Save The Date Invitations

SO my cousin is getting married this spring and I offered to make her Save The Date cards. This is the style she chose. Pretty simple, which is nice since I am making 250 of these before I go back to school next week. The colors are Navy cream and silver. Here is the card with out the Vellum on top so that you can see the print. On the Vellum I have embossed Once Upon A Time from the Ever After SU set and the swirls are from the Always SU set in Midnight Navy.

Christmas Trees

I actually made these last year and had said I would make a million more, or redo these, but after my class made a ton for a craft sale I got burned out on them last year. Fast forward to January and Erin and I said we would make topiarys like these for all the seasons using round balls or other shapes, I have seen a bunch online I like, but did I do it??????Nope, so here you go! Christmas trees from last year revisted, well I guess they are new to you since I did not have my blog last year :) I am feeling crafty right now, even though I am sick, so I guess I am going to research some save the date cards, since I am making my cousins Save the dates cards for her wedding in June. I am very excited.

Blue bonnets revisted

SO I made some bluebonnet glasses for my mom a few months back, it was my first attempt at bluebonnets, which takes a little practice to get the hang of getting the combinations of blue right so they actually look like bluebonnets. Unfortunately, they do not photograph well. Well they might photograph well if my photographer husband took the pics, but he is never around when I need them taken. But I digress, ohhh big word, tee hee, Anyway, several people have seen the bluebonnet glasses and asked for some, so I have now made 5 different sets of Bluebonnet glasses for people, but a friend of mine through Cub Scouts saw my blog and wanted some for her mother for Christmas, and she also wanted some bluebonnet dessert plates. I thought, sure no problem and well they weren't BUT I was painting on clear glass and snowmen are easy, you just have to realize you have to paint the details first. Easy enough, except on bluebonnets! You really need to get the blue on there and then add the highlights. SO needless to say, after 1 failed attempt, (Hey look dad, I learned after the first time not the 5th!) I realized I needed to paint a template and then model it on the plate. I have to say. I love the plates. I changed the design slightly from the glasses and added cute little white flowers in the grass, which do not photograph on a white backdrop OOPS!

Anyway, enjoy, I am really enjoying the painting right now, it is so sad I only seem to do it around Christmas, because no one wants my stuff except this time of the year.

Oh yes, I better add this...Mom, I know you saw this and you are going to want dessert plates as well to go with your glasses. I will get right on that so that you can have them hopefully for your birthday in February.

Purple because of LJ

Many of you know I lost a dear friend last month by the name of LJ. Well, it did affect me deeply as I had known this man almost as long as I have known my parents! So after he died my mother asked me to make her some thank you cards for her to send out to those who had extended condolences to them. As I felt I had not grieved completely, I decided to make these all in variations of purple since LJ loved the color purple and called it his signature color. At first, I was like PURPLE......HMMMMM... not sure I could pull it off, but I went back through many cards I had done in the past and actually found several that it worked well on, see I could not do these in say orange or yellow, but I think they are perfect in Purple. Matt came up with a a saying and designed a back logo for me to put on all these cards,as I was not going to sign my name, it said: IT had Purple because of LJ and his birth and death year then it said, It is not what you gather in life, it is what you scatter. LJ scatter both love and happiness.

Hope you enjoy these, I think I have decided I might include a purple section in all the cards I do for craft shows from now on.

Vino

SO matt's work is having an auction and I had plans to make lots of thing to auction off, but fortunately I have run out of time and can only make these and a cheesecake. Fortunately, you say? Yes fortunately I have sold quite a few things this season and have orders for others so I said paying crafts beats just for fun ones! LOL So this is the wine glass set I made for the auction, I even made the packaging. I took 2 Starbucks Frappacino carrying cases and duct taped them together and then covered with some cool wrapping paper I have. I then embellished it with some ribbon and made a cracked glass label"VINO" to go on the front. To finish off all my handmade painted items I have also made "CARE" tags stating that they should be treated as fine china and be hand washed. That is the Fleur Dis Li tag you see the pic of. Oh yes and I also beaded the stems of the glasses. The stem wraps are removable for cleaning and can be put back on or taken off permanently if needed. These are my OTHER grapes I have done, but I think I now like the smaller ones on the decanter.

OK, Now I must go do ARD paperwork and then work on a few more orders.

CHEERS!

