If You Give a Girl a Party....

You might as well throw her TWO parties!

E turned two at the beginning of July. We had a big party for her with family, but wanted to do something for her three BFFs. So we had a Piggy/PJ party. Here are the invites for that little shin-dig!

The pig is cut from Create a Critter - she's so cute!

I haven't forgotten you!!

I've been busy.  A special little lady turns TWO next week and there have been LOTS of preparations!

We're having two parties, one at "home," where my husband and I grew up, and one here for her little friends.   Since the "home" party will be mostly adults, I didn't really do an over-the-top "theme" but more of a color scheme that matches the outfit she will wear :-)

Here's how my DIY invites turned out:

Front

Inside: (I saw a card in a store hinged like that and fell in LOVE with it!)

Back: (Because how could I pass up an opportunity to share this picture?!)

I'm still working on the banner for that party and the invites for the party for her friends. A sneak peek?  Well, no photos, but the theme will be "If you give a Pig a Pancake" :-)

Paper Challenge

I was out of ideas of things to work on the other night. I was paging through my (obscene) amount of paper and found this lovely (not) number.

So I sat down and challenged myself to make it ... palatable. Not pretty (doubt that's possible), not useful necessarily. Just not so offensive to your optical nerves.

I came up with this:

I used a flower cut from Accent Essentials. I started cutting the flower at 3.5" and went down in increments of 1/4". I did this for the "ugly" paper as well as a pool blue color. I then picked the sizes I wanted to use and started layering. Once I figured out how I wanted to piece it together, I used a gold ink to ink the edges of each layer. I pop dotted the final 2-3 layers and added a pearl in the center for "pretty-ness".

All in all, I think I did ok in making a *really* bad piece of paper easier on the eyes!

Trying my hand at watercolors...

I searched high and low for Mother's Day card ideas and nothing came to me.

Until I bought this stamp with flowers. I wasn't sure what to do with it, but I LOVED where it ended up!

Three different cards. Two I used clear embossing powder on, one is simply stamped and colored.

I am SO pleased with how they turned out!

This is my first try with actually SENDING something that's been watercolored!

I adore this stamp! It will be around a LOT in the future I think!

Another "Just Because" card

I loved the bright colors on this one! This is all cut from the Just Because cartridge!

More Coffee!!

I have a ton of friends that are completely ROCKING IT on Weight Watchers! I wanted to show them that WW shouldn't stop them from having treats now and then! I went through the guidebook and picked a few things that are 0-2 pts and included them in the cards I sent this week.

The front of the card was done using the new Cricut "Just Because" cartridge. I am in the habit of making four of the "same" cards, but making them different sizes, shapes and backgrounds. That's what I did with these as well!

Inside the card, I used my coffee stamps and liquid applique pen (whipped cream!) to decorate. I wrote out the names and sizes of the drinks in that pt category with my Signo white pen (best white pen *EVER!*)

A good friend helped me with the awesome sentiment, "You deserve a "latte" more than this for all of your hard work!"

"Sewing"

Ok, so it really wasn't "sewing" except that I sewed on about a dozen snaps (that didn't work, BTW). But my week has been consumed with this new project.

What do you get if you have: 

14" of 1/4" elastic

60 yards of tulle

10 snaps

lots of yellow string? 

A tutu, of course!

What about: 

1 dowel rod

a yard of tulle

4 shades of ribbon

hot glue gun

(and 2nd degree burns)??

A wand!

So where am I going with all of this? 

It was all to get this, the most perfect Mother's Day present I could ask for - that smile!!