It's been a little hectic around here........

I haven't posted for a couple of weeks so I thought I'd better get on the ball.  I had wanted to post at least once a week to start with, but things got so busy.  9 weeks' exams, grading papers, posting grades, calling parents, conferencing with students..........and oh, yeah......my son's impending ship-date to Parris Island hovering over me like a giant Eeyore cloud of doom.  Well, I have made it through all of those things.  Actually, I sort of made it through all of those things.  My son left Sunday for boot camp with a stop-over in Montgomery.  I held it together pretty well, crying a little here and there over the weekend and was thinking to myself that this wasn't going to be as hard as I thought.  I thought maybe my oldest moving away a couple of years ago mellowed me out a little.  Boy was I wrong.  I was fine until this morning.  I was even fine last night when he made his first phone call, hollering at us across the miles that he had arrived safely and not to send him any bulky packages or food and he would contact us later.  I was fine when I heard the phone click in the middle of me hollering back, "I love you!"  I even slept fine last night, which hasn't been happening much lately.  This morning when I got up?  That's when it hit.  I made up my mind to push through.  If he could be strong enough to go through boot camp, I could be strong enough to miss him while he was in boot camp.  I went to school and acted like I could get through the day.  That lasted for about 10 minutes.  When I realized the floodgates were opening whether or not I wanted them to, I started calling subs.  I got a hold of one right after the kids showed up for class and came on home.  

So anyway, I had said that I would console myself with crafting when he left, and that's what I did.  I worked on some paper ornaments for my mother-in-law.  I'm almost through with the last two and then I'll take some pics and share them with you.  I had to take a break from that project, though, because a colleague is going through a rough patch right now, and I decided to make a "thinking of you" card for him and his wife.  

I'm sure you've seen this technique many times.  It's very popular right now.  I hope you're not sick of seeing cards like this yet, because I'm jumping on this bandwagon and wallowing all over it.  I love it!  Every card I've seen with the layers like this is just so pretty in it's own way.

 

Cute Butterfly Cards

I had planned on updating on weekends only to start with when I decided to start posting on this blog, but I really wanted to share these cute cards I made awhile back at a friend's house.  I like to have some cards on hand for different occasions, and these totally fit the bill.  I just love the new butterfly punch by Stampin' Up.  Okay.  I love butterflies from any craft source, but this is my most recent favorite.  :)  

The paper is Whisper White from Stampin' Up and the 8 x 8 Citrus pack from DCWV.  It's one of my favorites.  I actually have two of the 8 x 8 packs and a mat pack of the Citrus paper, because I want to be able to use it and still have some left over to hoard and wallow around in.  TMI?  Sorry.  As I said, I used the new butterfly punch, but I also used the lace ribbon border punch from Stampin' Up.  I think that might be retired now, though.  I don't know why.  Seriously, isn't it just beautiful?  What were they thinking, huh?  Oh, and almost forgot the most important part.......the bling!  Totally crunchin' on Stampin' Up's bling!  Did you know that you can color it with permanent markers to correspond with your paper?  Well, you can.  I have evidence that I will share with you later this week.  ;)

 Okay, so the pictures aren't the best.  The battery on my Canon died in the middle of taking photos for my last post, and I've been too lazy to look for the charger.  I went with my old Kodak, which I had charged up for my son to borrow a few weeks ago.  I'm grateful for the 'old standby' but I'm going to have to find that charger before I try any more pics of white cards.  :)

Keep a weather-eye out.  I have some more cute 'on hand' cards to upload later this week.  Right now, it's bed time for the tired teacher.  Turns out test review during fair week wasn't as easy on me as I thought it would be.  Why did I think that?  Rookie mistake.............

'Night!

Mom-in-law's Birthday!

