Summer Break!!

I am so glad it is summer break! I have had a long and somewhat challenging year! Last week was officially my first week off... and I did nothing!! So today seemed like a great day to get back into stamping and creating. Thanks to Papertrey's Make it Monday #69 challenge, I was able to easily put this one together quickly. However, trying to figure out my new Photoshop CS6 is more work than I want to put in! What kind of photo editing software are you using?

I used one of my favorite go to sets from Papertrey Ink: Life. I happened to have some fun crinkly brown ribbon from leftover chocolate packaging on my table... I just had to use it! Here's a close up view of my card:

Here is the inspiration sketch I used:

Splitcoaststampers and Papertrey Ink have been my go to places for inspiration back into the crafting world. Now that I have been away for a while from the crafting scene, I wonder what are some great places for inspiration? What blogs or challenges do you like to visit??

2

Papertrey's Make It Monday #31 & Pink Elephant #115

My first weeks of kindergarten have been exhausting. With this extra day off today, I am feeling human again! I browsed the web and participated in a few challenges. This one is for Papertrey's Make it Monday #31, Creating Backgrounds with Non-Background Stamps. I used my new Papertrey set, Baby Button Bits stamp set. I received this set over the summer when I was a lucky winner of one of Papertrey's Make it Monday challenges. I used the sentiment as my background stamp. I stamped it in SU 's Old Olive and Baha Blue. I also sponged the edges of my panels to soften them.

The Pink Elephant is also having a sketch challenge, TPE#115 which I used for this card. I made a new size (for me) that I learned from Colleen Schaan. It's 3.25" X 5.5". I really like it, and will be using it more often. Here's a close up of the rolled flower. I punched a circle from one of my Stampin Up circle punches. Then I just cut a swirly inside. There are tutorials out on the web to do this. I know that My Favorite Things also makes dies for a rolled flower.

I hope you are enjoying your Labor Day weekend!!

14

Cupcake Exchange Party

Last Wednesday evening, I had a cupcake exchange party. It was fun to plan and participate in.These are the cupcake invitations that I sent out to some of my friends. I made these in May before school was out, because I knew I wanted to have a cupcake exchange party during the summer. I finalized them two weeks ago so that they would be sent out a week ahead. I had sent a Facebook invite weeks earlier, and then these to those who could attend. These were basically made similiar to the flower pocket card.

I also made cupcake sugar cookies. Here they are with the sugar sand on top:

Here they are packaged in their individual bags:

In the foyer, on the wall, I used small clothespins and twine to display my pictures. I took a couple pictures down and replaced with cookies. This was my third attempt at making decorated sugar cookies, and I was pleased with myself at how they turned out!



I also made a candy bar on my bookcase in the foyer area. I got pink yogurt covered pretzels and chocolate covered expresso beans at Fresh Market. I go the pink and green truffles from Lindt. I went to Target and got some minty green M&M's. I put these in different glass containers. The girls enjoyed this, especially my friend Amber, who loves Lily Pulitzer.

Underneath the candy bar, were my favor bags and cupcake sugar cookies. I used a die cut at my school for the bag. Then I used my Nestabilities and Cuttlebug to cut out the shapes for the cupcake template. I used Papertrey's Tiny Treats: Birthday and a cupcake dollar stamp from Michaels to make my little circular tags. My friends were impressed with the felt on top of the cupcakes that were on the favor bags.

I also made prize bags for the best presentation and the best tasting cupcakes. Inside the identical bags were identical cupcake necklaces from Bashful Bliss, a cupcake frame, and a cupcake lip gloss. The owl box full of little 3X3 cards were put into a bag with some other cupcake goodies for a scrapbooker/stamper.

After my friends arrived and settled down, we sat down and tasted the cupcakes. I cut the a few cupcakes into quarters for each person to taste. The other cupcakes were left untouched, so that we could each take the different cupcakes home.
 

Now for the delectable cupcakes. I used my new phone and its vintage warm setting to take photos. Love that setting!! I made mochaccino cupcakes that were yummy. I even created my own icing to go with it!

Even though the votes varied for taste, my friend Colleen and I tied for the best tasting cupcakes with 2 votes each. Since I was the hostess, she won the prize. Here are her Oreo Cheesecakes.

Amber won best presentation with her Pink Lemonade cupcakes. Since she had the most votes, she also won the scrapbooker/stamper cupcake goodies.

The other cupcakes we had were Chai Latte, Vanilla (orange colored frosting), Vanilla Vanilla, Chocolate Chip Cannoli, Key Lime, and Mintalicious Brownies. Below is my first photo collage created with Photoshop. Just a few more random pictures from the party.

We had yummy cupcake for sharing and eating for days! If you have an inkling for a cupcake exchange party, I highly recommend hosting one!

1

Back to School Treats

I still have a few weeks left of summer before the new school year starts. I will go back the second week of August. So it's time for me to prepare for the new school year. To start, I made these treat bags for my kindergarten teammates. I used my new die, Mat Stack #5, from Papertrey and made quick tags for my mini white lunch bags. Inside are apple themed items: apple scented hand gel, apple sticky notes, and chocolates. The chocolates were wrapped with mailing labels stamped with Papertrey's Limitless Labels. On the back of the tags, I wrote some happy notes for the first day of school.

On the first day of school, I read to my class, The Kissing Hand, which is about Chester the raccoon and his anxiety about the first day of school. Here are some favors I made inspired by this link. Instead of making a raccoon puppet or box, I made a raccoon topper out of SU's top note die. I think my new kindergarteners will smile when I give these treats to them. I made these by folding Stamping Up's top note die in half. To make the white mask, I used on white top note and made a template by cutting a V into it. I used a sharpie to color in the blacks on the white. I used a 3/4" circle punch and the owl punch to make the eyes and noses. I used SU's scallop punch to make the paws. I used Spellbinder's Scallop Hearts to cut out my first day notes and attached it to small glassine bags filled with Hershey's hugs and kisses.

Have a wonderful weekend!! I'm off to the post office to mail some packages and then to a Turkish restaurant with my husband to eat some yummies!

1