"Come to the Well" Gift Set for my Sis

Do you ever feel like your "bucket" is depleting? You give and give of yourself to others but all the while not making sure you replenish YOU? Many of us women are guilty of not taking time for ourselves to fill up spiritually, mentally and physically. My dear sister is one of them, and she celebrates a big milestone birthday today. In honor of this day of celebrating her, I compiled a gift to "fill her bucket." And I literally filled a bucket!

My sister and I attended a Christian concert with a couple of friends last month where Casting Crowns was the headliner band. It was amazing!

Casting Crowns' lead singer, Mark Hall, wrote a book called The Well, and also Casting Crowns' latest CD is called Come to the Well. It seemed fitting for me to assemble a birthday gift for my sister with these great bucket fillers! Jesus definitely invites us to come to the well and replenish.

And for the first time ever, I used a card sketch to design my card. I knew I wanted to use the bucket from the Country Life Cricut cartridge, but CardPatterns' current sketch challenge # 143 helped me put the card together. I stayed with the colors of the book, the CD, and the Bath & Body Works festive "VanillaTini" products that I also bought my sister. I love when a color scheme emerges out of a gift- it just pulls it all together!

Here is the card:

And . . . The goods!

 Chocolate definitely fills a bucket-

Chocolate Twizzlers and Charleston Chews

are 2 of my sister's faves!

A different angle to see the rest of the bible verse,

"The JOY of the LORD is your strength" Nehemiah 8:10

Now it's all assembled in the bucket . . .

And wrapped up for giving!

Card Supplies:

• Cricut Country Life cartridge for bucket cut from silver cardstock scrap
•  Stampin' Up Sage Shadow (retired) cardstock for card base - cut to fit a business sized envelope
• Stampin' Up Very Vanilla cardstock
• Stampin' Up scallop edge punch
• Hero Arts alphabet set for "Fill up." on front
• Stampin' Up Chocolate Chip ink
• Graphite Light ATT font
• Ribbon from Fall Fun spool found in Target's dollar section last year
• Crystal blue skittles for raindrops

Bucket supplies:

• Cricut Stone Script cartridge for bible verse welded on my Gypsy
• Cricut transfer paper (the letters were pretty little and frail, so this was VERY helpful)
• Brown vinyl purchased from Expressionsvinyl.com  
• Ivory metal bucket/pail from Joann in planter section
• Cellophane basket wrap
• Raffia

This gift was really fun to put together because it combined things I enjoy and wanted to give, it had a theme, the colors all worked together to create a natural feel, I was able to personalize it, and it all was meaningful to my sister. Insert big grin here. :)

Next, I will do a post of Christmas cards past, and then I will post this year's card. Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderfully crafty week!

Caramel Apple Kits for the Teachers - 2011 Edition

Happy Fall Y'all!

I hope you are in an area where you are enjoying warm temperatures and beautiful Fall colors on the trees like I am. I've been loving it and will continue to enjoy it through this long weekend - YES!

I can't believe I'm starting a new year of showing my crafty traditions on my blog! WOW! Time surely does fly. So in keeping tradition in my family, last weekend we went on our annual Fall camping trip to our local state park, only this year we let our girls bring a friend each (Yes, 4 preteen girls-Ugh! They were all good, though :)). There is a very nice apple orchard nearby with tons of activities including a really good corn maze, apple launching, hayrides to the pumpkin patch, a silo of corn kernels for kids to play in, etc. - So fun! After picking the apples and enjoying all of the other activities, we always purchase our apple cider before leaving and then head back to our campsite. Last weekend was cold, too, so HOT apple cider was enjoyed around the campfire last Saturday! Then when we come home from the trip, we assemble caramel apple kits to give the girls' teachers.

HERE you can find the post of the caramel apple kits I did last year, but here are this year's edition for a good dose of teacher brown-nosing early in the school year:

 Bird's Eye View!

 My oldest daughter and her friend made signs

that said they love their teacher- Major kiss-ups LOL!

 This is the outside of the photo card.

I had this premade photo card in my scraps stash.

I believe it was made using an Ellison diecut at

my library's die-cutting event. You bring your

own cardstock and are able to use their dies!



Caramel Apple Kit Supplies:

• 5 apples (preferably freshly picked!)
• 5 wooden popsicle sticks wrapped in a snack-sized clear bag
• Bag of Caramels (recipe right on the bag!)
• Apple basket (mine purchased at Michael's)
• Wire ribbon (for handle and to wrap sticks to caramel bag)
• Cricut Country Life Cartridge (apple and apple tree)
• Cute photos from apple-picking
• Cardstock scraps
• FZ Roman Font for Tag wording

 

Enjoy your weekend my fellow crafters! I hope to enjoy some crafting during mine!

Kick Up Your Heels!!

Hello,  my crafty friends!

Now that my kids' school year and volleyball season have kicked into high gear, my crafty time has been SOOO limited. And of course there are all of these great challenges going on that I've had to read about but pass on (sniff, sniff), which is just not fun! So this week, even though it's been extremely busy, I made a point to take time for myself and make a card so I can participate in 2 of my favorite challenges . . . JUST FOR FUN!!!

