It's a Good Coffee Life

This is a little project I whipped up for an auction basket donation for my daughter's school. Each class has to prepare a basket for a silent auction that will raise money for the school. Her class's theme is Starbucks. We donated $5 to be put on a gift card, but as each day passed, the depseration in the teacher's voice grew as she pleaded for parents to contribute. Well, I have given more money in the first 8 weeks of school than I thought I ever would, so more wasn't an option. What was an option was all the scrapbook supplies I have lying around. So with great pleasure, I dedicated a few nights to making this fun minibook.

Each page is actually a coffee sleeve you get when Starbucks gives you your order. I took four of them and covered them in patterned paper. Then I sewed the bottoms closed on each sleeve so they could be used as a pocket. Then I punched them with my bind it all and used a 1" white wire ring to turn it into a book. The rest is random embellishments as you'll see. In each pocket, I turned an empty Starbucks gift card into a tag.

I think this could be a great gift for that coffee drinking friend.

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Good or Bad?

I am trying to decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing that my iPhone 3G screen no longer gives me a clear picture of what's on the screen. I can see the screen but it's blurry, like where there's a whole bunch of extra lines across the picture. I may or may not have thrown the phone down on the ground with some hefty force. Yes, it's been one of those days. And no, I don't normally throw my phone when I have a bad day.

Cons:
- can't really use the phone for leisure activities - checking email, blog hopping, web surfing, game playing, etc.
- GPS is going to be more difficult
- sending text messages will be more difficult

Pros:
- I will no longer stay up at night for extended periods of time checking just one more of my crafty blogs
- I won't have the ability or desire to do a whole bunch of other things I shouldn't be doing on my phone while in the car
- I might actually pay better attention to conversations because I won't be half distracted by the most recent Facebook status update
- Might be closer to getting a newer phone (which will then erase all of the pros above)

I have such a love/hate relationship with the smartphone technology.

Nightmare Before Christmas Party - Zero

I finally got my pictures uploaded of my daughter's Nightmare Before Christmas party decor and thought I would share them here. There were so many more ideas I had for the party that never came to fruition because I ran out of time, but here we go.

I'll start with my favorite piece. Zero the ghost dog that belongs to Jack Skellington.

I got the idea from here.

He was quite simple so don't be intimidated. Seriously, I am have very little experience sewing anything. All you need to do is find a good picture of him from the movie and then follow the tips on the link I provided above. The only additional tips I have are:

(1) don't be concerned about quality fabric - the shearer the better since he's a ghost dog

(2) use white hangers when forming the ears so you don't see too much of the metal in them when done and rather than cutting out the shape of the ear from fabric and forming the hanger onto that, I formed the shape of the ear with the hanger first, then hot glued that to my fabric, then trimmed all the excess fabric but about a 1/2 inch from it, and then hot glued the remaining edges of fabric around the back side of the ear.

And just like that ...

... it is October and my oldest baby is 6 years old.



It is unbelievable to me how quickly the past 6 years have flown. This little girls nothing short of amazing. Unfortunately the poor thing had to suffer her first sickness of the school year and was not at 100% for her party. More on that later. So not fair! But something I think I had better get used to considering her birthday comes just weeks into the new school year with lots of germs making their way around. {sigh}