A Gift for Maria

Which is tucked into this super cute package.  Because guess who forgot to take a photo of it.... umm, me.  Oh yeah, I did. I forgot.  And trust me it was a super cute made from scratch journal/scrapbook.  I decked out the cover with a banner, and her name in Thickers,  filled it with 20 pages of cardstock, stamped a lady bug on each corner of every page and bound it with my Cinch.  It was fabulous. And you are just going to have to take my word for it.  I mean, just look at that super cute tag I made to go with the journal.  

Oh, well. 

Snowflakes on Pillows

Here is a super easy and super fun way to add a little holiday cheer to your holiday decor.

I went to Ikea, which we happen to have here on the island, can I get a Woot! Woot!. 

Anyway I went to Ikea and picked up some pillow covers.

Using a line drawing printed from the internet I traced the snowflake onto some freezer paper.  I just taped the drawing up to the sliding glass door and traced the shape.  Then using a craft blade and cutting mat I cut the image out.  Use a hot iron to attach the freezer paper to your fabric.  

And with fabric paint and a stencil brush you just dab away. Let dry for bit then just peel the freezer

paper off of the pillow cover... be gentle to make sure you don't peel any of the paint. 

Two coats of the paint left me with this lovely snowflake.  And I liked it so much I decided to make more.

So I pulled out my silhouette Cameo and bought a couple of snowflakes on sale at the Silhouette store.  I put my freezer paper onto my cutting mat and cut out several more snowflakes.  

Which I think turned out to be pretty darn cute. 

I love my snow-flaked pillows. 

Ho! Ho! Ho! 

Halloween LO's

My oldest.  He chooses his costumes very carefully.  This year for school he went as a modern version of the Red Death, an Edgar Allan Poe character.  My boy, he wants to be a writer.  He would love to be an author.  We shall see. 

For the Embassy party he didn't want to scare the little ones, as he was running the games, so he went as a character from Inkheart.  He was one of the poorly read minions to the baddy.  Since he was poorly read out of the story he still has writing on him. Clever. 

My second son is not so interested in dressing for Halloween.  For school he wore his mask that he had made for a school play last year.  I know, he doesn't like to dress for Halloween, but he loves Drama and working in the school plays. Go figure.  Anyway, for the school play last year he played the Worm from Jane and the Giant Peach, an adaptation from James and the Giant Peach.  Clever. 

My darling daughter worked for weeks on her costume.  She not only made her costume, but she made 2 additional costumes for her friends.  They wend to the Middle School Halloween Dance together as "Birds of a Feather."  Clever. 

My youngest son knew exactly how his costume should look.  He drew out his funny clown pants.  I just had sew them up.  His original plan was to tuck his pant legs into his socks and collect his candy in his trousers.  I talked him out of that one.  Clever. 

Since Cyprus does not celebrate Halloween it is not a very big deal here.  Actually  is doesn't exist here in any form or fashion.  But since we attend an American International School, of which Americans are less than 2% of the school population, they have used the theme of Halloween as a great fund raising event.  The kiddos get to go to school in their costumes for a small donation of 2 Euros.  The money raised goes to charity.  Everyone is happy.  Clever. 

The other event that we get to dress up for is our Embassy Halloween Party.  The kiddos get to go trick-or-treating from office to office.  After they finish trick-or-treating we throw a little Halloween bash and let the kiddos play games, do crafts and participate in a costume contest.  My little guy won his age groups contest.  After the Embassy party we head over to Bennigan's for a little American style dinner and to freak out all the locals when we go in dressed in costumes.  The manager asked to take a picture of the kiddos in costume to put on their wall.  Clever. 

Have a good one, 

T. 

My New Toy

Sleek.  Beautiful.  Mine!  

I have been wanting one of these little beauties for some time now.  And I finally scrapped together enough spare change to get it.  It was kind of a Happy Anniversary present to me (a month later than my anniversary, cause I was still hmmming and hawwwing about the cost).  But I am happy to say that it worth EVERY bit of my spare change.  I LOVE it. 

My very first project.  Just for fun and just to see if I could make it all work.  But I think it is pretty dang-on cute. 

