| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 |
Veg is on Spring Break... This means 2 full weeks of planning activities... And he knows it too, because when he woke up yesterday morning he said "Its the first day of Spring Break, what are we doing first" *smile* Thankfully the snow helped us out for activities yesterday, because I had nothing planned.... I was thinking Monday was the "first" day of Spring Break, but apparently not!
So today he started making a list of all the things he's done so far and said "This is already the best time, we have done lots of fun things these two days" And that is when I decided a book of his own to journal his Spring Break would be fun.
I found this album in my stash (thanks to a friend's Target $1 bin find) and the stamp (also a $1 bin find from somewhere) fit perfect in the window. Veg chose all the colors and helped decorate our first page.... This book will be so fun to look back on after the two weeks come to an end.
First Decorated Page:
Who needs to buy chip board when you have lots of card board lying around.... I notice the perfect thickness for making my own chip board projects is the cardboard that packages Creative Memories Page Refills... So this idea is using that cardboard, some scrap paper, on the spot pictures, scissors, an old key ring, the Cropadile, some glue and some glue dots.
But more importantly its using the idea that my friend sent me "to make a thankful journal for the kids" and my son's thankful thoughts...
The mission:
"Tell me what your thankful for, and we'll find pictures in magazines of those things to cut out and place in a book"
The Actual:
He ran through the house finding things the was thankful for and then we took pictures with our camera. Thanks to digital technology, I loaded the pictures on my computer and then Veg printed them using my photo printer.... He then cut the pictures, while I cut the cardboard.... Here are the supplies (I forgot to put the scissors and cropadile in the supplies picture, so pretend they are there) and the end result....
By the way, he was thankful for the dogs, his bed, the curtains, and a few things he could see from his window outside... One was his stepping stone and the other was a tree....
My friend and I met at the Mall today... Why? Because we were looking for inspiration....
Yup, at the mall.. We decided it would be fun to walk through the mall and see if we could find colors, designs or ideas that we could put together and make cards or scrapbook pages after we got home...
Then there was a challenge... We needed to make at least one thing based on that inspiration and show it to the other person in the form of a picture!
I've actually made two things, but here is one of my cards.. Inspired by the colors at Stride Rite -
The squares are all punched and stuck on (yes I know they are crooked, but I tried) and the oval is raised up with some foamy dots (but you can't tell in the photo)
During this Christmas Card season, I got in a bind with a handmade card that didn't fit my envelope... I was in a rush to be some where and couldn't go searching for a bigger envelope. So I grabbed an 8 1/2 by 11 piece of computer paper and made some folds. Hoping I'd get something that resembled an envelope.
I actually liked it so much, that I made a few more. Here are the folds you need to make if you ever want to make your own envelope!
Step 1: Take a piece of paper
Step 2: Fold both the sides
Step 3: Place your card in the center so you can judge the size you need
Step 4: Fold up the bottom to cover the card
Step 5: Fold the corners on the top of the envelope
Step 6: Fold the top down and decorate with stickers.
I used horrible stickers and folds here, so that you could see what NOT TO DO! ha ha... Just kidding.. I actually did that on purpose so everything would show up in this picture. I didn't actually send it to someone like this. In real life, you'd make clean folds and decorate the envelope to match the card.
Here is the back side of the completed envelope!! Even just cheap printer paper, gives a clean look (and is easy to fold) but you could use any kind of fancy paper to do the same thing.
Taking down my flimsy Advent boxes did end up destroying the boxes. So I decided to cut off all the tops and make this scrapbook page. This Advent page will make a great memory, Especially since I didn't take too many Christmas Pics this year... Veg loved this project, so maybe making a new one every year, won't be so bad.
In about 11 months, please send me a cyber slap for making that comment! *smile* This thing was a lot of work! But well worth it!
Not sure why I'm making Christmas cards when Christmas is over... You'd think I'd be stocking up on Birthday cards for the coming year... How ever, these ideas came to via drive through windows and catalogs, so I had to make them while they were in my head... Besides, its never too early to start making Christmas cards.. AND, Some of them even make good thank you cards from those holiday gifts! *smile* Multi-tasking at its finest! And of course, cards the kids can help with which is even better!
This one is using punched circles and glue dots:
This one is using hand drawn circles:
Punched Circles and cut out tree, snow flake stamps (embossed) and attached with Glue Dots
My little guy loved his Advent Calendar of boxes this year and the whole idea of finding something different each day to hang on his tree was especially exciting! So when I ran out of store bought ornaments to fill up the boxes with he was quite disappointed. We put little gifts instead, but he wanted ornaments.
I was talking to my friend who is a very resourceful and amazing crafter... She reminded me of all the fun things I have in my crafty cupboards and how I could make my own ornaments... DUH!!! Now why didn't I think of that! ha ha! I guess I didn't think of it because I didn't think that would be exciting for our little man. However he was THRILLED! I did one with our picture on it, and when he woke up that morning he squealed with joy. "Mommy Its Beautiful, Thank You" .... Ahhhh, how perfect.
So today I got in the mood again, and made a couple more. Here are two that were my favorites:
And here is a picture of all the supplies.. You'll notice they are all scraps. Including the string, paper, and cardboard that I glued to the back to make my own chipboard:
I made a few more including a Square that says "It's Christmas" for him to open on the 25th...
Had I known that handmade stuff would have made him so happy, I could have saved a lot of money on those fancier store bought gadgets, but heck, I will know for next year... Thats for Certain! I may also be making some of these to add to our cards for next year! Shhhh, Don't tell my Family! ha ha
When Veg was around 2-3years old, he always wanted to play on my computer. Although he could play games at times and operate a mouse at a very early age... He wanted his very own, so he could make and email pictures (for pretend)! So I had a light bulb moment one day, and this was the result!
I Took an old Binder brief case, and stuck a piece of 12x15 card board in the top. Added some fish stickers because he wanted aquarium wallpaper *smile*. And then I took a 12x12 sheet of Silver Scrapbook paper and stuck it to the card board. We cut out a whole bunch of index prints from family photos and stuck those to the paper. Making a Photo Collage that he could pretend to print and email, etc.
For the Keyboard, I used a cheap notepad that we had lying around. And I used Scrapbooking bubble letter/number stickers on the bottom. Along with a silver (space bar) that said "Inspire". I added an On and Off button to the top (color coded of course) and some arrows.... The coloring decorations are from Veg.
We added a Mouse! By transforming a shoe box lid and tying it with a string to the briefcase...
And then offered different screens... Here is the Clock I made with Cardboard, Paper, Stickers and a Brad! The hands really moved and he would put the clock up on his screen to move the hands and match the real time of day.
I also added a keyboard changing page so he could make music and learn the piano keys, when he wasn't too busy sending emails.
He spent hours using his Imagination computer laptop, pretending he was making music, looking at the clock, typing messages to mimic me. Everything I did, he sat right next to me and did the same!
And the best part was the briefcase would zip back up with everything inside, in one neat tidy package. Including a folder of different stickers, the notepad to color on and a bunch of markers and crayons. I think several months passed before he was bored of it.
Sorry for the dark pictures.. Hopefully you can click on them to see them more clearly, but if not let me know. If you make something like this of your own... Please send pics, and I'll post your version...
