Sunday, August 24, 2014

Congratulations!


Happy Sunday, friends! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Yesterday I spent the afternoon watching my nephew play some tennis. Boy, do I love watching him play. It also means that I get to hang out with my sister, too. Love that!
 
So I am popping in super quick with a card for the current CAS(E) this Sketch! challenge. On Saturday, a friend of mine will be getting married and I thought this would be a perfect sketch for her card.




Although the theme of her wedding is a beach wedding, I thought I would create a rainbow card. But once I uploaded my card, I realized it is not ROYGBV, but ROYBGV. Oops. Since I had added some white in each of the corners, I thought I would keep the card as is. I think she and her man will be delighted, nonetheless, at receiving a hand made card.
 
 
 
I used my curved stitch border die from Pretty Pink Posh and adhered the pieces together. Then, using my rectangle nestie, I marked off where I needed to trim. Then I used the same nestie to cut out the black cardstock to adhere my trimmed cardstock. The sentiment is from Altenew Faux Veneers.
 
That is all from me for now. I hope you have an awesome week!

Monday, August 18, 2014

CAS-ual Fridays, Happy B-Day

Hello friends! I am popping in with a quick card for the current CAS-ual Fridays challenge. It is the last challenge for this year. As you can see by the challenge graphic, it is tic-tac-toe. The previous card I submitted, you can find here. My girlfriend delivered her precious little girl yesterday and I am so happy for her and her family. Blessings to you all!
 
 
For my card, I chose to play along with the top row: chevrons, black and sequins. The stars are from Altenew Faux Veener and the chevrons are from DeNami Design. I used a speech bubble cut file (Design ID #50306.) I simply deleted the text and added my own. Unfortunately the font escapes me at this time. The clear sequins are Pretty Pink Posh. They seem to be picking up all kinds of reflection in my craft room, but they are clear. This card will make it into the hands of my precious soon-to-be 7 year old, Leah, on Thursday. Somebody pinch me. Where did the time go?
 
 
Thanks for stopping by!


Monday, August 11, 2014

Superhero birthday party

Hello friends! I hope you all had an awesome weekend. On Saturday we had a joint birthday party for Leah and Josh. He turned 3 on July 13th and Leah will turn 7 on August 21st. Lots of photos, so bear with me. These are all courtesy of my sweet twin sister, Eva. If you would like to see a few more pictures of the party, you can head over to her blog, Capturing Our Days. She does an amazing job capturing life in photos. I am so thankful for her awesome photography!
 
You may know that I have been having some medical problems. You can read more on that update here. These last 5 weeks, I did not have as much time as I would have liked to create for their party. However, I was still pleased with how everything turned out. I used my Silhouette Cameo for almost everything. I did manage to sneak in some stamps for the popcorn treat bags.
 
When you walked in the door, the first table on the left held the thank you popcorm bags, capes and masks and one of the games (that we did not end up playing). I do not have a close up of the popcorn bags, but I used PTI's Tag- its #2 and Altenew Faux Veneers. I simply drizzled some Wilton melted candies onto the popcorn with red, yellow and blue color. My dear hubby helped to stuff them into the little baggies. Thanks Andy!!!
 
 
I used a speech bubble cut file from the Silhouette store (Design ID #29232) for the sign and the two fonts that I used for the party were Badaboom BB and Crimefighter BB. The sign reads "Thanks for saving the day!"
 
 
A Superhero party would not be complete without capes and masks. To create the capes, I used the neckline from capes they had received at a superhero party they attended earlier in the year. To cut the felt, I used this tutorial that I found here. It was a great way to use up all of the felt with very little waste. I also downloaded a star image and cut a 6 inch circle. I stitched everything!!! I made 19 capes and masks, so my sewing machine definitely got a work out.
 
To create the masks, I used this tutorial found here. Instead of taping the template down, I pinned it. I didn't feel like printing my mask image multiple times, so I reused mine. I loved the fact that they were super sturdy since they were lined with pellon. The kids would take them on and off and they still looked great.
 
 
 
This was the main dessert table. This is the main hallway from our front door that leads to the family room. The pictures on the ledge are always there. This year I decided to do something different and not create a birthday banner. Instead, I used another speech bubble from the Silhouette store (Design ID #50306). On Leah's picture it says, "Happy 3rd Birthday Joshua!" and on his picture is says "Happy 7th Birthday Leah!" I thought it was so cute so actually mimic the comic book print and have them wish each other a happy birthday.
 
On the picture ledge, I placed some comic books that Leah has received from Chi-fil-a, which was the inspiration for the costume she wore and the party theme. The center comic book image was a download. It was the first Spiderman comic cover. The figurines were also Happy Meal toys.
 
I can't seem to find where I downloaded the comic/lighting speech bubbles, but I used them everywhere. I used the Badaboom BB font and created a shadow with black for some depth. That was the most time consuming part of creating the decorations. I showed Leah how to used the glue pen and line them up offset to create the shadow. She helped me to create all of those cupcake toppers! That's right! Had I know her little fingers had the ability to do that, I would've enlisted her help from the very beginning.
 
