Paper Mâché Tea Cups

I am a huge Pinterest fan and recently came upon a project to make paper mâché teacups! What???
I will be posting the steps it took me to do, but just to say it was actually pretty easy.
I stared by cutting the template onto some sturdy board (cereal box), then taped it all together, cooked up the paper mâché paste, ripped some newspaper, and mached away! Keep checking back for the final product!
Tee Hee Andrea

Thank you Chan!!!

I got a totally cute card in the mail that just made me smile!!! My friend Chan sent Gary and I an anniversary card with owls (my favorite)!

I love (tee hee) how she placed the hearts behind the bride and groom.  

The mail person must have loved the card a little too much too while delivering it.  You can see the mark on the owls.  I am loving that SU wood grain embossing folder.  Those owls are so cute how they are looking at each other!

Want some more of Chan's awesome artwork??? You can check out her blog here.

Tee hee~

Nicole

Altered Container

I have been making decorations for my classroom and using the Patio Party DSP. I really love the print.
Here is a pens container I made by covering a hot chocolate container. I am hoping to make a pencils, markers, and misc containers too.
Tee Hee Andrea

Owl Mail

I have a couple co workers who love Harry Potter as much as me if not more. One of my co workers even decorated his classroom al la Harry Potter. Needless to say I would love to be a student in his room. I will be posting pictures of it soon. So anyway I thought I would make a Hedwig for him and my other co worker. It was pretty simple but so cute. These were made out of toilet paper rolls and some punch art.

Tee hee Andrea

Kick your heels up!

My friend Sia had a bachlorette party she made favors for.  Sia doesn't do anything half-measure.  It is all or nothing!  Her sister-in-law likes shoes.  Not just any shoes-high heels.  Sia found a template from Skip to my lou blog (which is awesome!) and converted the file in her SCAL program and was able to make it a cut file.  What does that mean???? You don't have to cut by hand!  She used her SCAL(Sure Cuts A Lot) program and Cricut Die Cut machine to cut the 3D witch's shoe (really it looks like a high heel) and made the most adorable favors!

FYI- you can download the image and create your own template and trace it onto whatever specialty paper you love and hand cut it.  Did you see this cute flower????? It is made with the Blossom punch.  You can also see the Pennant parade stamp set with the pennant punch on the finished shoes too.  

Sia's sister-in-law loves pink and black.  Even better? Leopard style!  She is a bit wild!  Another interesting side-note:  she actually works at Panera where my upline Niki holds her classes and we have seen her there so many times! No one would notice that she has a crazy side and loves to dress up and go out dancing.  

Tee hee~

Nicole

Convention Display

I shared with the ladies all my awesome swaps that I got from convention and they loved them.  I was almost worried some might 'disappear'.  He he.  Any whooo...they were definitely intrigued and wanted to learn many of the techniques that they saw used on the card.  That makes planning technique day easier for me.

I had 100 swaps and 30 3D's to share.  I think that took some time in itself to look through and look at. 

 An Open House probably would have been better.  I will have to think about that for next year.  

Tee Hee Andrea

You are unique!

There is no one else in the world quite like each of us.

Devan had a school project where he was to show how unique he is and show his heritage.  Parents had to "help" decorate a paper doll so that the clothes on the doll looked like something our ancestors might have worn.

What ethnicity do we choose???? We are quite a mixture..  We decided on Norwegian.  Here Devan is cutting out his Norwegian Ancestral costume.

Mommy helped with the flag and vest.  Most of the paper is SU except for the blue coordinations paper from Joann's.  I needed a really bright blue.  The rest is SU product and really worked for the project. The paper is heavy duty and reinforced the paper doll.  

Isn't my little guy so cute????

Tee hee~

Nicole

Happy Anniversary!

Today Gary and I celebrate 15 years of marriage.  He is an amazing man!  I made this card for him.

You can't have an anniversary card without a few hearts right?  How about three? One for each of our kids.  Besides being an awesome husband, he is a great dad.

Love, love, love (tee hee) the 'You're Amazing' stamp set.  It gives the feeling of a celebration don't you think?

Close up.  Splatters with the squishy ink pen thingy.  Okay, looked it up and it is the 'color spritzer tool which creates a splattered look with your favorite Stampin' write marker.'  I used a little soft suede for the spritzing.

Love you (affection collection stamp set and fabulous phrases stamp set).  Enough said-love my hubby.  Of course more mushy stuff will be added to card.  

What a great day!  Sigh...

Tee hee~

Nicole

Technique Day Swaps

Each Technique Day we have a schedule swap.  I love seeing all the ideas that the ladies come up with.  This month's theme was Happy Birthday.  Pretty simple and it needed to be with so many of us either going back to work to teach or many others getting their kids ready to start.