My second project..... sorry for the blown out picture.  My camera was having issues.  Anyway, I wanted to see how hard a 3-D item would be to put together.  The answer is NOT HARD at all.  Super-duper easy.  The hardest part is not glueing your fingers together. 

I still haven't mastered the Cameo - yet.  Mainly because I really haven't had a chance to really play with it.  This always seems to be a super busy time of year for me.  Helping out at the school and making costumes for the kiddos.  Baking for the bake sales and attending the various functions that come up at this time of year.... takes away from my play time.  But, next week, after Halloween, I am gonna have a jammie day in my scrap room.  Just me and my Cameo.  LOL!!!

Have a good one, 

T. 

Baby Book

Remember the baby shower I threw a few weeks ago.... well, baby Harlee arrived last week.  She is adorable!  It is so much fun to go over and have a cuddle with a new born.  To be reminded of how small and precious my children once were is such a gift.   

So I wanted to give my friend a precious gift to house her memories of this precious time.  Time that will go by all to quickly. 

And this is what I made her.  She is not a scrapbooker.  The concept of gathering our thoughts and pictures together and marrying them on a page has not been something she has been interested in doing.  But, after I gave her this little book, she may become a convert.  Seriously though, I truly believe that moments need to be captured and savored and saved for those times when you want to be reminded or revisit how you felt at a specific time.  And there is no better way to do that than scrapbooking.  

I did a little stash diving and found this notebook that came in a class kit from Great American Scrapbooking convention almost 3 years ago.  It was the perfect book to alter to make a baby book.  I then sorted through my papers and embellies and came up with a color scheme that would work.  It helped that I had a 6x6 paper pad that I used as my foundation for theme and color.  

(sorry about all the sideways pictures.... the angle I shot the pictures did not look good when I turned the photo.....didn't think of that at the time.)

Inside the front cover I adhered a vellum envelope with a few small plastic baggies stashed inside.  My thought is that she could put baby's first hair cut in there along with any other keepsakes that she may want to hold onto. 

The title page of the album.... the "Adore" is just there to hide her face, not sure momma would want her in my blog.... 

The notebook I used was from a Tattered Angels class on technique, so it came with the dividers and the paper inside.  I used my die cutter to make new tabs and a stamp set from Close To My Heart, Notice the Details, to embellish the tabs. 

(sideways pictures starting now - oops!)

On the pages themselves I kept it really simple with 2 pattern  papers, a photo spot and a few embellishments. 

I repeated patterns throughout the book 

keeping the color scheme fairly tight

but hopefully not boring.

On the back of each page I drew in some lines in hopes that my friend will write down the things that are most important at the time.....like the date of Harlee's first smile, her first giggle, her first steps....  because as a mom to 4, I know that you forget.  At the time it seems unforgettable, but life is filled with these unforgettable little moments and as hard as you try, you will not remember the details.  You will remember the big picture, but the details, they get lost.  Write it down!   Okay, enough soap box talk... moving on....

The completed book turned out really well.  I was fairly proud to present it to her.  To share with her something I believe in with all my heart..... keeping my family treasures in scrapbooks, so I can share them with my family and friends years from now.  For her part, she was so thankful, grateful.  She kept repeating "It's so beautiful!" over and over again.... I told her that what will really make it beautiful will be when it is filled with her pictures and her stories.  That's where the beauty is. 

Hope all are well. 

Wishing you a beauty filled day. 

T. 

Journal

My oldest son is working on a project for English class.  They have just finished reading and discussing The Great Gatsby.  For his project he has come up with the idea of creating a personal journal of one of the characters from the book which was kept during WWI.  My son is a creative thinker.  He is also a history buff.  When he came to me with this awesome idea I thought it was fabulous.  Then he asked if I could create the journal for him to write in using the voice of the character from the book.  He really wanted authenticity.    

He desired a leather cover.  Hand bound pages. This journal was a gift to his character from his mother before he left for the war.  

Hmmmm,  suuure?.?  Well, this is the best I could come up with.  And really I am pretty chuffed with it.  I started with plain old chipboard. The think kind that comes in paper packs.  

I embossed it.  I inked it.  I distressed it.  I did everything in my power to give it an aged, leather look.  

I even hand stitched the pages together.  Devotion. 

