Little Girl's Apron/1st day of school

Today my *not so little * girls go back to school. As they were primping and getting ready, I thought about all of our first days of school. And how little they were on their first day of kindergarten, barely able to make that big step onto the school bus. My, how they've come a long way over all those years. I'm so proud of my reds and I'm hoping for a great school year!! And I even miss all the noise they made all summer, it's SO quiet here today. I thought I would share a card, just perfect for a little girl. I used Karen Lockhart's Apron stamp and a Papertrey sentiment, along with paper from Imaginesce and ribbon from Making Memories. If you click on the link to the apron stamp HERE, you will notice that I cut off the bottom pockets of the larger apron image. That shortens the apron and makes a perfect sized apron for a little girl. I'll have to take a photo of the little apron my mom made for me when I was a little girl....she found it the other day and I was SOOO happy! It's tiny though, I'm not sure it EVER fit around my chubby little body.

I hope you have a GREAT day! I know many of you will be sending your *little* ones off to school soon. Enjoy each and every day with your loved ones.

Be sure to stop by Nichole's blog today for some new product finds that are in store now at the Papertrey website...view the new First Fruits 8 x 8 paper collection... and see some more sneak peeks from the awesome PT Design Team. Tonight's the big night, the new August releases will be available at midnight. Woohoo, there's a party goin' on 2-Nite at the Papertrey Forum! Don't miss it!

Caramel Apple Kit...PTI paint cans

Halloween is just around the corner, one of my favorite times of year. I love all the decorations, the costumes and the TREATS! The apples are sooooooo yummy this time of year so what could be better than caramel apples? Wouldn't teachers and friends LOVE a homemade caramel apple? But what about transporting caramel apples, not so easy right?

Well how about creating a caramel apple kit so that the recipient of your wonderful gift can be assembled with ease? By using Nichole's new set Spooky Sweets II, you can do just that! The images are awesome in this set but the sentiments are just as sweet! Who knew that one little sentiment that reads *caramel apples kit* could spark such fun ideas. I wanted to make a *Martha meets Vintage* looking kit and I think I accomplished just that....a fancy little kit with a hint of vintage, but very simple and elegant. I used a large clear paint can, available at Papertrey Ink, for my container. I added some fun ribbon from Jo Ann's to the handle of the can and added a *happy halloween*sentiment from the original Papertrey Spooky Sweets stamp set.

For the top of the paint can I used Spellbinders new Pinking Circle Die Templates and some regular Spellbinder's Circle Die Templates. Zoom in to view the gorgeous swirly circle image from the Spooky Sweets II set and the *caramel apples kit* sentiment. I added airbrushing with my Copic markers and airbrush sytem for some soft shading.

And inside my beautiful paint can are the caramel apple kit contents for a single serving caramel apple that can be cut up for a *no mess* snack.....or maybe enough to share with a friend. The kit includes a beautiful Fuji apple...I love the warm color of that variety...a single serving of caramel dip and a little Papertrey glassine sack filled with chopped pecans and closed up with a single black brad.

Imagine the delight on the face of someone who receives this special gift. You could also give them a sack full of refills...it could be their special afternoon treat.

I wanted to photograph my Halloween treat with some pretty backdrops, so it was the perfect time to get out a few Fall decorations. I've posted my two tiered wire centerpiece many times, decorated for many different seasons. I think for the beginning of Fall, fresh apples will look fabulous! And I got a head start too. It's a good thing! Enjoy!!
Supplies:

Papertrey Paint Cans

Papertrey Glassine Sacks (with black brad)
Spooky Sweets II Stamp Set

Spooky Sweets Stamp Set (Happy Halloween sentiment)

Papertrey Vanilla Cardstock, SU! Black Cardstock

Palette Black Noir Hybrid Ink, Versamagic (orange)

Spellbinder's Nestabilities Pinking Circle Dies and Circle Dies
Ribbon from JoAnn's Craft Store
Caramel Apple Kit Ingredients: Apple, Single Serving Size Caramel, Pecans