Grape-a-licious Decanter

Ok so here is the decanter I sold. I made this for a lady who is very particular about where she gets her Williams Sonoma Wine glasses and who only buys the best. So, needless to say I was very nervous when I took this on and I had to make sure it was perfect and I have to say I like these grapes the best out of any grapes I have ever painted. Ok, you may say how hard is it to paint grapes, but believe me, it is way easier to paint bad grapes than good grapes. I think these turned out very nice. To add a little more pizzaz I decided to also bead a cuff to go on it with crystal beads, I tried to bead a cluster of grapes and I looked all over online for directions on how to do that and I found 2 different ways on how to do this, but I think my hair may be too blonde or maybe I just need an instructional video on how to do this because I could make it to step 3 on both sets of instructions(that had visual diagrams I might add)but I never could get any further, so I gave up. It does not look too bad though. I wish I could have sent this to work with Matt for him to photograph but I had to deliver it too soon. I hope she likes it, I am sure I will find out soon enough, well after Christmas since it is a gift!

LET IT SNOWman...

OK, so last year I made a ton of personalized glass plates with snowmen and Christmas these, I also made 14 sets of wine glasses in various holiday themes and just plain grape things. I made them for a craft sale at school. I sent them all to work with Matt, since he is a photographer, so he could take nice pictures of them. He took them and kept them in his car for a week and then brought them home having never took pictures of them! Well I just happened to snap pics with my iphone of a couple of the plates I made at school, so the quality of the picture is not real good. The one with the polka dotted border and the snowman holding the stars were just a couple of them. Fast forward to this year and a lady I worked with loved them so much she ordered one for her husband to give to his classroom paraproffessional and she chose the snow family since I had a pic of it on my phone, so I recreated it and I think I made it look better than the original. Unfortunately since these are clear plates I put them on white paper to photograph so you cannot see the snowflakes I had painted on the clear part. But Oh well. I think I really like painting snowmen, there are so many types of snowmen, just like real people. I also painted a wine decanter and beaded a cuff to go on it and a set of wine glasses. I have pictures of the decanter that I will post later and Matt took the wine glasses with the beaded stems to work to photograph, let's see if he does it this year. I painted the glasses for an auction they are having at his work and I told his coworker that she could not accept them until he took the pictures.....OH OH OH! Stop the presses! Matt just walked in with a disc with the pictures he took. OK well here these are, I 'm off to view these pics and then post them! Cheers!

Ho Ho Ho And Joy!

Ok, So I have been working on a few Christmas items. Mom gave me these really cute frames that she got for free, well I know why, they were crappy, on one the leg that makes it stand up was broken and the other the little prongs that held the backing on were warped as well as the wood. I did a little magic on them and got them to work, but then I added too many embellishments that I could put the glass back in them. But I think they did turn out super cute. I found this new website called www.scrapnfonts.com and each month you can down load some free fonts for your computer, and someone on their team makes a page of sayings for that month, all laid put nicely for cards or gifts AND they have a gallery of things other people have made using the fonts and my newest addiction...DINGBATS! They are like stamped images, except you print them out on your computer, so my HO HO HO, the O's were made with the CK Ornaments dingbats, I did buy that font.

So...Anyway I wanted to make a few Christmas decorations, and I had these frames and I found some old scrapbook paper from last years Stampin' Up Christmas Bundle and and a few little embellishments and a snowflake I re-beaded 3 times to get it to fit exactly, you have these!

This weekend I have been working on wine glasses, a decanter and a plate, they are all drying while I try to figure out how to bead a cluster of grapes, I am about to give up on that one, no amount of directions I find is helping me out, I need a step by step video so they may go without grapes stem wraps. I should have pics soon to follow. Until then, enjoy the season and HO HO HO!

RELAX....Ahhhhhhhh

SO I have had this stamp set forever, and it is retired, it is the Bubble Queen set, but I love bubble baths and am determined to host a Spa Party some day and use this set for the invites. SO I made this sign last Christmas to go in my bathroom, but never put it in there fro fear Matt would say NO WAY! He likes that I craft and can express myself but I can't clutter up the house too much with my stuff so I sell it or give it away. So I showed this black and red set to a few ladies, but no takers BUT I did have another lady say she wanted it but in Burgandy and Sage and Viola! I have the second one of these. IT is cute, the picture does not do it justice because it looks pink. SO I made a sale, but I still have the red and Black one up for grabs, someone better take it fast before I put it up in the bathroom the next time I get mad at Matt because he decided to play video games and not empty the dishwasher :)

Pottery

Did I ever tell you I like to paint pottery too? I actually did this last year, but I am not sure I ever showed anybody, but I was thinking about taking the boys to Killin' Time to let them paint an ornament the day Santa comes to visit and painting a snowman platter myself and went, you know what, I bet some of you have not seen this platter, as I got it then put it away and forgot about it until about a month ago when I pulled it out to use it. I made it to put pasta on and I was so proud of my scrolling carvy type thingys in the paint on the green. I think I could get addicted to pottery and could get really good at it, but, alas, it is just WAAAAY too expensive to do more than just a couple of times a year but I would love to go and paint for people :) Oh well, Enjoy and I hope to have lots of Christmas stuff to show you soon!