Hi everyone!  I hope you have had as wonderful a week as I have had.  This past week was a test week at school so it was mostly review, which I find less tiring than normal classwork.  I took Thursday and Friday off to spend with my son, who is leaving for bootcamp in a couple of weeks.  He went with me to my doctor's appointment on Thursday and then we spent some time rooting through an old army surplus store afterward.  It was fun to watch him as he browsed through old uniforms and supplies, wondering what he might use and how close his gear will be to what he was seeing there.  I'm going to miss him so much when he goes!  I thought it was tough when my oldest moved out, but he just went to live an hour or so away.  I won't get to see "the baby" for 3 WHOLE MONTHS!  What will I do?  I will most likely drown my sorrows in Staz-on and Mod-Podge. :)

Anyway, this post isn't about my almost empty nest.  It's about what I made my mother-in-law for her birthday.  I have to warn you.  It's pretty simple.  She turned 77 last Thursday, and I have been in family making her gifts for her birthday and other holidays for almost 24 years.  There isn't much I haven't made her, and there isn't much she doesn't already own.  

She likes to have various place settings, bake-ware, and glasses to swap out throughout the year so I decided to do a set of glass mugs with the letter "K" on them.  I haven't given them to her, and I'm nervous that they won't go over well.  Technically, they are beer mugs, and she's a teetotaler.  I'm going to say they are tea mugs that can also be used for rootbeer floats-since that is, in fact, what they will be used for.  They turned out really good, even if the pictures don't really do them justice.  I got the idea on Pinterest, my new go-to-for-everything-under-the-sun website.

Before:

 

After:

 It looks like I put silver stickers on them in the first picture, but it's actually etched glass.  They really look so much better in person that I think I'm going to do a set for myself as well.  Plus they were super easy to do.  I used eCAL and my Eclips to create the monogram.  I did a circle and then shadowed it and then shadowed the shadow so that I would have a ring to leave in when I pulled out the circle and the biggest shadow layer.  I added the "K" in italics and then copied and pasted until I had 8 of them.  I usually cut the lettering into vinyl when I etch, but I have seen where other crafters use contact paper, and I had some left over from a project years and years ago.  It worked pretty well.  It didn't stick as well as regular vinyl, but a little bit of fussing got everything to stay where I wanted it.

It was so fun and easy that I decided to do another project with glass etching for my husband.  He loves his sweet tea, let me tell you.  He'll ask for a "small glass of sweet tea" when he comes in from work and we tease him sometimes and put it in a juice glass.  One time I even brought him a "small" glass of sweet in a shot glass that had come with a set of glasses for our wedding.  The look on his face was HILARIOUS!  Wish I taken a picture so I could share it with you now.  Well, one day he came in after a trip to the flea market with this big honkin' beer mug, filled it up with sweet tea, and then sat back and looked at all of us with this smile of contentment and mischief.  He's so cute!  :)  Well, he made the mistake of leaving that mug out where I could get to it so..........

 

Hope he likes it! LOL!

Of course, a handmade card has to go with a homemade gift so here's the card I made for my mother-in-law.  Inside it says, "Happy Birthday to the pick of the patch!"

I was inspired by a card we made in our Stampin' Up hostess class several years ago.  It's one of my favorites.  Here are the "ingredients":

Paper:  Very Vanilla, Pumpkin Pie, More Mustard, and Wild Wasabi (Stampin' Up)
Ribbon:  Offwhite grosgrain (WalMart)
Embellishments: pearl basic jewels (Stampin' Up)
Embossing folder: The Paper Factory (can't remember the name of the folder, but it's a medium-sized dots folder)
Punches:  Large oval and old small oval (Stampin' Up)*

*All Stampin' Up punches are actually EK Success punches.  The small oval has been changed in the last year or so to make it "fatter" so you would have to use the old one or use a cutting machine to make ovals the shape and size you wanted.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I get all of my Stampin' Up materials from Lisa Marie Smith, and you can order from here if you'd like.  If you have any questions, please feel free to comment or email me.  I would love to hear from you!  :)  Happy crafting!