baby gift from a drink container

A friend of mine had a baby last month & I have yet to see him since I've been sick off and on for the last month. But I did manage to put together a little gift for her. Hopefully she's not reading my blog right now!

Anyway, I saw this cute idea & since I've altered these containers before I thought it would make a cute baby gift but wanted to use some of the new Jillibean Soup papers I'd just gotten in the mail. The blues & greens worked perfectly since my friend had a boy.

I started off with this container:

My kids were happy they got to enjoy some yummy bottled root beer...see, my crafting pays off for you guys every once in a while! Anyway, I measured & cute all the papers to fit on the container.

For the handle I actually cut one piece of paper & wrapped it around the top. I thought it would look nicer that way.

And I simply added some embellishments & baby goodies and that's it!

 

Supplies used:

patterned papers, alphas - Jillibean Soup Spotted Owl

Fiskars Upper Crest border punch

Ribbon - Stampin' Up!

unexpected gifts

Don't you love when someone gives you a gift...a gift that was totally unexpected? A gift that was given to you for no other reason than the giver thought you'd like it?

I love gifts like that. I love giving gifts like that.

Since it is the season of giving, I thought I'd share a couple of those gifts that have been given to me recently.

Last month a couple of my friends and I got together for a crafting day. My friend Kellie walked in with this adorable little baby blanket for me. 

Isn't that sweet?? It's very soft, too :)

And on Tuesday I headed to the IMAX to see A Christmas Carol with the kids and my friend Christie & her 2 kiddos. And she walked in and handed me these 2 shirts for my kids for our upcoming Disney trip.

Aren't they great?? I've been wanting to try my hand at applique but just hadn't had the chance yet. Olivia is planning to wear hers on her birthday and Ben will, of course, wear his the day we go to Animal Kingdom.

Thanks again girls :)

appreciate your teachers

It's coming to that time of year again ~ the end of the school year. At least in our neck of the woods anyway. We have one more week of school left. Thank God!!! And so I've been thinking about year end teacher gifts. Not just for the kids' teachers but also for coaches & Sunday School teachers.

Normally I would give something handmade but I'm running out of time. So I took a trip to Lowes and bought some pretty flowers and inexpensive pots and came up with these:

Nothing fancy, just a little thank you for my kids' school teachers & Sunday School teachers. I mixed a couple different flowers together in the pots to make them pretty :)

It didn't cost me much, about $3.00 per pot. Since I had to do 8 of them I needed to keep the cost low. But I've said it before, you don't have to spend a ton of money to give a great gift from the heart.

So be sure to appreciate your teachers and coaches this year (as I'm sure all of you will!) They not only give of their spare time but in a lot of cases money out of their own pockets to do things for our children. This was my first year as a Sunday School teacher and I can tell you that they are forgotten by most. It doesn't take much. A card, a flower, a simple "thank you for teaching my child". I think coaches get forgotten in this mix, too. 

But everyone likes to be appreciated and not taken for granted. Which is why I always give a little something at least at Christmas and the end of the year for all those that help out with my kids whether it be in school or extracurricular activities.

teacher appreciation gifts

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week. Some kids take in little things each day but I wanted to make one nice gift for my kids' wonderful teachers. I saw this idea over at eighteen25 and thought it was such a neat idea that I wanted to recreate that myself.

So here is what I came up with:

I found the boxes at Walmart. Mine look like the same ones she used. I found these in the jewelry dept for 2 bucks. They also have them at Hobby Lobby, Michaels, etc but they're a bit more expensive unless you can snag them on sale. I had to buy 4 (2 teachers, 2 parapro's) so I took the less expensive option so I could get more goodies for inside :)

I dug up some Scenic Route paper I had to cover the front. I used glue dots to hold down the ribbon under the paper and the papers to the box. The bird was cut with my Silhouette (paper is Cosmo Cricket). Isn't she cute??!

I filled it with a mixture of school goodies & candies.

Oh, and after I got home with these boxes and opened them up I discovered that one of them was broken. Don't you hate that?! So I had to improvise and find one I had leftover in my scrap stash. It's a little smaller but it works.

I hope they enjoy them!

blizzard bites ~ batch #2

I just got done wrapping up a second batch of blizzard bites. Actually, this is technically my 3rd batch since the last one was a double batch. Anyway, I tried my best to keep from eating them all myself! They're yummy :) This time I made up some bags for my Sunday school kids and also my kids' Sunday School teachers. 

For the kids, I used some little gift boxes I had leftover from last year. I got these at Hobby Lobby and I just love how cute they are! I added a Christmas tag on the front (totally copied my friend Tami on this one, you can check out hers here!)

I printed the tags on white cardstock, used my mega circle & giga scallop circle punches, then added some ribbon.

For the Sunday School teachers I used windowed coffee bags and stamped snowflakes with red Stazon. I added one of my Christmas tags along with a cute clothespin to hold it on.

My friend Tami also used these coffee bags to package up some blizzard bites in a cute way. You can check it out here.


I think this about wraps up my gifts for the season. Now I can spend the next few days before Christmas hanging out with my kids, making gingerbread houses, watching Christmas movies and having fun :)

does anyone else's kitchen table look like this??

