WHOA....

Okay, seriously, HOW is it already March!?!?!

I really don't know where two weeks has gone, other than last week Peanut, Muffin, and Hubby were all sick with a BRUTAL flu. I haven't seen that much snot in a long time, lol. Baby and I managed to not get sick, but looking after sick kids who are up coughing all night and then breastfeeding too sure is EXHAUSTING. Hence I got almost no time in my craft studio last week. :( I did get some projects done that I will show you here, but my goals to finish my March Break Kid's Class and my FREE Easter Class have not reached fruition yet. They'll be done and posted this week, I promise!

Anyway, onto what I have to show you today... two cards and two non-stamping projects! The end of February saw the start of Technique Club with a new group of SUPER excited girls! Our first night saw lessons in paper piecing and faux tearing - so fun!

The faux tearing card uses the Very Vintage jumbo wheel and the Beautiful Wings butterfly Embosslit for the Big Shot. The colours are Pool Party and Soft Suede - so easy and fast, and so elegant looking! Yippee!!

The paper piecing card uses the First Edition DSP and the stamp set Turtle and Co. And did you know that this is the fundraising set for SU's charity of choice, The Ronald McDonald House? Every Turtle and Co. stamp set that is sold raises $3 for RMH. Yay! A cute stamp set and a chance to help families and kids.


As for other projects, I spent a lot of time on Pinterest last week as I was stuck close to kids sleeping on the couch, so I found some things to keep me occupied, like re-doing my bathroom mirror with slate tiles!

LOL I know it's totally random, but yesterday the kids were finally on the mend and hubby was hanging with them, so I went to Lowe's and got slate tiles (on clearance too!) and some clear silicone caulking. All you do is silicone the tiles to the mirror!

The tricky part to figure out was securing the upper parts of the frame until they cured - enter painter's tape! Yippee! I'm super excited about the results. :)

Another project I've been working on from Pinterest is an Emergency Preparedness Binder.
I bought the PDF template here
and thought it was a good idea. I'm sure it doesn't help that I watched 'Brian Metzler's Decoded' on History Channel as I was cuddling a sick kid one afternoon last week and they were talking all about the 2012 apocalypse possibilities, lol. I don't really buy into that whole Mayan calender thing per se, but some of the scientific data on solar flares that are expected soon was a little disturbing, so I figure the binder is one of those "One day, I'm gonna..." projects, and I might as well do it now. :) My binder is nearly done, and OF COURSE I had to make it pretty, so I'll have pics soon. :)

Anyway, hope you had a great Leap Day last week and I'll be back later this week with upcoming class details!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Heart Day!

Hello there!

Hope you are having a good Valentine's Day and getting lots of love! :)

I wanted to do a quick post today to show you the cards I made for hubby and a little home decor too.

I saw a CUTE card to make from the kids on Pinterest where you trace their hands and make a 'hug' out of paper. I changed the design a little bit by tracing the boys' hands on DSP (Retired Sweet Pea - my fave of all time!!)and layering all the boys' hands together. I changed the saying to something that we say to the boys all the time too. The great thing is it records the size of their hands right now - fun!

We always ask the boys, "How much does Mommy/Daddy love you?" and then the boys throw their arms wide and say, "THIS MUCH!!" It worked perfectly with this card and my husband was SUPER thrilled. Probably the most excited about any of my cards, lol.

My card for hubby was meant to be a little inside joke because we've definitely upped our coffee consumption since having three kids under 5 yrs. old, lol. I printed the card from My Digital Studio using my own computer (how cool is that!?) onto Crumb Cake CS and then paper-pieced the stamped mug. Super easy and so fitting for us. :)








Finally, I again saw this on Pinterest and tweeked the idea a bit... I printed the "I <3 you because..." using My Digital Studio again at home and then added a glimmer paper heart. The frame is from the Dollar Store and then I just embellished it with DSP hearts and buttons. You can use a dry-erase marker to write different messages on the glass everyday - how fun is that!? My husband likes it so much that he says we should leave it out all the time - not just for Valentine's Day! You know you've found a good idea when your husband approves of something crafty! LOL

And hey, did you know you can download a copy of My Digital Studio Express FOR FREE this month to try!? CLICK HERE to get your copy to give it a shot! You might surprise yourself with how versatile it is to make cute crafts like my card and sign from above! Not to mention all the scrapbooking and cute photo books you can make too! :)

Anyways, time to go make dinner and hang out with the boys. Have a 'lovely' night!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy B-day, V-day and Some Rainbow Rice Too!