More Postage Stamp Layouts...Lockhart Butterflies

I made some more cards using what I call the postage stamp layout. Just take an image, place it on a square and position it in the top right hand corner of your card. Today, I used a couple of Karen Lockhart's butterfly images to coordinate with some K and Company butterfly patterned paper. Marianne, from Copic, showed me a fun thing to do with Copic markers and a Copic Colorless Blender. After I stamped and colored my butterfly images.....then cut them out with a Spellbinder's Square Die Template, I masked my butterflies with Eclipse Masking Tape then airbrushed over them with a green marker. Now here comes the fun part....I took my Copic Colorless Blender and inked it up really good. Then I just made dots with the brush tip of my blender all around my image. This gives the look of *bleaching* so to speak. The alcohol in the blender is bleeding out some color, so you get end up with this fun splotchy, dotted look. I love it!! Thanks Marianne for the tip!! Be sure to zoom in and you can get an ever closer look. I also added Ranger Glossy Accents to some of the details in the butterflies.
Supplies:
Butterfly Stamps:Karen Lockhart
Sentiment: Papertrey Ink
Cardstock: Papertrey Summer Sunrise, Berry Sorbet
Patterned Paper: K and Company butterflies
Ribbon: Papertrey Berry Sorbet
Copic Markers and Colorless Blender
Spellbinders Die Templates
Glossy Accents

Note: Today is my dear friend Pine's (Heather Nichols) birthday. ANNNND, she has her very own stamp set called Rustic Branches debuting this week at Papertrey Ink. You can check out her blog all week to get sneak peeks of some wonderful projects created with her new set. It's SO Pine and I love it! Head over there and wish her a Happy Birthday!!

Happy Hello Butterflies

If you're like me, you have more stamp sets than you ever think you'll get to use in a lifetime. I love going back to some of my older but well loved stamps though. Just because those sets aren't fresh out the shipping box, they are still awesome! I pulled out two Papertrey Ink sets for this card and paired them with one of my favorite paper companies called October Afternoon. Pink and brown were used for the butterfly images and that burst of Summer Sunrise PTI ribbon pulls out the orange flowers from the background paper. I just love those punches of color. The file folder die was from a sheet of die cuts that came with my October Afternoon paper pack. Here's another view of the three butterflies.....ready to take flight it seems. I bent their wings slightly inward and used a small pop dot to adhere them to my card front. I used Glossy Accents on the dots of the wings, so pretty! This card will probably not ever be sent in an envelope..will be best to hand deliver this one.
Note: I'm going to start listing my supplies at the bottom of my project with the links. I think it's easier to see all the supply list in one place.

Supply List:
Papertrey Butterfly Kisses Stamp Set
Papertrey Papertray Stamp Set
Papertrey Sweet Blush card stock
Papertrey Summer Sunrise ribbon
October Afternoon Patterned Paper and File Folder Die Cut
Glossy Accents

JustRite Boo Card

Have you noticed the label trend lately? They come in all shapes and sizes and themes and they are a hot item. Look at the hand made label I made for this Halloween card. I used JustRite Stampers products so I could customize my label any way I wanted. For the words, I used the new Brayton alphabet. You can pre-order it today and it will ship about mid September. The dotted circle outline border, which reminded me of eyeballs, is from the JustRite Curlz Border and Font set. And with the combinations of punches and dies available now, you can cut and layer your dies into many shapes and sizes. The possibilities are endless. For my label, I used a Spellbinder's Pinking Circles Die Template and then layered it onto a purchased circle die from Making Memories.
All of these labels scattered below are from Making Memories...but those little packages can add up quickly $$ wise. You could easily recreate the look of store bought dies by using your own stamps and dies and a little creativity. Your investment will pay for itself in no time! (be sure to tell your husband that)

Other supplies: pumpkin image cut from 12 x 12 patterned paper from Teresa Collins by Junkitz (older paper), background paper from Rusty Pickle, ribbon from May Arts, Kraft paper from Papertrey Ink

And IIIIIII know, Halloween already? It's just around the corner and there's tons of great new products out there....so get ready! I love Halloween. Also, be sure to check out yesterday's Crafty Secret post....there's some new designers on board and you can also enter for a prize drawing that I'll draw for tomorrow morning.

Snail Mail meets Mr. Campy

Did you see that Karen Lockhart designed a *snail mail* sentiment for her cute snail stamp? I had to pair them up together! One of my favorite paper companies is Cosmo Cricket..and this is one of their new papers from the adorable Mr. Campy line. I love the nature prints on this paper. I used Papertrey Dark Chocolate cardstock and ribbon, and also cut out a few embellishments from the patterned paper, and added a button.
It's a busy week at our house...Eric got a wisdom tooth extracted yesterday so he's home for the week.....the girls are winding down their summer and are preparing for school to start a week from today....and I'm playing catchup on a little bit of everything. I've got lots of projects planned for the new Papertrey release this month and have some new JustRite monogram samples coming too. So stay tuned. Have a great day everyone!

