The rest of my "vacation" cards

As you'll soon see, I made lots of cards while we were on vacation. It was fun, and I challenged myself to use only a limited range of patterned papers and stamps, since I only took certain ones. I enjoyed the challenge of using supplies that I had barely touched! So here are the cards ...



This first one is a bookmark card. It opens in the middle, and the inside (below) has a detachable bookmarker on the right. This is the men's version, using Tim Holtz stamps and travel-themed patterned paper by ATD.



Next up is my ladies' version of the bookmark card:



And the inside:



Stamps: Tim Holtz (bookmark sentiment), Inkadinkadoo (flower), Scrappy Cats (swirl on bookmark). Patterned paper: ATD



This one was a bit time-consuming, but it was cute. Stamps: Studio G (wood-mount cupcake and clear acrylic candle), unknown (sentiment). I colored it with BIC Mark-Its and embossed with Swiss Dots.



Then I made a bunch of gift tags using the same stamps.



This is a ladies' birthday card. Stamps: Stampin Up (sentiment), Studio G (decorative focal point). I used patterned paper by ATD and an EK Success corner punch for the corners.



Here's a slight variation that uses the EK Success fleur de lis border punch in place of the corner punch.



The inspiration for this card came from the patterned paper itself. I just stamped the clocks on the blank squares (a perfect fit) and then added the sentiment. All stamps are Tim Holtz, and patterned paper is ATD.



This was another card that took a little while, but I loved the effect. I used Versamark to stamp my Martha Stewart monogram stamps onto squares, taped those down to another sheet, cut out the Top Note shape, then ran it through my Cuttlebug with the D'vine Swirls embossing folder. I just used an extra square on dimensionals for my focal point.



And finally, this was the very first card I made on vacation, and I loved it. I was especially proud because I used all $1 stamps (Studio G)!! :) My husband will be getting this for Father's Day from our kids.

Enjoy!

Blue Ridge Impressions stamps (and cards)

I thought I'd pass along a recommendation for a great company that I recently did business with. While we were at Massanutten Resort, we also happened to be 12 minutes away from a rubber stamp store that I had wanted to order from for awhile now (like a year or so!). Anyway, I stopped by and bought some stamps and was thoroughly impressed with them. The stamp company is Blue Ridge Impressions. They are Mennonite-owned, if I have it right, and they are some of the nicest people you will ever do business with. Not only that, but their stamps are very high-quality, affordable and Christian-themed. It doesn't get any better than that! Go check them out.

I bought the large ship, the buck head, and several sentiments. I'll share the cards I made:



Doesn't this make a perfect sympathy card? The ship and sentiment are both from Blue Ridge Impressions.



And here's a great masculine birthday card! The ship is from Blue Ridge Impressions; the compass and background stamp are from Hampton Arts. A huge bonus: the ship requires almost no coloring to look great.



And here is the buck stamp, the best purchase I've made in a LONG time! Both sides of our family have avid buck hunters, and I now have the perfect card for all those guys that were so hard to make cards for. :) And in case you're wondering, I colored the buck with BIC Mark-Its and used a white watercolor pencil on his rack.

Do you want to know how reasonably-priced these stamps are? The large unmounted stamps average $6 - 6.50. These are the "K" size stamps you'd pay $15+ for mounted. Not only that, but there are coupons in their catalog. I used a BOGO stamp and got both the buck and the ship stamps for $6.50 total.

Enjoy!

Book spotlight: Professionalizing Motherhood

While we were at Massanutten Resort, we hit the local thrift shops and found them to be quite good. I was especially pleased to find the book Professionalizing Motherhood by Jill Savage (about stay-at-home moms) at the Salvation Army - for $0.50! I've been wanting to read this book for awhile. Now that I've read it, I assure you it has earned its place on my "keeper" shelf!

There are so many good things in it that I hardly know where to begin, so I guess I'll spotlight the biggest thing that struck me when I read it: shame-based parenting vs. grace-based parenting.

