The stockings were hung..

This is my fireplace, the stocking I made a few years ago and the plaque I made last week. I feel like it needs "something" but no I idea what.

Christmas Projects

Today was sewing day. I sewed/worked with fabric.. for 6 hours. Here are two of the projects I finished.

Arn't they cute? They are kids aprons made from ribbon and hand towels.

I am wrapping them with a cookie cutter and a bag of cookie mix.
This was a beast... I am good at baby blankets.. crib size, but my baby (who is 10) wanted her mom to hand make her a blanket for Christmas.. so how could I say no? It was big, and hard, but made with a lot of love!

Christmas Tea

Monday was our yearly Christmas Tea. This year Laurel and I went with red and green ornaments as our theme. As always it was a wonderful time and yummy food!

Its Halloween!

I know it seams like forever since there has been a post here. School started and PTA took over my life.. with the holidays fast approaching I hope that will change. Here is a little banner I made for Halloween.

Valentine Birthday Invites

Yes, I know its 6 months to soon, but I have been really bored! I normally start planning my kids party's about 6 months before, but my youngest and I got an idea and have been running with it for a few months. I am sure by the time the party gets here I will be very sick of it, but so far this party is going to rock! Today I finished the invitations.

I figured out last night that I just love how my girls respond to the planning of the parties. Its like they know that I am using my creative talent and even more, my time, to create a special day just for them. That I am willing to think about what will make them happy and they get to share in the planning and creation. Especially for my younger daughter this is important, and I having a ball! Thing 2 (as I refer to her in the blog world as) was born 4 days after Valentines and this is the first time we have ever thought about a Valentines Party.. its going to be awesome!

Breaking Dawn is out Saturday!

We had to do a craft and what better craft when you are standing in line for the latest addicting teen vegetarian vampire book.. than a custom made T-shirt and book mark. Here are our crafts!

New Year Teacher gifts

Small bins, pencils, pens, colored pencils, blue sticks, chocolate, handmade magnets, state cards, shirt, erasers and of course, hand made card! So excited for school to start!

Jewelry Box

I posted the story behind it over at my other home.

Basically, it was just a wood jewelry box that I painted and used rub-on transfers on. Easy peasy, yes but it will serve it's purpose for now. It didn't turn out as perfectly as I had hoped (does anything?) but it did turn out a lot better than I had expected. It's cute. It functions. It was fun. I want to do more.

Spare time

I have had a lot of time to get crafty over the last few days.. things I needed to do. Here are some glimpses of what I have been working on.

Half Birthday party!

It was tine for our annual half birthday party! This year we used an Explorer theme. We sent the kids the train schedule mapping out their day as their invitation. We got on the train and then trax up to the U of U Museum of Natural History. The kids broke into two groups and did 4 worksheets (one of each area) scavenger hunt. They loved it!
After we finished at the museum we went out on the lawn for lunch and of course cheep birthday gifts! The kids loved the 3 ft gummy snake, magnifying glass, gold coins, compass and rock candy!
We took the train back down to the gateway and played in the water and checked out build a bear. Then our adventure ended with taking the train back home.
The kids loved it! Once again a great success!

Getting ready for school

As a welcome back to the teachers and staff I put together these water bottles.

The holder says "We have the "kool"-ist teachers! Thank you quenching the "thirst" of knowledge.

Twins?

Two wonderful teachers at our school are having babies. Recently they both found out the sex of their children and I finally got to go shopping. While I was at Joann's waiting in line at the cutting counter a nice, talkative lady next me asked if I was having twins.. one of each. Yeah, I am going to start living at the gym!

Anyhow.. Joann's had these amazing panels I just could not pass up, and the cutest appliques that match, of which I had to make pillows with. I know its a pig, not a bunny, buts its the right color and adorable! The pillows took longer to make than the blankets, in all about 4 hours and totally worth it!

Summer crafts

Our local Ben Franklin's offers a kids craft program each summer. This week my girls went and these adorable magnet/cork boards. Took about 45 min, easy and cute!!

Happy Everything!

Kim and I had such a wonderful time with our card swap and got such wonderful cards we decided to do it again!!! You will be agreeing to make and send 5 cards (all the same or different, your choice) for each person that plays with us. So if 5 people play, you need to make 20 cards, and will get 20 new cards! See how great this is!! And this time we have a theme (we love themes!) Holiday cards.. you pick the holiday(s), they just have to be holiday cards!

There are a few simple steps, "rules" if you will, to play along:

1. Send an email to withandwithout AT gmail DOT com, indicating you want to join this swap. Include:

Your Name

Your Address

Your blog address (if you have one)
Any special holiday notes (ie:You celebrate Hanukkah, not Christmas)

2. Send the email no later than July 7. Swap partners will be sent out by July 9. You MUST mail all your swaps by August 8.

3. Have fun!!Feel free to invite anyone you'd like. We don't have a cut-off and would love to have as many participants as possible.

We have created a Flickr group that we would love for you to join. This will enable us to share pictures of all the great cards we receive through the swap and have discussions about the group.If you have any questions, please feel free to email or leave a comment! We look forward to swapping with you!

Altered t's revisited.

Our summer projects have started! My daughters HAD to have the free Camp Rock shirt transfers from Disney.com, and Michael's has 3.99 t-shirts, so we did the transfer and I handed them a pair of scissors.
I guess I need to find a book on trashing t-shirts, they loved doing this!

Many thanks

As I have talked about before I am the PTA president for our school. With that title comes the honor of saying thank you to all of our volunteers! These are the people who donated over 3400 hours of their time, so I wanted to make it nice! We invited over 200 people and had a good turn out. Here are some of the photos of stuff I put together.

Mothers Day Gift.

For my MIL's gift this year, I put together this portrait wall. She has 6 kids (hers, his and theirs), and they all have families of their own. I got tiered of seeing all the random 4x6's laying around that she gets so I thought this was something she would like. I mean after 81 years of birthdays, christmas', and 60 mothers days its hard to find something unique!

The saying at the top says "Family link to our past, bridge to our future" there is an 8x10 of each child with their families and a 5x7 for each grandchild and their families. Right now there are a lot of names showing, but hopefully in the coming months we can get these blank spots filled in!

We are trying something new! A Card Swap!!
You will be agreeing to make and send 5 cards (all the same or different, your choice) for each person that plays with us. So if 5 people play, you need to make 20 cards, and will get 20 new cards! See how great this is!!

There are a few simple steps, "rules" if you will, to play along:

1. Send an email to withandwithout AT gmail DOT com, indicating you want to join this swap. Include:Your Name
Your Address
Your blog address (if you have one)

2. Send the email no later than May 15. Swap partners will be sent out by May 18. You MUST mail all your swaps by June 13.

3. Have fun!!Feel free to invite anyone you'd like. We don't have a cut-off and would love to have as many participants as possible. We have created a Flickr group that we would love for you to join. This will enable us to share pictures of all the great cards we receive through the swap and have discussions about the group.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email or leave a comment! We look forward to swapping with you!

More Teacher stuff

As PTA president for our school, I get to help with the week long fun for the teachers! Here is our lay out.

Monday: Continental breakfast.
Tuesday: Gift Card to Walmart and these adorable paper clips.
Wednesday: Dinner in bag for them to take home.
Thursday: Hand lotion for the taking and a seated message in the library.
Friday: A 10x13 matte signed by all their students, with a class picture in the middle.

Teacher appreciation gifts.

We started with fortune cookies, sprinkles, white and milk chocolate.

Dip the fortune cookies in chocolate.

Sprinkle and drizzle till your hearts content.
Aren't they pretty?!

Put in cute $1 Chinese take out container, with custom made gift card that says something about how fortunate we are to have them as a teacher (wrapped in plastic so the chocolate doesn't get on it), tie cute school color ribbons around the handle, attach handmade card with letter from parents AND child saying how grateful we are, and WHALA.. home made, with cutisie side, much love, teacher gifts. :)

Stop me before I make more!

I love these! I love them! I have made 5 so far, I have plans for 2 more. They are so much fun and SO easy! I am getting better as I go, I think!

Brown swap.

For my swap I had Kim so it was easy to make personalized stuff. So I wanted to share what I did.

The jar was simple, left over vinyl I had with a rub on decal filled with only the best chocolate from See's.

The picture board was a kit I got from Ben Franklin's, I ordered part of the name in vinyl and the M is wood. This was fun and easy to make. The last I just loved the material so I made a baby doll blanket. Now that she has all the stuff I just had to share!