And wrote in my practiced script a dedication from a fake mother to her fake son.  

My boy is adding entries into this diary using information he has gathered from the time period and using the voice of the character from the book.  He will doing an oral presentation of the journal tomorrow.  I have my fingers crossed for an A (for the authenticity of the journal, of course.)

Have a good one, 

T. 

1st Day of School

Back to school.  The summer was just so short.  I guess it helps when you are traveling for a month and a half.  Huh?  

Have you met the McKids?  These are my sweet babies.  They are a lot of fun to hang out with. 

They can be goofy, serious, sweet and silly. All my favorite things.  

This school year is going to go by so quickly.  We already are holding on for dear life.  This will be there last year at the the little private school they are attending.  We know we are in rotation to move next summer.  So, the plan is to make the most of this school year.  

Love the little wooden cutouts.  Boy, boy, girl, boy.  Makes me smile. 

The date..... cause I'll forget.  I forget everything these days. 

Wishing you all a super fantastic day! 

T. 

Fashion Accessory

This is my baby girl. My Princess. My one and only daughter.  She is wonderful.  

This picture was taken at 7:00a.m. on the very first day of school.  

This is a picture of my daughter at 1:00p.m. on the very first day of school.  What I love about my girl is that she is adaptable.  She is an individual that cares greatly for others, but doesn't care what other's think of her.  She is kind.  She is thoughtful. She is a very serious student.  She is self motivated.  All of these things are amazing qualities.  She is also 12.  Hair and fashion and her nails are all important to her now.  And my girl decided that getting braces on was going to be the best fashion accessory of all.  So on her very first day of being a brace face, she chose to have turquoise bands put on her braces.  When she smiled they lit up her face.  How does she do that.... it's all in a positive carefree attitude.  She owns those braces.  And I couldn't be a prouder momma. 

To my darling baby girl - I love you. 

Baby Shower

Living overseas you often become like family to one another.  You must rely on each other because you have no family or life long friends to share the good, bad and ugly with.  We come in as strangers and leave as friends.  Every rotation you start again.  

For the most part, we handle the transitions well.  It is a part of the life we lead.  But sometimes you just need for people to do a little more for you.  And, we as a community, know when we should step in to do a little extra.  

My friend is having her second baby.  She never had a shower for her first baby, so we took it upon ourselves to shower her with well wishes, good food, and gifts galore. We wanted to do our part to make her know that she is special to us.   

I was the party decorator and caterer.  Lucky for me I had a bunch of stuff in my stash that I could pull and use to make our little last minute offering look a little festive.  

The diaper cake.  She was thrilled about receiving a diaper cake!  She had seen pictures of her friends back home having baby showers and all had a diaper cakes. Who knew that something so simple could be such a gift.  

The kiddos helped make tissue paper pompoms.  We had just bought tissue paper at the Dollar Tree this summer when we were home for our homeleave.  I mean a dollar.  Here this stuff is like liquid gold, I am talking nearly 4 Euros for a pack of 10 sheets of tissue paper, and that's if you can find it. 

I had purchased a couple of packs of the plain white tissue at the Dollar Tree and with a little spray mist we were able to make pink pompoms to go with the white.  

The table cloth was a 3 meters of fabric I bought downtown for 12 Euros, or about 15 dollars.  I hemmed the ends and viola, a table cloth in raspberry pink.  

For the food, I went to Pinterest and checked out my Yummies board.  I made lemon baked doughnuts, Snickerdoodle cake, baked oatmeal, fruit salad, ham and biscuits, and a cheese tray.  On offer for drinks was coffee, pomegranate raspberry lemonade with sparkling water, and sweet tea.  Did I get one picture of the spread of food, uh, no.  But it was good.  

The guest list, was straight from our community and mostly all were new comers.  New comers who came to a baby shower for a woman they met just a few times.  New comers and a few of us old timers, gathered to honor our friend.  To let her know she is not alone. That we are here to help and support her.  We will step in as family.  We will be helping hands until she moves on to her next post.  For some the friendship will last a lifetime. For others it will be a season.  But for all it is a comfort, because we know that it will be reciprocated, if not here at our next post and as the need arises. 

Have a good one, 

T.