I'll be honest - I saw myself here, and I didn't like what I saw. After reading that chapter, I took a hard look at how I treat my children and how they react to me. I've been guilty of wanting my children to be perfect, to respond like mini adults, simply because our family is in the spotlight and I don't want them to embarrass me. That's not fair to them.

My kids need permission to make mistakes without me telling them that they do this "all the time." They need me to respond to spills as the mole hill accidents they are, not the Mount Everest transgressions I make them out to be.

I've been mulling this over in my mind for a few days, and I've on purpose paid attention to how my kids react when they've made some childish mistake. It bothered me to notice that my daughter seemed afraid to tell me that she spilled the water she had been using with her watercolor paints. I checked myself before I responded with my habitual comment about her clumsiness and all the work it makes for me. (She does seem to have two left feet ...) Instead, I hugged her, kissed her, and went to clean it up. She seemed surprised, but relieved, too. [Note to self: Get out those no-spill paint cups in my homeschool supplies!]

I need to work on this and think before I speak. I don't want my kids to think of me as a tyrant. Sure, there's a place for correction. But I need to remember that my kids are only three and five - not sixteen, or even ten. They will make childish mistakes that are not life-threatening or harmful in any lasting way. They need me to respond with grace ... exactly the way I want God to respond to me.

Would I want God to respond to me the same way I respond to my children? That's a mother's equivalent of the time-honored question, "What would Jesus do?" It's what I'm focusing on for awhile.

Back from vacation - photos!

We got back yesterday around 4:00 in the afternoon, thanks to Memorial Day beach traffic. (It would have been much sooner otherwise.) I had to unpack and then bake cookies for a bake sale, so I'm just now getting a few minutes to share some pictures with you.

We had a great time and enjoyed ourselves immensely. There were several days that we just sat around in our pajamas all day (something we never do!) reading or listening to Focus on the Family Radio Theatre CDs. That's my idea of vacation!! :)

As you can see by the pictures, our accomodations were top-notch. If you're looking into buying a timeshare, we're extremely pleased with Massanutten Resort. We didn't do many of the activities, but the place is loaded with them. We enjoyed the chair lift rides to the top of the mountain (breath-taking views that I'll share in another post), mini golf, and playing basketball and ping pong at the recreation center. But let me show you our accomodations! (Please disregard the fact that they're in no particular order. The main entrance was by the kitchen/dining/living area.)



The master bedroom - these will soon be upgraded to king-sized beds with pillow-top mattresses.



The other end of the master bedroom that leads into the attached full bath.



I liked the little desk, although I didn't sit at it to write. I preferred the table over by the window because of the view.



This is the kitchen/dining area. There is a buffet server in the corner (you can't see it in the picture), and I was able to unpack all my craft supplies into a drawer so I could craft until dinner, put my supplies away, and then get it all back out afterward if I wanted.



Here's the living room with the gas fireplace. I think they're planning to make these electric fireplaces in the upgrade, too. The balcony beyond the French doors was screened-in, which was perfect for me (the bug hater).



This is the room the kids slept in. I was surprised that they actually slept in these beds most of the night every night, so my husband and I were able to have our entire queen-sized bed to ourselves. It feels a lot bigger without two little kids in bed with us! :)



This is the other side of the kids' room.



And here is the jacuzzi that we thoroughly enjoyed. It turned out to be in its own separate bathroom instead of inside the master bedroom like I was originally thinking. That's okay, though, because it was absolutely perfect! (Disregard my reflection in the mirror.)

I'll post more next week, but I thought I'd let you know we're back!

A somewhat-failed experiment

This was a great concept, but unfortunately it didn't work as well as I had hoped. The original idea was to stamp using StazOn ink on a transparency and then insert it into a bottle of transparent liquid hand soap. I got to thinking, if StazOn is alcohol-based, wouldn't my alcohol-based markers work, too? So I tried it. You can see my creations below:



This first one used a stamp and StazOn ink, then I colored it with BIC Mark-Its.



