Happy Birthday Reagan!

Been doing lots of creating, just too lazy to upload the photos and post them here. Someday I'll get around to it.

Here's what I created last night for a special little girl in our lives. It's a picture frame turned into dry-erase board. We're giving her some Disney Dollars but I wanted to give her something else. I thought it would be fun to have this so she can reflect on her day if she and her parents so choose.

It came together pretty quickly. I bought an 8x10 frame from Walmart. Painted the edged with some craft paint (it took 3 coats). I added some turquoise ric-rac to the outer edge of the frame, but it's kind of hard to see. Then I cut out an 8x10 piece of paper to serve as my base (so I knew my finished product would fit in the frame) and layered a bunch of pretty papers on top. When I liked how they were set, I glued them down onto my base paper, completely covering it up. For the wording piece, I simply opened up Excel, created 2 columns and 4 rows to the size I liked. In the left column, I typed the prompts in their own cell. In the right column, I merely made those 4 cells next to each prompt, have a border line along the bottom. So when I printed it out, I had my prompts and then writing lines. It's very clear in my head, but I am sure many of you are going, "Huh?!!!" Sorry, I can't think of a better way to explain it. But you could type the prompts and draw lines in Word. You could create something in Photoshop. Or you could even do it by hand. Sky's the limit really.

This is what it looks like when written on. I love that the marker will just erase and she'll be able to start over the next day.

And of course a snapshot of the card I made for the birthday girl.

Teacher Appreciation

Heyyyyyy! I'm back. No great excuse for why I've been gone. Probably a combo of everyday life mixed with a lack of motivation. Anyways, here I am.

For the past couple of weeks, my daughters have been celebrating teacher appreciation week at their schools. Each day I tried to send a little something with them. A flower. A piece of paper telling of what their favorite thing about their teacher is. Hand lotion sandwiched between to cutouts of their hands with the words "You deserve a hand for being such a great teacher!" printed on them. But since those didn't really tap any of my creative juices, I have no pictures to post.

However the gifts I gave on the finals days of the week DID get my creative juices flowing so here you go.

For Hannah's teacher: a wreath with various gratitude quotes about teachers and all they do.

For Makaela's teachers, I picked up some Starbucks gift cards and cup sleeves. Then I took a 12x12 piece of cardstock, cut it in half to make two 6x6 folded cards, and added some scraps of scrapbook paper. I hot glued the bottom inside edges of the sleeve together so I could place the gift card in and it would serve as a pocket. I then took some of my felt and fashioned two flowers (directions are here). Placed a clip in the back of them and then clipped them to my pocket on the front of the card. Super easy!

That's all I have for today. Now time to think about end of the year teacher gifts. {sigh}

Happy Valentine's Day

Each year I do a Valentine's Day layout for my husband featuring our 2 girls. Sometimes he takes them to work and other times they end up in my albums. But regardless of what he does with it, it's always waiting for him when he wakes up to leave for work. This is his 2012 layout.

And this is his Valentine's Day card.

Hope you all have a wonderful love-filled day.

Monkeys

Normally I would not think these papers or colors would work together with these pictures, but I am not unhappy with the result.

This concludes all the layouts I made at Scrap Weekend in September. Next onto Scrap Weekend January 2012 layouts. Need to take pictures of those first though so it might be a little while.

Sisters - Friends

Everything about this layout I love. The colors, the simple design, my beloved brown lace paper.

My Family

Not sure that much needs to be said about this layout. Cute and bright just like the two little girls featured in it.

Thank God I Married A Real Man

This is just a silly layout showcasing my silly husband as he took apart the engine of his truck. This is not something his electrical engineer self does every day and it needed to be documented. My favorite part about this one is the brown Glimmer Mist I dripped on the layout. Reminds me of auto oil drops.

Tickled

Yet another I layout I made last September. I love the color combo of this layout.

Untitled layout

Sometimes, I just don't feel the need to put a title on my layout, or I just can't come up with one.

Hannah Funny

A sweet and simple layout about something funny my girl said that I wanted to document. I have always heard people tell me to write the funny things my kids say down. I was so good about doing this. Every time, I would enter it into the Notes section on my iPhone. Well wouldn't you know, my iPhone broke and there are quite a number of "funnies" that are lost forever. Words cannot express how sad I am about this. I would pay hundreds of dollars to retrieve them, but they're gone. So don't do what I did. Email the notes to yourself or write them down with an actual pen and paper.