Help!

OK, I know I am nuts, no need to point that out. Normaly by now my Christmas cards have been done for months. This year.. nothing is grabbing me, and when I do sit down to get crafty I am alone and all my husband can say.. "yeah, thats nice". So I am turning to the internet. Please leave me a comment about which of these cards you like the best, or how I can change something to make one of them really "pop".
Do it quickly.. I have a goal to have these done this week!

Card #1
Card #2

Card #3

Card #4.

Thank you!!!

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!

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!

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.

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!

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!

I love this site!

I found Tip Junkie, through another site, and I love it.. its so crafty, its everything I want this site to be, but better. Go check it out!

Small makeover pt 2

As is the story of my life, my kids and husband have taken over "my" spaces. I noticed on Christmas day the place I had been calling my desk, had not been my desk for a VERY long time, and that needed to change. So, I moved my crap to the thing next to the fridge that I pile paper and junk on and was determined to make it my desk. Here it is!

Ohh and of course I needed to make something to go on my new desk. I saw this idea in a Close to My Heart idea book and had to make it. It was the final touch for my desk!

Christmas Cards

Happy to say the cards are all made, addressed, and waiting with stamps for December 1. I have found a pattern in myself when it comes to my card making. I see something I just love this season, get the stuff have all the cards made by May and then wait. So far its worked out pretty good and I am on top of my Christmas cards.

Hotel Bordom

While traveling for work sometimes I get organized enough to bring projects with me. Sadly its day two and I am out of projects... well I can do my taxes :(
Here are a couple of photos of what I made.

These are the tags to go with the mummies I made over the weekend.

I have spent a lot of time working on my younger daughters Halloween costume. I brought it with and did the finally beading that I needed to add, I had enough goods to make some matching earrings and a necklace to go with. I will get photos of the girls costumes (ohh and mine! made stuff for it too) soon.

Weekend get away

Ohhh how great it is to get out and focus on what crafts and projects need to be done. I am going to list a few of the photos, I have more that was done, but it goes with gifts, swapps, costumes and stuff that I want to keep wraps on for a little while.

Bags. I was going to make them reversible. I was going to send one to my swap buddy, and then realized I could make 4 and give one to each of us at the overnight scrap this last weekend.. oh and scrap buddy don't worry.. it wouldn't fit in the box. They were pretty easy.. esp since I can't sew.. it was a first for me, but the material was so cute I had to do something with it.


Want your mummy? I got the idea for these a couple of years ago from Family Fun, this year I am making about 80 of them, the girls classes and my PTA board will love them! They hold 2 pieces of candy and are just adorable!

Yes.. I know.. don't hate me! My Christmas cards were done in February, so I had time to get these mind blowing, cute as hell Christmas Tea for Mom and Me invites made. Custom design, cant wait for the party to show you the whole theme!

That's it for now.. I will have more promise.

Not limited to monkeys

I love holidays and birthdays and any excuse to create something fun and wonderful. I take painstaking details to create most things I do cuz' I am a freak like that. So in creating my oldest daughters birthday this year I have not disappointed. She wants a Limited Too party and LT2 does not have their own birthday line so that left it wide open for me! We are still working through the details but here is stage one.. the invite.. and the work put into this "masterpiece".
First task, find an image of the Monkey and the Flowers (the images for LT2). I did this by purchasing a luggage tag of the monkey and scanning him, then my daughter got a new backpack I scanned the flowers so I got these images.


Once I had these I needed to clean them up and create line art. (this took hours)


At this point I shipped the images off to the local stamp store and in a couple of days I had stamps. With much pondering and letting my daughter choose colors and ideas I went with it. I love the way it turned it and not only am I making the invites, and the thank yous, we will use them for the craft at the party too.

The party is in December, so I will have a full update later of the party.

Back to School

I substitute at my daughters school, and have found I have an amazing amount of respect for the job that teaching professionals do day in and day out. For the start of each school year I check the list required for school and buy extras when I find them on sale. I also add a disposable camera, gift card to develop the film and a sweet treat. Here is what I did this year.

Gift Card holders

For my girls birthdays I have stopped trying to guess what they want. Honestly, they scare me! We have taken to giving them gift cards to their favorite places and then they get a shopping trip including lunch with me alone. I made these multiple gift card holders this year.

This one for my oldest was harder to make and held 2 on each "page".


This one for my younger daughter was easier and just as effective. I got the template for the card holders from a Claire's gift card holder I tore apart.

CD Holders

I found this idea a while back and never got around to using it. About a month ago, I made a music cd for my sister's baby and Madeleine and wanted a cute cover for them. I remembered this idea and thought I'd try it out. Now I can't quit making them. I joined a swap group and for each one I've included one of these. When I have to send pictures to my sister, I make one for the cd. I find myself looking for reasons to make them. It's kind of pathetic. I have Madeleine's pictures divided by month and if I can get each month down to fit on one cd, I'll make an envelope for each month. Instead of looking at paper for scrapbooking anymore, I look at it in terms of cd envelopes. Yes, pathetic.