Happy Valentine's Day!

Good Saturday morning! I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend with their loved ones. Unfortunately, my sweetie has to work today and is having quite the difficult time waking up this morning. Or maybe that's fortunate because then I can finish up some things without being distracted by him! (It's always a welcome distraction, though.) I have a few Valentine's Day projects and tid=bits to share, though. You know, in the spirit of the holiday. Although, according to our mom, every day should be Valentine's Day- you shouldn't need a special day to tell someone you love them! Anyway, this is how we started this morning:

After waking up at 6:15 this morning because of a rogue alarm that was set for the school week, I started attempting to write today's post. One thing led to another and I decided I wanted to make something sweet for my sweetie. Since it was a spur of the moment decision, I went with a coffee cake crumb muffin (and it sort of works for Cupcake Saturday, huh?!) They made the apartment smell delish! And he got a good chuckle out of it, which definitely made it worth it!
I have a few more ideas for the rest of the day, and a few more cards to work on. The rest of the projects will be posted in the coming days. So much for posting more consistently... I promise I'll try a little harder with getting the projects posted, especially because I've been working on some cute new designs, including an attempt at some lucky St. Patrick's Day projects!

Welcome Back!!

Good morning and Happy New Year! I'm sitting here, nice and early, trying to get back into the swing of school and early mornings. Vacation is fantastic and the countdown to Spring Break will begin soon enough. We hope everyone had a fantastic holiday season (apparently going all the way back to Halloween...) As you can tell, it's been a long while since we popped by here. It has been quite a busy few months and the time just flew by! This post is pretty much us playing catch-up with what's been going on over the last few months. I can't believe it's already January and a new year. As everyone knows, a new year means changes and new challenges. We are definitely going to be going through both of these this year. The biggest change is that our family is going to be getting a bit bigger in April (that sounds weird, seeing as we're sisters...) As one of our best friends put it, "There's a bun in the oven for Bun". Auntie is quite excited and has a ton of projects in the works for little Rocky. With that, our crafting and Etsy shop are kind of taking a hit, now that it'll only be one of us working on it. (Although it's been like that for a while now, but I think it's finally sinking in a bit. The hardest part might be deciding to use the singular or plural form writing the blog posts!) We still have a bunch of ideas we want to work on together, so hopefully it won't be too bad. Fortunately, now that our Dad has officially retired (without telling anyone!), the parents are planning on coming out here early in the year, (and hopefully moving permanently) and it'll be great to have family much closer. Now we have to get the brother and sister to actually move to Oregon!
With that, we've obviously been pretty busy over the last few months. Unfortunately, I didn't take too many pictures of the projects I worked on for the holidays. I don't think there were too many geared towards Halloween and Thanksgiving. The newest project I worked on were scarves for Christmas gifts. They were so hard to wrap up and send away. I had to try them all out before sending them off and I got many compliments on them! I plan on making a few more and possibly selling them. We'll see if I'd be able to part with any of them. As for the paper crafting, it's been a busy few weeks. Unfortunately, I don't have too many pictures to share. Between Christmas cards (which were sent out before 2015, which was kind of amazing for me!), some scrapbook pages I've been working on, and some orders, there hasn't been a whole lot of time for new projects. Hopefully now that the holidays are over, I can get back into it. I am slowly creating my long-desired crafting sanctuary, which I am hoping will keep me organized and more productive than I have been in the past!
Thanks so much for stopping by! We truly do appreciate all of those who take a few minutes out of their day to read our posts. I know it's mostly our mom, and a few others, but it means a lot to us! Have a fantastic day!

You're Invited to A Holiday Soiree!

