Grade One Tradition

Two years ago when my eldest daughter, Marley,  was about to start Grade One I surprised her with a fun cone of goodies hanging on her door in the morning. I'd heard about the idea from Big Picture Classes Big Idea Festival (actually a combination of two different ideas) and ran with it. I almost forgot to do one for Paige this year but managed to squeak out this little beauty after she'd gone to bed. Sorry about the quality of the pictures but it was pretty late!!

The two ideas I combined were 1) to make a paper cone and fill it with summer goodies and 2) in Germany it is tradition to give a gift to your child on the first day of Grade One. Marley actually reminded me several times to do this for Paige!

Paige got to pick the paper but had no idea what it was for. She chose a paper from Floral District and I picked out some coordinating papers to make the butterflies. I made them using my Beautiful Butterflies Die for the Big Shot. Here's a close up so you can see the layers and the added rhinestones.

I kept the wings popped up by using Snail adhesive in the centre of the butterfly and Stampin' Dimensionals under the wings.

This butterfly was found at Michaels - it's a little clip. So ridiculously delicate (it broke pretty much immediately!) but so beautiful too!

I filled the cone with school-ish related supplies - a Hello Kitty mini white board, a journal with some matching pencils and another smaller journal with attached pen. All things I knew Paige would love to have and use. She is my little artist and as such is always looking for paper to draw and write on!

Another view looking deep into the cone.

Thanks for stopping by. It's been a crazy week and a half since school started. I am WAY behind in my crafting, my blogging and just about everything! Hopefully this is the first post of many as I catch up. 

Have a wonderful rest of your day!! See you soon.

A Very Special Card to Share

Today I'm sharing something a bit different with you. A card made by my middle daughter Paige. She is rapidly becoming my "artistic" daughter! She attended a birthday party today and requested that we make a card. The day before my oldest daughter had requested a card for a birthday party SHE was going to (I'll post that tomorrow!) so I assumed Paige wanted me to make the card for her as I had for her sister. But no. She wanted me to cut out the pieces for her so she could put it together.

Here's what she made.

As per request she wanted a blue card (Baja Breeze) with purple #7's (Wisteria Wonder). Then she picked the floral pattern from Twitterpated and asked for the Happy Birthday banner stamp from Patterned Party in pink (Rose Red - I fussy it cut it for her.) The butterfly was left over from my stained glass card and the heart is from my old stash. 

Not bad I think.

But the inside is where she really shone! 

See what I mean? My little artist!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this little departure from my usual posts!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Big Blue Eyes

I've got another layout of one of my beautiful daughters to share with you today. I've mixed several paper lines - just proves how versatile Stampin' Up! products are!!

This is Paige and the final of the portrait shots that we had taken this past December that I plan to scrap. 

I'm planning to enter this layout into Elle's Studio Thursday sketch challenge so here is the sketch we were given.

For my layout I started with a piece of 12x12 card stock in Bashful Blue. I inked the edges with Concord Crush and then layered  a piece of Sweet Shop DSP on top. The photo and journaling block (just a piece of Whisper White card stock) were mounted on Concord Crush card stock and then I added strips of papers from Cheerful Treat and Flirtatious DSP. 

One of the papers in the Flirtatious Specialty DSP is these awesome laser cut doilies so for the title I cut out three of them, layered them over some more Cheerful Treat paper and a piece of 1/2" Stitched-Poly Ribbon in Concord Crush and adhered my letters on top. The word BIG is from the Word Play stamp set and originally said 'Wish Big' but I only needed the second word so just cut off the top of the stamped image.

I treated my letters in the same way as this layout. These are from the Alphabet Soup On Board set. First I inked them up with Bashful Blue, then I coated them in Crystal Effects and finally, to accent the word 'blue', I added a bit of Dazzling Details while the Crystal Effects was still wet. NOTE: I would do a second coat of ink before adding the other products next time. I'm not super happy that the letters look more grey than blue. But ... it is what it is.

For this embellishment I cut out another of the laser cut doilies and added a plastic flower (from my Twelve embellishment tin so not Stampin' Up!) and a Glimmer Brad. I also added a couple other brads from the Sweet Shop Jelly Bean and Everyday Enchantment collections. The Everyday Enchantment Ribbon and Brad pack is exclusive to the Sale-A-Bration catalogue so I can't provide you a link but to view the catalogue please click here.

Here are more of the brads I used on this layout - more than I normally use, to be honest! The green one is another from the Sweet Shop Jelly Bean brad collection and the lighter purple one is from the IN COLOR Printed Designer brads.

Hallowe'en Treats

Just a quick post to show you my kidlets and a little something we cooked up together for their classmates yesterday.

Starting with the cutest (read: youngest) - this is Christine (aged 2.5), my Kitty Cat.

Next is Paige (aged 5.5) my Angel (?) - actually she's a Fairy.

And last but not least, Marley (aged 7.5) my Wicked Witch (how true, how true! LOL!)

All ready to raid the neighbours candy stashes!

3 little pumpkins for my 3 little cuties!

And these are the treats we made. These are Paige's batch and I'll be honest, the only reason I have photos of them is because she forgot to hand them out on Monday. Yup, we slaved over these and then I forgot to take pictures to show you all. Doh! Forgetfulness must run in the family, eh?

Paige stamped the image of her choice from the Batty for You stamp set onto her choice of card stock (Basic Grey and Always Artichoke) and then I punched them out using my 1 3/4" circle punch. They were then layered onto a piece of Frightful Sight DSP (her choice again) which I punched out with the scallop circle punch. 

I let her do all the stamping and gluing and I did all the punching. Marley got to do the stamping, punching and gluing as she's that bit older. Some of theirs were a bit off but ... it's supposed to be from them so I think it should actually BE from them! 

I did take charge of attaching the embellishments to the bag toppers - another piece of Frightful Sight DSP cut to 1 1/2" x 4" and folded in half. The girls tried to stuff the cellophane bags (the 1"x8" ones) with the licorice but found it a bit tough so I took over that eventually.

Anyway, that's it for tonight. Take a look at the new buttons on my sidebar. Stampin' Up! has got a new promotion that runs until Dec 15th. It offers our wonderful Hostesses the opportunity to get more FREE PRODUCTS if their workshops have high enough sales. I know I'm excited to share this with my November Hostesses - if you want to be one of them, click on the Email Me button and we'll set something up.

Thanks everyone. Hope your Hallowe'en was as fun and fright-less as ours was. Now, where's that chocolate? :)

See you soon!