Happy Birthday Mandy!

It is not only days before Halloween, but it is also my good friend Mandy's birthday. Mandy loves Halloween. Seriously loves it! She has at least 20 totes of decorations in her garage and gets all giddy every time she talks about it. Well, today is a day to celebrate Mandy so I made her this cute skull card. Those two words really do not go together but they fit Mandy perfectly. I used Indie Art to cut out the skull and cross bones. Then I tied a cute pink bow to it. Then I used some bling in the middle of the cross bones (what else!) and I stamped Party Time to the bottom with some Versamark Ink and used some glitter from Doodlebug Design. Every year, I have to try and outdo what Mandy would do for me because she is super creative. You should see what she does for her sons' birthday party. It is amazing! Happy Birthday my friend!

Published

As a scrapbooker, I get in a rut but I am also nervous to leave my comfort zone. What if I mess up? What if it does not look right? (I always tell my students, "No What ifs?") I should take my own advice. So, my bff Jamie was published in a magazine for teachers. Pretty impressive! They came to his school and interviewed him. When he gave me my copy, he slyly hinted that it would be great if I could do something with it so he could showcase it in his house. "Like what>" I asked him. He said, "Oh I trust you." No pressure!! Well, I had no idea what I was doing but I bought a shadow box at Michael's that had velcro along the back. Then I photocopied the article and put the original magazine in a page protector. I velcroed the page protector in the box in case he ever wants to take the magazine out. Then I bound all of the pages together with a brad and velcroed them to the board. Now, when someone looks at it, I wanted them to see his quotes and parts of the article so I copied those and backed them with some blue paper. Yes, those pieces are velcroed too. Finally, it just needed something. I was going to make some blue butteflies to match the cover but I thought that was too much so I just added some ribbon. All done! He gets it this Friday so I am hoping for his approval. He certainly got mine!

Gift Cards

Happy Columbus Day! Have you realized that Christmas is just right around the corner? Scary!! Well - last week was my Aunt Lil's birthday and I bought her a gift card but I did not want to put a gift card in a card. Kind of boring so I put a gift card in an Altoid tin. I covered the tin with paper on the top and bottom and around the edge. To cover the top and bottom, I used a liquid adhesive and to cover the sides I used tacky tape. Then I cut out flowers of different colors and sizes to attach to the top. I used a foam tape to add some dimension to each flower. I also cut out some hearts that I used as leaves. This is all from the George Cricut cartridge. Finally, I printed a little birthday saying to attach to the inside of the lid. Now she has a box she can keep. Can't you just see the possibilities with this? Start saving those tins. Enjoy your day!