Good morning! We hope everyone had a nice, relaxing weekend. Today’s post is going to be considerably shorter than yesterdays. After a little lull, we spent some time over few days working on some new projects for our shop, including these invitations:

We wanted to get a “head start” on the holidays. Funny story- we’ve had “Start Christmas so it’s done on time” on our to-do list since August (no lie) and we finally did so. (Maybe we’ll get our July birthday gift done now… ) We made invitations for a few themes, including the ever-popular “Ugly Sweater” party, a “Nutcracker Sweet” party, and a penguin-themed invitation.  Hopefully we’ll be able to add a few new invitations and matching items over the next few days. Or the next few weeks. The way we see it, you can’t have a party without invitations, so they're the best place to start!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a fantastic day!

A Plethora of Projects!

Good morning, friends!! It has, unfortunately, been quite a long time since we’ve posted something new. Between the usual, school and work, we’ve been pretty busy. And on top of that, the kiddos have passed on the cold bug, so we had been fighting that, too. That was a huge pain, but it seems to have cleared up. Hopefully that’ll be the last of it, although the fall/winter season is in full swing here. The rain does help with the productivity- who wants to go outside in the rain?! In the little bit of healthy free-time we’ve had, we’ve been uber busy with our crafting projects, and a few projects for ourselves. We’ve had a handful of superhero projects- some invitations and a ton of bags, and this little set of a card and a banner we created for our little cousin’s Hulk-themed birthday:

We were also tasked with creating a few new bag designs. Here is a picture of some of our new ones, which include The Incredibles (no capes!), Robin, and the Ninja Turtles, though only two are shown

We also worked on some cards in the last few weeks, including these two “punny” cards. The first one is a card we sent out to our family and friends- a little farm-themed card that reads “Cow’s it Going?”. The other is one we wanted to post a while back, but never got to it. It is a fall inspired, little shape card that features a fox in a pile of leaves. The inside of the card reads “Sending you piles of smiles”

 

The biggest, most exciting news of the last few weeks is that our very close friend (hopefully she still thinks this…) and her husband are expecting a little one this April!! It’s all very exciting! We made a few cards to send to congratulate them:

How cute are these two?! The Winnie the Pooh card was inspired by the scrapbook paper that was used in some of the details, like the crib sheet. It’s kind of hard to see, but it’s there. And the paper has been in our collection for a while now, so we figured why not use it?! We also included a little basketball because they both used to play and are now gym teachers. And like all of our projects, we used a ton of pop dots! The second is a super cute side step card designed to look like a baby’s nursery. We included the dresser, with clothes and all, along with some toys and dolls. We couldn’t forget the crib with the sleeping baby and the mobile hanging over!

The last two projects we have to share are some Halloween ones we were working on. The first was a set of cards we made for our sister-in-law (don’t mind the pajama pants in the background- we got an early start that day!). These easel cards feature a little googly-eyed witch and her broom. We also embossed a spider web on the background and added some rhinestones in the corner of the card. The inside of the card reads “Witch-ing you a Happy Halloween” and a little bat that holds the easel up. And as with all cute, “girly” cards, there’s some sparkle, too!

The last project we’ve worked on was a banner we made for a customer. This one was a personalized Halloween banner that features two teddy bears, one a ghoulish witch and the other a spooky jack-o’-lantern.

We, of course, used pop dots on the characters and letters. We finished off with some rhinestones on the letters. Each piece is tied together with multiple colored ribbons and some glitter tulle!

Phew! Quite a long post today, huh?! Sorry about that! We probably could have (and maybe should have) done them individually. Hopefully we’ll finish and post some of our new holiday items that we've been working on and some holiday projects we have planned! Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

Cupcake Saturday!

Happy Saturday! We hope everyone is having a great weekend! We are using our first weekend of fall decorating the apartment a little and catching up on sleep (a lot!) We also decided to spend a little time in the kitchen and our favorite day of the week is making a comeback! We originally had another project planned that was supposed to be posted, but this is much better! The other night we were in the mood for some cupcakes and so we went with it. These little sweeties are pretty much fall in a cupcake!