Carte Postale

WOW! SO much has happened since I was last on. Right after Halloween I had the flu which knocked me out of commission for a little over a week, then once I began feeling better a Very Dear Friend was killed in a car accident coming home from vacation in Florida, so I have spent the past 2 weekends at my Parents house, consoling and grieving with them and visiting with family. His funeral is this Friday so a long chapter in my life with this man who seemed like my Uncle, has been closed. I originally was not going to post these 2 cards, I liked them but they were made for 2 sad occassions, the second one I am posting I made for Cole's teacher who lost her brother a month ago, but I found it very fitting for my friend LJ as well, so I am posting these in his honor. BUT I must tell you the script on the second card I made all by myself in photoshop, I am so excited that I am branching out on my own and not constantly running to other places for inspiration, I am becoming inspired on my own! I also found this great site, so if you a re a scrapper or card maker, you need to visit. It is called www.scrapnfonts.com I orginally went to this site because I found it in a magazine and I got 3 free fonts from it, but I signed up and found out you can free fonts and ding bats each month. I though, I will NEVER buy from them when I can get them for free and even better they offer a monthly, really cute sayings page all done up in cute fonts and clip art that I could download for free to put in my cards. I have to say I have gotten all the free things, but did wind up buying a couple a of fonts and Christmas dingbat sets and have made some adorable CHRISTmas signs for auctions and crafts fairs, I will post pics probably after Thanksgiving since 2 of them are almost complete but NEED somethng, what that something is, I am not sure but I am sure it will come to me over the holidays, I feel my crafty mojo returning and I think if we pull out Christmas stuff early this weekend I might figure out what it is. Enjoy! ANd if you can remember LJ's Family and my family in your prayers, although it was a tragic event I feel that it might be a moving experience for my parents, especially my Dad. LJ was a great man, now it is time for my Dad to find out that he is a great man too.

Oh yes, if you want the script I used on the second card for anything, let me know I would be happy to send it to you in a .jpg file.

7th Annual Halloween Party

SO I began this tradition 7 years ago, because I could not stand going to our churchs' Fall festival, there were too many people there, my boys had to wait in really long lines to play games they did not like and they really wanted to go Trick or Treating. SO I began this to invite the neighbors kids so we could keep a reign on how scary Halloween was and to emphasize the fun. I normally plan many games and activities, but unfortunately I came down with the flu this year an really wanted to cancel Halloween, but in the the true fashion of Martha Stewart, and to prevent a bunch of kids from being sad, the show went on, minus all the games except the pinata and the costume contest. Luckily for me, The boys love to make this their party, so they made most of the food with my direction, and Peyton set the table under my direction.

This is why they call me Ms. Martha, I could not just put regular candles out, I had to cover them with some papers I had so they fit the theme

COLE


PEYTON

ME , your ghost hostest with the mostests :)


The Boys acting out their costume


The dinner table and place settings courtesy of Peyton, the mug was for the Spider leg soup.


NEighbor girl in the clown costume

Peyton and Neighbor boy did this all on their own, this is King Arthur knighting him.
The kids had a blast and I crashed and have not moved from my bed except to go to the doctor on Saturday morning, Matt has cleaned up a little but I have lot to clean up later this week once I feel better. Hope you enjoy the pics.

Monster Cakes and Mummy Heads OH MY!

So the boys have decided they really love helping prepare for their party and I hope they stay that way because it has been a huge help to me and gives them such a sense of accomplishment when everyone likes what they have done. SO this is the only dish I prepared for the party completely on my own and that was Mummy cakes and Monster heads made with real monster blood. Actually it was cupcakes that I made and instead of using the water called for in the recipe I used pineapple juice then the blood being Strawberry Jello that I put on after they had cooled, I poked holes in them and the jello went down and looked like blood drips in it. I usually put green cream filling in them, but in the past the little girls have gotten grossed out by the green cream, so I also normally do dirt graveyard cups but I cut way back on food this year since I normally make too much since they don't really want to eat, they just want to go trick or treating. Our menu this year was as follows:

Mummy Toes with Dragon Dipping Blood
Spider Soup with a side if crispy spider legs
Bat wings and Ghost chips with Alien dipping pus
Mummy cakes and Monster Heads with real monster blood
and to drink we had Witches potions and Vampire's blood.