Hello and Happy Monday the 13th! :)

It's been another whirlwind week and I have lots to show you!

A friend turned 35 on the weekend, so I decided to make her a cute card using some new and old SU product (some of my favourites!) and also a bag of CAKE BATTER FUDGE.

I know, WHAT?! I found the recipe HERE
, via Pinterest and it is sooo ridiculously good. Like 'eat the whole pan and quickly develop type two diabetes' good. Don't say I didn't warn you. ;)


Secondly, Valentine's Day is tomorrow and my fabulous upline, Heather Summers, challenged all of her team to create a card for one of our fellow tteam members. I was lucky enough to get Heather's lovely mom, BJ, and I wanted to make her a fantastic Valentine's Day card. :)

I used my ALL TIME favourite Valentine's paper (it was on the Clearance Rack, but is all sold out now! Booo!!) and some of the new Glimmer paper and Cherry Cobbler Baker's Twine.

While I was scoping out ideas (on Pinterest again. I know...)I saw something and wondered if I could dye the mini clothespins with reinker to match my card...turns out YOU CAN!!

Just a couple drops of reinker with some water in a container and leave for a few hours and voila! Colour-coordinated clothespins!!!! These ones I even stepped up some more by putting a rub-on onto the length - cute, huh?


And speaking of dyeing stuff with reinkers and Pinterest, I saw an activity on there for my boys - dyeing plain rice to become 'rainbow play rice'. All you need is rice, ziplock baggies, reinker/food dye and rubbing alcohol! Place about 4-6 cups of rice in a ziplock, add reinker (10 - 20 drops, depending on how intense you want the colour) and about 1/4-1/2 cup of rubbing alcohol to the bag. Seal it up and 'mush' it to cover all the rice with colour. Open the bag and spread the rice out on paper towel to dry and you're ready to play!

Our rice is Purely Pomegranate, Summer Sun, Wisteria Wonder, Bermuda Bay and Lucky Limeade. So cool to use some old (and new) favourite colours, AND find another use for reinkers!!

A GREAT indoor 'sandbox' activity, and quite the hit in my kitchen as we speak! (This is why I have 20 minutes to do my blog! LOL)Each kid gets a bin and some 'diggers' (containers and utensils from the kitchen) to play. All I do is sweep up afterwards,and at least I can see where this goes, as opposed to sand which gets EVERYWHERE!!!

You can buy reinkers by clicking HERE.


Thanks for stopping by! And Happy Valentine's Day!

Craft Sale Cards!

Hello there!

It's been a busy week as I get ready for my craft sale this weekend! I wanted to post today to show you the other stuff that I'll be selling this weekend, including some Valentine's Day cards!

Now I can't take credit for the designs - I've been scoping out Pinterest for lots of cute card designs. If you are the owner of one of the designs, email me and I'll post your blog link! The designs are lovely and I'm grateful to CASE them! :)

My last treat is courtesy of Heather Summers, my fabulous upline. She made these cute treats at our last meeting and I had to rush right home to make my own! :) Each owl has a peppermint patty inside - fun, huh!?

If you're in the London area and want to come see me this weekend at An Artist's Affair, here's the link to the website for more details!
www.anartistsaffair.com

Hope to see you this weekend!

Yippee!! A Craft Sale is Coming!!!!

Hello there!

I told you in my last post that I have been feverishly crafting in preparation for my upcoming craft sale... and here's some pics of what I've been making!

