Baseball theme for Father's Day

My dad's birthday often coincides with Father's Day so he usually gets one gift to cover both occasions.  He's a big-time Detroit Tigers fan, so I made him a baseball-themed gift this year.

The card is simple: a strip of patterned paper, three stars, a baseball, and "Dad" stamped on the card.  Of course I chose navy and orange for the Detroit Tigers.  The stars were made on my Cricut.  To make the baseball, I cut two of the same circle.  Then I laid the 2nd circle on top of the first, slightly overlapping. I traced the curve of the 2nd circle on to the first with a red marker.  Then I added the little "stitches" with red marker to make the baseball's seams.

He got a  Tigers shirt for his birthday, plus a variety of ball-park snacks like peanuts and Cracker Jacks.  I also made him some baseball cookies.  You can see how I made those by clicking here.

Happy birthday and Happy Father's Day, Dad!  I hope the Tigers are good this year!

End of the Year Teacher Gift - Movie Theater Gift Card

I decided to get my son's teacher a gift card to the local movie theater.  But I didn't want to just hand her a gift card without dressing it up a bit!

So I made a card that looked like a popcorn bucket and put the gift card inside with my note of thanks.  Then I stacked the card, some Milk Duds, and some microwave popcorn and tied it all with a ribbon.  Because, have you tried eating Milk Duds and popcorn together?  Perfection.

And here it is all put together!  Another successful school year is almost over.

Harry Potter Themed Necklace

It's no secret that I LOVE Harry Potter.  My niece is a fan, too, so I made her this necklace for her birthday.  You can make one too!

Supplies Used:
Deathly Hallows charm - I ordered these from amazon.com (click here for link)
Owl charm - I think I ordered these from Oriental Trading, but it was so long ago, I've forgotten (click here for similar)
Mischief Managed pendant - I made this using Base and Bling products from Close to My Heart.
Chain - a Close to My Heart Base and Bling product.
Jump Rings

For the Mischief Managed pendant, I found the artwork online and printed it out so it would fit in the 1" circle pendant.  I cut it out using a 1" circle punch and fit it into the pendant base.  Then I used Liquid Glass to adhere the round glass cover over the paper.  It's so easy!  I checked out this video tutorial for the how-to.

I liked the result so much, I almost kept this necklace for myself.  I guess I'll have to make another one!

End of the School Year Teacher Thank You Gifts

At the end of each school year, I like to make little thank you gifts for my boys' teachers, aides, and the school secretaries.  Here are this year's gifts.

For the teachers, I bought them each a gift card from amazon.com.  Did you know you can buy a printable gift card from amazon that your child can color in?  Easiest teacher gift ever.  But I couldn't just give them the gift card, right?  I had to make something cute as well.

I found these cute boxes in the Target Dollar Spot and thought they were perfect.  Then I put in a few summery things like sunscreen, lemonade mix, gum, trail mix and a fun pen (also from Target) that matched the colors on the box.  I made the little "enjoy your summer" tag on my computer and taped it to the front of the envelope that contained the gift card.  I sandwiched a fat popsicle stick between the tag and the envelope so it could stick up out of the box.  The kids signed the tags, and that was our teacher thank you gift this year. 

My diabetic son has an aide at school and she has a Tim Horton's coffee addiction.  So she got a Tim Horton's gift card packaged in a reusable pink cup with some pink lemonade mix.  The tag says "Thanks for being my 'ade'."  (You can see the cup in the top picture in this post.)

One of the school secretaries is retiring this year and she always did so much to keep that place running smoothly.  So I made her a gift that celebrated her contribution.  The tag (made on my computer) says "Thanks for holding everything together" and the box is filled with things like paper clips and magnets and band-aids.  Get it?  Things for holding stuff together?  We are really going to miss her around the school.

Happy summer vacation to the teachers!

Box of Sunshine for my Grandma

My grandmother is a practical woman.  She's 91 years old and she doesn't *need* any gifts for Mother's Day.  In fact, she gets a little miffed when people spend money on her.  Well sorry, Grandma.  You are the best grandma ever, and I'm sending you a gift.  But I made sure it's practical.

I'm sending my grandma a box of sunshine.  This idea has been burning up Pinterest lately and I think it's adorable.  The concept is simple:  fill a box with yellow things and include a tag saying that you're sending some sunshine.

I got my tag from HappyMoneySaver.com.  (You can never be too sure with the internet, but the "box of sunshine" idea may have started here, too.  I try to give credit where credit is due, but sometimes it's hard to find the original!)

