gift

Gift for a kindergarten teacher and cute pumpkins for Fall. Also thank you cards from Ilana's baptism that never got sent. :( I need to get better at that.

more pics

Baby gift. Thank you cards in a little basket.

Some past projects I've not posted.

Here are a few projects I have taken a long time to post. Thank you gifts and club cards.

Valentines

For Valentines Day Jackson always gives his teachers a chocolate rose. They are always surprised:) In Germany they don't do Valentine's Day and much as we do. This year I did a special valentine box for his two main teachers and Pia who is a friend and babysits for us. Here is how they turned out.

This is a cute heart tote made from the Big Shot petal card . I found it to be really awkward. I used DS Paper and should have done card stock so maybe that made the difference. It was cute enough though. I got the idea from Craftin Carolina's blog.

For a friend

As the end of my time as FRG Leader came closer, I wanted to make a useful thank you gift for my advisor. Sue was an incredible help and never tried to pressure us to do anything. I appreciated her friendship and hard work so much. So I made her a box of thank you cards. Here is the box and some of the things I put in it.

My favorite so far.

As I was stalking one of my favorite blogs, I came across this picture. I instantly loved the project in the background. I needed to make a gift for a friend here in Germany that we will all miss very much. So I took an 8 x 10 shadow frame and did something similar with pictures of the kids.
http://dawnmcvey.typepad.com/these_are_a_few_of_my_fav/2010/02/a-storage-solution.html


So far, this is one of my favorite projects. I am finding that I enjoy paper projects more than doing cards or scrapbooking. Next time I will probably stick to three colors instead of four so it will seem more unified. I think it was okay this time though because it was such a big project. It would probably look better with black and white photos too. I just hate putting the kids in black and white for some reason.

Here is another project I just finished. They are gifts for Jackson's two main teachers at the German Kindergarten. They took me a while! I mostly stamp when I lay Liam down for a nap. Since he is on the third floor, I walk into the next room which is my craft room and stay there until I am sure he is down. That way, I don't have to come back up the stairs a million times if he needs some more encouragement.

Anyways, I saw this cute box at Christmas time. I'm sorry I can't give credit as I can't remember what blog I got the idea from. It was just a picture and then I figured out all the dimensions on my own.


When you take the top off the box, it is a single 12 x 12 sheet of cardstock. It unfolds and there are pictures or writing in each square.


I added a little thank you note on a Stampin' Up petal card that I made with the Big Shot machine. Next time I will try to work it a little differently. I don't like that the corner squares are folded diagonally. Makes it hard to put a picture there without slicing it in half. I will probably try to cut the sheet 4 inches on the top and bottom of the left and right middle squares. That way it can still fold up but will lay flat when it unfolds. If that made no sense then don't worry and just stop reading. :) Next time I will also probably embellish the squares more. Kinda like I did with the project above. These look a little plain in comparison.

Random

Here are some random cards I've made over the last few months. When I begin a card I usually pick a stamp set or paper at random then look around and build from there. Sometimes it works ok and sometimes not.

This is one of my favorite stamps. I guess it is suppose to be for wedding but I'm sure I can find other uses. Baptism etc. I just love the pattern on the dress. I need to play around more with this one more.


A couple of baby cards. Not my favorite.

These two are made with the Stampin' Up treat cups. It was the first time I'd used them and I found they are not as easy as they look. It took me quite a while to work these out. They are cute but not my favorites. I will have to work on getting better at them.

Jason had to send a thank you card to his boss for an open house the boss and his wife did. He asked me for a card and he literally blanched when I suggested this card. :)
I guess I can see why. But really, it was going to the wife! Anyways, he then gave me strict instructions that there be NO flowers (especially really big floppy ones). This is what I came up with.
It is inspired by the cavalry red and white. Their guide on, or flag, looks kinda like this. Before I put it together I called and asked him if the red and white have to be in a certain order etc. He was glad I called because it matters a lot. He said the red goes above the white. Meaning: Blood before surrender. Would have been really bad if I put white on top. Anyways, Jason much preferred this card as a thank you note for his boss. :)

When I did some thank you notes to ladies in the troop FRG I did some smaller versions of this that were a little more complicated. I am so mad I didn't take pictures because they were really cute!!

Stamp Club

Every month we have a Stampin' Up Demonstrator show us some new techniques and fun paper crafts. They bring all the supplies and you leave after a couple hours with some really cute projects. I have loved doing this and look forward to it each month. Partly because of the cute projects and partly because of the great friends. I will miss my Auerbach stamping buddies very very much when we move next month!

I haven't scrapbooked the whole 3 years we've lived here. It has been really nice to still be creative and get my scraping "fix" filled without having to drag all my own supplies out.

Here are some of the projects we have made over the last couple years. Some were demonstrated by Cori Morris and some by Leah Russel. Both of them are good friends and Stampin' Up Demonstrators.

This is a regular white envelope. It was stamped on then cut in the middle. Stuffed with some candy and then one section is stuffed into the other. Very easy and cute idea for a gift.















This is a pill box made with the Big Shot machine. Very cute but a little small.















I love these trees! So cute.















This is one of my favorite cards. The first one is what we made at stamp club and then I copied it in a different color scheme. We made it using a bleach technique that is cool. The quote on the card is one of my all time favorites now.


























This is a cool technique where you stamp something twice and then layer it to match up.