I mean seriously, I can't be the only one who's table is covered in 10 different Christmas projects!! This is what happens when you get behind on finishing teacher gifts, class gifts, class party stuff, etc. That's ok, it'll be cleaned up tomorrow. And then I can mess it right up again with some other project! hehe

So here's what I've been working on. First off, teacher gifts. I wanted to come up with something different and I found some blogs/websites about making rag quilt purses. And I thought that would make a cute gift filled with some Christmas goodies. I've said this before ~ you don't have to spend a ton of money to give a great gift that's from the heart. I found some Debbie Mumm fabric on sale at Joann's a few weeks back. And this is what I came up with...

I'm really happy with how they turned out. I used a scallop square Sizzix die to cut all the square pieces. And when you wash the purse it really gets a "raggish" look to it. I know, not a word... Anyhoo, when you make these you're supposed to use some scissors and snip those little ends that are sticking out. But I like the way you can see the scallop edge so I didn't cut them. Personal preference.


I made 4 of these purses and each one is just a little bit different. 

I have some more cute fabric that I found so I'll be sharing more rag quilt purses in future posts (and some instructions if anyone wants them).

Inside I put some Christmas goodies, some little candles I decorated, *big* candy bar (toffee & chocolate mmmmm...), holiday socks, towel, & post-its.

I added a cute little Christmas tag on the front and the kids wrote a note on the inside :)

For the kids in the class I made blizzard bites. They're super yummy :) (I'll give the recipe at the end of this post). I used little glassine bags, created tags in Photoshop using Christmas Memories Circles and attached them with these cute little mini clothespins I found at Hobby Lobby. It's hard to tell in the photos but they're actually about 2/3 the size of normal clothepins. Need to get more of those :)

And that's it! Happy gift giving everyone :)

Blizzard Bites

6 cups Chex + 2 cups Cheerios or 8 cups cereal of your choice

2 cups nuts 

(I use peanuts, you could also use pecans or your favorite nut)

2 cups pretzel twists

1 lb bag plain M&Ms (the holiday ones!)

3 12-ounce bags white chocolate chips 

(I use Candiquick, I doubled the recipe and used 3 16-ounce packages)

Combine everything except for chocolate. Melt the chocolate (either in the microwave or double-boiler). When melted, pour over cereal mixture and gently fold into cereal until evenly coated. Spread mixture onto wax paper and let dry/harden. Break any large clumps into smaller pieces & store in airtight container.

 

having clean hands doesn't have to be boring

Now, if you have small kids I'm sure you have multiple bottles of hand sanitizer around the house like I do. But there's no reason they can't be dressed up for the holidays just like everything else, right?! 

I found these bottles of Target brand hand sanitizer last week and remembered how Virginia had decorated some for teacher gifts earlier this year. And with the orange caps they're perfect for Halloween!

I used some of my leftover scraps of My Mind's Eye Boo To You papers & cut-outs, some ribbon and Voila! Cutie patootie hand sanitizer bottles :) And don't forget to decorate the back, too. These would also make great teacher gifts.

(By the way, if you're wanting to make these with the Target bottles, the measurement for the front and back is 2 1/8" x 3 1/8".)

Keep your fingers crossed for me...having internet & cable issues again. So far it's working again but we'll see...technology, such a pain sometimes!!

gearing up for fall & a giveaway!

The kids are back in school. The stores are filled with fall (and Christmas ~ eek!!) decorations. Of course, it's still in the 90's here and definitely not fall weather yet. But nonetheless I've been in the mood to create some fall goodies.

Check out some of my creations....

If you have the most recent Stampin' Up! catalog, then these jars might look a little familiar. I did my own take of the ones shown on p.20. I bought the jars at Hobby Lobby on sale, paid less than $10 total for both. Click on the image to see the larger jar...some of the rub-ons are hard to see with the black licorice!

I used the rub-ons on multiple colors of cardstock, then cut and layered with SU dimensionals for a neat effect. You could achieve the same effect with stamping if you wanted. One other thing...I use glue dots when decorating these jars. That way, when the season is over you can remove your decorations and change it for the next holiday!

More rub-ons...I found the green jar at Hobby Lobby on sale for around $3. Each pkg of rub-ons come with 1 sheet of black and 1 sheet of white. So I used the white ones on that cute little black bucket I found a while back at the Target dollar spot. Don't you love that Target has that?!

Again, I used the rub-ons twice. Used one directly on the bottle and did another one on white cardstock, cut out the skull (ewww, that sounds gross!) and attached with SU dimensionals.

The little "Oct 31" jar is one of those Making Memories embellishment jars (sorry, can't find a link of anyone who has some but they're the ones that are sold in a pkg of 6).

More altered goodies. The "halloween" tin is a band-aid tin that I decorated with the new Cast-a-Spell DS papers, white rub-ons and pumpkin pie striped grosgrain ribbon. Love ALL of the new striped grosgrain ribbon!

Pillow boxes...love the pillow boxes. And if you tie your ribbon sideways it holds it closed and you don't have to use adhesive on the ends!

I hope this inspired you to start crafting some ghoulish goodies!!

Click here to place an order

And here's the fun part ~ leave a comment and I'll pick one person to get a few Halloween goodies! US only, sorry! I'll keep it open til Friday at midnight :)