A New Chapter!

Good afternoon! I hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend! It has been an uber busy week around here. Between work (having to leave the apartment at 6:15, before the sun rises, is never fun. And on top of that, spending the week with rambunctious 7th graders...), crafting work (at least that's fun!) and party planning, I was definitely looking forward to last night, which was my first chance to relax a bit. And fall asleep at 10:00!
As you might have noticed, we have gone with a springy baby boy themed with the newest update to the blog and our other pages. We are right in the middle of baby season, and figured that there will be quite a few baby posts coming in the next month. To signal the start of baby season, we held the first of two showers for Sister last night. Fortunately, she has amazing coworkers who helped put it all together. Since it was her school shower, we decided to go with a storybook theme. Unfortunately, I didn't take very many pictures, but others did, so I'll post them when I can! I was put in charge of the decorations, or at least the paper ones, including the invitations. To set the mood, we went with baby Winnie the Pooh taking a bath in a tub, along with a Pooh quote. (I didn't get a picture of these. Yet. But there were a few comments on how cute they were!)
Two things I did take pictures of were the cupcake toppers and party favors. The menu matched storybooks, so we decided to make blue velvet cupcakes for dessert, which went with the book "The Velveteen Rabbit".

The toppers were kind of quickly thrown together, but feature both solid and polka dot paper, along with some circles punched from real story books. (The top one fittingly says 'Stork Laundry'!) And here are the party favors (I apologize for the poor picture):

The favors were chocolate chip cookies that go along with the book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"! The bag toppers have the little mouse holding a pop-dotted chocolate chip cookie and reads: "If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll say thanks for coming to our shower!"
I also created a banner for the shower that read "Welcome Baby". Since I took the pictures with my phone, and the position of the banner, I had to take a few to get all of it.

The first and last spaces have story books on them, and the middle one features the very hungry caterpillar, all pop-dotted, of course!

And it wouldn't be a party without the new momma opening her gifts:

Soo many cute things! I don't know who was more excited- mom or auntie!!Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful weekend!

Happy 1st Birthday, Cousin!

Good evening! We hope everyone has had a fantastic weekend! I've been keeping busy with a few orders and some special projects, which is why this post is a little late.  I've been trying to get a few baby projects done, and a lot of cleaning, but everything else seems to get in the way. If only there were two or three more hours in the day! It also doesn't help that the weekends have been  absolutely fantastic weather-wise and it makes it a little difficult to want to stay inside and work.
Today's project is a birthday card for our littlest cousin. Today is the cutie patootie's first birthday! Here is the card I made for him:

I wasn't quite sure what theme to go with, so I decided to go with this cute little sock monkey. I added some special touches, like the number one, for his first birthday, and of course, some balloons and a sweet treat! (Yum! Cupcakes...) Here is what the card looks like when it's open:

I obviously used a fair share of pop-dots on this easel card (one of the easiest ways to make a card even fancier!). It was quite a bit thicker than I thought it was going to be and it took a few times to get it into the envelope. Hopefully the little guy will enjoy his card (as much as a one-year-old will) and has the happiest birthday!
Thanks for stopping by! Here's to a great week!

Cowabunga, Dude!

Oh boy, talk about flashbacks to childhood...
Good afternoon, friends! I hope everyone has been having a good week. On the bright side, it's already Thursday! One more day to go! After a somewhat difficult day, I figure I'd write a quick post this afternoon. So, today's post is a quick birthday card I made for a little girl who is celebrating her 7th birthday today:

 

As you might be able to figure, she's a big fan of the Ninja Turtles. As I said, it was a quick card to make. I wanted to go simple with it because it was a late-night request. As with most of my cards and projects, pop-dots were used in abundance:

I decided to use orange as the accent color because Michelangelo (or Mikey, as he's called now-a-days) is her favorite. I was also tasked to make some invitations and decorations for her upcoming party, which I hope to post in the next day or two.
Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a fabulous evening!

For My Significant Otter!

Good morning! We hope everyone had a fantastic weekend, sharing it with your loved ones, or just loving yourself, which is always necessary too! As promised, I have some more Valentine's Day projects to share, although it's a few days late. So, today's project is the card I made for my otter half:

This card has features two of my favorite things: otters and puns! (If you ever find yourself needing to smile, I highly recommend looking up pictures of otters. They are just so stinking cute!!) So, one of the things I tend to do is cuddle real close and hold hands. It's one of the things otters do so they don't float away from each other. We joke around, saying we have to hold hands so we don't float away. Or fall off the couch. This is the inside of the card:

I absolutely love puns! I would use them all the time if I could. When I use them, he usually chuckles and smiles. (Or he just feels bad because I'm so corn-y) Either way, there's usually a smile on both of our faces, so it's all good! I didn't want to go overly Valentine-y with the card, since he's not at all into the holidays (any of them), but I still wanted to show him how I feel! I guess that's all the gushiness... :)
Anyway, thanks for stopping by! Now it's time to get ready to enjoy the absolutely beautiful February weather we're having. Sorry to all of our New England friends and family! You can always come visit!! Have a wonderful day!

Spring Means One Thing...

Other than warmer, drier weather, flowers blooming, birds chirping, and the sun being up before 8:00. It's time for a ton of baby projects! And I mean a ton! Today was actually our friend's baby shower, but unfortunately work got in the way and prevented me from making the trip back home (which is probably a good thing- the latest storm would have probably been a blizzard with my luck). However, I do have some pictures of the card I made for her:

 

After spending longer than normal on card layout and design, I decided to go with a design similar to another part of her gift (more pictures to follow. Eventually.) and came up with this. It doesn't fold up quite as nicely as I'd like, but that's because I kind of went pop-dot happy on the inside:

 

Each little design is pieced together, including the little pacifier in the corner that you can't see too well. Then there is a little blank space to write a little note to the new mommy-to-be!

(So Cari, if you're reading this, I'm so sorry I couldn't be there with you today, and I hope it was a great day! Also, expect a package in the coming weeks, hopefully before Baby gets here! Miss you and I'm definitely looking forward to visiting this summer and meeting the little guy!)

Thanks for stopping by!

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!