You Little Monkey

We enroll for school today.....then the count down begins for August 14th, the first day of school. We have done all of our shopping and just have a binder for Jordan and a pair of volleyball shoes for Josey yet to buy. The bank of mom is just about tapped out!

Josey will start volleyball practice a week or so after school starts, so it will be a new transition for us......having her away from home more, going to her weekly ballgames and trying to crunch in homework, etc. I always miss my girls when school starts...the house is so quiet and the summer time activities are all gone. So I thought it would be fun to make some little notecards to tuck into the girls' book binders every now and then with a special note from Mom....and maybe some money for a pop after school for the bus ride home.

These little notecards measure about 3" x 5". I used 3 of Karen Lockhart's new stamps....the monkey, the bananas and the little *you little monkey* sentiment. I'm always saying that to the girls. Patterned paper is from K and Company, notecards and punches from Stampin' Up!.
For the girls' names on the envelopes I used a new font from JustRite Stampers. It's called Brayton and I love the look of it. I used Copic markers to color in the monkey and the bananas. I hope to make some more little notecards similar to these so I can have a stash to tuck in the girls' binders.

Have you started school shopping yet? We had a fun time...we sat down the next day and unwrapped all the supplies and marked every supply...down to the last colored pencil....with the girls' names. They're all ready to go!

Fan Mail

Edit: Look what we have here...Judy H. was kind enough to share a recipe! Thanks Judy!! When I get my mom's recipe, I'll do a comparison but this sounds good to me!

1 pkg. unsweetened kool-aid (the kind you have to add sugar to. We like lemonade cuz it gives the popsicles a nice tartness to them)

1 pkg. (3 oz.) any flavor jello (can be sugar free or full flavor)

1 c. sugar

2 c. boiling water

2 c. cold water

Place jello, kool-aid and sugar in pitcher. Boil water. Once boiling, add to pitcher and stir to dissolve. Then add cold. Pour in Tupperware popsicle molds and place in freezer. Once they start to set up, add popsicle sticks. I don't use the ones included with the molds; I use craft sticks that you can get at Michael's or WM for $2.99 for 1,000 - lasts me awhile! lol Enjoy! I hope this is what you're looking for. Judy H.

It's hotter than H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS here in Kansas!! Our nice cool front is GONE and the typical Kansas weather is back. Temps are supposed to be near 100 with a heat index near 110. That is HAWT, folks!! This morning it's so humid, there is a dense fog covering the ground. Needless to say, we'll be inside enjoying the AC or we'll be heading to Grandma's pool!!

So today I picked a project to show you that's all about the FAN! Karen Lockhart released this new fan stamp, available at Ellen's store, and it immediately reminded me of my childhood days. We lived in an old, big two story stucco house. We didn't have AC for the longest time and when we did get it, it was just a window unit that cooled a portion of the downstairs. All of the kids' bedrooms were upstairs so each of us had a big box fan in our window. It barely kept us cool though so we slept many a night on the living room floor downstairs. It was like a big slumber party!

We also had lots of fans running because my mom was always canning or cooking so the house was HOT! We had an aqua, metal fan just like the one in my card. It oscillated back and forth and I was always afraid someone would cut their toe off! We also stuck our faces up close to to the fans and repeated the vowels really slowly so that it would make funny sounds......AAAAA......EEEEEE........III.....OOO......UUUUU. Anybody else do that, or were we just bored farm kids trying to entertain ourselves??? LOL!

Okay, enough down memory lane, here's my card. I saw the sentiment *fan mail* somewhere and wanted to use it with Karen's cute stamp. So I got out some of my dollar alphabets and created my own little *fan mail* banner......and a *for you* circle tag to hang off the ribbon.

I used Spellbinder's square and scallop square dies to frame the image. I colored the image with Copic markers....the same color as I remember that old fan we had....and also airbrushed the square while my square Nestie die was still in place. Background paper is from October Afternoon and solid cardstock and ribbon is from Papertrey Ink. For the shiny fan blades, I used Ranger Glossy Accents. It dries to a perfect shine!
Okay everyone, stay COOL this weekend. I've got my mom on a mission to find this old Popsicle recipe she used to make. It was made with Jello and she froze it in these white Tupperware Popsicle molds. I'm hoping she finds the recipe so I can make slushes for the family this weekend. I think I'll go turn on my fan in the meantime! Have a great weekend!!