Thank You Card for our Vet

So you all have heard me talking about our recent move.  Unfortunately, that move entailed giving up our sweet kitties.  (Insert sobbing here)  My husband had one of them for ten years and we've had the other for six.  They were our first babies and it was incredibly difficult to let them go.  My little boy is allergic (as am I) and even on several antihistamines, he was still having a number if issues.  We had to make the call and do the right thing, even though it was a tough decision.  All that to say, we wanted to send a thank you card to our vet's office.  They have been so great through the years to us and to our sweet furry boys.

I was looking for inspiration and found this card on Pinterest.  I tweaked it a bit to make it more pet oriented.  Here is what I came up with.

Cute, yes?  I LOVE these colors!  I'm a little bummed that my stamping of the paws didn't come out very well, but that was my fault, not the stamps!  I've yet to master stamping honestly.

The colored paper is from DCWV.  The paw print stamp is from Pink By Design's Furry Friends Set.  The sentiment is from My Creative Time's Many Greetings Set (one of my favorites!).  The envelope paper, as well as the white, is just from my stash.

The joy of making a cute non-standard sized card is that you get to make a cute non-standard sized envelope too!  (Can you sense the sarcasm?)  I made one to match and since we dropped it off instead of mailed it, I put a little paw print where the stamp would go.

I had fun with it, even though it didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it to.

Thanks for stopping by!

:) Cynthia

Etched Glass

Hello!  Ok, so I just have to tell you...etching glass is my new favorite thing!!

I was trying to think of a Christmas gift for my parents, who are a bit hard to buy for.  The last thing they need is more junk in their house.  I tried to find something I thought would be useful.  A few months back I saw my SIL Ruthie over at September Ninth do some etched glass projects.  I've been waiting for an opportunity to try it out, and this was perfect!  Their house has a southwestern theme, so I went with it.  My dad loves wolves and my mom loves Kokopelli so this glasses set was born!

There are six glasses, 3 with wolves and 3 with Kokopelli.  It was a bit hard to take pictures, but I think you can see well enough to get the idea.  I got both designs from the Lettering Delights Cut Its set called Southwest.

My mom's birthday is around the corner so I also made her a matching vase to set on her kitchen table or in the living room.  It is actually bigger than it looks in the picture.  

They didn't turn out perfect, but for my first etching project, I feel like they turned out pretty good.  They were so fun and easy to make!  My parents loved them!  They even want me to make another set of 6  glasses with some other southwestern designs from the Cut Its set I used.  

If you want details on how to do an etched glass project, let me know!  I'm not a pro, but it is so easy and the ideas are endless!

Thanks for stopping in today.

:) Cynthia

Little Gift Tag

Merry Christmas!  I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas filled with friends and family.  I know I did!

Ok, so I wanted to share with you a quick little tag that I made for some friends.  When we moved a few weeks back, a friend helped my husband take apart some furniture and move some boxes with his truck.  We took most of his Friday evening so we wanted to give him a thank you, as well as his wife for letting us take him away from her for a while.  We decided to give them a bottle of wine we know they like.  Here is what I came up with:

Simple and cute.  I got the glass from the Lettering Delights Cut It set called Drinks.  I used MTC to duplicate it, move them around, and create a little layer.  They didn't line up exactly...I was a bit bummed.  My Silhouette was on loan so I had to use my Cricut.  I think it turned out nice for a quick little project. Here it is on the bottle of wine:

Fun!

More projects to come soon!

Thanks for stopping in!

Oh...and I changed my blog background.  What do you think?

:)  Cynthia

Book Mark Monsters

So every year I go through a few months of trying to figure out what to do for my students at Christmas time.  I always like to give them some sort of a little gift from their teacher.  This year, my kids all LOVE reading!  They do every year, but this year it seems to be a bit more than usual.  Happy teacher!  I would say at least twice a week someone is asking me for a book mark.  When I saw this on pinterest, I just couldn't resist!  (Sorry for the bad photos!  We just moved, it was midnight so bad lighting, and all I had was my iPhone!)

I asked each student for their favorite color and then made them each a book mark monster.  It fits on the corner of the page to hold your place and looks like it is eating your page.  I didn't get a picture of that, but you can see it on the pinterest page if you need a visual.

I used a little To: and From: from one of my stamp sets on the back and put their name on it.  

