Graduation Cards & Gift...

My mom needed some money holder cards to give to some high school grads. She asked me to make them for her, and my dad told me to go ahead and put the money in there for them too. Well, I made the cards, but sorry dad, you'll have to use your own money! I used this tutorial...


Here's the inside. No, it's not a real $20.00 bill! I don't have those just laying around!


I also needed some cards for my cousins' kids, Dylan and Mersadie, who are graduating from high school next week. I used a cute template I bought at Pebbles in My Pocket several years ago for the 'kids'.


To dress up the inside, I hand cut the letters to 'congrats' and glued them on.


For their gift, I bought some towels, hand towels, and washcloths and sewed cute ribbon on them. This striped set is for Dylan....


And this cute polka dot set is for Mersadie.


It was a little time consuming, but I love how the towels turned out. My husband was disappointed when he found out the striped set wasn't for him. Guess I'll have to make more!

Washer Necklaces...

I saw this idea on The Creative Crate and immediately went to a hardware store near my home to get some washers. Let me say, these become very addicting!



A few changes we made to the instructions were:
**we used Mod Podge to glue the paper onto the washers. Once they were dry we put a top coat of Mod Podge on the paper.
**we used Aleene's Paper Glaze (I got it at Michael's) instead of Diamond Glaze.

They turned out great! My girls absolutely love them and can't wait to make more!

Father's Day Card & Gift Idea

This is what my Dad and FIL's are getting this year for Father's Day. I fell in love with the milk carton treat box idea after seeing it somewhere on the web. I found a great tutorial here on how to make them. I plan on filling them up with their favorite treats. As for the card, it's a design that I came up with on my own.



I plan on making more of the milk carton boxes and having them on hand for birthdays, Visiting Teaching gifts, etc. They are adorable, and lots of fun to make!

2 Wins in One Week!

I guess it was my lucky week! I won two different giveaways....WooHoo!

My daughters adore this Capri Sun bag and matching coin purse I won from Trash to Treasure. We've been saving our Capri Sun pouches so we can learn to make them this summer.

And I can't wait to get this book that I won from Some of This and Some of That. I need all the ideas I can get to keep my kiddos busy this summer!
Thanks ladies for some great giveaways! Be sure to check out their blogs for great ideas, and more giveaways!

Cute Tiles...

My girls made these cute tiles for me at one of their Activity Days. I'm the 10-11 year old Activity Days Leader, so I bought some tiles and had the girls in my group make them too. We gave them to their mothers at our Mother/Daughter Activity last Saturday.


They turned out adorable!! And they are so simple to make! All you need is some scrapbook paper, a picture, some Mod Podge, and a tile (these are 7x7)....my kind of project!

I ended up buying some extra tiles so I can make some Christmas gifts with them. Can't wait to get started!!

Trash to Treasure

My creative cousin Lorie has started a blog called "Trash to Treasure" featuring all the fun stuff she makes from recycled items. She's doing a giveaway every week, so be sure to check it out!
I just love these juice carton purses! I've been saving them up so I can learn to make them. I'm hoping that I can get to it this summer, but we'll see!!

Sheetload of Cards

One of my favorite things to do is make homemade cards. Several months ago I stumbled across a great site called Sheetload of Cards. Every month they put out a free e-zine with directions on how to make their card of the month.

Sheetload has totally changed the way I make cards! Before I would sit down with all my supplies and spend forever just trying to come up with an idea for a card. Now all that work is done for me. I love it!!

This is a their May 2009 e-zine. Using it, I came up with these:

If you have a minute, and you love to make cards, go check them out! You won't be sorry!!

Mother's Day Gifts...

I'm a big fan of giving homemade gifts for holidays and birthdays. This year for Mother's Day, I decided to dress up notepads for my wonderful Mom and Mother-in-Laws!


I got a package of 3 yellow notepads from the Dollar Store. Here's an example of the "before" and "after".


And you know I can't give a gift without a homemade card too. So I made matching cards to go with each of the notebooks.




Remember the strawberry jam from my earlier post?
I used Mod Podge and scrapbook paper to make the lids match each set of cards/notepads.

Although it may not be much, my gift for my Mom and Mother-in-Laws comes from the heart. Those are the best kind of gifts if you ask me!!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Strawberry Jam...

A few weeks ago we stumbled across an incredible deal on strawberries. We got a whole flat for only $4.00!! We grabbed one (now I wish we would've gotten more!) and decided to use half of them for eating, and the other half for making strawberry jam.

This was my first time ever making strawberry jam. It was quick and easy, and the jam turned out YUMMY! My husband and kids would eat it straight out of the jar if I'd let them!

**Later on this week, I'll show you how I dressed up the jars for gifts!! Stay tuned!!

More Teacher Appreciation...

For the last couple of years, the PTA at my kids' school does something fun for the teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week. Each day, the kids are asked to bring different supplies to their teachers to help them get restocked for the rest of the year, and hopefully a headstart on supplies for next year.

Wednesday is Hand Sanitizer/Tissue day. I used scrapbook paper and Mod Podge (my new best friend!) to create some custom hand sanitizer bottles for each of my kids' teachers.

I had a hard time deciding between using apples and the first letter of their last names, and decided it would be more personal if I used the letters. I'm happy with how they turned out, and my kids can't wait until Wednesday so they can give them to their teachers!