I've been working around Valentine's Day for my theme, so here's my latest creations...all based on things I've seen on Pinterest! :)

"I dig you' bags - Valentine's candy with a toy shovel! :D

Valentine's treats in skinny sleeves!

Handmade rainbow crayons with Valentine's tags!

I love these!



My craft sale is going to be on Saturday, Feb. 4th at the Convergence Centre at UWO in London. Here's a link to the craft sale's website with more details: http://www.anartistsaffair.com/
There will be more than 25 other local artists there and admission is free! Donations to Heart and Stroke will be accepted, since it is Valentine's Day, after all!

Hope to see you there!

I'll have more craft show goodies to show you in the next few days. Check back soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History...

Ugh, I'm having one of those days...

It's a PD day here, and usually I'm on the other end of a PD day - working on report cards, in meetings, planning for my class, etc. Today, I got to see it from the other side, ie: a parent who suddenly has her kid(s) home all day. At first glance, we thought this would be a great day to get things done - eye appointment for Peanut, family photos for all three boys, general errands and occasional merriment for the kids interspersed throughout the day. Some of that has happened, lol, with some minor detours along the way.

Pictures went well, and not so well. Kids were great and we got some good shots, but baby Blake barfed all over himself and his photo outfit, as well as my sweater. Re-route #1. Plans for groceries railroaded by kids who had NO INTENTION of wandering the grocery store with Daddy while Momma frantically throws groceries in the cart. Re-route #2. 45 minute window between groceries and eye appointment now, so hey, let's take the kids for lunch at McDonald's Playplace. Re-route #3.

Umm, WHAT THE H#%% WERE WE THINKING?! It's a PD day. Every kid in the free world is at McDonald's. OMG. Put, by the time we put two and two together and figure this out, we're already in the parking lot and there's no backing out now. Sigh.

12:30 eye appointment. Muffin falls asleep in the truck, so Daddy takes Peanut in to get his eyes checked while I chill in the car with him and Baby Blake. Semi re-route #4. Peanut's eyes are 20/20, so yay! He's super good for his first eye exam, so our treat is to go home and make rainbow snow (more on that later).

We decide to get a mid-afternoon pick me up for Daddy and I at Tim Hortons. While in the drive-thru line, the guy behind us lets his foot slip off the brake and bangs into the back of our truck. No damage done, other than to my nerves. Grrr. Apparently the guy behind us needs to LAY OFF THE CAFFEINE. Seriously. Minor road hazard #1

Kids decide they are going to craft while Momma mixes up rainbow snow bottles. Check out the disaster that was my kitchen table: Re-route #5 to kitchen clean-up.



Kids get their rainbow snow bottles and go and paint the yard. Here is the PD Day merriment I was looking for, interspersed with crying jags because mittens are hard to wear while being a two-year old and operating a spray bottle, yet entirely necessary when you fall in the snow, lol.

Check out the colourful carnage:

Why didn't I think of this idea before? Food colouring + water bottle = rainbow snow fun!

Now we are back in the house and the boys are flipping between playing together and being kitchen astronauts and fighting over monster trucks. I hear this is what it's like to have brothers, lol. But I have a sleeping baby on my lap, so how bad can it really be?


Okay, I'm done venting about my day. Thanks for listening. I'd still rather be doing this than writing report cards, which is what this PD day is for on the education side. :)



Okay, onto today's card!

I've been working on some projects for an upcoming craft show - Feb 4th at the UWO Convergence Centre, if you're in the London area! I'll be showing you what I have for sale over the next little while, along with details about the show. But today I have a card that I'll be selling in sets of 6 for the show!

This card uses one of my favourite quotes as the sentiment (an old SU set, but I can't stop using it! lol) and the new Berries and Blossoms DSP. The cardstock is Calypso Coral - so bright and sunny for spring! Yay!

Stay tuned for more craft show excitement, and don't forget about my 'Learn to Stamp' class on Monday! You can still register and come for a fun night! :)

Have a great weekend!

Technique Club - Back by Popular Demand!

