Summer Fun 2011

We had a busy and super fun summer. It was hard to go back to school. We finished up a great soccer season, went to Disney World, Cub Scout Summer Camp, had fun at the Lake, spent the night at the Zoo, attended the Pokemon Convention, set off fireworks, swam (a lot), and so much more.

Birthday Card for Sis

I love this old but fun stampin up set.

Last post for tonight - I am caught up. Here are some graduation cards I made. I used the colors of the graduate's school for the color scheme on the cards. A big thanks to Wendy Hawkinson and Chera Wiest from who I "cased" the idea. I just tweaked it a little and used some different stamps.

40 years - that's how long my sister and brother-in-law have been married. They really are an inspiration to those around them. They square dance, go camping, hiking and do all kinds of neat and fun stuff. In fact, yesterday they were kayaking in the ocean off of Hawaii. I hope when I am their age (I'm her baby sister by 20 years) I will be able bodied enough to do stuff like that. Here is the card I made them - I thought the pears were cute.

Staff appreciation week also recognized the custodial staff, cafeteria staff, administrative staff and all the teachers. My son loved giving little homemade things to all his wonderful teachers and support staff. I used a Clear Dollar stamp set to stamp labels for the nuggets and for the mini Reese cups. Then I made wrappers and a tag with coordinating paper. In some of them, I even made an extra gum holder that said "You're EXTRA special."

The card is simple and I love the sentiment (sorry for the fuzzy photo - camera problems) "Real heroes are the adults who take the time to make a difference in the life of a child." I really believe this too! I made about 50 brownie pops for sweets day and then wrapped them in cellophane bags with ribbon so they could take them home.

The first week in May was teacher and staff appreciation week at my son's grade school. We have an awesome PTO and they designated a special day for each department of the school staff. I loved the reason to make some cool stuff for this. Day one was bus drivers. I made this card with a detachable bus bookmark and bag of goodies for his driver. We also sent a hand made card to his teacher. The theme this year was "Our staff rocks," so we were encouraged to do things with a rock theme. I love stamping bella and her bella stamps. This image of the rocker bella is one of my favorite. My local scrapbook store, Sharon's Crop Studio, heard what I was working on and even donated a ton of rock and roll/music themed paper for me to use. How cool!

Cub Scouts is one of the things I enjoy about being the mother of 3 boys. It is such a good program, and it builds strong bonds with the boys and their participating parents. I am blessed to be the cubmaster of our cub scout pack. Here are some of the cupcakes I made for our Blue & Gold Banquet. I got this idea from another website, I apologize for not making a note of it. If this was your idea, please let me know so I can give you proper credit. I made clip art of the cubscout patches, printed them on heavy cardstock and glued them together with a toothpick in the middle. I made white and chocolate cupcakes and sprinkled them with - what else - blue and gold decorating sugar. All the scouts loved them.

I enjoyed making Mother's Day cards for all the moms and grandmas.

As a card maker, do you ever wonder if the card recipients appreciate all the effort that goes into making them a card? I know I do. A couple weeks ago when we were visiting my mother-in-law, I noticed that she had all the cards I had ever made her, displayed on the china cabinet. I didn't even know she had kept them all. When I said something about them, she told me she had taken them to work and shown them to everyone. Wow - that made me feel so good. It just goes to show, handmade cards really are special. (just like mother-in-laws)

My two very favorite holidays are Halloween and Easter, mostly because they are just carefree fun and involve lots of candy. For over 30 years we've been having a huge egg hunt at my parent's home. Everyone hunts eggs, from the youngest at 2 years old to the oldest at 82 years old. Here is a picture of Ryan, age 2, at the egg hunt by the tulips. The kids and I also always color eggs, this year they turned out exceptionally pretty.

Now it's time for some Easter crafts. I made just a few bags of candy for my co-workers.

And lastly, I made some Valentine's Day cupcakes. I really like baking, and cupcakes are my favorite.

Here are some more of my Valentine's cards. Can you guess I really like Valentine's Day?

Ok, so it has been a while since I have posted. I am so bad about blogging. I have good intentions, but time just gets away from me. On the bright side, I have been making some things and I love it. Creating is therapy for my soul. Here are some Valentine's Day cards I made.

Morning Laughter

Sometimes as a mom, I feel bad. Maybe homework doesn't all get done, or I'm snappy at the kids, or we have junk for dinner. But then, this morning our two-year old is snuggled in our bed and from the other room I hear him laughing and giggling. I go in and he is laughing in his sleep. Wow - he's even happy when he's asleep. And then I realize, I must be doing something right.