Stamping with the girls...

Edit: I have a link HERE that shows more tent topper cards, along with the measurements. There are more links in that post too for other tent topper designs.

Over the holiday vacation, my girls had lotsof friends over to spend the night. One day, we did a Sister Swap. My Jordy went over to friend's house and we had her sister Brittney stay with Josey. Brittney is an 8th grader, so for my 6th grader Josey it was a BIG thing. The morning before the Sister Swap was to end, I invited Brittney and Josey into my stamp room to make some Valentine cards. Brittney was in heaven and I even got my outdoorsy girl Josey to stamp! We were all in grey t-shirts, pink pajama pants and fuzzy socks and slippers....bed heads and all!I took about 15 minutes and prepped the girls' workspace. I knew Brittney loves pink so I reached for my Papertrey cardstock in Raspberry Fizz and the beautiful new Papertrey Raspberry Fizz Mix patterned paper pack. Ohhhhh my, are these papers fun and so fruit punchy colored! I love them!! I cut enough supplies for each of the girls to make 4 cards. I chose my Tent Topper design since I knew that this design would be fun for the girls.

We used one set for the card designs, which was Papertrey's Heart Prints and Sentiments. The girls loved picking out which large and small hearts to use for their cards. The patterns in the heart stamps coordinate wonderfully with the Raspberry Fizz Mix patterned paper. Josey chose polka dots and Brittney chose flowers.

We finished off the cards with fun, black and white ribbons. The girls also stamped matching A2 size envelopes. There they are above with some of their finished cards.

Above are Josey's cards, I love how the girls stamped smaller hearts and then used the Small Heart Punch to pop up a punched heart.

Above are Brittney's cards. She's an organized little thing....lining up all her envies just so, prepping her cards for the photo. She'll make a good stamper!

And to finish off the presentation, I let the girls package up their cards in a Papertrey Clearly Creative Card Box. I showed them how to package their cards so that the card front showed through the front and the decorated envelope showed through the back of the box....like a boutique would do. We tied up their packages with black and white ribbon. The girls had a blast!! I loved helping them with their cards and best of all, we chatted and chatted. Little do they know that we moms love the chatting part.

Do you have some great kids in your life? I highly suggest inviting them to stamp with you. Keep the projects simple, prepare all the supplies in advance and keep the time to less than an hour. The kids will LOVE it, I promise....and you'll get a big, fat, swelled up heart from the great conversations you'll have and bonding you'll do. Now is the time to show kids that you care so that they'll talk to you about the BIG stuff when they get older. Kids are naturally creative, and stamping is a great way to let them express some of that creativity. Our grade schools have cut out art programs, so I find this even more important. Try it, you'll have a great time!!!

One more added note: Don't forget about having your children send thank you notes or other types of greeting cards. In this day and age of modern technology (IPods, cell phones, computers, etc), I think some kids never learn how to properly write a letter or address and envelope. Don't let the tradition of letter writing die out with your kids. We just got our Christmas thank you's done and even though you might hear some grumbles, your kids will thank you when they grow up...hopefully! :)