 Angela did the above card.  Super cute and super simple.  Definitely a fun one to case. 

 My friend Jennifer created the cute floral one above.  She mentioned that she really loved how this one turned out. 

This last card was made by a very sweet older lady.  She creates such cute cards.  I love this one.  She used a retired stamp set and the cricut.  And did you check out those cute brads that look like screws!  So cute.  Many of the ladies now have a cute Birthday or Father's Day card.

Tee Hee Andrea

Technique Day Cased Card 2

This card might look familiar to some of you that were at Convention or follow blogs of people who attended convention.  This card was one of our Make n' Takes that I really didn't make until I got home.  Just so overwhelmed with convention that I could sit and craft, but was watching what everyone else was doing.  This is another card using the Affection Collection stamp set.  I have seen many people alter this card already and the ideas are endless. 

Demonstrating

At this month's Technique Day my Co-Demonstrator demonstrated the sticky rounds and fabric flower.  The ladies loved seeing how this was made.  Angela was able to show pictures from the new mini and our Stampin Success Magazine.  Those are both such useful tools to show customers and especially prospective demonstrators.

Tee Hee Andrea

Technique Day Cased Card 1

Here is one of my cards I shared for my ladies at technique day.  I focused on the Affection Collection stamp set and I have to say I really love this set.  Not sure if I would have bought this set initially, but we all feel that way and then we see awesome projects and say to ourselves "I NEED that stamp set!"  The ladies were a little shy about taking pictures, so I tried to just show them getting started.  

Go Devan!

My little guy is so cute!  He is doing so much in his life right now and just rolling with it.  He started Kindergarten and was so excited to go.  Everything is "Raise your hand if you like..." so we raise our hands if we like ice cream, candy, hot dogs, etc.  Here Dev is at his back-to-school BBQ and we had to raise our hand if we like stuff.  Hands all up?  Now hands in?  "Go Stuff!"

Go Devan! -is what I am saying to Devan right now.  He is learning how to ride a bike and I am amazed at how fast he has picked it up!

I made him this cute card to show how proud I am.

I can't stop playing with this Moving Forward stamp set.  Devan loves when I craft and tries to "help me" all the time.  I made this card secretly and it is a surprise.  

Raise your hand if you like stamping?  Go Stamps!

Tee hee~

Nicole

A gift for Mom

Here is the gift that Gary and I mailed to his mother.  We recently went to Santa Cruz, CA and had a blast on the boardwalk and beach.  Of course we had to get Sharon salt water taffy!  She loves the beach and always buys some taffy from Marini's.

How about a sweet note letter her know that we miss her and wished that she went to Santa Cruz with us?  Gary's family used to live in California and Santa Cruz was her favorite place to visit.

I love the Stippled Blossoms stamp set, I am (convention) stamp set, and the Affection Collection stamp set.  The blossom set scared me a little, but I found that it was easy to use.  My mother-in-law is a seamstress, knitter,  and I think the I am stamp set says it all for her.  

Tee hee~

Nicole

A gift for Dad

Gary and I sent a little gift to his parents in Minnesota.  The first one I will show is a gift for Gary's dad.  It was a hat that my dad got and thought of Gary's dad Bob.  My dad is very generous and thoughtful.  I decided to make a card to go with the hat.

Gary's dad was in the Navy and this little sailboat from the Moving Forward stamp set is so cute!  I decided to use a patriotic theme for the card.

My father-in-law is such a great man.  He is encouraging and he has a great spirit.  I wrote him a cute little note about how much we miss him.

I used the Moving Forward stamp set that raises funds for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Stampin' Up! has supported RMHC and has contributed over $1,000,000.   Amazing!

Tee hee~

Nicole

Dear Mom and Dad...

Cailynne had back-to-school night where Gary and I had to go to each of her classes for 6 minutes and get a brief overview from her teachers on what to expect.  This year Cailynne is taking AP Science, AP Social Studies, and AP Language Arts and Reading.  She is working so hard!  One of the assignments in  her Language Arts class was write Gary and I a letter. But it didn't stop there.  Gary and I had to write her back and then she bring it to class to get extra credit points.

I just love apples and school.  I have heard that a lot of teachers aren't into apples because they get so much apple-themed gifts.  So I made a cute apple themed card for Cay because that perfectly preserved stamp set is so cute!  I just wanted to make something apple-ish for a school project.  I have to say that my sister is a junior high teacher and probably would give her right arm for an apple-themed gift.  Junior high teachers are so under-appreciated.  

Cay loves to eat apples and liked the card. I'm not gonna lie, sometimes I think she rolls her eyes at my crafting.  I seem to get a lot of eye rolling nowadays.  Junior highers are so fun!

Tee hee~

Nicole