Trendsetter Shadow Box

I set aside some time this last weekend to just play. I dug out the new Trendsetter line from Fancy Pants, an older photo and this cute 7Gypsies shadow box.

The colors in this line seriously look like they were made for this picture!

I also dug out some of my enamel dots. I've got some from My Mind's Eye, Basic Grey and Teresa Collins. I just love them. They give a little pop of dimensional color without sticking up too high.

I'm not going to lie, it felt GOOD to make something, just because. :)

Have a great day and I hope you make something fun soon!

Teacher Appreciation Gifts

Last month, my mom and I took part in a tour of six different scrap/stamp stores in Oregon called Passport to Creativity. We had a great time! And, at the last store, we made some adorable embossed bag albums! 

I thought that would make really cute gifts for Audrey's preschool teachers. Her last day was this Tuesday and we just adore the teachers at her school. 

The books are really easy to make. You just emboss three paper bags, poke a hole in the bottom of the lower right corner and thread twine through. Thread the twine through a length of straw and tie at the top. 

Then, all you do is embellish. I used Thanks Flair from Bossy Joscie and some cute resin frames from Webster's pages on the cover. 

The tags that I placed in the bags are from the Happy Days line from Papermania. It's a line out of the UK and I'm crazy about it! Unfortunately, the LSS I found it at only had the 6x6 paper pad. I did find the 12x12 papers and some stamps at HSN though.

I had Audrey draw a picture of herself with her teacher and glued it to one of the tags.

Then I printed out a picture of her from her first day of school and glued it to the last tag.

I added a cute phrase sticker and another Bossy Joscie flair. These grey Polka Heart flair are so stinkin' cute!

The best thing about these is that are very easy to make quickly. Yet, you can still have fun personalizing them.

Here's a look at the embossing I chose for the front of this album.

Oh, and I used washi tape to adhere a movie gift card to the front tag. It took a while to figure out what kind of gift card to get but I think this was a good choice. Who doesn't love the movies?

Here's Audie's pic for this one. She drew Mickey in the picture, too! 

I had to include a couple Studio Calico wood veneer people and another Bossy Joscie flair. 

These albums are a great way to use up odds and ends from other projects. 

Because of the embossing on the bags, you don't need a ton of embellishment. (A tip for embossing the bags, put a piece of scrap paper in the bag before you emboss to keep the bag from tearing.)

Now, I just need to make one more for Mickey's teacher for next month!

Around Here...

Around here...we are in full on Tee-Ball mode. It's our first year of what is most likely to be many if you judge by the look on Little Man's face down there. He's sliding into home as a Kindergartner during a Tee-Ball game where there are no outs and no one wins. The kid is 100% Hettwer and 100% in love with the game.

Around here...Audrey is giving us quite the weekend. She woke up Saturday morning with crazy huge hives on her arms, legs and rear. They freaked me out enough that I cancelled my plans to scrap all day and stayed home with her. They finally faded around lunch time. They came back late Saturday night. She woke up and came out to me around 10:00 complaining about the itching. The hives this time around were even more prevalent. She had them in the previous places and some on her face and lower back. After a shower and some antihistamine, she stopped complaining enough to get engrossed in a TV show and when she woke up this morning, they were all gone. So, instead of a movie with my brother and uncle on Sunday I spent the day hanging out at home. Andrew thought I was overreacting but with my baby looking like this, I really couldn't leave her!

Around here...I've been enjoying my Mother's Day present from Andrew. He detailed Bess for me! Doesn't she look purty?

Around here...Andrew's also been in Tee-Ball mode. He's been able to make it to almost every game and does a great job helping coach the kids. That's Mickey there on third base. 

Around here...I've been trying to be a good Team Mom. The other Team Mom and I made this cute Lottery Scratch-It Tree for the Whiskey Hill Kids Bingo Night. We didn't win anything but we sure had fun!

