May, you were but a busy blink of an eye!

May. May is a crazy busy month. May tends to hurt my brain and my pockets both. (Anything that hurts our pockets is beyond exasperating!) But, May also brings lots of fun, smiles, and leaves us with oodles of new memories to treasure while we catch our breaths.

May brings us Mother's Day.  These are the roses that my kidlets picked for me from the backyard.  I'm soaking up the sweetness before we eventually hack them out to put in raised veggie beds.

May brought us wacky weather.  Actually, today is June 1st and apparently, wacky weather is still on the menu as it has been raining today....pouring just moments ago and now the sun is peeking in through a sucker hole as my fingers click clack across the board.

But, oh the rainbows!!  I'll take rain any day when there's a promise of a rainbow!

Diary of a Wimpy Kid has been running amuck around here.  I get that it's hilarious to a kidlet, but oh my, can that humor please stay in the books & on the pages?!  Please?!  (Oh yea and please do ignore the weeds.  When it finally stops raining and feeding them, I'll go out & pluck 'em!)

May has seen our graphed apple tree growing apples for the first time this year.  This little one is a Gala and there are five other varieties on the same tree.  Can't wait 'til fall to eat them!

May also brought us two birthdays.  No, not these gals'!  Hubs & wee girl each turned a year older, just a few days apart.  We celebrated Hubs and then had two parties, two weekends in a row with family and friends who are also family, just not blood related.

These two are two of the Four Musketeers and I love that while I wasn't raised with a sister, I've had three for over twenty years!

The Four Musketeers are Aunties to my kidlets and the one on the left above is the gal who got me started scrapbooking.  And since she's a scrapper herself, it rocks that she always takes pics of the silly bits and pieces of events that belong in a scrapbook at my kidlets' birthdays.

And no gathering with this crew is complete without a little Wii time!  Some maniacal Mario Kart driving was in order and after the kidlets went to bed, the 'grown ups' got busy playing Toy Story Mania.  We're wild, I know. {wink}

Tomorrow is the last day of this school year for us and while the weather doesn't seem to be on the same schedule, summer here we come!

What's happening this summer in your neck of the woods?

From the Desk of.....

Whoops!! It would seem time has gotten away from me, but I have a good excuse....really! It was hubby and my daughter's birthdays over the weekend and first, I had to run all those fun errands to pick up everything needed and then take the time to Celebrate (good times, come on!...sorry just a little Kool and The Gang singin' in my head)!

So, to travel back in time (don't worry we won't go far, just back a week), I've got the 'packaging' for Mom's Mother's Day present to share. Admiring Lauren Meader's Timeless Templates since they came out, I'm embarrassed to admit that I did not try one until now (I mean then, last week.....well, if we've time traveled, I mean now...'cause its last week, right? Yes, the men in white coats have me on their checklist!).

Using her From the Desk of template, I made a super duper easy little piece that will go perfectly in Mom's kitchen. Lauren provides a template to cut out a decorative layer, but I also wanted to mat that. To go about doing that, I cut the Berry Sorbet cardstock just outside the lines and the patterned paper just inside the lines and it worked out quite well, not perfect, but I'm still happy. I did however, have issues with the half circle in the front. For some reason, I seem to remember Lauren saying she used a coluzzle to cut it out evenly, but mine did not line up....at all. Consequently, I cut it by hand.

Do you remember me saying I CANNOT cut out circles freehand?! (Remember, I'm not cutting on the line, I'm cutting inside and outside the line to make an extra mat.) So, that's a skill I'll have to work on (or find another tool to cut it for me!!).

And speaking of improvement......when I printed the templates out, I did not see how to lighten the lines up, so the score line would not show so much. But, Lauren, ever So Great at answering any questions in her comments, shot me an email that reminded me of the option of printing on printer paper and lining it up with the cardstock as a guide or clicking 'grayscale' in my printing options. I will deifnitely be trying that next time.

I added some pretty pre-patterned & glittered K&Company chipboard letters to the front (I wanted to spell 'Mom', but the font I had was too chunky for the patterened paper, so Linda, it was!). Some of the letters in the assortment have pearls on them and some do not. Of the letters I pulled, only the 'A' had a pearl and it was looking rather lonely, so I added one to the 'L' and another to the 'N' to complete my little project.

Are you wondering what I put inside of this? The goodies that went inside of it (no, I do not have a photo of it....sorry) do not really go with the box itself. Mom's working on her house, so I knew I wanted to get a Home Depot gift card. Except, I am Really not a fan of Giving gift cards (receiving them though....well, that's a whole other Delightful story!! :>). I prefer to pick out a gift that I think someone will Love. But, I knew a Home Depot card she would be able to use and if she just did not want to use it for any of her home improvement projects, she could use it to buy a pretty plant (she loves gardening). With the gift card, were a pack of vinyl (latex free) gloves, two cord clips (to tie up all those computer cords), blue painter's tape (she just bought about a dozen gallons of paint), a scraper with extra blades, and a six pack of mini Crazy glue tubes. Again, yes, I know its an odd gift to put into the desk set, but it worked.

And the first thing she thought to use her new container for (and no, it was not one of my dozen or so suggestions) were her post-its! She has a serious addiciton to Post-It notes, ball point pens, and knitting needles....any twelve step program I can sign her up for? No? Well, then I guess a desk set to hold two of the three will have to do!

POOF!! We are now back in present time. Back to the party cleanup that is waiting for me, the Star Wars legos that were left out on the living room floor last night, and back to playing referree between my cats and the Blue Jays who keep stealing their food!! Hope the trip was good for you...I had fun! :>

Supplies:
Cardstock: Ocean Tides, Berry Sorbet - PTI
Patterned Paper: K&Company
Template: From the Desk of - PTI
Embellishments: Chipboard Letters - K&Company, K-Ology Hannah Alphabet; White Pearls - KAISERcraft

Happy Mother's Day!

Well, its a few hours early, but in any event, Happy Mother's Day to all those Mamas out there! I finally crafted that time to try out one of Lauren Meader's Timeless Templates today and it was so much fun! I used From the Desk Of to put Mom's present in. So, where's the picture? They are not yet taken. I lost the light as I was finishing it up this evening. I decided to wait until the morning to take its picture.

So, instead, I thought I would post one of my favorite cards I've ever made and it just so happens that it was Mom's Mother's Day card two years ago.....thought that made it kind of appropriate!
Masking tape, chalk inks, some Modge Podge, and a great stamp make for fabulous fun! I learned this technique from Ethel, while on 2Peas, two years ago. All you do is tear masking tape (I chose strips, but you can tear it into any shape), arrange it on your piece of cardstock to your liking, burnish it Really well with a bone folder (otherwise you will not get a good impression when you stamp if its too bumpy), randomly ink the masking taped cardstock with your choice of chalk ink pads (direct to paper), and then seal with a light coat of Modge Podge. When it is completely dry, stamp on top with StazOn ink. This technique looks really great with collage stamping. Since I am not the most adept at that, I chose one beautiful PSX tulip botanical. I made four of these cards at the same time as I applied my masking tape to an entire sheet (8 1/2 x 11") cardstock and even though they were made at the same time using the same process and stamp, they all look so different because of the random inking. This one has a lot more of the purples, but two of the others were quite a bit more pink. I really loved them all and want to do the same (or similar) thing again and frame it. Wouldn't that make a great gift?!