The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Can you tell I am not a happy Holly? This week is AIMS testing here in our great state. (AIMS is our state test!) And today, well today, was not a good day. It is so frustrating to walk around and watch my students make silly and careless mistakes! We have been working on this since the first day of school and to see some of them mess up on the simplest questions just boggles my mind! Especially when so much is riding on how they do! (Too much is riding on this!) Enough of that! My wonderful Joy has a friend who had a baby a few months back and Joy wanted me to make him a name book. She asked, "How many letters can you do?" "Well - I have done a book with six letters but that was pretty long, so no more than six." "Oh," was all she said. "Why? What is his name?" "Johnathan!" That is nine, count them, nine letters long! No way! I suggested doing his initials. She said okay but I knew she wanted his name on there somewhere. So - using my Cricut Design Studio and my Cricut machine, I cut out his name and put an extra little tab between each letter. On the back of each tab, I put a quote about little boys. Best of both worlds! (Isn't that a Hannah Montana song? Oh boy! Time for summer vacation!)

A Year in the Life

A co-worker, and a friend of mine, has a handsome little boy named Evan. He just turned 3 months old. She does not really call herself a "scrapbooker," so she asked if I would make a year long album for her. I said sure! 39 layouts later - I was done. We went from the first ultrasound pictures to his first birthday. It was tough because I am so used to starting with the pictures and getting my colors and inspiration from them. This time, I had to think of the theme of each month and guess what would look just right. I hope they like this album and I cannot wait to see it filled with lots of pics of Evan!

Baby Love

The Mandrola Family just increased by one with the birth of Vincent Joseph. Mom and Dad did not know he was going to be a boy, so I made them this frame a few weeks ago. He arrived last week and is a miracle! Congrats!

Smells Yummy!

Since it is my last day of Spring Break (sniff!), I decided to cook some comfort food and I cooked a roast. Might not sound like a big deal to you, but it is to me! It has been cooking all day and my house smells wonderful. (My neighbor even knocked on my door to see what I was cooking.) It reminds me of Sunday afternoons at Mamo and Papo's house growing up. These were my mom's mom and dad. Mamo used to cook roasts and they always smelled so good. My house smells like her house today and it makes me happy. Hopefully, she is looking down at me smiling. I think the new vinyl lettering I put above my stove helped make my meal complete.

Fun While It Lasted

My restful Spring Break is coming to an end! Now, we get ready for end of the year testing! AHHH!! Luckily, this week is St. Patrick's Day and that is always lots of fun. I made some more wood plaques that I painted and covered with vinyl. My little sis, always the creative thinker, suggested that I put hooks on the top with some ribbon. Now they can hang on the wall! The letters were cut with several different Cricut cartridges. The plain word Lucky was cut with Alpahlicious. The fancy Lucky was cut with Indie Art. On the plain Lucky, the gold words at the bottom corners were cut with Graphically Speaking. Seriously, I should be a spokeswoman for ProvoCraft. I love my Cricut! Somebody call them for me - please!

Lucky Thank You

Good evening everyone! I just wanted to post a card I made yesterday. To say thank you and Happy St. Patrick's Day, I cut out one inch hearts using my George cartridge. Then I glued them together to make a shamrock and glued a button in the middle. For the stem, I just stamped some random hearts. To finish, I stamped the little saying and stuck it to the ribbon with a brad. Inside I wrote, "to have a friend like you!" Hopefully it will bring luck to my friends who get these in the mail!

Want a Bite?

If you look at this post and do not understand it, then you have not been bitten by the Twilight bug. It's okay, really. You can solve this problem by running to your nearest bookstore and buying this amazing book. Or, you can wait a few more weeks until the movie comes out on DVD. I promise you will not be disappointed. I saw this saying on a website a few weeks ago and made this for my sister. She will read it and dream of Edward Cullen. Edward who, you say?! Seriously, go get help now!!! (When you fall in love with him, I can make one of these for you too!)