This Year Will Be A Hoot!

Good evening! We hope everyone had a fantastic week and we're sure everyone is looking forward to the long weekend. We are looking forward to enjoying our last weekend of summer (it's official, Fall has started here in western Washington- the pools have been emptied!! It's all good, though!) We'll be spending it working on some last-minute finishing touches in the classroom(s).
Today's post features some of the classroom decorations we've worked on this summer. These pictures are from Robyn's adorable wise owl-themed room. It is a little picture-heavy, sorry! The first picture is probably the cutest part of the classroom:

It is the AR chart for her classes. The tree is divided into sections, representing the students' reading progress. Each 25% increment has a cute little owl. Each student has their own leaf, which will get moved once they improve through the school year. Hopefully they'll all be at the top of the tree at the end of the year! (The desk was clean at one point!) The next picture is a set of two bulletin boards.

The first one will be for writing tips, to help the students become "wise writers". The other board is one of three student "brag" boards, that will hold some of the students' work. Each kid has their own labelled clothespin to hold their work. The tree is conveniently placed to cover up an unsightly gap between the two boards and pulls the design together. (And why wouldn't the Harry Potter collection make an appearance in a 6th grade classroom?!) The next two pictures are of the other two 'brag" boards:

You can also see the classroom set of star students (so much easier than cutting them all out by hand!) The picture also shows off the classroom library. You can't tell in the picture, but we spent a few days painting it teal and adding some sparkle to it. It's super cute! There is one more bulletin board, but it isn't quite finished. The last is a little banner we made to tie everything together:

The banner is surrounded by two more owls, ready to learn. We decided to not add close-ups of the banner (it would have been too many pictures), but the two end pieces also have little owls on them, sitting on a branch. We used quite a few pop-dots on them, and added some googly eyes! Then there is last year's apple wreath (which matches somewhat quite nicely!) (Also, side comment- the building was just power-washed and the windows look terribly dirty, but it's water-stained) We also made some matching owl name tags for each student, that will be put on their desks. Phew! Here's to a new school year!
We have a few more pictures we want to share from some other classrooms, but wanted to start off with this one! Thanks for stopping by! Have a great night!

We are entering these projects into a crafting challenge or two:
Fantabulous Cricut: Back to School (owls- Wild Card 2; Letters- Birthday Cakes, Nate's ABC's)

Happy October!

Happy Tuesday! We know it's been a while, but we hope everyone had a great few days. We spent the weekend hunkered down. I know...we live in Washington, it's supposed to rain. But when it rains for three days and you get more than four times the monthly total in that three-day period, it makes it hard to want to do much, other than curling up in a warm blanket and reading. Or catching up on movies. Who could complain about that! So, now that the rain has finally stopped (for now), we can go back to our 'normal' schedules!
We can't believe it's already the first day of October- where has the time gone?! In our opinion, today starts the super-busy holiday season. It seems that we have a ton more projects to add to our always-growing list of things to do. So, for today's project, we have a quick Halloween invitation to share.

This invitation was inspired by the challenge at "Decorate to Celebrate" (a pretty awesome blog for some cute ideas). This is an invitation we came up with for an "over-the-hill" birthday party. It seemed like the most fitting thing to include was a little skeleton:

And why wouldn't he be wearing a little party hat?! We included some tombstones (hopefully they won't be needed!) And there isn't much that's creepier than a little spider making its way down near you...
Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a wonderful day!!

Happy Fall!

Happy Monday! We hope everyone enjoyed their first fall weekend. We had a typical western Washington wet weather weekend (say that 5 times fast). It was a good time to catch up with our projects so we don’t have to worry about them during this week and watch some football games. We got quite a bit done, but there’s always plenty more. In other words, it was a quite successful weekend. Today’s project is one that we created yesterday. And, might we say, it’s pretty darn cute!!

We had a lady order one of our recessed window cards last week, so  we wanted to make another such one, and figured the concept of ‘fall’ would give us many options to play with. Anyway, the card was inspired by the stamped sentiment in the corner (QKR Stampede digital stamp). It originally said “you have”, but we thought it would be better without that part. So, if the sentiment is “Something to crow about”, there must be a crow on the card, right? And if there is a crow, there has to be a cute little scarecrow. From there, the card kind of designed itself. As you might be able to tell, we went pop-dot-happy, again. (It just adds so much to the card!) And the final touch was the scaregirl’s little yellow bow! Here is another view of the card:

We had to make the card look more like a book. The last few cards we made like this, we made one fold in the center, but they just didn't look as good as we'd like. After a few, we realized this was the best way to do it. Here's to the best season of the year!! (Oh, how we miss fall in New England...as long as it isn't snowing...)

This card is entered in the following challenges:

{Pin}spirational Challenges: Fall Colors

Perfect Sentiment Challenge: Find Me Some Fall

Crafts4Eternty: Cute Kids

Pile It On Challenge: Pile it On #38- Cool of Warm Colors

Hiding In My Craft Room: Lots of Layers

Craftin' Desert Divas: Autumn/Fall

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

A 'Boo'tiful Sunset

Good afternoon! We hope everyone is having a wonderful work day. It's about time for a nap around here. Only a few more hours to go. We have a Halloween card to share with you today:

This card has actually been a few years in the making. Since we started making cards, we always had the idea to make layers that opened up, ie- the gate in the front opening as one layer. (If that makes sense. Maybe the picture below helps my case.)

It's a little easier to see that the gate opens up, revealing the haunted castle. With a few color changes, a princess castle is quickly transformed into a spooky, haunted abode. As for the background, it is our take on a fall sunset. It didn't come out quite as well as we wanted (especially the line down the edge), but it's not too shabby using markers. As the sun sets, the creatures of the night come out to play. There are two bats that were glued to the card. The third is on a thin wire, so he can pop out at you! The image was then attached to the card base and the inside reads "Witching you a Happy Halloween"
We are entering this card into this week's SOUS Challenge- "Gates"
Thanks so much for stopping by!

A Crafty Back to School Gift

Welcome to another week! We hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend. We've been busy working on a ton of projects, mostly classroom decor. We have a few to share this week, but we'll start with our favorite!

Who wouldn't want to get this little gift for the first day of school?! There are a lot of teacher "survival kits" out there, with a range of things. This one is full of desk supplies that a teacher, and probably her students, would need for a successful year.

This is a picture of the paint can and top. These are a great way to use up all of your ribbon (and have an excuse to get more!!) And you can't give a gift without a card! It's a little hard to tell, but the paper used has a shimmer to it, to add a special touch. Of course we added googly eyes to both the owl and apple because everyone knows they make everything that much cuter!

This is a list of everything that was in the paint can. Our favorite? The last one about wanting a snow day! It's too bad we don't get too many of those.
We are entering our little teacher gift into this week's "Back to School & Classroom Favors" at Decorate to Celebrate.
Thanks so much for stopping by! Come back tomorrow for another (adorable) back to school project!

A Sunny Christmas Wish!

Hello! We hope everyone is having a fantastic Thursday! Today has been a perfect day to work on projects. Mother Nature must know school is starting soon and started fall. The last few, and next few, are supposed to be rainy. We can't complain though, because we have a ton of work to do, trying to decorate a classroom in time for the first day of school. A new project seems to pop up every few hours. Anyway, I took some time out to create this card. It's a super cute southern Christmas card:

How cute is he?! It looks like Santa has been having a relaxing summer vacation, too, before getting back to work! I guess he didn't use very much of his SPF 50 suntan lotion...

This is a closer view of him. I kind of went pop-dot happy on a few of the pieces, as you can see the shadow around him. There is also some added glitter in a few spots to add another fun touch! The last picture is the inside of the card. The only fitting sentiment we could agree on was "May your Christmas be Warm and Bright":

And we added one more touch with the holiday-inspired beach ball on the inside. 

We are entering this card into a few challenges. We used a variety of cartridges, including both paper doll ones and Doodlecharms.

Fantabulous Cricut Challenge: Challenge 175- Heat Wave 

Bitten by the Bug 2- Let's Get Wet! 

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

Merry Chipmas!

Good afternoon! Before we begin, we'd like to apologize for the fact that today is not a Cupcake Saturday post. We'd make up some excuse, like we forgot that it was Saturday, but in actuality, we just didn't want to go to the store...So hopefully tomorrow will be Cupcake Sunday...
Instead, we have a card to share with you today. It is one of our first Christmas cards of the season.

Doesn't it just put a smile on your face?! I feel like holiday cards, no matter what's on them, make you smile. Unless it's just us... This card started off with Mickey Mouse, but one thing led to another, and we settled on Chip. Mostly because he was laying down and fit with the look we were going for.
Anyway... So we made the card into a shaped card. It was a little tough when it came to putting it together on the computer. For some reason, it was just giving us a hard time. Eventually it all came together! So, once everything is said and done, we added some glitter, which adds a nice touch to everything! With that, we are entering the card into a few challenges today:
Fantabulous Cricut: Shaped Cards
Stuck on You Sketches: Disney
BBtB2: Christmas in July
Guess that's it for today. We'll leave you with another picture that'll leave a smile on your face!

Thanks so much for stopping by. Join us tomorrow for another (hopefully) another Cupcake Saturday (on Sunday)!

Everything's Just Beachy!

I just want to start by channeling the camel on the Geico commercial- It's Hump Day!
Now that that's out of the way, here's today's project. It's a beach theme layout with the title "Just Beachy."

There are three mats for 4x6 pictures, perfect for showing off those beach pictures. I used some shiny papers for the sand and water.

This layout was entered in the BBTB2 Beach Time Challenge here.

And here's today's holiday project.We made some fun Halloween cards to share with you.

The frames were embossed with our new embossing toys. Do I need more excitement in my life if watching the powder heat up is fun? The silhouettes in the middle were also embossed, cut out, and mounted with puffy adhesive to give them more dimension. And all frames need a little bling, so we added some around the outside of them.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Great Pear! Card

I hope everyone is having a terrific Tuesday so far! We have two fun projects to share with you today. The first one is a quick card I made for the FCCB Fruit Salad Challenge here.

This is a perfect little card for any couple. I love the color combination, but I don't know if a guy would necessarily like it :) I used the Serenade cartridge for the very pretty pears, and a fun flowery embossing folder for the back.

The second project is our holiday-themed project for the day. After yesterday's Christmas card, we figured that as a way to get everything done in time for the holidays, we would do one project a day, more or less. So today's holiday post is a glittery wonderland. It's "The Santa Express, {No. 25}

 

There is a lot of glitter going on in this layout. I had planned some more on the trees, but thought this might be good enough. Here's the train, covered in glittery snow. And a close-up of the passenger card.

 

Here's the title and a close-up of the caboose. I love how the wheels came out on this.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Few New Cards

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend. I know we did. It was a fantastically crafty weekend, getting orders done, redoing our crafty area so it's not spread out over the entire apartment, and getting some new cards finished. We have three to share with you today. (I'm sorry in advance for the terrible lighting in the pictures. I guess my phone didn't want to be cooperative today.)

With Royal Baby Fever at an all-time high today, our first two cards are geared towards a younger crowd.
While neither "royal" or "newborn," they are adorable cards for youngsters. These personalized cards would make great birthday cards, with the child's name and age. The little critters and their big buggy eyes are too cute to pass up! (Is it just me, or does everything look better with googly eyes?)

Our third card to share today is a simple Christmas card. (Hey, it's never too early to start, is it? I just got an email with 75 Christmas gifts to make today.) I was looking for different challenges to put our work into, and found some new ones. The links are below. 

Challenges:
CAS on Sunday "Kraft and Twine" here.
Paper Crafting Journey "Christmas in July" here.

Thanks for stopping by!

4th of July Layout

So I've decided that the best way to keep on top of scrapping every day moments and celebrations is to do them right away. Go figure, right? Says the girl who hasn't finished her's from several summers ago... Maybe now I'll actually do it. Maybe...
Here's a 4th of July layout to share today. I found the sketch over on SOUS (and entered it into their challenge here.) It was perfect to show off our 4th picnic.

We've had this paper floating around for a while and I couldn't figure out anything to use it for. Even though the colors are your "normal" red, white and blue, it is definitely patriotic, and therefore perfect for this. You can see it better in the picture below, but there is a really fun starbust-type design in the corner. I didn't want to cover it with the elements from the page, so I tried my hand at cutting around the design to put it on top of the elements. It came out better than I thought it would! Not perfect, since the blade is a little dull, but definitely got the job done.

Now that the layout is done, I just need to add photos. So much for finishing a layout on time.

It is also linked up to the SOUS Die Cut Flourish Challenge here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Flip Flop Kind of Day!

