Babies!

My friend had a baby girl a few weeks ago and so I got to make a sweet baby card this week. Yay for babies and yay for a craft post. I think the card turned out fabulous but I guess I'm biased.

Until September ...

Both Brayden and Sydney had great teachers this year. Brayden's teacher was perfect for him and made this classroom into this great learning center with different areas to help the students find what helps them concentrate. For example, I was a pencil chewer where I would squish out the eraser. Then as I got older I chewed pen lids. Fixation stuck at the oral stage I suppose. Anyway, to counter this habit Brayden's teacher would allow those students to chew on sugar free gum with parent permission. She did quite a few different things to help direct little 6/7 year old energy into work and gave them a place to retreat and calm down while reading a book if they became frustrated with learning. It was perfect for Brayden. When there was a small problem between Brayden and some of the other boys in the class during the break playing soccer (competitiveness turning mean) it was dealt with quickly and perfectly without it becoming more then boys being boys. I made cards for the teachers and extra hands in kindergarten and I let Brayden pick first which card he'd like to give his teacher and I hope she enjoyed Brayden as much as he enjoyed being in her class!

Kindergarten is one wild ride. There were about 23 students in Sydney's class. That is a lot of energy and unedited thoughts. Every time it was my turn to be the parent helper I laughed out loud at the crazy random thoughts that would pop into those minds and how they could blurt them out no matter the situation. Question time for show and tell was pretty much 5 kids asking the same question but question time after a story was every child needing to share something personal unrelated to anything in the book. When you're a baby 2 months can really make quite the difference in development but by the time you're out of school, what's a few years? Well, kindergarten had quite the mix. I'd say there was an average but at Sydney's table (where she sat with 4 others) had one boy who had already lost 6+ teeth and they had already grown in where Sydney has yet to have a loose tooth. It's the start of exploring your wonderful personality without your parent there with you all day long and WOW, is kindergarten the place to people watch! It was very, very entertaining. I think being a kindergarten teacher takes someone extra special and that was Syds teacher. She was patient, calm, creative, and best of all never laughed once in a childs face when they blurted out something outrageous while I tried to hide my face and not snort. As far as cards go, Sydney picked my favorite. I saw it on pinterest and knew I had to try to make it. It was only a picture so I played with dimensions, colours and this is what I got. I loved it. On the inside was a black interior on the front side with white butterflies embossed on it. It was also my first time using my sewing machine on a card and I loved the look. Yay me.

There were two extra hands in Sydney's kindergarten class and they were both very busy every time I was in there so I couldn't forget about them. I hope everyone gets to enjoy a bit of the summer weather before worrying about starting a new year in September!

Love People That Make My Life Easier

With our crazy lives and bouncing back and forth from places we had to submit some papers to the government to, um, prove that we are legal guardians of our children. A small part of that documentation needed were forms from their school to be signed as true copies. I didn't really think would be a big deal but the secretary of the school refused to do such a thing which meant I needed to acquire quite a few additional documents in their place. Thankfully, under the suggestion of a friend, I emailed the school principal late that night who returned my message before the start of school the next day saying the papers were signed and ready for me to pick up. This saved me so much time and stress I really wanted to thank her and let her know somehow how much she had done for me, especially after the secretary was so short and rude about it. I bought her a few chocolates and made this cute little whatever it is to put them in along with a Thank You note. I think it turned out perfectly, don't you?

Hoo's Birthday?

It was a friends birthday this weekend and I think she likes owls. The babies room has an owl motif and I'm assuming she didn't tell her mommy owls were the way to go from inside the womb so that's why I think my friend likes owls. Anyway, I went with it and made her this card for her birthday:

I got to use my metalic pigments for the stamp on the envelope so it was all purple metallic shinny and pretty. I added some glitter to make the owl pop a little bit and did some cliche saying on the inside "Have a hoot of a Birthday" because if you're going to go owl, go all out!

Craftiness

So who loves Pinterest? Well I sure do. I love stealing other peoples genius craft ideas and making them my own. I've been able to use so many cool little storage ideas for my girls Barbie's, the kids rooms and make some yummy treats. I love sitting down and making things, my problem is that it's hard for me to come up with an idea but if someone else has already done that then I'm good to go! For my friends wedding I wanted to make her something so it was a little more personal because I think she's pretty special but I had no idea what to do so I went to Pinterest for help and this is what I was able to create for her and her new hubby:

Her wedding colours were the purple, blue and gold from a peacocks feather and so I used a nice blueish purple paper to make the envelope with a cute little stamp of a bride and groom with gold embossing powder on it. I thought it turned it out so perfectly! I also used their engagement photos to make the blocks thanks to gel medium and the fact that they had such great pics only made it turn out better then I hoped. Now I want to make some for myself, when I get time ...

The Older She Gets, The Older I Get

So to go along with my craftiness I googled some different birthday cards I could make for my sister for her birthday. *sigh* Really, when did we get so old? I found a few that I thought I could put together and this is what I was able to send in the mail to her:

I thought that the kids would probably want to send something a little more fun looking and so the girls sat down with me one afternoon and picked something out with some animals and wanted the embossing to sparkle so we were able to settle on this:

I Heart You

Well ... 9 years. Today 9 years ago Ryan and I were sealed together in the Cardston Alberta temple and family was started. Crazy. Looking back I can't believe all that we've been able to accomplish, grow and do in those 9 years. We've been able to do things in these past 9 years that loads of people don't get to experience in an entire life time. We've been incredibly blessed and made it through some pretty amazing times and some pretty challenging times here we are still in love with each other. Life is good! So I decided that Ryan was worth the time it would take to make his card, so here it is, idea stolen from google: