Hugs & Kisses

Good morning! We hope everyone is having a great week so far, and thank goodness it's already Thursday. The last few days have been going by kind of slow here. Maybe it's the dreary weather we've been having. It's been a few days since we've posted, but we've been coming home and napping. It's an exciting life we live.

When I started working on this, it wasn't supposed to be a card. It didn't come out quite like it was planned. I really wanted to use the saying on a wall hanging, but unfortunately, it wasn't working out. I found this cut with a little couple and thought it was a perfect fit for the quote. It's not perfect, but it's still kind of cute!
Thanks for stopping by this morning! Have a great day.

So we just had to double post today! We just got this beautiful piece of artwork from our good friend. We wanted something to put over the couch in the empty space.

She takes pictures and does them in oil pastels. Here's the original picture of Mount Rainier that we took from our apartment.

 It looks great hanging up on our big (not so bare any more) wall.

Check out her etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/TakeTwoDrawings!!

DIY Kindle Book Cover

We both got Kindles for Christmas this year and have been trying to find a case for them. The ones we've found are either too small or just too expensive. So after doing a Pinterest search, I found a couple of different types. I wanted a little more than just a sleeve, but also kind of like a book, too. Here's what I came up with.

 Since this was a first-try sample type, it doesn't look quite as awesome as I'd hoped. It doesn't look too bad, but hopefully the next one will come out even better. There are some things that I will change on the next one.

I used a cheap-o composition book as the base of the cover, and lots of hot glue. I'm going to do a tutorial on it when I make the next one for sister. (I kind of have to make her one. She made the beautiful flower on the front!)

Here it is standing up so you can use it on a table or other flat surface.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday!

Good morning! Today's one of our really good friends birthday, and here's a little something we made her.

We wanted to try making a candy cake, since you can't send cupcakes too easily. You can tell that it's our first one, but I'm sure she'll appreciate the Starbursts and chocolates. What teacher wouldn't like to come home to some chocolate after a hard day? The candles on top make it easier to tell that it's supposed to be a birthday cake, as long as they aren't lit. We wouldn't want any melting chocolate.

And here's the card that goes with it. We used the same color-scheme from the cake to the card. It is a little hard to tell, but the front of the card says "birthday wishes". We used the same paper design for the words as we did for the band around the cake. The inside of the card says, "Wishing you a very sweet birthday!" And, of course, we had to add some sparkle to the card, with a few red rhinestones along the edge.
Thanks for stopping by! Hope everyone has a wonderful day!

Cupcake Saturday!

I hope everyone is having a great weekend so far! It's been pretty productive here and hopefully it will continue. And as our east coast friends have been having really frigid temperatures, it's been almost spring-like here. Almost. We've had some "sun breaks" the last few days, which has been great.

Well, we have some cute little cupcakes to share with you today. They aren't really Valentine-y, but the color definitely is. These are Cheery-Cherry Vanilla Cupcakes.

The cupcake is a vanilla cupcake with cherry pieces and it's topped with a cherry vanilla frosting, and garnished with a maraschino cherry on top.

Even though they taste great, my favorite part of these are the wrappers. We found them at the dollar area of Michaels and thought they were perfect for Valentine cupcakes, or any cupcakes really! The paisley design is so pretty.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Change from the Norm- A Super Simple DIY

Happy Friday night, everyone! I know it's practically Saturday morning, but we hope you all have had a fantabulous week and have plans to enjoy the weekend. Today was the perfect end to a pretty dreary week here- 50 degrees and sun! That's like spring back home!! Oh, so much better than bone chilling temperatures and snow. There's room on the couch for anyone who wants to visit! Today's project is a little different from most of our posts, but it can be used in either warm weather or cold, or just to wear around the house.
Since most of the schools around here had half-days (silly, I know), I was 'fortunate' to start my weekend a bit early. When I woke up this morning, I had big ideas on how to spend my day. The biggest one was cleaning. It needed to be done. But no one really likes to clean, me included, so my brain decided it wanted to do something else more fun. I could have done a paper project (and probably should have), but I really wanted to make something out of fabric. One of the accessories I like to add to an outfit is a little scarf, sometimes to add a pop of color, others because some of the classrooms get uncomfortably cold. We have a huge bin in the closet full of scrap fabric and so I decided to make a scarf with some of the scraps. This is what I came up with:

