Birthday Boys

Today I am going to share some more pictures of projects I worked on in February. My dad's birthday was on Valentine's Day and one of my co-workers had a birthday in February as well, so I whipped up a couple of cards for them. The third card I made to have a male birthday card on hand. I also made a card in the same layout as the first two and posted to my Etsy Shop.

Supplies:
Paper: Recollections pre-cut, pre-scored cardstock and coordinating envelope, scrap patterned paper and cardstock
Embellishments: earth tone brads from Michael's Recollections line and square metal brads from Joann Fabrics (online), ribbon from a friend
Sentiment: Happy Birthday stamp (unknown brand), hand written, balloon stamp (unknown brand)

Valentines Care Package

Hullo all, I finally got some pictures that I took with my phone about a month ago downloaded on to the computer and I thought I would share a quick post with you on sending care packages to college students. My sister is in her first term in a college in Florida by herself. She went to bible school for two years, but she was only 3 hours from home that time and my parents and brother could visit her there. Down in Florida she doesn't have that, so I thought I would send her a care package for Valentines Day.

I tried to mix things that were relatively good for her/necessities and also some fun, ridiculous things to make her laugh. Not all of the items are shown in the picture below as I bought them as I was on the way to the Post Office to mail her package!

When sending a care package it helps if you know what kind of items the person could use, especially with food and toiletries. I try to choose non-perishable/non-breakable items that will travel well and be useful to the recipient.

My Sister's Care Package:
1. Box of Sponge Bob Square Pants fruit gummies
2. Spong Bob Square Pants candy dispenser (got for like 15 cents in the Christmas clearance aisle in the grocery store. This is a great place to check after holidays. Things are UBER cheap and you can pick them up and either save them for the next holiday, or re-purpose them for something else.)
3. FiberOne Pretzel snack bars (something relatively healthy for her to snack on)
4. Hot cocoa packs (a must in a care package!)
5. Dove Chocolate Raspberry bar (It was Valentines day!)
6. Lip gloss
7. Bright green stuffed animal frog (If you knew my sister, you'd understand ;) )
8. Toothpaste and a toothbrush (She doesn't have much spending money, so my mom and I have been trying to give her every day supplies that she needs. We both gave her giant bags/baskets full of toiletries right before she went off to college as well)
9. Valentines Day Card
10. Sticky Note/Pencil holder (She loves the color pink ;) ) - I can't claim credit for the flower though, that was repurposed from a gift that I was given

I took a lot of the stuff out of their original wrappers for two reasons - I could fit the things in a smaller box with the items in bags instead of boxes and because it looked cuter all prettied up with special packaging.

Making a Chevron pattern with Microsoft Word and Paint

Hello all, today I thought I'd show you a quick way to create a customized chevron pattern using Microsoft Word and Paint.

Step 1: Open up Microsoft Word (I used 2010, these steps should also apply to 2007). Go to the insert tab and select the rectangle option.

Step 2: After you have drawn a rectangle on the page, go back to the insert tab and select the line option.

Step 3: Draw a line at a downward angle, starting in the top left corner of the rectangle.

Step 4: Selecting the line option once again, draw a line slanting up and to the right starting at the bottom point of the first line.

Step 5: Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you reach the far right line of the rectangle.

Step 6: Copy and paste the row completed in step 5 and position directly above the above row until you have completely filled the rectangle.

Step 7: After you have completely filled the rectangle, select each row as well as the bordering rectangle. Once you have selected the contents of the screen, hit CTRL + C to copy the pattern and open up paint. Once paint is open you want to hit CTL + P to paste into Paint.

Step 8: Go to the first tab and select Save As. When the Save As dialogue box appears save as chevron. (The default file type is PNG).

Step 9: To customize the colors of the chevron pattern, choose the paint bucket icon in the tools section of the Home tab.

Step 10: Then select your desire color and click on the lines that you wish to color. To change colors, choose another color from the options and then click in the space you want that color to appear.

Step 11: When you have achieved your desired look, you can save the picture, and then open the graphic back up in Word to adjust size and print.

Etsy Shop

I finally hunkered down last night, re-shot several pictures of the projects I've been working on lately (the first ones didn't turn out...lighting was awful. I really have to figure out something for lighting when I take pictures), edited them and posted them to Etsy. I now have a whopping 9 items in my etsy shop, as opposed to the 2 items before. I have a couple more things to post I think, but for now it's progress!

Hey There....

Hey there....I just wanted to pop in and say that I'm sorry that I haven't been posting lately. I recently started a new job, and while it was definitely the right decision, it still has been a little exhausting getting used to a new job, as well as starting our church's bible institute back up last month as well. I have been crafting, but I have been trying to just do it for relaxation (meaning I haven't really photographed anything). With the change in work, I am no longer able to edit my pictures and post during the day. 


I should be back soon, so please check back!


PS - Exciting news, the hubs and I bought our first new car this week! :) :) :) I like it.... alot... especially the fact that hubby let me have it for my daily car and he took mine! (His had bit the dust.... the Lord had definitely preserved it past its expiration until we were able to purchase a new one, but we both felt that it was finally time to make the upgrade!)

Sticky Note holders

 One of the things that I plan on adding to my Etsy shop soon are Sticky Notes holders. The base is a plastic picture frame, with patterned paper slipped in the frame instead of a picture. On the outside a sticky note pad is glued or taped to the frame and I velcroed a mechanical pencil to the front as well. I believe that the paper is from My MInd's Eye, but I don't remember the exact collection at the moment. the "Be Happy" stamp is from the dollar aisle at Target, the notepad from Wal-Mart and the pencil from the Dollar Tree. The ribbon flower on the pink frame was made by someone at my church. She gave it to me on the outside of a gift bag. I wanted to preserve it, so I used it for added embellishment.

Sorry for the poor pictures quality, after the sun goes down it is hard to take decent pictures in our apartment!

Springtime...in February

It is supposed to be in the 70's today. It was almost 70 (if it didn't actually hit 70) yesterday. Craziness... good craziness.... but craziness.

In the spirit of springtime, I have some more spring creations to share. I also plan on putting these up on my etsy shop. They are actually very similar to a set I made for a charity auction earlier this year and I thought they were so cute that I would whip up another set to put up on my Etsy Shop.

For supplies, I used basic cardstock and papers from a paper pack that I can't remember the name of (my cousin gave it to me and it is fully of such bright cheerful colors and patterns), I used gems from  acmoore (also a gift from my cousin), and the ribbon was just scraps I had on hand. The flowers are from different Prima flower collections. The brads were a gift from my Secret Pal last year. I left the backs blank so that any sentiment/message could be written. I traced the template out from a pattern I cut out off the back of a K & Company paper pack.