More Birthday cards

Over the weekend we celebrated Alex's 16th birthday! I had to add in the DRIVING theme. I love this fun van stamp from Inkadinkado stamps. I stamped it on some pattern paper and created a scene.
It appears I was on a green, blue, and orange theme. {It is one of one favorite combos, especially for fun birthday cards.} This is for a classmate of Mikayla's. Hopefully the party will still be on for Saturday.

Picture Frame & Baby shower card

Because I am just too impatient, I just had to post this project! Hopefully my cousin, Karen, doesn't visit this blog this week and ruin the surprise for Saturday. She is expecting her first bundle of joy {it's a girl!} and we are having her baby shower this weekend. I originally wanted to make her a baby quilt, but I just didn't think I'd have enough time to make that. So I created a baby picture frame. I'm very happy with how it turned out.
Then of course I made her card. I just love sewing on my cards!

And a close up...

And I did add my mom's name to the card. We went together on the gift(s) but I originally forgot her name on the card {sorry mom, thanks for reminding me...it's on now!}

I can't wait to see her reaction on Saturday {and just to see her, since she lives out of state we don't get to see her too often}.

PageMaps challenge

Here is the current sketch challenge at Pagemaps {along with the awesome prize package}.

And my creation....

This is our youngest daughter Alexis. For her birth announcement, I embroidered her "birth stats" on a onesie and took pictures.

And here she is today...almost 3 and 1/2!

Another birthday party

Mikayla had another classmates birthday party this past weekend! {February was a hot month for her class.} She helped me create a fun boy theme card for the birthday boy. How about a fun monster for a boy theme....
And the inside...

I see a theme here....I think all Alexis does at parties is eat! She found the cheese curls bowl and it was all over! LOL

Mikayla was going a mile a minute the whole time we were there. Much harder to get some nice shots of her.

Her toothless grin just cracks me up!

Enjoying a slow moment with a balloon...

Mikayla and the birthday boy, Timmy...

having fun...

Cute Alexis...

Pretzel Snack

Use these ingredients....
And you get this...

A true age old recipe that I've loved since high school. Garlic Onion pretzels....

1 bag of pretzels

1 bag of onion soup mix

garlic powder

2 sticks of butter

spread pretzels over cookie sheet, break up larger pieces into bite size pieces

sprinkle onion soup mix and garlic powder over pretzels

melt butter and pour over the pretzels

cook at 200 for 10 min...rotate the pretzels the best you can...cook another 10 min

let cool

Enjoy!

Birthday party and Mikayla's crafts

This month is a very busy {birthday} month for Mikayla's kindergarten class. She had three party invitations this month, luckily they are all on different Saturdays. This was the first party, for the month, and they used an indoor carnival theme. The kids really seemed to enjoy it.
Here Mikayla is lining up to throw a ping pong in cups {early training for beer pong? ~ maybe ~ lol}.

Even though this is the back of Alexis I really like this shot. I like that everyone is cut out and the colorful cans look bright against the white background.

And who's idea was it to use blue icing? She just loves to eat it with her fingers. I am happy to report that it all came out of her clothing {I was a little worried}.

This is the card I created for the birthday girl. I had the challenge of using brads on a project, but never got around to posting it anyway. I really like the pink and teal together, very cheerful looking. I'm really into the banners right now {as are many other trendy crafters}.

Mikayla loves to continue to craft with Mommy. She wanted me to cut out a flower on the cricut, but I punched a flower for her instead and told her to "create" the rest of the flower. I think she did an awesome job.

What you can't see is under the many layers of green grass are roots! LOL - I love it! The sun is awesome too!

Here is the inside of the card. I think she got a little overwhelmed with using up paper here. Don't know what else to say to this one, lol!

This one is great....this is her flower! LOL! I have this at work hanging on the bulletin board...it's quite a unique looking flower. It makes me smile.

And her craft area looks just like mommy's....quite messy! But she did a great job cleaning it up, not a trace of paper left in the living room.

{Belated} Valentine Post

I had a little photo op with Mikayla and Alexis recently so I wanted to share two favorites...
My little girl, Mikayla, looking so much older than 6. She is so awesome, I love her dearly!

And who could resist this cute set of puckering lips! This is really a rare occasion for crazy Alexis, she usually isn't the hugs and kisses girl. What a beauty! {And she knows it!}

We originally thought we were going to be making about 90 ladybug valentines for the girls to take to school, however, Samantha and Casey didn't have the number of girls and boys in their classes and they ended up staying at their mother's house last week due to all the snow. So, we lucked out and only made about 28.

Most of them were the smaller size, but the teachers got the bigger size. These two were for Oma and Grandpa Doc.

I think my favorite part was not having to worry about envelopes and using a leaf to add the recipients name on.

Inside the ladies card...."Hey LittleLady"

Inside the boys card...."you make my heart flutter"

I wanted to keep the kids cards simple and easy.... I really love to sew on my paper projects.

For hubby's card I wanted to try and get a little more masculine. I used a wood grain on the front of the card and used some word play...

I created a mini {4x4} book...

On each page is additional, handwritten, personal comments.

Sketchy Thursday Challenge

Here is the recent sketch on the Sketchy Thursdays blog...
And here is my layout...
I took pictures of just the beads and I wanted to include them in the layout in some form. I used a flower punch and curled the petals.

{Sorry for the angle photo....kept getting a glare on the pictures.}

Updates and snow..

Remember the strip of paper Mikayla had to decorate for her 100th day of school this past Friday? Here is her finished project! How cute!

This past Saturday we had about a foot and a half of snow. The girls played outside and then came in to enjoy a game of Rummikub. Sam didn't really want to play {sorry she is really cut off the side} but she helped Alexis master the game.

At work yesterday I just had to snap a few pictures out the window, what an amazing view!

Wonder what it will look like with another 12 to 18 inches of snow on top!?!? I guess we'll find out tonight and all day tom.!

Sketchy Thursday layout

Here is the current sketch challenge from SketchyThursdays...

I find that I do not have many "good" photos that would crop well to make cute small photos, and since I don't print my photos at home, it makes it a challenge {time consuming} to print smaller photos. So, I had to use slightly larger photos and I couldn't pick just two to use. Here is what I came up with. {I laugh every time I see these photos!}

EBTKS challenge

The current challenge at Everything but the kitchen sink blog at http://ebtkschallenge.blogspot.com/ is to use the box top or cardboard from a box.I used an empty granola box, punched out some flowers, cut around the tab portion and created a cun card.