 
I used my cut file (Design ID #37838) to make the cupcake liners. I have resized it a bit smaller to accommodate the baking cups I use. I used some Bazzil cardstock for the liners and the toppers. I made vanilla cupcakes using this recipe and the chocolate cupcakes using this recipe. Sweetapolita has some awesome recipes, so check her out! You can also spy some superhero inspired layered jello treats that I made.
 
 
This was also the second year that I enlisted Leah's help to make the marshmallow pops. We simply dip them in a little water and roll them around in sprinkles. She is such a great little helper!
 
 
One of the guests, my niece Havi, was quite impressed with those marshmallows. She kept her eyes on them the whole time she was there. I think it is a safe bet to say that she "ate" the most marshmallow pops. Head on over to my sister's blog to see what I am talking about.
 
 
 
The little white bowls were filled with sour candies we picked up at the Dollar Tree. So were the white bowls (which are out of focus) in the picture below. You can see them better in the first picture of the dessert table. And those ring pops...were a big hit!
 
 
 
I made a few pom poms to hang over the food table. Although I found a different tutorial than the one I have used previously, I stink at making them. I had big plans to make a bunch more, but stopped at three. Leanne's look awesome, mine...not so much. At this angle, they don't look terrible, but they never seem to turn out how I would like them to turn out.
 
 
And here is my sweet Leah. She requested to be Wonder Woman 2 years ago for Halloween. The costume still fit last year, so she wore it again. We tried it on at the start of the summer, and it still fit!! I made the headband, cuffs and skirt. I used PTI's Star Prints to die cut the stars. I have definitely gotten my penny's worth out of this costume for sure!
 
Here are all of the superheroes minus 2 of them.
 
 
 
 
 
We live in a small gated community with only 4 streets. So we gathered up the troops and headed out into the sauna street. We live near the end of the street and we were pretty thankful that no cars came through while we tried to photograph these adorable superheroes. Don't you love the action shot?
 
 
I love that you can see the superheroes enjoying their ring pops as we sand happy birthday to the guests of honor.
 

 
 
Some brotherly, sisterly love!
 
The final pictures are of some of the guests and their parents. I made a cape for the grown ups to wear as well. We had such a blast with everyone that attended 
 
Some of these parents are also in Andy's rock band, ELEVATORS. They will be releasing their latest album some time next month. If you want to read more about their band, you can visit Elevatorsrock.com .
 
Below are superheroes Matt, Nikki and Chloe.
 
Our superhero neignbors.
 
 
The birthday family.
 
 
Andy with his superhero mom.
 
Superheroes Ryan, Jenni, Landon and Audrey.
 
 
My sister's superhero family. My niece, Havi, is still holding her popcorn treat bag.
 
 
These last few pictures are of my twin sister and me. She is in the pink dress and I am wearing the Superman shirt that I made for just over $5. Thanks Hobby Lobby!
 
 
 
 
Of course I can't seem to remember what we were even laughing about. The last shot was a fun one. Nothing like jumping in skinny jeans and a dress and having long hair fly everywhere. Thanks hubby for putting up with us so we could get the perfect shot.
 
 
Thanks to my wonderful mother-in-law who helped tremendously with the food, cleaning up and watching the kiddos. Thanks sister for capturing our days.

Saturday, August 9, 2014

A quick update

Hello my dear friends. I hope you are all doing well. I am popping in super quick with a little update.
 
 Today we are having a Super Hero themed party for Leah and Joshua. I have been super busy between work and preparing for the party that unfortunately I do not have some crafty to share. Some of you may know that last month I started having palpitations and an increased heart beat. I have been under the care of a cardiologist and had several tests done. Yesterday I followed up with her to come up with a plan.
 
My sonogram of my heart was normal which was great news. I also had a 24 hour holter monitor done. They place a heart monitor on you that you wear for 24 hours to see what your heart does over time. The results of that showed exactly what we thought we would see: a fast heart rate (even at rest) and lots of  abnormal beats. Although the treatment for this can be nothing, my doctor knows that I am bothered by the pounding in my chest whether I am at rest or working. Most people have these extra beats all of the time and don't even know it. Unfortunately, I am fully aware of them. So she has kindly prescribed a low dose of medication to see if it helps me feel better.
 
I feel pretty confident that this medication will help. If it helps to lower my heart rate, then I can live with the extra beats. Nobody likes to feel like they just went for a run, when they have been sitting in their craft room all afternoon, right? Speaking of running, she did encourage me to exercise. Although at the end of my stress test, my heart went SUPER CRAZY with abnormal beats, she said that exercise will still help. This super crazy phase only started on the cool down portion of the test. So I am going to have to encourage the hubby to join me in some exercise. Who wants to exercise alone, right?
 
I've got to get back to party preparations and the guests of honor will be up soon. My sister and her family will be attending and I have "hired" her as the party photographer. So I know I will have photos to share of the party soon.
 
Have a great weekend!