All the paper was from my stash.   I used MTC shapes to create the cut out for the monster base and teeth on my Silhouette.    I used some old Creative Memories shape cutters to make my circles and a good old three hole punch to get the black pupils.  I did a little doodle for the whites of the eyes with my gel pen. 

So fun!  The kids loved them and so did the parents!  What parent doesn't love a fun gift for their child that encourages them to read?

It was a great success! 

Thanks for stopping by!

:)  Cynthia

Baby Gift

Hello there!  It is Christmas vacation for my students and me so you are bound so see some good activity on my blog for the next two weeks.  :)  The first thing I have for you is a little rattle I made for a good friend and coworker who is having a baby in early January.

I found this on pinterest a few months back and just had to make it!  I like her color and pattern better, but I'm no so good at changing colors in the round yet, so I went with a multicolor yarn.  She gave great instructions on her site and I was able to make it pretty easily.  It is so fun!  I'm still a beginner in crochet, so my seams aren't perfect, but they will hold!

I stuffed the rattle with some batting and put two jingle bells inside to create the rattle sound.  I know the second picture didn't turn out very well, but I like how you can see the two little rings better so I decided to include it anyway.

Cute, no?!  The blanket it is sitting on is also something I made, but it still needs finishing and so it will be on another post for another day.  :)

That's it for now!  Thanks for stopping by!


Cynthia :)

Winner, Winner!

Congratulations to Laura!  You are the winner of the My Memories Software!  I'll be emailing you later today.  :)


Cynthia :)

My Memories Suite Review and GIVEAWAY!!

Hello blog world!  I know I've been MIA lately, but our family is moving and boy does that take a lot of time!  Full time teacher, mom, wife, and then moving on top of it...well...that is just a full plate!

I am writing today to tell you about a cool program I was introduced to.  It is called My Memories Suite and it is so fun!  This software is an Amazon best seller and #1 rated scrapbooking software.  It is a digital scrapbooking software by name, but can be used to do so much more!  I played around with it the other day and made several little projects to show you.  I love how fast and easy it is!  It would have taken me days to do with paper what I just did digitally in a few minutes!  *I have to say that after I finished all of this, I went back in and found so much more cool stuff I didn't even see the first time!  There are free digital scrapbooking kits on the website to download too.  Wow!

I am so picky and well...unskilled at picking coordinating colors and patterns, but this makes it so easy!  I can try things out and see how it will actually look with the click of a button and then change it just as quickly!  The background papers and patterns are so much fun (the ones I used are pretty simple because, well...that is how I roll...but there are some really fun ones in there too!)  The embellishment options are super neat too.  Ok, so let me show you my projects and then I'll give you all the details on the giveaway!  There are a few because I just couldn't pick one!

The first one I made is a square greeting card, or even post card if you wanted.  I thought it would be fun to send a Thanksgiving card out with some pictures of our son at the pumpkin patch.  Isn't this cute?!  Maybe I'm just biased.  ;)

These next 2 projects are scrapbook layouts.  I love to scrap in square because, well, I am sucker for symmetry.  :)

For my last project I tried to do something creative that you might not think of when you think about using a digital scrapbooking software.  I thought it would be neat to send out a little bookmark during the holidays for grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.  How cute is this?!  Again, I might be biased because the subject is "as cute as a button"!

I thought it was really sweet!  You would just cut them apart with a paper cutter once they are printed and there ya go!  Love it!


Ok, so now to the giveaway!  My Memories has generously offered one of you the opportunity to win a free My Memories Suite download!  You get the whole program for free!  Let the digital creating begin!  Now that I have your attention on this paragraph for sure, I wanted to let you know that if you want to purchase the My Memories Suite, please use my code STMMMS73875 when ordering.  You get $10 off and a $10 gift certificate for the My Memories online store!  Now, to be eligible for the giveaway you need to do a few things:

1.  Become a follower of my blog.
2.  Check out the My Memories website.
3.  Leave me a comment here letting me know your favorite digital scrapbooking kit from the website.

That's it!  If you would like another chance to win you can:

- Go follow My Memories on their blog, twitter, or Facebook.  Then leave another comment and let me know that you did!  (One comment for this, even if you follow all three.)

and/or

- Share about this blog post and my giveaway to your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or on your blog.  Then leave me another comment to let me know you did.  If you posted about it on your blog, please leave a link to your blog in the comment.  (One comment for this, even if you share more than one way.)

There you go!  You have up to three chances to win!