I got hit with the flu this week ( one of the first cases in Denton county this year, I am honored), of course I did not know this until today so I was really run down and felt so bad last night I almost wanted to cancel Halloween, but in the honor of trying to be better than MARTHA, I held my party anyway, and after having done this for 7 years it went off without a hitch and I had done so much prep work ahead of time that not much had to be done yesterday. Another blog will follow later with pictures from the party.

Cute Post it Desk Sets using picture frames..

SO Have I posted these yet? These are so simple yet so much fun to make. I have decided this is the best teacher gift and so inexpensive and fun to make. I just take a small acrylic picture frame put some scrap booking paper in it and I decided to put initials in them also to personalize it more. I add some doodads, borders or ribbon to the outside then add my post it notes to the front for a super cute little desk set. I made one for all the teachers in my dept to match the name signs I had made them. I will also be adding more glass bead magnets for an extra gift since we have white boards and magnets are so helpful.

Well I have one more order I got to fill, I will begin working on them this week and weekend, that will be a great way to unwind after the party friday night. SO far I am right on schedule, I made the punch and got it freezing today, I made the cupcakes and decided to do the Jello techniques with red jello so they will look like they have blood in them, you know the technique where you poke holes in the cupcake then pour the jello on top. anyway I made them and got them in the freezer also that way they will be super easy to ice on Thursday.

I am beginning to decorate up front, but I have cub scout meetings here Monday and Tuesday.

I have training Monday night and the boys again on Tuesday I hope I can keep them out all Tuesday night but I am not sure that will happen since it gets dark so early now and my firetruck backed out on me, so we will be pumpkin bowling and stop drop and rolling :) Well Matt is finished with the wii fit and it is my turn. I will be posting more pics this week as I decorate, but I must find my Halloween table runner I had it in September and I must have pulled it out of my boxes because I cannot find it and it and I am distraught over it, well not really, but it is bugging me. Good night and God Bless!

MUMMY!

I am getting ready for our 6th annual Halloween party so I made this mummy cake for the boys cake walk at school Unfortunately, I forgot to take a pic of it before I took it to school. So Cole ran up and got a pic of it with my phone right before it was chosen. It's under cellophane and it wasn't the most intricate cake I have ever done, but the boys liked it. I found the greatest accessories for the cake, GUMMY EYE BALLS!

Anyway, the boys liked it so much we are adding Mummy cakes to our Halloween menu. OOOOHHH OHHHHH... You wanna hear our menu this year? I have decided to make this years party a sit down DInner party, I am going all out on the table with candlelabras and such. But here is the menu:

Mummy toes
Spider Soup
Witches fingers
Bat Wings and green pus
Ghostly green potions ( per Reagan's requests)
and Mummy and MOnster cakes ( these will be cupcakes)

I have begin food prep already, I have made the potions punch and have frozen it, I am making cupcakes this weekend and freezing them so they will ice better and I am taking half a day on Friday to finish the rest up. Shouldn't take too long, I will have everything decorated for it beginning on Wednesday after all the Cub Scout meetings this week. Keep a look out for stuff I make for it this week.

By the way beginning Next Saturday I am fulfilling a few card orders, wine glass orders and sign orders. If you want a cute Christmas sign, Recipe sign, maybe a "This House Believes" or a 3 framed JOY or Noel, or your last name, let me know, They are $20 and easier to do if I am putting out several of the same type or themes. I can even make an all occassions card set if needed.

OK, I am off to a bath and letting Matt get online for a few minutes. Goodnite!

Pumpkin Shirts!

I wish I could take credit for this cute idea, but unfortunately I got it from Family Fun Magazine, it was their October Cover, but I think ours are cuter! We tied dyed our t-shirts and the boys designed their faces and I painted them on! What do you think?

Raingutter Regattas

Here is Cole's I think it looks very 80's INXs Cd coverish

So the boys had to make Raingutter Regattas for Cubscouts to race. They had to sand and paint them for the race. PEyton won his first heat but lost the next 2 and Cole came close to winning both heats but unfortunately lost them both, but his boat was super cool. We did this on my birthday and if you want full details of the ORDEAL, and I mean ordeal, that took place on my birthday give me a call, buts lets just say this I think I need to organize the next regatta race so we can get out of there before 10 the next time! UGH!



Here is Peyton's Spider boat




My 2 cute Cub scouts and their Regattas