countdown to dad, part 3.

In planning for Father's Day, I couldn't let it go by without creating a few decorations.  I think I love decorating for a party even more than making cards (blasphemy!)  I get to make pretty things and keep them up in my home until I get tired of seeing them...

I didn't want to get carried away (I'm still recovering from the last 3 parties I threw at our house!)  So, a few things to plaster on our giant cork board will set the perfect festive tone...  A sweet little surprise that he can look at while eating his special breakfast (yeah, I'm making him come down the stairs... the whole eating-in-bed thing is overrated, isn't it?)

These medallions are really fun and easy to make.  I've never done a tutorial before, so forgive me if it's not very clear, but here are the steps I took to create them.

score a strip of paper every 0.5 inch - easy-peasy on my scor-board!

add a piece of scor-tape or other strong adhesive to the ends

it will look like this when the ends are attached together

punch out 2 circles and cover them in strong adhesive.  The medallion gets sandwiched between the 2 circles

ta-da!

embellish it for father's day!

I hope you found my little tutorial helpful!  I love the look of a whole bunch of these medallions, in all different sizes, acting as the focal point at a party or wedding, even!  Stay tuned tomorrow - I'll show you how to make a 5-point star.

MAN week, part 2.

Yesterday, I shared the card I made for my own daddy.  Today, something I whipped up for my baby-daddy...

See him in the truck?  hee hee.  I was cracking myself up whilst sticking his tiny head in there...  I'm such a nerd like that - you know people who breathlessly laugh at their own jokes, and everyone else just laughs at them because they're cracking themselves up?  Yeah, that's me.  Pathetic, I know.  

The vanilla focal point mat was covered with "text-style II" and then I grabbed every vehicle stamp I own (see PTI's tiny treats: birthday truck near the bottom?  it's so cute!) and randomly stamped them around.  I stamped the main truck (from SU's "loads of love") onto patterned paper and snipped it out, including making room for popping in the big daddy's head.  A silver brad handle added just the right amount of man-bling.

Tomorrow, I'll share some father's day decorations!  Stay tuned...

Countdown to Father's Day!

I don't know what happened this weekend.  I tried to make a card.  I tried to make several cards.  And each time, I either messed something up (at the end, so that most of the card had to be scrapped) or else I stood back, looked at it, and thought: "what in the heck is this?" (and not in a good way...)

And then, I shifted gears.  Father's Day.  It's just another excuse to shower our good men with love, banners, decorations and sweet goodies.  I'm in.  I don't know what it is about switching to "party mode" but I started making things like nobody's business.  Sooooo, I'm dubbing this week "MAN WEEK".

To kick things, off - here's the card I made for my own papa.  My dad is Greek, so we don't call him Dad, Father, Pops, Papa or anything like that.  He's been Babaki or Ba to me for 30-some-odd years now and that's not about to change :)  Ba means "dad" in Greek (obviously, you got that one), and Babaki is an affectionate way of saying it... "little daddy."

I know I wrote d-a-d on the outside of this card (something funny looking about a big B-A) but there'll be a more familiar greeting inside.

I cased this card from the little blue room.  I don't have the exact link, but browse around Rachel's blog - you'll get lost for a good little while :)

The stoplight was made with various punches - nothing complicated - and highlighted with a white gel pen.  

The handwriting is awful, right?  But I really wanted to make this card personal - so I chicken scrawled "you've taught me so much on the road of life..."  

Stay tuned tomorrow for the father's day card I made my hubby (note to self, ask him to stay away from this blog for the remainder of the week...)

Woodland party show&tell...

I was trying to put labels on my posts (I just now, this morning, figured out how to do that - you'd think with a computer guy for a husband, I'd be able to better navigate all this blog stuff, but no.  And btw, honey, if you're reading, sorry I called you a "computer guy" - I know what you do for a living, I really do) when I realized that I gave you 3 lead-up posts to my baby's 1st birthday party with no final show & tell.  For shame, right?

If you missed the previous posts, I made some woodland party hats here and made a stuffed hedgehog here.  I also set the tone with an invitation here.

The par-tay was in early May... so, some 6 weeks later - here are some snippets of what was created for Maia's big day!