I will pick the winner on Friday, December 2nd.  I'll get the winner posted by Tuesday, December 6th.

Good luck!

Cynthia  :)

Happy Bird-day!

Hello my crafty friends!

I have a short post for you today.  A colleague of mine had a birthday and I wanted to make her a little card.  I saw this bird shape in the silhouette library and just had to use it!  I realized I had a great stamp to use with it too!  Here is what I came up with:

I added some twine from The Twinery and a little bling.  The colored paper is from DCWV.  The sentiment is from Joy's Life Wild Life Puns stamp set.  I used the Threading Water Fiskars border punch.

I put the blue paper down as a background to be seen through the border punch.  I finished the inside with white paper for a nice writing surface.

I love how it turned out!

Thanks for stopping by!  

:)  Cynthia

Happy Birthday, Ruthie!

This is a very special card, because it is for my super special and super crafty sister-in-law, Ruthie!  If you are reading my blog, I'm sure you know her over at September Ninth.  When I was thinking about what to make for her card, I took a look through all the cards I had pinned on pinterest, and I found one that I pinned from her board.  I knew she would like it because she pinned it first!  I thought it was perfectly fitting, because Ruthie is, as you know, the banner queen!

The banner I put together using triangles and rectangles from MTC shapes.  The cupcake is from the Birthday Sparkle set from Lettering Delights.  The stamp is from My Creative Time's Many Greetings set.  The paper is from my stash, and the little jewel is from Michaels.  I used my creative memories corner punch to round the edges and my white gel pen to do the stitching.

Of course, as I learned from Ruthie, a card is never finished until you finish off the inside with some coordinating layers!

The pictures don't quite do the fun colors justice, but you get the idea.   I think it turned out pretty cute!  I hope she loves it!

Thanks for stopping in!

:) Cynthia

Wedding Card

A dear family friend got married this past weekend.  I love the bride and groom so very much and wanted to make them a sweet card to go with their gift.  Here is what I came up with.  

The cake is from the Love Me Do Cut it set from Lettering Delights.  I had to manipulate it a bit to get what I wanted.  The colors of the wedding were purple and green, so that is why I chose those colors.  The paper is DCWV and Recollections.  The twine is from Trendy Twine.

The bling is just from Michaels.  The stamps are from My Creative Time's Many Greetings Stamp set.  I popped up the top layer of the cake on foam squares so that I could tie the twine around it.  Here is a view that shows more depth.  

I finished off the inside of the card with layers of green and white card stock to make a nice writing surface to write them a sweet little note.

They loved it!  I'm so glad!  I am really happy with how it turned out.  

Thanks for stopping in!  If you read this post, I'd love for you to leave a comment.  They make my day!

:) Cynthia

Scrub a Dub Dub!

Hi there!  So school has started and boy am I BUSY!  Between students, parent emails, grading papers, and my precious son, I haven't got much time to craft.  I'll take whatever I can get though.  Because of all the things I have to do, I needed a fast gift for someone.  I've gotten an itch lately for some yarn crafting, so I did some searching and found this little dish cloth/wash cloth.  It was perfect!  This is a great wash cloth/dish cloth because the pattern makes a great texture for scrubbing.  Here is how it turned out.

I used Lily Sugar'n Cream 100% cotton yarn (by far my favorite kitchen/bathroom yarn!)  You can't see how fun and vibrant the color really is in these awful pictures!  I was in a hurry to get it to my friend, so I took the pictures and didn't stop to check them before I gave it away.  Oh well...you can get the idea.  

I can't tell you exactly what color it is because the yarn wrapper got thrown away.  I know it isn't the standard yellow.  It's more of a bright yellow.  I think it is either sunshine or country yellow.  It is really pretty and kitcheny.  Is that a word?  LOL!  It should be.

I'm not 100% positive that I did the edging correctly, but it turned out ok.  She liked it, and that is what counts!

Thanks for stopping in!

:) Cynthia

Gold Fish Welcome

Hi there!  Quick post today.  It's the first day of school!  I wanted to share a quick project that my SIL Ruthie (Septemberninth) and I made for my kiddos.  Ruthie found this cute post on Pinterest and shared it with me.  We just had to make them for my kids!  Here is what we ended up with.

We used goldfish crackers, paper from my stash, white card stock, plastic fold over lunch baggies, and some yarn.  I printed the sentiment on my computer.  Ruthie bagged it all up and tied it off.  I attached the tags and cut the paper.  We make a great team!

