Thursday, August 29, 2013

4th of July Recap


I just realized I never shared our 4th of July photos.  My dad came home just in time for the 4th.  These are the horrible iPhone photos I managed to grab that morning as he and N made ice cream.


 Nick was helping him add the rock salt to the ice.
 And then we decorated G-Grandma's cake.  She always gets chocolate with red,white and blue frosting decorations.  Nick went all out and drew a picture of her!



 Do you like her fancy earrings?
 We played in the pool for a while.
 Set off our cheap fireworks.........




 Then headed to my old high school for the free fireworks show.
 This was the second year in a row that the show was cut short due to faulty fireworks.  Sadly, we'll be finding a new park to visit next year.  I just liked this one because it was the football field of my high school.  Kind of fun to return each year.




The few fireworks I got before they cut the show.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Layouts with {Flair}....

layouts.  I've been busy.  End of summer, a few extra hours to myself kid-free.  Its been a good couple of days.



Using up yet another Studio Calico kit.  Just one of the layouts I complete.  Will be posting more as I get them finished up.  Heart flair is just one of the many heart designs in Shelley's shop.   Supplies are from the February 2013 Studio Calico kit.



 The hockey flair set.  The 'king' reference on this one is perfect for my Kings.  Supplies are from an older Studio Calico kit - I believe February 2013.  Star rubons are old SC retail rubons I've been hoarding.



And some arrow flair.  Papers are from Echo Park - an older line.


Friday, August 23, 2013

What a cutie!

I'm in the process of killing a bunch of kits right now and this was the last of a kit.  The minimalist in me kicked in and 'just got the page done' using what was left.

The rest of the kit which consisted of 3 - 12 x12 sheets of paper and a pile of scraps were made into cards for OWH (Operation Write Home).  I'm a horrible card maker.  I do not work in that size so most of my cards are not even worthy of showing here.  I do it for the soldiers and to use up product.  I send decent cards - don't worry.  Its just that *I* don't like them.  They're very simple.  A stamped sentiment with a piece of string, maybe an embellishment or two and then some patterned paper.  Nothing special - but it gets the job done.

I'm also very bad about sending cards 'in season' for these poor people.  The problem is, I never have enough to send them since I rarely craft these days.  So when I do have a full box, there is usually a lot of Birthday and Love cards mixed in with some random holiday ones that are usually late.  For example, the box I mailed last week had....... 4th of July cards in it.  Whoops!  Well, I'm early for next year right?

Anyway, here is the simple layout.


I don't even remember the paper I used.  Some of it is MME I think.  The tab is from Pink Paislee, the tags are Elle's Studio and the word stickers were MME.  This was my sons Thanksgiving bath - his first Thanksgiving.  We stayed with my parents and my mom gave him his bath in the kitchen sink!

Just received some new colors of Burlap String to work with.  I love this stuff!

You can get some in the Stringery shop!

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Kit killer

I have so many kits at this point that I'm out of room.  They are overflowing from their new home to the floor where they cascade in this sad plastic baggie waterfall.  I need to do something about that.  In an effort to clear out I purged a bunch of items.  I've got kit pieces I will never use, older kit items that just don't appeal to me anymore etc.  I'm also trying to use them up one layout at a time.  I belonged to Studio Calico forever but recently cancelled that sub to try out Citrus Twist and Cocoa Daisy.  At the end of 6 months for both of these I will be sticking with Cocoa Daisy exclusively.  They fit my style best.  Now I need to make room for their awesome kits which means making stuff.

This was made with one of the first Cocoa Daisy kits I received.  My sons school has Moms and Muffins day where all moms go to school and get their nails painted, crafts and then play time on the playground.  This is also the last year for this since its a pre-school thing.  Next year he's in Kindergarten and they don't do as many fun activities like this.



Feel free to browse the stuff I'm getting rid of here.  Email me at ohmy17(at)yahoo.com if you see something you like.  The prices are not set in stone and I will combine shipping on multiple items.

Friday, August 16, 2013

How to throw an awesome party 2013 version

So last year, I went all out for Mr. N's 5th birthday.  Because you only turn 5 once right?  With the Kings winning the Stanley Cup and him being the budding hockey star, I ordered up the Kings Mascot.  Everyone had a blast.  You can see the recap here.

So when he asked for another skating party this year WITH a Wreck it Ralph theme I was stumped.  How the heck do you pull off Wreck it Ralph in a skating rink?  Especially when the party was IN a locker room.  The walls were gross.  I don't have much to work with in the setup either.  I turned to Pinterest to see what I could do to make a party for little to no money but to cover up those nasty walls!

This is what I ended up with.

 I ordered a party set from Birthday Express.  Then I matched everything to the set.  It was mostly the red, brown and aqua.  Bowls were 99 cents at party city and then I raided the local candy shop.
 I must have watched the move 87 times while making lists of the candy from the movie.  I had quite the list!
 I had a bowl of party colored M&M's.

 And party colored Jelly Bellys.  (Thanks goodness for timely Groupons and Money Mailer specials!)
 I mixed the Sugar Rush theme in as much as I could but kept it geared towards a boy.  I found these rolls of checkered flag plastic and brick(see below) to cover tables and walls with.
 This was eventually the food table.  I ordered pizza and salad from the local pizza shop and then had fruit and veggie trays out.
 The cake.  What can I say.  I saved money where I could with the other decorations and 'stuff' because I had this awesome cake in mind.  I found Ralph figurines at the Disney store and had them build the cake around it.  I based it off a cake I found on Pinterest.  Here's my party planning board in case you're into stuff like that.
 More views of the cake.





 I got a little crafty here.  Those are rice crispy treats with black frosting and red M&M's.  Vintage Nintendo controllers!!  I didn't think anyone would eat them but they were all gone by the end of the party.
 I'm lucky to work at Fedex Office so I had my team design, print and mount these signs for me.  I purchased the Pac Man font.  I thought it was a cute, cheap way to cover up the plain old door.

 The rink is cool with you bringing your own decorations but they have their own the normally hang up.  They pulled out their box and I picked out which ones worked.  The 'balls' were the perfect touch.


 My other sign.  This was the drink table.  If you've seen the movie, you know what this is about.  I did my best to find the Cheer's Bar font or something similar but I got tired of striking out no matter where I looked so I ended up with this and a little Word Art action in Word.

 That my grandpa, my husband, his mom and N.
 And the party!  The kids all love Ralph so it was a cool theme.


 And that is a Ralph in the middle of the table.  My grandmother bought that for N as a side gift.  It ended up being the perfect center piece.  His fists are holding the balloons.


After filling them with pizza and cake, we sent them out onto the ice for skating.  Nick had fun playing 'coach' and showing his friends how to skate.  Next year, I'm taking the easy route and lettering him pick a couple of friends and going to Disneyland!