The Past 3 Weeks

I hope everyone had a Happy Mother's Day and a great Graduation weekend! We've been so busy with family and celebrating, it'll be nice next week when things finally wind down for summer vacation! The first week of May was our week for Teacher Appreciation. I didn't get a chance to get it posted earlier and the pictures aren't great because I took them in a hurry, but here's the card I made for Caitlyn's teacher. Inside Caitlyn drew a picture of her teacher with a rainbow, clouds, and a happy sun inside and wrote a short sweet message. At the bottom I added a message from Paul and I. I was so pleased with how cute it came out! Mrs. F's favorite color is red so that made using red apples all the more fun! This was the first time I used this set for a teacher gift and I can just tell I'm going to be loving using it for teacher projects for years to come!

Here's the card and matching tag on the bag together. I love kraft bags and the really fun part is the quilt shop I frequent puts your purchase in these plain kraft totes so I not only get lovely fabric to play with but also a free gift bag to use later ;) As for us, we had a neurology appointment for Paul a couple weeks before graduation. While his drop-leg has been getting worse and he now wears a knee brace most days to help with that, he did have more sensation in his legs than he did at his appointment back in October which is a good sign. He also had slightly better balance and didn't fall over this time when he had to do some of the closed eye balance tests. Hopefully that means his injections are helping his system retain as much functionality as possible ;) We also got some good news about a new medication that's going through approval right now that's specifically for MS patients to help with walking. It's supposed to help with symptoms like drop-leg so Paul and I are excited for when the FDA approves it and he can try it out.

Mother's Day was fun for me. I got to be lazy and Paul did the dishes, vacuumed, and took care of the girls. Paul got me this gorgeous top, it looks lovely with my olive skin ;) Then we went to see Iron Man 2 and out to dinner. His sister spoiled us by watching the girls for 4 hours, so nice! Paul is finally graduated now with his bachelors, yay! He graduated with Honors in English Literature and hopefully now can take a little time off to write before he takes the GRE and heads back for more school to get his Masters, lol. It's strange to think he's been in school since before Audrey was born. She was born just before midterms his first semester.

This week has been all about Caitlyn. Her class spent Monday and Tuesday getting ready for their program on Wednesday. The theme was 'When I Grow Up' and Cait was a Vet ;) It was SO cute! I can't wait to see more of these as she goes through school. And she was so hilarious, she really gets into the dance moves and has such an expressive face! We loved it especially the Macarena Month song and the First Grade song, she was really swinging her little hips and having a great time up there, lol. Thursday was the Teddy Bear Picnic, where they got to bring lunch and a stuffed animal for a picnic out on the lawn, and today they are doing a Reading Party. Tuesday they get to have a water party and then the next day we meet with the first grade teacher and she's done until fall! I can't believe it's been a whole school year already and that she's going to be in first grade, never mind that my girl is going to be 7! Crazy eh? Anyway, I have done a little crafting the past few weeks, very little but some none the less and I'll be posting those later on ;) I hope you enjoyed and have a fab Friday!

Learn & Grow

Supplies : Papers by Collage Press, Scenic Route, October Afternoon, and Cosmo Cricket; Remarks Stickers (Letters and Trees) and Flair button by American Crafts; Glitter Bird sticker by Colorbok

It's Sketch Friday at Practical Scrappers! Heidi created the sketch this week and I do have to say I was stumped for a while on what I would do. I decided to trade out the big oval photo for a trio photo row that fit much better with my style and I staggered the size of my photos to make it closer to an oval shape rather than a straight rectangular row. Aside from the base all the rest of the papers are old scraps and I was so happy to use some of them! It seemed like forever to find a combo that inspired me since I started with the photos, but after a bit of trial and error I went with this tree theme and just love it! All those darling tree stickers are from American Crafts and have you seen their new stuff lately? I am in love with the Adobe, Spring, and Heat Wave lines. Well, I'm loving them all but those are going to be the first ones I get to play with ;) Pebbles just started carrying a whole bunch of new American Crafts and My Minds Eye goodies, and my my they are all such yummy eye candy! Anyway, the sketch is below if you want to play. Head on over to Practical Scrappers if you make a layout and post it to the Mr. Linky there. Thanks for popping by and have a fantastic Friday!

