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!