These must be the cutest snacks I have seen in a long time!  So fun!  I'm sure the kids will love them!

Thanks for stopping in!

:) Cynthia

Behavior Board

My teaching partner and I decided we needed a new behavior plan for this year.  I was looking at ideas on Pinterest (can you tell I like pinterest?) and found this.  I liked the look of it so I went from there.  I changed the language to match our values and grade level mission statement.  Here is what we came up with...

Here are some close ups on each square. 

We wrote student numbers on pattern blocks (blue for my class and green for hers) and superglued them to thumb tacks to create the student markers to change throughout the day.

Here is a picture of the finished product up on my wall.  It happens to be right next to the FABULOUS wreath that my SIL Ruthie over at SeptemberNinth made for me.  :)

I used MTC to make the text, it is all in the marker felt font.

It worked out great!  We are very happy with it.

Cynthia :)

Note Pad

A dear friend, and coworker, of mine had a birthday recently.  She is actually the same gal that I made the birthday dots card for.  I decided to make her a little note pad with matching pen.  I got my inspiration from here, it is something I saw on Pinterest.  I changed it up a bit to match what I wanted to do.

The plaid and teal papers are from DCWV.  The kraft and cream papers are from Recollections.  The pad of paper is a Staples scratch pad.  I got a pack of 10 for around $7.  The pen is RSVP and I put some paper inside to match.  If you are interested in making a pen like this one, here is a great video that shows how to do it.  The stamp is from My Creative Time's Honey Do List  stamp set.  I did a little stitching with my white gel pen and tied it up with some twine from The Twinery.  I love how it turned out!

Cynthia :)

All Stars

I have a quick post for you today.  I'm back to work now...kids start Tuesday!  I have a little project I made for the wall in my classroom.  I live in San Diego and I am a big fan of the Padres and it shows in my classroom.  I have a bit of a baseball theme going.  I wanted to update my job board this year using this super cute Little League SVG set from SVGAttic.  

I used MTC to size it and then cut it on my cricut.  I used the fonts feature in MTC and used Marker Felt font to make my name.  The All Stars and the field are from the SVG set.  Super cute yes?  Here is a few pictures of it on my wall.  

I'm planning to redo the baseballs using the baseball SVG from this set as well, but I need to wait until I buy a silhouette because I can't get the cricut to cooperate and cut it out as nicely as I want it to.  I also have a project in mind to make baseball cards of each of the kids using this set as well, but I have to wait until I get some time.  Once the school year settles in...I can hop to it.  

Each year the students get checkbook registers and have Math Money.  We give them a paycheck each week and they buy things like bathroom passes, homework passes, pencils...etc.  They get rewarded for good behavior too.  The very last week of school I have a huge 3 day auction for the students to spend the rest of their money.  I always auction off a spot on my wall of fame.  I let the students pick a number and I put a jersey up on my wall for them.  I promise them it will stay up as long as I am teaching at the school, which I'm hoping is a very long time.  Here is the one I made this year.  

Of course it is Padres colors.  :)  I can't remember where I got the jersey SVG, I did it last year.  I just used impact font with MTC to cut it all out.  The kids eat it up.  I think it went for $1,365 this year!  If only it was real money right?  :)

I have some more projects I have done that I need to get posted up for you.  They will have to wait because now is play time with my sweet boy!

Thanks for stopping by!  

:) Cynthia

Happy Birthday Dots

Hi there!  I have a quick card for you today.  I didn't even have to use my cricut!  A sweet friend of mine is having a birthday soon and I made this card for her.  Her birthday isn't for a few weeks, but I'm due back at school full time on August 11th (sniff, sniff) so I knew if I didn't do it now...I'd end up buying a card (insert gasp).  I figured I'd make this one quick and easy.  

I made the dots with my Creative Memories circle punch.  The stamp is from Joy's Life All Around Sentiments stamp set.  The Twine is from The Twinery.  The paper is from my stash, except the teal is from DCWV.  You can't really tell in the picture but the silver paper is sort of metallic and sparkly.

I had initially hoped to do this card in green instead of teal, but the colors didn't match up.  The blue button, twine, and paper just worked so well, I had to use them!

I finished the inside with some more dots and the little flower from the stamp on the front.  Simple and sweet!

Thanks for stopping by!

Cynthia :)