1. felt trees (stamped with PTI's woodgrain set!) holding up month-by-month shots of Maia's first year on a "clothesline"
2. stuffies made for each of my kids and each of my sister's kids (the hedgehog was edged out of the picture...)
3. butterfly mobile, hung from out chandelier
4. pom-pom garland, and some original woodland prints

1. strawberry shortcake, with gnomies on top
2. crepe paper garland (if you want to make one, check out this link)
3. table centerpiece
4. paper-napkin flowers (make one by checking out this tutorial)

1. party hats and gingham bow-ties
2. my woodland fox
3. cheeky birthday girl!
4. my lovelies - all decked out for the party


I wish I had gotten more photos - there are a few banners that never even saw the lens of my camera... and those smores on a stick... oh well - I have a pinterest photo somewhere to remind me!


Thanks for looking!

MIM #18

This super 3-D card is NOT going in any envelope - let's put it that way.  I'm not sure where I was going with that pom-pom, but I'm not feeling well today and it looked cozy, so there.  I'm entering this one into PTI's MIM challenge:  "adding texture with tissue paper".  On my white mat, I stamped an image from "turning a new leaf" in different directions in old olive ink.  I then painted a thin layer of white glue onto it, and carefully-but-not-too-carefully placed a layer of white tissue paper on top (you know, the kind you use as filler in gift-bags...)  It  made a really cool texture!

It also really sudbued the color of the old olive ink!  You'd hardly be able to tell that the embossed leaf on top was die-cut using the matching old olive paper...

The pom-pom is so easy to make!  There are so many tutorials out there, but this is a quick run-down of what I did.  I wrapped and wrapped yarn around my index and middle fingers (bunch more fingers together, get a bigger pom) - until the whole thing was nice and thick.  Then, I tied it in the middle (so now it looks like a figure 8, with a nice belt in the middle).  I cut all of the loops with scissors - and the more you trim the pom, the better it looks.  Actually, I can still see spots where it needs more of a haircut... but pretty cute!

The brown layer is a chocolate chip mat stack 5, with a kraft scallop circle on top.  Does the pom look a little like the center of a flower to you?  A very funky flower?  Good.  We're on the same page.

Have a super weekend, peeps!

you're a star!

My 2 oldest kids (ages 4 and 6) are at that perfect age that if you do something for one of them, you'd better have something ready for the other as well, or else... hee hee.

I had to make Sofia a "guitar" for her end-of-year-show.  I mean, it wasn't anything amazing - a spray-painted cereal box (pink, naturally), the core from a wrapping-paper roll, and some yarn for strings.  But she was thrilled, and Thomas was crestfallen.  He's been begging me to make him one, "but not pink, ok?" -  I'm eating as many mini-wheats as I can to empty out that box...

So, after I created a card for Sofia's upcoming kindergarten graduation (I love that it's a whole thing), I figured I'd better make one for Thomas too.  For no good reason, other than maybe that he sat still during her graduation ceremony (fingers crossed that this will happen.)

I'm entering this one into the Lawnscaping challenge:

I kept it super simple, since he's only 4 *wink*  I think he'll be pretty happy that he can read the card for himself.  He'll either guess that it says "you're a star" or "you're a winner" - I'm giving him points either way. 

Thanks for looking! 

sweet birthday...

I needed a quick birthday card, and the sketch over at CAS-ual Fridays was just the jumping off point that I needed to make it happen.

I'm really excited to have another sketch to work with - I love seeing how many different directions a single sketch can go...  I took mine to a sweet spot:

Is there anything more synonymous than birthdays and cupcakes?  We're still dealing with the "under 6" club, and they are convinced that no major celebration can pass by without being sealed with cupcakes.  I wholeheartedly agree.

For this card, I paper-pieced the cute little cake out of scraps of SU papers and set it aside.  I created a mask  and stamped PTI's chevron stripes inside, using SU's blushing bride ink.  The sentiment (from PTI's simple sentiments) was curved around the chevron semi-circle.  I love being able to do that with clear stamps - and it really helped to define the area a bit better.  Here's a bit of a closer peek:

Thanks for letting me play along at CAS-ual Fridays!