Thankful Thursday

I am shocked that another week has gone by so quickly! Yet here I am again trying to process what I should write down for thankfulness.

This week has been busy and crazy and stressful. So first, I am thankful that this week is almost over! With TAKS testing at school, trying to keep our house clean, the Swine Flu and the Optimist Auction, I am about worn out! But TAKS is done for our campus, we got the last test done today! Maddie is practically quarantined for her saftey, so she shouldn't get sick. The Optimist Auction is tomorrow and then Doug will be much less stressed. And who knows, maybe one day soon someone will fall in love with our house!!

I know I am totally random today. Sorry about that. You know how some days you are off kilter the moment you get up and it stays that way all day, well today has been one of those days. Once again, I am very thankful to be a healthy 24 weeks pregnant, but man, this is hard work :)

And a side note.. I am working on a couple of fun gifty things. Can't wait to share! Watch for a new technique and a new project next week!

Technique Tuesday: Miniature Envelope Album

Here is a sweet little (4.25"x 4.25")
album made of envelopes and scrap paper.
Using just 5 standard size evelopes, you can make two albums.
Total cost for each album is less than $2!!

After making lots of heavily embellished and expensive projects, I wanted to take a couple of hours and make something with supplies on hand and NO 3-D embellishments. By sticking to ink and stamps, the little album is light and easy to make. It is also a very inexpensive gift that looks nice! So dig out those stamps and get to work!

The following is a simple tutorial.

1. Get 5 standard letter-sized envelopes and alternating directions, use the flaps to adhere the envelopes to one another. This makes a tall accordian style album.
   







2. Cut the album in half. You now have 2 albums that are open at the top. You will adhere some of the sides together and leave some open for flaps. This is done by personal preference.
   
   
   
   



3. Now cut 6 4"x4" squares out of a solid cardstock and adhere these to the album making sure to have a solid on the front and back.


4. On the flap pages, you can choose to cut off the top of flap or just fold it down and use the white base. I have both options shown.







5. Next decorate the pages as you wish. I chose to keep my colors simple. Paper is done in solid and patterened paper from Close To My Heart in Clover Meadow. The inks and stamps used are CTMH as well.
   

   

   

   

   
   
   
   
   

   

   
   
   
   
   

   

Thankful Thursday.. Hallelujah, the house is ready to sell!

I can't believe we are back to Thursday again! Today is exactly 2 weeks since I started the quest to get the house ready to sell. It has been an exhausting effort, but the house looks great!

So if you know of anyone that needs a great place to live in Stephenville, Texas, send them my way!

Take a look at all of my work and the specs of our house by going to www.1302cleveland.com

Have a wonderful day.

And one more thing, if anyone gets this far.. pray for Maddie, she's had a flare up and has missed the last 2 days of school and I don't expect her to go today. She's only been to 2 softball practices and she can't go to practice today. I am thankful that we know what she has and how to deal with an autoimmune kidney disease, but it doesn't make it any eaiser.

Thanks.

Technique Tuesday, Make your own wall art!

Make your own wall art!

The inexpensive yet really nice way!!

It's not hard, just takes a little planning, a little creativity and wahla, you have art!

Here is a close up of the words and background.

Now, how did I do this? Well, first I bought a really cool frame from Ikea.
I had the frame in brown, but I really wanted it to pop, so with a little bottle of black craft paint and there you go.

Next, I purchased the saying from Uppercase Living.

Then I stamped my background paper with Close To My Heart stamps and put it in the frame.
For all you nonstampers out there, a nice piece of wall paper or wrapping paper would look great as well. The size of the background is 12"x12".

That's it.

Now, you have a frame with a pretty background and here comes the tricky part :)
Take your saying and put it on top of the glass. This is really a one shot deal, so position carefully! I choose to put the saying on the glass so that I could change out my background paper. You might not change your color pallette as often as I do, so if not, you could just place the saying on the paper itself and that would make framing much easier.

Once you have a really cool piece of artwork, hang it on the wall and enjoy!

Moaning Monday.. are pregnant people really supposed to remodel houses?

So for the last week or so I have spent every waking moment outside of the workday working on our house. It is begining to look incredible, I must say. But the cost is my feet, my back, my hands and my exhaustion.

It's all my fault, I am very aware. Doug (my husband) would have never dreamt up finishing off our to do list on this house and trying to sell it and buy a new one before baby comes in August. But me, yeah.. we bought a new house while I was pregnant and Doug practically gutted the thing and made it a show place before Maddie was born. That was almost 9 years ago. I still remember the aches and pains from removing staple after staple from carpet so that our hardwood floors could be refinished.

Move foward about 5 years and we moved to a new town and bought a house. We only did the painting then.. for I was pregnant with Lexi. Over the last few years we have just almost completely remodeled this house. But here we are with baby #3 coming in just a few short months and something in me says MOVE!!! So, that's what we are working on.

Tonight I am posting between cleanings of the brand new tile floor in the den. My dad spent a good bit of the last few days over here installing the new tile floors with Doug and now I am doing the clean up, buffing and final mopping. Man, this is hard work :) But the result is so worth it!!

Thanks for letting me moan and I can't wait to post pictures of our house!