These are our vanilla pumpkin mousse cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. We found an absolutely delish recipe for pumpkin curd, which is pretty much pumpkin, sugar, and butter (how can you go wrong?!) It's definitely one of those foods you can eat out of the jar with a spoon. Or a finger. The only thing that would make it better? Whipped cream mixed into it to make a mousse. The cupcakes are filled with this mousse. They are then topped with a basic cream cheese frosting, kicked up with a bit of cinnamon. They're a little "messy", but totally worth it! These pair quite well with some of the curd mixed into some freshly brewed coffee to make a pumpkin spice latte. It sounds like quite a bit of pumpkin, but it definitely isn't, especially in fall!
Thanks so much for stopping by! Enjoy the weekend!

Welcome, Fall!

Good morning!  And happy third-day-of-fall! We hope everyone is having a fantabulous week so far. Our week has been pretty good. The first days of the new season have definitely been fall-like. We’ve finally had a good rain storm for the first time in quite a while. The biggest problem with the rain is the wet pant cuffs... We’ve also been working at school. It’s always fun to work in the same school and grade as each other and mess with the kids a little. Sometimes you have to go with the “No, I’ve never met her before today” when they ask if you’re related. Good to know most of them can tell the difference between their everyday teacher and the sister.

Anyway, today’s project is a quick fall-themed home décor project we came up with. We wanted to post it on Tuesday but unfortunately didn’t get around to it until today. It is a set of fall-themed wall signs.

We were inspired by some prints we found online and maybe possibly a new line of projects to sell. Just what we needed- another set of items to create!! Especially since we were talking about what to focus on last night!! We decided to go with some fall images, including a cute scarecrow, a tree with its changing leave, and a set of little pumpkins. The last one is a little “sentiment” that reads “welcome fall”. How cute are they?!

Now we have to figure out if we want to frame them or make them into canvases. Either way would be super cute! We like our version (compared to some of the other ones we’ve found) better because they are thought-out and 3D (even a little) compared to just a printed image.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Enjoy the rest of your day and come back tomorrow for some more fall-themed party items we’ve been working on!

Willkommen to An Oktoberfest Birthday!

Good afternoon! We hope everyone is having a superb weekend so far. We have been pretty busy over here, between school and crafting, and unfortunately we haven't had much time to post here. Now that we have some time this weekend (we're finally all caught up!), we wanted to share some pictures of party decor we made for a customer. These items were for two youngins' 2nd and 4th Oktoberfest birthday party.
A party isn't a party unless there are invitations. These are the ones that we made:

(The background isn't very nice. Sorry.) Since it was for a boy and a girl, we had to include a little German girl donned in her dirndl and the little boy in his lederhosen. We also thew a die-cut flag and little pretzel on top. The next few pictures are of the decorations we made. The first picture is of the centerpiece skewers that are going to be placed in some mums:

We included the little boy and girl again, and a "happy birthday" sentiment. When we were coming up with different shapes to include with the package, we went a little "design-happy" with this party and came up with these little gingerbread-inspired hearts. We made one for each child, with their name and age. Each piece is double-sided, so the centerpiece can be seen from either side. The next picture is of some of the cupcake toppers. This is where we really went happy with the designs:

These little guys range in size from 2.25"-3" or so. We included the little boy and girl and personalized hearts again. We also decided to do two with their ages. The last ones feature the German flag, a salted pretzel, and a little barrel. It's hard to see, but the barrel features some sparkly accents drawn in. These are also double-sided to see from any angle. The next two pictures are of the favor bag toppers and blank food tents:

 

The first are the toppers that read "Danke", or "thank you" in German (one of the few German phrases we, and probably a lot of people, know.) These feature the little boy and girl again, along with the flag.The images measure about 2.5-3". These get stapled to the top of little baggies. The blank food labels also feature the pretzel and barrel. The taller images here measure about 3-3.5". 

We really enjoyed working on this party package! It was the first "legit" package we worked on and hopefully not the last! 

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a fantastic weekend!