"TIPS" Thursday

Good Morning Everyone,

Well today's tip is not an actual tip but more of a "Hey did you now?" As most of you know I spend waaay too much time blurfing, surfing, and googling. Well in my web travels I came across a site called "Postcrossing". This site allows anyone to send and receive actual postcards from random places all over the world. Now don't think it is all about postcards. You can send cards, letters and there is even a "Bookcrossing" site. Seems like a neat idea, especially since I am sure we all have tons of cards we can send to someone in Finland, Romania, or China. Go check them out.

Bad Wife!!!

Well my last post talked about being a very bad mommy. Now I am a very bad wife. Yesterday was my hubby's birthday. And we did absolutely nothing for him. And what makes it even worse is that he made the big 4-0! Now don't get me wrong, I attempted but my hubby is a home-body. He pretty much likes to stay home. I think it might have to do with the fact that it seems like every time we do go somewhere we run into someone he has either arrested, interrogated, or surveillanced. I guess it's one of the downfalls of being a county cop and not just a city cop-he works all over. Well any who, I offered him a big party at a club, at home, I offered a dinner party, or a cocktail party. Just something to bring people together to celebrate this milestone. He declined. So humf-I guess I'm not a bad wife after all, at least I tried.

Well even though he's not in his 30's anymore, he did pretty well yesterday. Unlike me who will start kicking and screaming at least a month before my 40th b-day. I, myself, will absolutely dread the day.

Well here is his card...

I sent a request through Wish-RAK for motorcycle images last year and received some great ones. My hubby is actually a Harley man. He snuck one in on me last year. As I was enjoying a nice quiet Sunday morning, "Baby" was delivered to our front door. "Baby" is the official name he has given her. I just call it "the thing in the garage".

I really need to do better at paying attention to the supplies I use so I can list them properly.

Bad Mommy!!!

I goofed. I had every intention to post this yesterday but the evening got away from me.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICK!!!

I wanted to do a quick post to my littlest little one: Nick. He is going to be so flabbergasted to see his big mug on the screen-LOL.

Nick turned 9 years old yesterday. I'm sure you don't remember, but 9 years ago on April 23rd it was actually Easter Sunday. Which is how he got the name Nickolas Christian. And this little munchkin has come a long way-he was born at 26 weeks weighing 1 pound and 1 ounce. Can't tell-can you? The picture on the left, with dad, was when he was about 4 weeks old and the picture on the right he was about 2 months old. He spent a totl of 10 weeks in the hospital which isn't bad for a kid born 14 weeks early.

.

He had a wonderful birthday. He took treat bags to school. They really didn't do any work in school yesterday since it was the school's annual Tech Trek Walk-a-Thon where the students get to walk the neighborhood to raise money for their computer lab. His present from mom and dad was the new Nintendo DS i he was asking for. Have you seen this thing. I tell you, the technology they think of. This is an upgrade to the original DS. With this newer version you can connect to the internet and download games, it has a camera, you can record and listen to music. I think I might want one-LOL. He also received a guitar from grandma, and spoke to other family members who will be gifting him over the weekend. So I have decided to have cake and ice cream Saturday evening to celebrate the little Prince. I even let him eat dinner in his room last night so he can continue watching SpongeBob. Believe me when I say he is still all grins.

Again---Happy Birthday Munchkin!!!

"TIPS" Thursday

Do you love using Dew Drops? Well here is a great coloring tip I received from soemone who RAK'd me some Dew Drops. It was the first time I had heard you can do this.

• Place a spoonful of clear dew drops in a small baggie. Add 6-7 drops of an alcohol based re-inker. Shake, shake, shake. Now pour your pretty colored dew drops onto a paper towel to dry. Now you can have dew drops in all your favorite colors that actually match your cardstock, ribbon, brads, etc.
  
  

I'm Here....

Good Friday everyone,

This has been a pretty good Spring Break week. I was off Monday and Thursday with my kids and we had a lot of fun. Our trip to Kalahari in Wisconsin Dells was wonderful. The kids had a great swimming, playing, and eating of course. Thursday was another water adventure. The boys were invited to a birthday party at another indoor waterpark which is about 45 minutes from us and again they had a great time. Here a few picts of the kids... Here's Nick...


And here's Alex...

O.k., on to some card stuff. I did get an opportunity to do a quick card for my hubby. His Chief is retiring and he wanted me to do a card. Now he is always complaining about me spending money on stamps and such. But guess what he asked me when I handed him the card last night? "Don't you have any police stamps?" Now that sounds like a question that gives me permission to spend some money! What do you think? Any suggestions on where I can find some police stamps? I'm thinking I should have some since both my hubby and brother are policemen. Also some firefighter ones would be nice too-gotta make cards for the brother-in-law.

Have a great weekend. I probably be back sometime this weekend. I made a couple of purchases and have been trying to clean/organize my stamp room.

More Baby Shower Gifts

Hello,

I wanted to share 2 brag books that I did for baby shower gifts this past week. One was for the grandmother who is really into butterflies and the other was for the expecting mom. These books are made from cd covers and are really not hard to do at all. It took me longer to find the paper and embellishments than to do the actual books. My suggestion is to use some kind of kit. My favorite ones are the SU Simply Scrappin' Kits. Those things are so versatile and you can get 2 books done from 1 kit. How economical is that?