This second one was designed on my computer (with clip art) and then copied to the transparency entirely with BIC Mark-Its.

They looked great ... until a few hours after I inserted them into the hand soap. As you might be expecting by now, the color ran after a few hours of sitting in the soap.

In the original image, the stamped image remained, so that part was not a failed experiment. Since I used transparent blue soap, I was still able to salvage the project and make it look half-decent.

After mulling this over for a few days, I think I might try a different approach to get the same effect. I'm thinking of creating a colored design on a transparency (again), but this time running it through my Xyron to put the design down on the sticky side. That would put my design against the dispenser, hopefully protecting it from being erased. It's the same idea as the preprinted labels companies put on them.

I probably won't get to that project for a week or so, but I'll let you know how it turns out when I do it!

Using my stash: recycled glass bottles

If you've never seen my craft room after I've worked in it for awhile, let me tell you why: I will never post a picture of my messy craft room for the entire world to see. :)

I love organization. I read (and collect) books about organization. I even organize for other people. But do you think I can keep my craft room under control? No way!

Part of my problem is that I hoard things. I have an excuse: it's in my genes. My great-grandmother did it, my grandmother does it ... Well, I better stop there since my relatives read my blog, too! :) Let's just say that I have a direct line to those genes!!

At least my older relatives have an excuse: they lived through the Great Depression when it was foolish to throw almost anything away. Me? Well, I just think I'm too cheap, er, frugal to throw away perfectly good items.

And what does this have to do with my craft room and this post (and these pictures)? Well, I have a stash of things I've been collecting because they have great potential as gift containers and what-not. But I haven't used any of them in over two years. So I decided that I need to start making things with them, and if I can't find a good use for them, they have to go in the trash can.

I started with the glass bottles leftover from my good deals on Fuze and Gold Peak tea. I have at least a dozen of them sitting on a shelf taking up space. I saved them because I thought I could fill them with candy or something as a small gift when we had an overnight guest. The only problem is that it takes a lot of M&Ms or Skittles or pretty much any candy to fill one of these things. Do I need to reiterate the fact that I'm cheap? The whole idea was to create an inexpensive gift, so I knew I would never get around to filling them with small candies.

Then I had a brainstorm. We live near the ocean, and I like to capitalize on that when I give gifts to overnight guests. I happened to remember those $1/box Stauffer's whale crackers that my kids love, and I knew it would be the perfect little (inexpensive) gift in one of these bottles. So here you have my first recycled glass bottle gift ... I used a Studio G kids' stamp from Michaels for the large fish. They originally came on plastic knob-type handles, but I unmounted them and just use them on my acrylic block. The blue paper is from Creative Memories. I have several sheets of it since I never could find a good use for it in my scrapbooks.

See the lid? I needed to cover up the Gold Peak Tea logo, so I freehanded my own mini fish "cracker". I thought he was pretty cute. Then I added a tag around the neck that says, "Relax," which is what I hope each of my guests does when they visit. I tied it with some green and blue swirly fiber.

I was pretty pleased with it!

A happy Mother's Day!

We had a busy weekend with a church work day on Saturday and then all the extra responsibilities for making Mother's Day special at our own home as well as church. We survived and actually had a good day!

Check out my little darlings and how big they're getting (I'm kneeling, in case you're wondering): I wish now I had taken a better picture of my dress. It was fabulous! And I certainly couldn't complain about the price tag: $4 at a local thrift shop. My daughter's dress is the $1.25 dress from our thrift store foray into Virginia Beach. My son wore clothes he's worn before, simply because he has lots of dress clothes and who really notices what the boys wear? ;) Seriously, if he had asked for something new, I would have gotten it. But he was fine with this, and it was lots easier.

My husband took the pictures for me. I thought he did a pretty good job. I only get pictures of me with my kids once a year (on Mother's Day), so I like to make a point to get them taken!

I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day with lots of pampering like I did!