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!