Simple Teacher Gifts...

ETA: No one got the answer correct to my "faux paux", so I had my girls pick a number and those chose #2 ISABEL Z!!! My BIG faux paus was using the APPLE for a teacher gift...swore I'd never do it, but I just couldnt pass up this cute little girl:) I thought it'd be "ok" to use this image since the apple wasn't an overkill...lol So Isabel please send me your home address via email: madscrapper24@yahoo.com and I will get your notebook out asap! Thanks girls for playing along!


Because I'm running short on time this year, I needed a simple gift for my Daughter's teacher and her aide. If you looking for something inexpensive (this works wonders if your kids have multiple teacher's) try a pocket calendar! I picked mine up at Michael's in the $ section. I don't care much for the the "cheesy" covers they use, so you can see I just make my own:). I customized each PI girl according to the teacher's hair color etc. Added some simple stitches and slipped my finish calendar back into the plastic sleeve. Just a quick post as my "list" of things to do is getting longer!


******Did anyone catch my big faux paux?????!!!!!!! If your a regular reader to my blog, you will know what it is ;). First one to get it right, gets a free custom notebook from me!!!! Just leave a comment ALONG with an email address and I will post the winner by Friday, Dec. 17th @ midnight.

Pretty Little Girls...

My plate was pretty full last week with a very sick baby and washing loads and loads of laundry. It would have been nice to open the windows up and and air the house out, but with chilly weather all the "ickies" got trapped inside! Baby girl is on the mend and we ended the week celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary at Chuck E. Cheese and grocery shopping...signs where your priorities are when you get older....lol I didn't do anything last week, not even step foot in my craft room...but I did manage to squeeze in some crafty time yesterday! I was really inspired by the new PI line from MFT after seeing Jody and Susie's blogs. Love how these girls create...their commentary isn't half bad either:).
Love this ice cream paper! It comes with several different ice cream patterns and I decided to use the pages with wording for this go-around. I colored her with my copic makers and did a little stitching around the edges. The "wish big" is from my PTI-star prints. The umbrella pergola on top of the card is made with my SU! slot punch and I trimmed off the excess on top, then tied with pink shimmer ribbon.I'm off to start my Christmas Dinner shopping. My family is coming from all over to visit with us this year. Parents will be here from OK and my two sister's, one from GA, the other from CA. We don't get to see each other as often as we'd like, so lots of late nights giggling and playing sequence are on the horizon:)

Custom Baby Frame....

Yeah! The sun is out, REALLY out today! A good day to dig out the ol' Christmas decorations and get to work. I usually start the day after Halloween ( a bit EARLY, I know!), but I like to enjoy my decorations more than just a "few" weeks. My favorite decorations are those the girls create...even the scribble scrabbled ones!

On to this pretty frame! A cute 4x6 frame for Baby Karisa. Only requests were that it be purple and not too girlie! I could have gone over the top with some sort of princess theme, but kept with a simple design. I started by painting the entire frame white. I cut 1 inch strips in purple and stamped with polka dots in a shimmer dew drop purple.
Stacked a few Prima flowers together and tied them with a Foo-fa-la creme button.
The leaves are punched with Martha Stewart-Frond punch and stamped with the "twinkle, twinkle" star from PTI's-Star Prints (I've been using this set A LOT!).
Letters cut out with my Cricut Cartridge. I added a little Star Dust Stickles on the outside sage green layer. This really helped POP the purple-on-purple theme.

"Small Gift" Ideas...

Just getting in from a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend spent with my Husband's family in VA. The ride home always seems longer than the drive up! We had an awesome time and the grand kids all love getting together to play. You can see a glimpse of the "wee ones" below:) Before we packed up last week I had a few orders to fill and a special gift to share with a dear friend. My gf's hubby arrived home from Iraq on Thanksgiving Day! So very thankful! She had mentioned they'd be getting away to a B&B for the weekend and I wanted to send a little gift they could share. They are wine enthusiasts, so this gift was pretty easy to put together!

I added the chocolates and used a few PTI sets to put the chocolates together. The tiny star and "hero" stamps are from the Star Prints set. I thought they were fitting, although her hubby would probably shy away from being called a "hero". To keep the chocolates from sliding down, I did use a little sticky tape to keep them down...although I'm sure getting them off was the least of their worries ;).A few more custom gift card holders. I really love these coffee cups! The cups and sentiments are from My Favorite things, but two different sets.Used PTI -Star Prints again! This set really is fun...can be used all year round or festive enough for any holiday!The hills are aliiiiiiiive!! I snapped this pic of the kids walking down the hill. We took family photos this weekend in several locations, but this one had to be my favorite:) I didn't get one pic of my hubby, the kids, and I together, but they photographers did so I will have to wait patiently for those! These are the youngest of the grand kids. The older group is ALL boys and 1 girl...funny how it repeated in opposite direction for the younger ones:) This photo was shot at the Battlefields in Manassas, VA...really beautiful! My two are on the left end:)