Around here...she finally spent her birthday money! She wanted this horse and Barbie set but it was too much. We waited and waited and finally it went on sale! She even had enough left over to get a Brave book! 

Around here...we are getting used to me working. I tried for three months to juggle 40 hours of work (12 in the office and 28 at home) and still being the kind of mom I want to be to my kids. It's just not possible for me. So, I've cut back to 12 hours in the office and 18 at home. That extra 10 hours should be enough to get our house in order and still have the kind of fun times with my kids that we both crave. I'm really lucky in that my Dad is able to come take care of my little ones while I'm at work. It's great because they have someone who loves them almost as much as I do and he used to come over 2-3 times a week anyways so it's not too much more trouble for him. He also cleans when he's bored so that's an extra bonus for me!  LOL!

Around here...we are lovin' life!

Mother's Day Cards

I whipped up these two Mother's Day cards in no time on Saturday thanks to an awesome class I took at CKC-Portland! It was the Stamp It 3 Ways class that was designed by the ever awesome, Teri Anderson!

They were really simple to make using the techniques we learned in class and the leftover supplies. 

The top one was for my granny and the bottom one went to my mom. They both loved them!

And, a shot of me and my littles on Mother's Day!

I hope you had a great Mother's Day weekend!

Paper Wishes

Now, this post is going to cover some of my favorite tools and storage solutions I've found while working at Hot Off the Press. These are all non-HOTP items that are carried in their online/mailer catalog, Paper Wishes. In the future, from time to time, I'll share some of the new/cool goodies I've found in our catalog.

First up, a craft knife. Now, I know everyone has one and quite a few of you have retractable ones, but this one is the best one I've found. It's one of the first things I bought for my personal crafting after I started at HOTP. This craft knife looks almost like a pen and works that way too. You push the end to reveal the blade and push a small button on the side to retract it. The blade is really small and that makes it a lot easier to work with. I use this every day!

Now, some of you may have already seen this, but I sure hadn't. Check it out, NINE HUNDRED Zots in one box. NINE HUNDRED!!! Seriously, just awesome and I love the container/dispenser. It keeps my Zots from getting all over everything when I take it somewhere yet it's easy to quickly reveal some to work with. I used to be a Glue Dot gal all the way, but this big box of awesomeness has totally won me over. I'm a Zot gir!!!

Next up, some really awesome storage solutions. I once found some of these 12x12 trays at a garage sale and snagged them up so quickly I gave the lady next to me, whip-lash! (Not really, but I seriously pounced on them!) I was so excited to see that we carry them and I bought 10 right off the bat. For those of you that have IKEA's Expedit, six of these trays will fit in one opening. 

They also fit in the Jet-Max cubes. I've got one of them upside down in the top section of this cube(mine actually has a shelf in the top section and my DVD player is in the top slot). It acts like a little shelf and it helps me utilize all the space in that cube. I also used two that way in my kids' homework Expedit. I have a basket of their projects on top and I put important info on the bottom. It's really helped me not to lose those important papers.

This Vertical File is one that I was super excited about! It's like the Cropper Hopper vertical paper holders but it fits in the Expedit and it's white!!!

It also comes in pink, orange, green and blue.

 I got green and pink for the kids' new craft station and work really well! I'm planning on getting more of these in white for my craft room once my redo is done.

Well, that's all for now. I've got a few other storage items I'm looking into and I'll post about them once I get my room redo completed. (There's a ton of purging and perhaps some furniture moving in my future!)

Oh, and if you've ever wondered what my voice sounds like (or what my hands look like) you can check out some of the newer product videos at Paper Wishes. For example, this one I did about Glitz's Love You Madly line. And yes, I am a goof ball.  :)

My HOTP Favs!

Since my new job at Hot Off the Press (and their catalog, Paper Wishes) has been taking up all my time lately, I though I'd share some of my favorites from HOTP and the Paper Wishes catalog. 