(It was either the lamp or the vacuum cleaner...my model has gone to bed and I haven't quite mastered the art of taking good self-portraits.)
Now, it was super easy to make this scarf. The project (if done correctly the first time) could be done in under an hour and with only a little bit of fabric. After spending more than enough time trying to figure out what kind of scarf would look good in white flannel (there are quite a few differnet types- scarves, fringed, frayed), I decided to make a 'curly' scarf. There are a whole bunch of tutorials on how to make these, but the idea is super simple. You take your fabric (old t-shirts work well, too) and double layer it. Trace a circle, about 10" in diameter, onto the fabric and cut it out (for an 'adult' length. The bigger the circle, the longer the scarf.) The next step is to cut both layers into a spiral. They don't have to be perfect and you can most likely cut more than one at a time. My scarf has 10 strips, but you can add more to fluff it up. I wouldn't go smaller than this. Find the half-way point of each strip and then put it on. It's that simple. You can add a few stitches to the back to keep the layers in place, but they've stayed pretty well all day, even after taking it off a few times. Onto the flower:

This is where I spent most of my time- trying to figure out what kind of flower I wanted to add to the scarf. I tried the rolled ones, but it was just not working for me. It was a hot mess- figuratively and literally, with all the glue from the hot glue gun. After three failed attempts, I decided on this one. There are also tutorials out there on how to make these, but again, they're super easy. This is the tutorial that I followed. I cut out a 3.5" flower from some black and pink fabric and tulle. She said to use 9 flowers, but I added a few more to make it a bit fuller (OK, I also misread one of the directions and glued my black layer down by accident.) I folded the matching tulle into the flower, to give it a little pizzazz. I sandwiched a cheap black elastic between two pieces of felt, so my flower can be interchangeable. This flower just happened to match the rest of my outfit (socks included) quite nicely! I guess tomorrow's project is to make some more flowers. Or to continue cleaning....such a hard decision.
Thanks so much for stopping by! Join us tomorrow for another Cupcake Saturday!

Bamboozled!

Good Thursday evening! We hope everyone has had a wonderful week so far. Tomorrow is finally Friday, and it happens to be a half-day for most of the schools around here. ALthough we can't complain because it has been a short week.
Anyway, the idea for today's project came to mind yesterday, and it was completed today. Some of our favorite projects use fun puns, and there are plenty of them come Valentine's Day. One of the puns we found was the basis of today's layout:

How cute is that saying- "bamboozled by love"?! This is a simple 12x12 layout we created, and it includes two photo mats- one 4x6" and one 4x4". And our favorite part of the layout? The two little panda bears:

So the color choices were a little hard to work with when it came to the bears beause we wanted to work with the colors in the fun photo mats and not add new ones. We decided to go with a light pink 'boy' and a darker pink 'girl', and the little bows add a nice touch to each one. We added some little gems to the heart to accent it a bit.

This picture shows the little bamboo border we added to the larger photo mat. You can't have a panda-themed page without including some bamboo- and we almost forgot to include it! And the little strips on the top and bottom were cut out with a new toy we got last weekend. It is a paper cutter that cuts fun borders. This one is like a torn edge.
How cute is this layout?! Now we just need to find someone to use it for...It doesn't help that we finished putting this together and writing the post for it while watching tonight's Glee. Those darn high school crushes. Anyway, thanks for stopping by!

For a Sweetie

Good morning! We hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. It's been kind of drab and dreary here for the last few days (but it hasn't rained. Or snowed.) But at least the week is going by rather quickly, seeing as it's already Wednesday.
We have two projects for today. They are two gift bags we quickly threw together for the holiday:

These two bags are based off the same design, but we decided to make one a 'girly' bag and one a that would fit a boy a little better. We used pink, red, and white paper-typical Valentine's Day colors- for the first bag. For the second bag, we figured a boy would probably not be too happy getting a pink bag, so we went with a red, teal, and white bag. We also added some gray, to make it look a bit more masculine. The colors are far from ordinary, but we think they work quite well. We also used matching ribbon to attach the tags, and the sparkly red pops up again!
Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

Hey Hunny!

Good morning! We hope everyone has a wonderful long weekend, and are now looking forward to the shortened work week. Today's project is another Valentine's Day project, which would be perfect for a sweetie at any age!

This shaped card features little ol' Pooh Bear! He's just so cute and cuddly! And of course, we had to add a little honey bee. The two images have been layered, so they pop out of the card. It's a little hard to tell, but the two white pieces have been embossed, as well. It's such an easy way to add another dimension to a paper craft. The inside of the card is below:

How well does that go with the card?! (I felt so clever when I realized it would be a perfect saying for a Pooh card) Actually, it would have worked better if I wrote it how I planned. It was supposed to say "Will you bee my hunny?" Oh well. And 'hunny' is not spelled wrong, per se. It is how Pooh Bear spells it. (For the longest time, I thought that was the correct way to spell it...)
Well, that's all for today. Thank you for stopping by and hope everyone has a great day!