My boys and I searched the aisles of Target to find yellow things and here's what we came up with:

• Kleenex box
• Travel size Kleenex
• Burt's Bees bar of soap
• Antibacterial hand soap
• Zone bar (chocolate peanut butter flavor)
• Sunflower seed packet
• Butterscotch disks candy
• Butterfinger candy bar
• Peanut M&M's (I know she likes almond better, but peanut had a yellow bag!)
• Splenda Flavors for Coffee
• Lemon scented wipes from the "Dollar Spot"
• Travel size Wet Ones

See? Practical stuff.  She can't complain about that.

Then I made her a sunshine-yellow card and attached the fabric peony I made earlier.  (See this post for the peony instructions.)

I packaged it all up in a box with some yellow tissue paper and paper-punched sunshines.  How could you not be happy if you received this box in the mail?

Happy Mother's Day, Grandma.  You are such an inspiration to me.

February Birthday Cards

It's officially February and that means a lot of birthdays in my family.  Here's a peek at some of the birthday cards I've been making.

This one is for my niece Kayla, who is turning 11.  She's really into soccer, so I thought she'd appreciate a more sporty card.

One for my brother-in-law.  We won't say how old he is turning.  I always find it more difficult to make cards for guys, don't you?  I thought this striped paper was more masculine while still being festive.

And finally, a more girly one for my sister-in-law.

Then I had a friend who was turning thirty and she wasn't overly excited about it.  So I made her this:

The "30 sucks" idea was circulating around Pinterest lately and I just couldn't resist making my friend laugh.

Quick Thank-You Cookies for School Secretaries

The secretaries at my boys' school are really exemplary.  They know all the kids by name and truly care about their well-being.  When I was in elementary school, I remember the secretaries being a little bit scary and a lot of stern.  But my boys are blessed to have 2 sweet ladies in the front office to hug on their way into school each morning.

Just before Christmas break I wanted to give them a little something to express my appreciation.

My go-to vanilla-almond sugar cookie recipe can be found on the Bake at 350 blog.  Discovering that blog is what led to my own cookie hobby. Bake at 350 has a printable version of her cookie recipe, as well as her royal icing recipe and some cookie decorating tips here.  People are always asking for my cookie recipe, so do yourself a favor and make these cookies!

I hadn't used my Christmas tree cookie cutter in a while, so I picked that one out of my stash of cutters.  When the cookies were baked, I outlined them with green icing.  I had a cookie epiphany at one point when I realized that I don't have to outline the cookies exactly along the edge.  You can draw the lines where ever you want to give your cookies personality!

After the outline icing was set, I had to decide how to decorate the trees.  I played around with it a bit.

But I settled on white "garland' lines and white "ornament" dots.  The trick for making the cookies nice and smooth is to add your white icing while the green is still wet.  Have two squeeze bottles filled with green and white flood icing ready.  You flood the trees with green and, while the green is still wet, you drop in the white icing.  Because the icing is so liquid, it settles together and dries flat.  My dots are never uniform size, and my garlands are crooked.  But I still think they turned out cute and, being less-than-perfect adds to their homemade charm.  So don't let photos of perfectly decorated cookies stop you from trying this!

Then comes the packaging.  (I used to work in marketing so I know it's all about the packaging!)  I found printable bag tags that had a green that precisely matched my icing.  Serendipity.  The tags say "Thanks, You're Sweet" so they can really be used for a lot of different occasions.  You can download the tags here. (There's also a pink version.)

The boys gave these cookie treats to the secretaries at school, as well as their Sunday school teachers at church.

Owl-themed Teacher Treats

On Wednesday nights, I volunteer at my church and work with the 3- and 4-year-olds.  There are 7 other teachers that work with me, and I wanted to make them a little thank you gift for all their help.

I love owls and they happen to be EVERYWHERE lately, so I went with an owl theme.  I'd seen this pattern on Pinterest and thought they'd be fun to make.  We had a long drive at Thanksgiving so I used that time to stitch together my owls.  (For some reason, reading in the car makes me sick, but I can sew.  Strange.)

I wanted to add a little treat with the felt owls, so I made puppy chow (aka Chex Muddy Buddies).

I packaged the puppy chow into clear cellophane bags, folded down the top, and stapled the bag label over it.  The bag labels were downloaded from the Celebration Shoppe blog and you can find them here.  (If you've never been to the Celebration Shoppe before, you are in for a treat!  It's loaded with fabulous inspiration.)

Look, all my owls are in a row!  Sorry for the mediocre photograph, but I was in a hurry.  But there's something about a finished project all packaged and ready to go that makes me happy.