating custom sentiments - it's a great way to get a fresh use out of older stamp sets :)

I hope you play along!  We're being sponsored by Simon Says Stamp this time!

ps, I just got back from a little trip to Texas, to visit a sweet friend.  It's the first time I've ever been away from the kids for longer than the time it takes to birth another one, hee hee.  I was slightly worried that they would be nonchalant about my return, the way they usually are for their daddy when he comes home from a business trip.... but being greeted at the gate with flowers and bouncing kids who won't stop coming in for kisses is pretty nice.  Maybe absence really does make the heart grow fonder (aaaaaaaand, just like that, I've tied it back into my card.  You like? hee.)

♥.