A Conversation Starter

Happy Monday! We hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. We have been keeping busy crafting and completing some orders, so we have stayed out of trouble. We are definitely going to enjoy our day off today- don't know how, but we will!
A few weeks ago, our sister asked us to make her a Valentine's day banner. She is a big fan of the candy hearts and asked us to make her a banner with them. This is what we came up with:

OK, so maybe our Christmas decorations will come down today...Anyway, as you can see, each piece has been designed to look like a candy heart. One of the things that I like the most is that it's not a 'typical' Valentine's Day banner, in the fact that it's not pink or red, but it is still in the holiday spirit. The hardest part was deciding what to write on the hearts. (There are a lot of new sayings that probably just wouldn't look very good on a banner.) We wanted to add some 'pizazz' to the pieces, so we made the sayings pop out, and added a (very light) white stitching pattern around the edges:

We decided to tie the hearts together with the sparkly ribbon, since she is a big fan of sparkle. We knew it had to be purchased when we were at the store! How awesome is it?? I'm so excited that there is extra ribbon left over :)
Thanks for stopping by! 

Valentine's Day Wreath

Every holiday needs a wreath, right? We've made some winter, Christmas, and sports wreaths, so why not a Valentine's Day wreath?! The heart shaped wreath form was perfect for this wreath.

I love how the tulle ends up looking a little more like a circle, but still keeps the heart shape in the middle. We used about half of 3- 25 yard rolls of red, white, and pink.

Here's a close up of the die-cut we pinned to the middle of the wreath.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cupcake Saturday!

Yay! It's finally Saturday! We hope everyone has had a wonderful week. It's been pretty chilly and foggy here all week, but it isn't snow, so it's OK. (Although we still hope for those snow days.) We are definitely looking forward to this three-day weekend. So, since it is (still) Saturday, we have a new cupcake to share with you. This is Valentine's Day-inspired cupcake, with some strawberries and lots of chocolate, and a nice surprise. You'd be sure to get on anyone's good side with these.

 

There is so much chocolate in these little guys. They are a chocolate cake, with a dark chocolate frosting, and a chocolate-covered strawberry on top! The surprise is in the wine we used. I don't know if anyone has tried this, but it is called 'Chocovine', which is chocolate wine. It's like a grown-up chocolate milk. We used some in the batter and the frosting. And another surprise is found inside the cupcake:

 

They are filled with a strawberries and cream mixture. It is a lightly sweetened whipped cream, with strawberries folded in.

How delicious do these cupcakes look?? They can get the attention of that special someone, or they are can just cause a 'death by chocolate'.
Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a wonderful (long) weekend!!

A Small Fortune

No, not what Uncle Pete lost on the game today...

After watching the Seahawks lose a really close, exciting game this morning, we made this cute little Valentine's Day project to share with you. It feels a little early to be thinking Valentine's Day,especially for two people who celebrate Singles Awareness Day, but that's okay!

These paper fortune cookies start out as a 3" circle, folded into the cookie shape. (There are a bunch of tutorials online. I didn't take step-by-step pictures to show you, sorry!) Inside of each cookie is a slip of paper with a message on it. The great thing about these is that you can make them with fortunes or coupon-like messages or put anything you'd like on them! They're very personalize-able. I think one really cute thing to do would be to make 14 of them and have 14 days of Valentine's surprises!

Thanks for stopping by!

Cupcake Saturday!

It's that time of week again! It's a beautiful weekend out here in the PNW and people out here are pretty excited about the Seahawks game tomorrow against Atlanta. So, for today's Cupcake Saturday, we have these fun Seahawk-inspired cupcakes to share.

We dyed the batter blue, and put white sprinkles inside. The inside is filled with that lime green buttercream frosting, and topped with regular white buttercream. Definitely a lot of frosting on these, but we might need the sugar rush to wake up early enough for the 10 am start tomorrow!

 Of course, we had to top them off with "12th Man" cupcake toppers! The 12th Man is everywhere, even on top of the Space Needle!

Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas Thank You Cards

I hope everyone is having a great weekend so far! Why is it that these two days go by so much quicker than any other two-day combination during the week?! Oh well. Here are our "thank you cards" for Christmas. I know, I know. A little late, but late is better than never, right? We used the card sketch from this SOUS sketch. We didn't add quite as many details as the sketch has since they need to be sent out.