I'll start with some of my HOTP favs and then on Monday, I'll post my favorite goodies from the Paper Wishes catalog. (And a few of my layouts that I swiped from the website as well!)

First up, my very favorite paper line, Happy Days! It's double-sided (which all HOTP papers are on their way to being) and it has an amazing color palette. It's got a fabulous zig-zag pattern and my very favorite piece is that quilt pattern on a white background. It's a great line for it's versatility. I can focus on it's brights or it's lighter colors and make it as busy or as calm as I need. I really adore this line!

Next up, Grapefruit! It's my favorite from the lines that we just released in our summer catalog. I love the pinks and oranges and pops of black! It's got a couple of awesome tone on tone papers that I just love to use!

Oh, and here's one of the layouts I mentioned. This one not only features my lovely little girl, Audrey, it's also on the cover of the catalog! (And, if you sign up for the e-mails, you'll see her smiling face again in a National Scrapbooking Day e-mail!)

And, here's a layout of Mickey from that same catalog. It uses the new Geometrics line. I was afraid he'd be mad that Aud made the cover and he didn't but he was fine with it. :)

This next line, Penelope, is another favorite from last release. This one has the aquas and pinks that I just love. I adore it so much, I used it to decorate my tool containers at work! (Love that scalloped paper!)

And finally, a favorite from before I started, Home Grown. This is a great vintage line and one I need to buy for my mom as I'm pretty sure it's her favorite, too!

Oooh, and they just started carrying 6x6 paper pads!  I'm completely smitten with Rosemary & Thyme! There are some completely awesome papers in this pad. It's hard to see from the cover but trust me, it's amazing!

The HOTP papers are great for all of you who like to alter items. They are a lighter weight, more like Jenni Bowlin's papers before they became two sided, and lend themselves to covering items nicely. Even their double sided papers are this same weight so you aren't limited in what lines you can use.

Next up, stamps! I really have got to say one thing. HOTP has great quality stamps. They aren't mushy at all and even their most delicate designs stamp cleanly. I was really impressed with them from the get go!

My favorite large set is the Happy Patterns set. It coordinates with the Happy Days papers and is just so cool and trendy! Love the borders and the hexagons and the awesome chevrons!

Finally, here are a couple of small stamp sets that I love, too! This Cute as a Button set is just that, cute! These will get lots of use with the cards I make for my mom and grandma.

I love this Ticket set, too! It's just cute and I can see using it on cards and as a great little accent on my layouts as well. 

So, there are some of my favorites from Hot Off the Press. What do you guys think? Does this put HOTP back on your radar?

MIA

Sorry I've been a bit MIA lately. This time of year, after Aud's birthday and before Mickey's anniversary, is rough on me. I don't have party planning and Easter to distract me and I get pretty nervous. This year is better than last year though. Last year, it was an entire month of depression and stress and not knowing why until a few days before the 4th. This year, it only took me a week and a half to realize why I was so down and so upset. I'm calling that some serious progress! :) 

 Another reason for my absence is my lack of time. This dream job is still a job and still requires 40 hours a week from me. And, I've added exercise back into my life. Which is a good thing but also takes away blogging time. I can't stay up blogging until all hours if I'm getting up at five the next morning. The exercise is sooooo worth it though. I'm down six pounds since April 1st and I just realized this morning that I'm getting more done these days. My house doesn't look like a huge hot mess all the time! (Just a small mess most of the time.) 

 Finally, I just don't have as much craftiness to share. So, I'll be working on adding personal crafty time into my schedule next. And, blogging about more stuff that's craft related but not necessarily projects of mine. Like tomorrow, I've got a blog post on some of my favorite goodies that are available in the catalog that my company puts out, Paper Wishes. And, some of my favorite Hot Off the Press products as well. 

(My homage to Si Robertson from Duck Dynasty)

 Thanks for stopping by and thanks for sticking with me! :)