The biggest misconception about the Pacific Northwest is probably that it rains all the time. This is definitely not true. Our summers are absolutely gorgeous! When everyone else is sweltering in hot and humid grossness, we have sunny 75-80 degrees. I'll take rainy misty winters if this is the summer we get in return! All this weather talk really does have something to do with today's post, I promise! I have a fun little summer card to share with you.

It has been a tank top and flip flop type of summer. And "wool-socks-and-sandal-dude" can wear just his sandals. Don't know what I'm talking about? Find out more here: http://northwestspecialties.com/article/pemco-sandals-and-socks-guy

The inside of the card has some of the lyrics to Kenny Chesney's "Flip Flop Summer." Today's card is linked up with the FCCB "Set the Scene" challenge here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Our 500th Post!

I have some good news, and some bad news. First, the good. Today marks our 500th post! Pretty exciting! Hopefully though, that number will go up considerably since we will be posting on a more regular basis. Maybe... Bad news, we don't have a cupcake to share for Cupcake Saturday today. Boo. We got home yesterday after four long days on the road, and didn't quite feel like baking today. Funny how traffic ALWAYS gets backed up so close to the end of a trip. As soon as we hit Connecticut two weeks ago, BAM! As soon as we hit Tacoma yesterday, DOUBLE BAM! Oh well. We made it back safe and sound, with the only two blemishes being really strong thunderstorms camping in Ohio, and Dawn dumbly locking her keys in the car in Montana. Oops.
Anyway, along the way, we realized that we haven't finished our scrapbooks from our cross country trip two summers ago. I think we've only made it to the Midwest on those. So I figured I'd work on one today. While catching up on all those other awesome blogs out there, the BBTB2 challenge was Disney! I suppose I could've scrapped our trip to Disney World, but somehow that didn't come to mind until just now... I wanted to make one using the Bambi cuts on the Disney Classics cartridge.

I love the cut with Bambi looking at his tail and thought that it would be perfect to help show off our pictures from Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park. The deer were so used to people being around that they came within a few feet of us. The ones at home get spooked if you're within yards of them. It was pretty neat being that close to them. (You can see the feet of snow behind him in the middle of July!)

The title was cut in the Pooh font, and of course Bambi needed some friends, so I added Thumper and some fun 3-D butterflies flitting around the page.

This project is linked up with the BBTB2 "We Love Disney" challenge here and the Fantabulous Cricut "Cute as a Bug" challenge here.

Thanks for stopping by! 

Happy Spring!

Hello everyone! We hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. Now it's all down-hill to the weekend, which is always good. Today also happened to be the first day of spring, which is always exciting! Now that we've experienced our first full year here, we've noticed that there really isn't much difference between fall, winter, and spring. It pretty much rains any time of the year (but not all the time!) Every once in a while, the sun will pop out, even if it is raining. Kind of like today, which was the inspiration for this post:

This is our 'First Day of Spring' card. I spent the work day, staring out the window, seeing it pour at the same time as the sun is shining brightly. It was the kind of day that defines spring. When I came home, I wanted to throw together a quick card, so I came up with this. I had some help with the layout, from Mojo Monday's Sketch Challenge this week. My other inspiration came from a saying I saw that I thought fit the theme. Unfortunately, my camera died before I could get a picture of the inside of the card. The inside says, "Count the rainbows, not the rain storms". It's pretty much how we get through the rainy season here!
Thanks so much for stopping by tonight! Have a wonderful Friday Eve!

Sending Some Luck

Happy Sunday! We hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend, apart from losing an hour of sleep this morning. I actually woke up to my alarm this morning, only to find out it was actually an hour later. It was a bit of a bummer. Oh well.
Getting on with today's project. We have a St. Patrick's Day card to share with you today.

How cute is she?! It's a perfect little card for a lucky little girl. We decided to go with a green and pink design for this card (it is known that pink is the new black- it goes with everything!) And a card isn't complete without some glitter and a good luck charm! The final touch was some stitching around the edges.
It's been a while since we put our projects into challenges. We've been busy with everything else, but we made some time to enter this one. It's helpful that a bunch of challenges are now St. Patrick's Day-related.
     * Mojo Monday- Sketch Challenge 283
     * Stuck on U Sketches- Shamrock Die Cut Challenge
     * MyPaperCraftingWorld- Irish Eyes are Smiling Challenge
Thanks so much for stopping by! Now it's time to spend the day making some more bags!! Story of our lives!!

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!