Here's my card:

Supplies:

• Cricut Country Life cartridge for guitar-strumming cowgirl
• Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge for background shape (can't wait to dive more into this fantastic cartridge!!)
• Red, tan, brown, dark brown, black, kraft, flesh & confetti cardstock scraps from my stash
• Bandanna and denim patterned paper found on internet and printed on my home printer
• "Kick up your Heels!" sentiment from Scrappy Moms' Designer's Choice stamp set
• Black Versa Ink, Ranger clear embossing powder & heat gun for sentiment 
• Jute cord plus Terrifically Tacky tape to hold the cord in place around the frame
• Stampin' Up Crystal Effects for guitar and boots
• Red Stickles for lips
• Stampin' Up' black marker for eyes
• Stampin' Up Chocolate Chip ink pad with sponge for card edge

I am entering this in Scrappy Moms' Terrific Tuesday Challenge to use the Country Life Cricut cartridge AND Fantabulous Cricut Challenge # 77's Make Some Music - YES!!

 

This was very therapeutic, I must say, even though I stayed up late to make it last night. It was worth being a zombie at work today-LOL! Well, thanks for being a part of my therapy this week by taking a peek at my card! I appreciate you all!

 

Have a great remainder of your week!

Wrappin' Up the School Year!

My kids FINALLY finish school this week!! I don't remember school ever going this far into June, but I guess we have to account for those blizzard days we had back in February. It is so hard to still be doing homework, though, when we have these nice summer nights going on!

Here are my remaining teacher candle gifts all finished and ready to be given with gift cards in a couple of days:

All were done similarly to my red candle gift using the Cricut Country Life cartridge for the cherries (see original post HERE) except for the pink flower one. The pink flower was from the Cricut Forever Young cartridge.

One of the teachers borrowed my Cricut Mickey & Friends cartridge in the beginning of this school year, but she's been so busy that she hasn't been able to finish her Disney trip scrapbook from last summer. I figured that the cartridge would be a nice end-of-year gift for her instead of a gift card, so she is getting the blue candle with the photo of the cartridge on the gift tag. And lucky for me, I was able to take advantage of Memory Miser's recent garage sale and scored the Mickey cartridge again for myself at $25 with shipping - YES! It was a win-win, I must say.

Also, you might have seen in past posts that we do little gifts for my girls' chapel buddies in school. Here are the end-of-year gifts to them:

We bought everything from Michael's at $1 each: the pail with shovel, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, and a package of 15 glow bracelets. Such a cute gift for only $4 each, right?

I have to credit Scrappy Mel for this idea. She assembled sand pail gifts for her kids to celebrate the start of Summer break for them- how fun!! Now if I had that Sun Kissed stamp set from Scrappy Moms I could have made a cute tag like she did, but I had to settle on snatching a sun graphic from the internet and adding it to tags. My daughters also made pinwheels for a nice finishing touch on the pails.

Well, now I need to move onto graduations. I have 2 parties coming up next weekend - ugh! I really need to get busy!

Have a fabulous week, my fellow crafters!!

Cherry Candle for Teacher!

WOW! Two posts from me in one day! Guess that's what happens when I get a free day during a weekend! And let me tell you, I am LOVIN' it!!!!

Well, I was busy doing some copying of designs again. This time I copied myself - LOL! Bath & Body Works had their 4 oz candles on sale again, 2 for $10.00, so I purchased a few as teacher gifts. Then I packaged them up like I did for my friend's gift back in November (see post here):

 This is what the candle looked like before I wrapped it . . .

Of course I had to bling up those cute cherries with Stickles!

Voila! A gift ready to give to a special teacher!

Supplies:

• Cupcake holder cut from Real Red Stampin' Up cardstock using Cricut Sweet Treats cartridge at 7 1/2 inches
• Cherry patterned paper from Stampin' Up Summer Picnic Designers Series paper
• Cherries cut from Cricut Country Life cartridge and blinged with Stickles
• Darice red gingham ribbon
• Scrappy Mom's new Honeydew Baker's Twine
• Tag printed from PC using Scrap Baby font and cut with Fiskars Scallop Paper Edgers

I am entering this teacher gift in Fantabulous Cricut's Challenge Me Monday # 59 "Teacher Feature" Challenge. It says "Make a card or project for that special teacher with the color red on it." Woohoo! I'm cruisin' now with these challenges! :)

Also, I wanted to share what I received from my older daughter/crafting buddy for Mother's Day last weekend:

I got one of those yummy smelling Slatkin & Co. Summer Berries candles from Bath & Body Works (which she knew I liked) with a homemade tag, a hand-drawn horse in a frame, AND a homemade horse card using the Cricut and Gypsy!! She made it while I wasn't home, so I was so impressed that she made it and put all of my supplies neatly away without me even suspecting! Pretty awesome, huh?

My younger daughter gave me a sweet handmade card, some Bath & Body Works lip gloss and travel-sized shower gel that I wanted, and a very thoughtful handmade mini-poster of things about me from her perspective. I wanted to keep those equally special gifts a little more private, though. I sure was spoiled this Mother's Day, wasn't I?

I hope to keep my crafting momentum going and make some more things this week. Go, Jen, go!