WHEW!!!!!!.......

Imagine yourself high above everyone else on a roller coaster...it looks like you can touch the clouds...you hear the faint wind in your ears...you're shaking...you close your eyes, and WHISHHHHHH...you go full speed ahead...down...faster...down...faster...down...you can't take anymore...faster...down...faster...down...and...it seems like there is no relief in site!

Now you have a slight picture of my summer. It has been one long roller coaster ride with no breaks. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining, but boy would I love just a few days of sitting around doing absolutely nothing. I started doing classes this summer, which have been totally fun. I love thinking of the projects and I especially love that they really enjoy what they are making and learning. I have finished a few monthly swaps this summer, I went back to school to get my degree, and even though I am not going to the Stampin' Up convention I did sign up for a scrapbook swap so I have been working on that. My SU upline hosted a "Conventional" that I attended. Oh my gosh, what a wonderful event! It was so informative and the projects we did were amazing. I will posting these pictures int he next couple of days. Actually I will doing a lot of postings since I have so much to share...finally!!!

Bare with me...I'll be blogging on a regular basis real soon.

Now let's get to some fun stuff:

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to do some kind of container that would hold a baby shower gift and they also wanted a matching card. When I came across this cute template from Papertrey Ink I knew I had to try it. Here is my creation:

I was so happy with the results. My customer only had one requirement, she wanted me to use the picture of the little girl somewhere because this was going to be a mural in the new baby's nursery. I was able to capture the mural on the picnic basket and the card. I don't know if you can tell but I left the bottom part of the picture loose so she could lift it up and write her message inside the card. She was so grateful and mentioned how her gift was talk of the baby shower.

Supplies:

Cardstock: SU Kraft, Certainly Celery, & Very Vanilla

Accessories: Certainly Celery Grosgrain Ribbon, Clear Rhinestone Brads, Flower(unknown)

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?

I'm Pulling My Hair Out!!!

Have you ever had everything planned out in your head of exactly what you were going to do? Well I had all my Christmas crafting planned for this week; I knew which day I was doing teacher gifts, treats for class parties, and gifts and goodies for my bosses. Needless to say it all went up in smoke when I picked my boys up from school yesterday. They happily told me that school was cancelled for Friday! I couldn't believe it, the school had already made the decision to close on Friday because of a suspected snow and ice storm that is due to hit the Chicago area today. So there went all my plans. I was up all night finishing the boy's teacher gifts. So here is what I came up with:

This is for Mrs. Schreiber, my 5th grader's teacher

And this set is for Mrs. Relilly, my 3rd grader's teacher







Both sets I used retired DSP which I still love. I hate that I am running out. And I decorated a plain white gift bag that I bought from the dollar store. I was also able to do an altered paperclip for both teachers but was unable to get a picture last night because I didn't want to disturb them while they were drying and I didn't have time this morning before school to take a picture.

I guess this is a lesson learned about not waiting until the last minute. We'll see if I have actually learned this lesson for next year. LOL Oh, I won't have to wait that long, there is Valentine's Day and End-Of-The-Year gifts that I need to plan way ahead of time.