I love this collection of paper (Jolly Holidays from Michaels) because it's Christmas-y, but it doesn't have the normal Christmas colors. The bright colors really make it pop.

Now we have to go watch the Seahawks take on the Redskins. Go Seattle!

Don't forget about our Kards for Kiddos project.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cupcake Saturday!

Happy Weekend! It's time for another Cupcake Saturday, and since it's been kind of chilly out, we thought we would make a tropical-themed cupcake for today. We have some pina colada cupcakes for you!

The cupcake is a vanilla cupcake, jazzed up with a box of coconut cream pudding, filled with a coconut creme filling. It's all topped with a pineapple buttercream frosting, pineapple quarter, and a maraschino cherry. I couldn't find any drink umbrellas, though. That would've made them feel even more tropical.

These are adult cupcakes, but could definitely be made without the rum in them. Actually, you can't taste it very much, so maybe more next time?! We put some in each of the parts (cupcake, filling, and frosting). Either way, they definitely feel like summer, or at least they can warm you up by the fire in the middle of winter.

Thanks for stopping by!

New Year Organization

I hope everyone is having a great week so far and has some fun plans for the weekend! Today we have two New Year organization projects to share with you.

The first one is our January calendar, where we keep all of our project/blog ideas. It's great having all of our notes in one spot, so we can just cross them off when we're done with them

The second project is our answer to the question of cartridge storage. We've tried so many different combinations of storing the cartridges and inserts, and books. So here's what we did. (Some might say that we could just get rid of them, but that would be ridiculous!)

We went to Craft Room and made these little holders for each of our cartridges, and then put them into plastic storage bins.

They are separated into our different "categories" by color, so they're easier to fund. They correspond to the ringed collections of booklets we made. The books and the layovers are in a third bin, all in their color-coded categories. It's definitely much easier to find everything we need now.

We've added the projects to the Fantabulous Cricut "Get Oorganized" challenge here. And don't forget our Kards for Kiddos project for the children of Sandy Hook!

Thanks for stopping by!

Be Awesome!

Good evening! We hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. We're definitely looking forward to the weekend. It's been tough- a two-day work week. Well, today's project is a wall hanging we made for a bedroom. It is, in a way, a New Year's resolution, and a nice reminder to wake up to

How cute is that? It was finished tonight, but I definitely could have used it this morning. When a piece of pesto chicken flies into your first coffee of the day and then it takes 10 minutes to close your car doors (because the locks are frozen- which never happened before, even back home in Connecticut). Luckily the sunrise this morning was amazing and the day turned around!
This was actually made with a 16"x24" canvas and some paints. We saw a printable somewhere with this saying and thought this would be perfect in a bedroom. I chose the color to match my color-theme. The teal matches remarkably well, which was kind of surprising. It is a little hard to tell, but "awesome" glitters (the phone camera just didn't capture the sparkle as well)
Thanks so much for stopping by!

Getting Glittered!

Nothing says "Happy New Year" like some sparkle! And who doesn't like to use glitter on everything?! Today's project is a fun little home decor project to share.

Both of these projects are basically the same, just on different materials. First up are our 2013 candles. We cut out 2013 from vinyl, just big enough to be able to see the whole year on the front of the candle. Then we covered the whole thing in mod-podge, and added glitter. After it was dry, we pulled the vinyl off the candle, and viola! To make sure that the glitter doesn't get all over everything, we sealed it with a clear spray lacquer. (The small ones in the back are done the same, just without the vinyl step.)

 The second part of our project are these awesome wine glasses. Of course you need some glasses for your midnight toast, (or just your after work glass of wine). We did the same thing here: coated in mod podge and glitter, and sealed. Even though the are sealed, they still have to be hand-washed.

Close ups of the stem and glass.

Imagine the possibilities and how many different things you can glitter like this! One thing I would suggest, though, is to make sure that your vinyl isn't the same color as your glitter! I should've known this before doing it, but was clearly not thinking that far ahead. Otherwise, when you go to pull the vinyl off, you have to do some searching for it. (Note the little marks that look like claw marks next to the 1.) They still add some great sparkle to any party!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy New Year!

We would like to wish everyone a safe, happy, and banner:

It was kind of weird celebrating New Year's Eve tonight on the West Coast, when you stop and think that you were technically in a different year than your family and friends, and by the time you celebrate, they're all in bed. We watched the fireworks show from the Space Needle in Seattle (on TV), but were fortunate enough to be able to see some from the comfort of our living room window- can't get much better than that!
So, here's to a year that's hopefully better than the last (although our 2012 was pretty amazing!) Now, it's time for those resolutions!