birthday doodling.

I feel like this little blog is being sorely neglected. And not just because of the beautiful weather.  I've been party crafting my heart out since early April, and unfortunately for me, party posts are one big WHAM and then I have nothing else to post for the week. or weeks.

But I miss connecting with you here, so I'll show off what I wouldn't ordinarily blog.  It's just me, a 0.3 copic multiliner, and a handful of copic markers.



It's not perfect, by any means (especially the sentiment. ha. I was inspired by *this* art piece, which is far more amazing.)

I mentioned this on instagram, but our family has undergone some recent changes. My craft area (a corner in our basement space) was renovated a few months ago.  I was finally getting things organized to my liking and feeling comfortable about how I could work down there.  Then, my hubs went and found himself a different job. A great job, that would have him working out of our home. On my desk. All the time.  I'm so happy for our family, but some days, all I can create with is a sheet of cardstock and markers while the older kids are doing their homework, all on the same kitchen table.  We're adjusting.



Either way, I think this gal's pretty cute.  I hope you do too!

♥.

Happy 35th! {a teeny celebration}

A grown man doesn't need a big party... all my husband asked for was a nice bottle of scotch and a book.  But the kids and I did something fun for him anyways...

It all started with this card, from my friend Laurie's blog.  I never know what to buy from the silhouette store until someone makes something cute and shows me. hee.  Click *here* for the cake card file.



I made him this card, and cut it out the same way that Laurie did: apart from the aqua card base, everything else was cut from the same sheet of cream cardstock.  She colored all of her candles with copics, but I sponged my color on.  I like the variation in color I can get that way... The only stamping I did was to add an aqua woodgrain to the cake base.



From this card, I set out to create a few treats and also.... flat Amar:

The kids were in fits of giggles.  Maia clasped her hands to her mouth and shrieked: it's daddy!  I think it's pretty much the best use of my CSS rag doll dies... evah.  I did use the silhouette to cut those glasses.  And what could go better with flat hubby than a few mustache-topped cucpakes?  (ps, the kids helped with the icing, which makes the sloppiness completely acceptable.)



Since cupcakes were our only treat, I decided to dress up the table a tiny bit.



A hand-drawn fork, next to a handlebar mustache.  naturally.



I used packing paper and did some quick placemat doodles with a black sharpie.



I hope you like our tiny celebration!  Amar was delighted when he came home to see all of this (and, I'd like to think his favorite part was the flat version of himself.)

Happy birthday to the best partner and man I know!

♥.

crafty touches for a birthday gift.

Yeah, I didn't have time to make a card for today, so you get to see what we gifted my "love machine hubby" with yesterday :)

What do you do when the prezzie your man wanted still isn't available for his big day?  (it's not a rhetorical question.  You grab your 3 kids, go to walmart, and ask them what they'd like to put into a box for daddy.)

Sooo, we ended up with a bag of doritos, a can of ice-tea, a gigantic calculator (it's hidden in the back), a chocolate bar, and a movie (I chose that one.)  

When we got home, we set out to make his gift-box a little more special.

I set the kids loose on sheets of cardstock, with a variety of circle punches.  I love all the badly-punched shapes, hee hee.  

Every man needs a party hat.... this one was upcycled from a previous project (read: a 1-year-old's birthday party.  Rip off the circus picture, die-cut a few birthday numbers, and voila! The old becomes age-appropriate...)

And what better to go with that cool, refreshing drink than a mustached-stripey-straw? (also lifted from a child's birthday party... and now you are starting to understand how little time I had... ha!)

In the end, all of the crafty touches were perfect for this grown-up-party-boy.  The kids insisted he wear his hat first thing in the morning, as they threw the confetti on him:

Thanks for peeking!

birthday drive-by.

I know I said I would do an "elegant" card next, but ummm.... baby steps, m'kay?  There are no googly-eyes on this card, and only a mildly punny sentiment.  I would like to think I'm moving in the right direction :)

I stamped the truck (from SU's loads of love set) onto some Basic Grey designer paper.  The gifts got stamped on the other side of the same paper.  I love paper-piecing as an alternative to coloring the images sometimes - it gives such a different look!

The background was stamped with the Hero Arts clouds background stamp, and I softened it a bit by sponging some blue ink around the edges.  The grass was created by snipping a fringe all along a strip of Old Olive paper.  The whole thing was foam-mounted onto some Kraft paper.  I stamped SU's A to Z onto the kraft base, so it could peek through the "hole" I punch out of the cloud layer.  The "driving by" sentiment was tucked into the curves of the car.  Thought it looked smart that way.

On a completely unrelated note, do any of you moms with little ones ever get embarrassed by your kids?  Not when they're babies and throwing a tantrum.  That happens to all of us (I hope).  I mean, I took my 2 older ones to a birthday party and my usually too-cute-for-words 4 year old was yelling at some other little boy with his hands on his hips:  "you just don't do that!  that's not nice and don't ever do that again!"  The boy (who is older and much bigger than Thomas, which I think only makes it more ridiculous) was just standing there with his arms up in the air, all "what did I do?  what did I do?"  HA.  And that was just one of many off-putting moments for me.  So please, make me feel better by sharing your own story.  Or advice.  Or contempt for the fact that I was really embarrassed by my own son :)

Happy weekend!