A Turkey Treat

Happy Sunday, everyone! We hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend, and enjoyed the extra hour this morning! It's always a great day when you get an extra hour of sleep, and you can go to work in the daylight. I think that's the hardest part of living here- the fact that sunrise is around 8:00. On the plus side, the sunrises have been gorgeous recently. I just wish we could get pictures of it, instead of driving to school.
So, anyway, since today is Sunday, we are trying to get back on track (I know we've said that before) Last week, we decided that we were going to dedicate this week to Thanksgiving. (Mostly because we are so looking forward to starting our Christmas projects!) Today's project is a little card we put together.

This card would be perfect for a little girl, to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving! The little turkey is adorned with a little hair ribbon, to add a girly touch, and googly eyes, of course! The little pumpkin in the corner is layered to make it 3D, and you an see the shadow on it. The background has been embossed and we added some little flowers in the corner. We wanted to use the general "fall" color scheme, but we thought the pink would add "girlier" touch. A similar card could be made for a little boy, with red instead. The inside of the card simply reads "Happy Turkey Day!"
We have entered this card into the "Fun & Festive Bingo" challenge at Paper Crafting Inspiration. We chose to use the column with ribbon, embossing, and flowers. These bingo challenges are great in that they give you somewhat of a starting point, or use something that you normally wouldn't use. Or an excuse to make some cute little flowers!
Thanks so much for stopping by! Join us again tomorrow for another Thanksgiving project to celebrate the upcoming holiday!

A Sweet Treat, for a Little Witch!

Happy Friday! I know it's been a few days since we've had a new project up, but it's been one of those weeks when all you want to do after work is take a nap. And then fall asleep until 8:00 and decide to just go to bed. We've also been pretty busy with our Etsy shop orders, which is always exciting!!
So, getting on with today's project! After coming up with four or five different ideas (which we'll probably end up posting sometime this week), today's project kind of just came together, and we love how it looks! It is a little witch hat treat container:

How cute is this?! It is actually a cake box from Tags, Bags, Boxes, and More. The opening for the box is actually underneath the brim of the hat. It looks small, but it can hold quite a bit of candy and other treats. We were inspired by all the nicely decorated witch hats you can find on-line, with all their flowers and glitz.  We had thought of making a centerpiece, with just a cone shape, but then decided to make the box into a treat container.

These two are close-ups of some of the decorations. I love these flowers! We got the Flower Shoppe cartridge and now everything is going to have flowers on it!! Can't wait!  And of course, the little creepy crawlies that are hanging around, including the bat flying out of the flowers.

We are entering this project into a few challenges:
* Cooking with Cricut- 3D Treats
* Bitten by the Bug2- 3D Halloween Treat Containers
* Decorate to Celebrate- Halloween Party Part 2
* My Sheri Crafts- Halloween
* Cricut Fanatics- Creepy & Spooky Halloween
* Go Fish Challenges- 3D Halloween Projects
* More than Favors- Halloween

Thanks so much for stopping by! And for being patient with our little break! :)

What Did the Boy Pumpkin Say to the Girl Pumpkin?

Hey there, gourd-geous!!

Har har! Silly, I know. Happy Friday, everyone! We hope everyone had a great week! We are definitely looking forward to the weekend. After three months of gorgeous weather, the rain has come back and we have an "excuse" to sit home and craft... (like we really need one!) But that's OK, we have a ton of stuff to work on, so we'll be busy, and out of trouble. Hopefully. ;)
Anyway, today's project is another wreath we made to add some color to our apartment. Right now it's hanging on our door. I wish we could hang it up outside, but I don't know how long it would last out there. Not that I don't trust our neighbors, but still.

How cute?! It is supposed to be a pumpkin, with its brown stem hanger and twisted vines. The vines didn't come out quite like I wanted, but it's still cute. This is an up-close view of the words, and the little pumpkin on the side:

This wreath was fun to make, once all of the tulle was cut. Not such a fan of cutting it, but putting the wreath together was super simple. We already have a Halloween one planned!
We are entering this project into BBTB2's Pumpkin Challenge here. We used the Birthday Cakes and Happily Ever After on this project. (Funny story. I had been planning this for like two weeks and saw this challenge, and thought, "Oh, this is perfect!". And then I saw the one from the design team member. And here I thought it was a *brilliant* idea! I guess great minds think alike! I do love all the sparkle on hers!)
Thanks so much for stopping by! We appreciate it!