At the last minute, literally as I was about 20 minutes from walking out the door to deliver these books, I thought of little bags to put them in. So I grabbed some scraps and my adhesive and went to work. Another tip, whenever you are in a dollar store grab a few solid color gift bags. They will definitely come in handy and really add a "wow" factor to your gift. Plus, who doesn't love a matching bag with gift?

Swaps! Swaps! Swaps!

Well here I go again. I just can't stop signing up for swaps on SCS. I tell you, it's an addiction.

First, I signed up for a "kids" card kit swap. I thought it would be a great idea since my neices are always looking to make cards when they come over. A couple of weeks ago I made a nice little bin full of "clearance" items I have been buying just for this purpose. This way they are not using all my good stuff. Well this swap requires you to put together kid-friendly card kits that have everything for them to make a card with; a card base, 2 6x6 sheets of dsp, a foot of ribbon, and some embellishments. I took two spots in this swap so I can get plenty of kits back for my neices.

Now the other swap I joined if for card kits as well, but with a coffee/tea theme. I pretty much signed up for this one to give me an excuse to buy a new stamp set.-LOL Any suggestions-what is your favorite coffe/tea set? I'll be making my purchase sometime next week.

And the other swap I signed up for is a Secret Sister swap. And this one is for the month of July. I have never participated in one like this before, but you send your SS a package of 31 small gifts and they open one package a day for the month. It sounds like a lot but you are only required to spend $30. I have so many ideas and plenty of items already in my craft room that I can give as gifts. I even have an extra SU stamp that I have never used. And that has 5 stamps in it so that can cover 5 days of the month-I'll wrap each stamp separately. Get it?

Go check out SCS and join a swap. I have met some really nice ladies joining swaps and we seem to keep following each other from one swap to the next.

"TIPS" Thursday

Well we are only a few days away from Easter and I am sure many of you will be getting ready to dye tons of eggs with your kiddies. I haven't decided yet if I will be dying eggs with my boys because we are leaving Saturday for Kalahari. It's an indoor waterpark in Wisconsin. We do have a full kitchen in our suite so there really isn't any reason we couldn't dye eggs. But I might not be able to get them out of the water long enough to do that. So how about some Easter egg dying tips? Here are a few I ran across googling, of course.

• If using food coloring or tablets to dye your eggs make sure your eggs are completely cooled off before dying. Cold eggs adhere the color better. But if you are coloring or using wax, warm eggs work best for this method.
• Wrap rubber bands around your hard-boiled eggs, then drop them in food-coloring dye. Remove eggs, pat dry with paper towel and remove rubber bands. The parts of the egg covered with rubber bands will not be colored. Once the rubber bands are removed, you can drop the egg into a different color dye.
• Make a design on an egg with a clear or white crayon, and then dye it in a light color. Once it’s dry, draw more of the design with the crayon, and dye it a slightly darker color. You can keep doing this from lighter to darker colors until you have a brilliant multi-layered display of loveliness. This method is called Psyanky, and it’s a Ukrainian folk tradition. Doesn't that sound neat?

Now go buy those eggs and have lots of fun spending quality time with your kids, neices, nephews, or even some neighborhood kids. I'm sure someone's mom or dad wouldn't mind getting rid of them for awhile-LOL.

Have a wonderful Easter weekend everyone!!!

The Diaper Cake

A lot of work? Yes

Fun to decorate? Yes

A hit at the baby shower? Yes

I really did have a lot of fun decorating this. I had so many ideas running through my head that I know I will have to do more of these. And since I don't know of anyone in my circle of friends or family who are expecting anytime soon I just might have to do them and put them on the market! I first saw this done on someone's blog a couple of months ago and when the opportunity arose for me to do it I jumped at the chance. I like the fact that you can customize them by color scheme, boy or girl, characters, it's up to you.





Here are some pictures of what it looked like in the early stages...















As you can see, I made some changes along the way. Oh, and guess what's in the middle-a nice bottle of red wine. Something for the mommy to look forward to-LOL. I also folded and stuffed the bibs around the bottle, which is why you don't see them in the final picture. Now I have also heard you can do a version of this for a bridal shower or wedding gift using towels, so I'll be looking into that also. This baby shower really kept me busy this past week so I'll have more to post tonight or tomorrow.

"TIPS" Thursday

A day late again...I tell you, the weeks have been flying by me. Everytime I think I'm a step ahead I realize I am actually 2 steps behind. I think it's the whole beginning of baseball season. My 11 y/o, Alex, is on 2 baseball teams this season. One is the regular in-house little league team and the other is a travel time. So usually 4 days out of the week we are transporting him to batting practice, pitching practice, and regular old practice. I guess I should get use to it since it doesn't seem like he is going to stop playing anytime soon.

O.K. enough of my whining, let get to some tips:

• Keep a Swiffer cloth or lent brush roller near your crafting area. Now you can easily clean up pearl ex, embossing powder and pastels.

I came across this tip on SCS. I don't have many wheels but this is a nice cheep alternative to purchasing the clear storage boxes.

• Use empty Pringles cans to store your wheels. Take some computer paper (CS is too thick) and then wheel each image on the paper so you know what's inside each can. Adhere the paper to the outside of the can so at a glance you know what's in each can. You can store 7 small wheels and 3 jumbo ones per can. And it was also noted the Crystal Lite containers can be used also.

Now don't forget, if you have a great tip you would like to share for the "TIPS" Thursday post? Then email me at paperexpressions@att.net with your tip and blog address. I'll include you in a "TIPS" for Thursday post with a link to your blog.