Technique Tuesday: Bubbling Metallic Paint!

During this school year, I have had these painted wooden letters sitting on my desk and almost weekly someone comments on them or asks what is on them.. so here is the scoop.

You know the little bottles of metallic acrylic paint you can buy at the craft stores? Well, do that and then paint a thick layer of one color onto your letter or object. Then take your trusty craft heater and heat up the paint. You will quickly see that it moves the paint around your object and you can puddle and pull the paint in really cool ways. In fact, leave the heater in one spot long enough and if you have plenty of paint, you can get a very large bubble of paint.. just be careful, cause when it pops paint is flung! It really is a fun process!! Once you like the way one color looks, add more colors to get the effect you are going for.

Here is a close up.This is really a very inexpensive and fun project. You should try it! It's kind of addiciting!

Here is an example of a tin covered in metallic paint.

Have a great day!

Thankful Thursday

Lately I have seen so many blogs doing Thankful Thursday that it has really inspired me to stop and reflect on all the many things I have for which to be thankful.

So here goes:

• I am thankful that Maddie's name was called out today during the awards ceremony at school for having perfect attendance for the 5th 6wks. I am also so thankful that I was there to see her joy!


• I am thankful that I have a wild child named Lexi who yesterday while at the dentist acted like a "big girl" and was very good!
  
• I am thankful that I have a husband who is willing to get up at 3am and drive his mother to the hospital for surgery so that she wouldn't have to worry about her car. And that in the same day he volunteered for a local church helping them in their evening Maundy Thursday service.


• I am thankful that I can't sleep at night, that I can't breathe, that my head hurts and I can't really take anything for it, that I have constant heartburn, and that this baby girl inside me is growing stronger and bigger everyday.

Putting down thankful thoughts gets my mind in the right place and man, I can think of all kinds of things I am thankful for! But that's all I'm gonna right about now. Except that I am off to bed and very thankful that tomorrow is Good Friday and we don't have school!

Technique Tuesday: Paper Beads

Paper Beads

After seeing the tutorial for paper beads on Inky Smiles I decided that my art 2 students had to try their hands at making jewelry from paper scraps! I LOVE PAPER BEADS!!

We used scrapbooking paper, oragami paper, scrap paper torn out of magazines, plain white paper that we decorated and in general had a ball.

A tip for you though.. be ready for some tedious paper rolling and tired fingers. Also, once you are ready to seal the beads with Ultra Thick Embossing Powder, you will have a mess on your hands. So plan ahead!

The end result were beautiful beads that made gorgeous necklace, bracelets and keyrings. The price per item was about $5 total. So next time you need a great gift that is homemade, consider paper beads. You won't be disappointed.

The pictures above are from my classroom.

Fixed pictures and a big "honey do" list

First off, I fixed the pictures of the cutting guide as best as I could for the computer. This should make printing them out easier. Please show me your finished projects!

Second, as some of you know, I am pregnant with my third daughter. We have a wonderful 3 bedroom house that we have really worked hard on over the past few years, but now I am really feeling the need for a 4th bedroom. So we started looking at houses. And now the fun part, finishing all of the projects so that we can sell this house! Don't you just love those lingering project lists!!

If any of you are bored and want to do a little painting, a little tile work, a little carpet cleaning or a little sorting of junk, please come on over and we will put you to work!

And last, Maddie made it through school this week! She is so excited about getting an award next week at the awards assembly. I am going to find a way to be at that program!

Have a great weekend.

Cutting Guide for Imagine Patterns

Here it is.. the cutting guide for 13 Imagine patterns. If you don't have this book or the companions, you will want it!! Let me know if you need one, I can get one for you. Also, you will have scraps and what I have found is that you will want save them for replacing pieces that just didn't work well together. I also do a dry fit of all the pieces first to see if I like the color combination of the pieces. Remember when cutting to cut the longest pieces first. If you have a piece that has to be cut into a number of different sizes, it is important to make sure you cut the long pieces first, otherwise, you will end up with short pieces.. this is speaking from experience :)

Feel free to ask if you have any questions.

Maddie and Perfect Attendance for the 5th 6wks

My daughter Maddie who is 8 years old and in 3rd grade is chronically ill and misses a lot of school. Well, she has the potential of getting perfect attendance for the 5th six weeks if she can make it today and tomorrow. This is a really big deal as she hasn't done this but one six weeks in Kindergarten. If she gets perfect attendance, she will get a bumper sticker, and she is desperate for the award.

The problem in this... she's sick. This morning she was in tears because of a sore throat, but she is determined to make it. So please pray that Maddie feels okay to make it today and tomorrow. In the world of children with chronic diseases, these small things are so important.

Thanks.

More page patterns

I am on a roll! Here are two more sets of pages. For all you crafters out there who say they hate scrapping because of the time invested, you will LOVE this method of scrapping!

Interestingly, I have found that not only do I like creating the pages this way, but I also like the set of premade pages that I have leftover. Hello gifts!

I hope you get inspired to create!

Paper: Close To My Heart Papers: Bo-Bunny Press

One last note: Think of how many pieces of paper you have just sitting around. Not me!! What does it take to get started? The book Imagine, from Close To My Heart!