Preschool

Supplies : Paper by Basic Grey, Scenic Route; Thickers and Button Flair by American Crafts; Tree and numbers elements by My Minds Eye; Red Alphas by Scenic Route; Cardstock from LSS

Another page on kraft paper! Here are a few more photos of her very first day going to school. I had take so many of her that day, and it was hard to get really good ones since for the most part she just wanted to go and not have any pictures taken. This year I've been a little lazy about getting my photos. Because I knew it would be crazy that first day I didn't take my camera for pictures yet. This last week I took Caitlyn's first day of Kindergarten pictures, even though they technically weren't taken on the first day. I don't think it matters too much though, as long as it was around the same time. I'm so glad for the weekend now. I play the chauffer all week with Caitlyn and Paul since we have just the one car and it's so nice to not have to be anywhere today. I'm totally going to be vegging out as much as possible! Have a spectacular Saturday and thanks for visiting!

Uncertain

Supplies : Paper by Scenic Route; Ribbon by May Arts; Flowers by Prima; Thickers and button flair by American Crafts; Red Alphas by Scenic Route; Brad by Basic Grey; Bracket by My Minds Eye; Cardstock by CTMH

I'm finally getting around to doing Caitlyn's very first school pictures. These were back in Dec of 2007 when she first started preschool. While she was mostly excited to go to school there was a moment when we were walking to the car that she was suddenly unsure of going. I think it was because she would be leaving Audrey behind and she's been Caitie's wingman since she could walk. There has been very little that Caitlyn has done where Audrey wasn't far behind. But just starting to mention the fun stuff she would do, Caitlyn got excited again and had a blast at school that day. I thought it was sweet though, that she was hesitant for just that small moment. Thanks for stopping by and have a fabulous Friday!

Got Stickers?

This week the Practical Scrappers DT challenge is to find ways to use up stickers. So stop on by the Practical Scrappers blog to check out all the inspirational pages created by the Team A design members! We have the option of submitting even during our off week and since I had a few stickers I wanted to get creative with, I made some fun layouts for this challenge as well.

Supplies : Paper - My Minds Eye (snowflake), Scenic Route (green stripe), Pebbles (swirl), and Doodlebug (glitter white); Candy Dots and Christmas Sentiment Stickers by Pebbles; Marvy Snowflake punches; Col White cardstock by CTMH

Create word art with your sentiment stickers! I got those great sentiment stickers for Sparkle's Christmas card challenge a couple weeks ago and wanted a way to use some of them up on a layout. Try replacing your title with a cluster of word art for a fun sticker focal point like I did here. Have smaller sentiment stickers? Use those to create word embellishments. Use them on the corners of pictures like you would with flowers and stack up a few for greater presence. Or get extra creative by cutting up and organizing word stickers for eclectic journaling!

Supplies : Paper - Collage Press (grid) and Pebbles; LinniBell (flower and leaves) and Little Miss (brackets) stickers by Pebbles; Thickers by American Crafts; cardstock by CTMH

Make a scene with your stickers! On this page I made a cute garden type scene with some flower stickers and the border that was attached to the floral paper, then added bracket stickers to bring attention to the title. These particular stickers have negative space in the petals and centers that make them look lost on the layout by themselves. To give them a more solid presence I added pattern paper to the back of the sticker, filling in those empty gaps. Combine your stickers with other elements to create a picture, like bug stickers on cut out grass or in a paper pieced jar. Try creating a zoo with your animal stickers or putting a sleepy animal on a paper cut moon for bedtime layouts. For a focal make a 'mini' scene with small stickers and place on the layout like a picture, complete with a mat for a frame!

Supplies : Paper - Pebbles (stripe) and Scenic Route; Stickers by Pebbles; Thickers by American Crafts; Buttons by Papertrey Ink; Embroidery floss

Embellish your stickers! Some stickers though cute can look pretty plain and boring by themselves on a page. Spice them up by adding buttons, brads, eyelets, rhinestones, etc. Add stitching to emphasize detail or to put some detail where there isn't any like I did on these sticker leaves. You could use brads and stitching to make a jack-o-lantern out of a plain pumpkin sticker or add metallic veins to a leaf with a glitter marker or thread. Try creating a border with your stickers - freestyle, on paper, or on ribbon! I hope some of these ideas inspired you on how you can use up the stickers in your stash. For more ideas visit the Practical Scrappers Blog and have a great Monday!