Hello there!

We're having a hibernating day - it is cold and snowy outside, so the boys are camped out om their puffy chairs in the kitchen watching a DVD - a kitchen drive-in, if you will. :) While they do that, I'm getting a chance to use the computer without requests to have a turn to watch Monster Jam on Youtube, lol. Did I mention my boys are monster truck craazy!?

While I have a chance, I figured I would do a post to tell you about Technique Club, version 3, coming in February! My latest version of Tech Club is ending this month, and a few of the newer girls are SO enthused about it that they want to go back and do our first round, since they missed out on it! That way everyone will have all the techniques, no matter when they took Tech Club with me! YAY!

Here's the details:

What's a Technique club, you might ask?

Well, it's a 6 month club where each month, you get to make 2 pages for a resource book that is JAM-PACKED with super-fun ideas that you can use in your cardmaking or scrapbooking! Each month, we'll also make 2 cards using the technique we learned so you get extra practice and a card to give away if you want!

How does the club work?

Each month, you'll come to my house and I'll have your supplies ready to go to create your 2 pages and 2 cards. Each page will include instructions on how to do the technique, plus an example that you've made! When you're done, you'll have a resource binder that you've made, plus all your cards to show how you can use that technique in real life! And there's bonuse too!

What bonuses?

Each month, you'll submit a $40 order for whatever SU supplies you want. One of those orders will include your binder (a $15.95-22.95 value). Each month, one of the girls in our group will be the 'hostess', and receive all the hostess benefits from SU, like FREE stamp sets! (Nothing like hosting a party and not having to clean your house or make party snacks! Heehee!). So over the 6 months, you get 6 nights out, LOTS of stampin' stuff every month, a chance to get free stuff, AND your resource book! Not too shabby for a $40 order! :) You're basically getting the pages and cards for free!


The dates I have scheduled for the classes are :

Monday Feb. 27, Mar. 26, Apr. 30, May 28, June 25, July 30.
(It's always the last Monday of the month).

If you can't make it to one of the nights, we can always reschedule for you, or it can be a take-home kit for you to assemble that month.

Email me at peanutparade@gmail.com or to sign up for the class, but hurry!

I only have room for 4 stampers in the club!

I promise you won't be disappointed!

Hope to hear from you soon!

Baby, Come Learn to Stamp!

Hello and Happy Monday!

Today is the first day back to school after Christmas holidays. I dropped of Peanut at JK and went to the gym for the first time in 6 months...AHH!!! It was great, but I have a feeling I'll pay for this in a few days' time, lol. I couldn't go the gym this time around while I was pregnant because I kept spraining my ankles (6 times in the last 3 months of pregnancy! WTH!?) and I didn't want to risk a faceplant at the gym.

So, with my newfound burst of energy, I'm finally getting to update my blog too! Yippee!

For today's post, I thought I would show you a baby card using new product from the Occasions Mini - the Doily sizzlit for The Big Shot and the new baby stamp set too! My friend Jasmine had a baby girl a week after me (we swapped due dates, apparently!) and this was the card I made for here. This card also uses the new Sale-a-bration paper which I LOOOVE (and it's FREE with a $60 order, starting Jan. 24th! Yippee!!) and Calypso Coral ink, one of the new In-Colours. :)

Well, it's time to craft with the boys for a bit and then it's naptime. :) Maybe I'll get the Christmas tree down this afternoon. I'm pretty done with Christmas, lol.

Oh, before I forget, I have a 'Learn to Stamp' Class scheduled for Monday, January 23rd, from 7:00pm-9:30pm. We'll be making 3 SUPER CUTE birthday cards and a 3-D package that evening. The class fee is $20 and includes all supplies, instructions and even TREATS!!

If you click HERE,you can see the cards we'll be making!

If you're interested in coming to the class, email me at peanutparade@gmail.com to RSVP!

Let me know by Jan. 20th, please as space is limited!

I hope to see you soon! And I'll be back this week with more details about Sale-a-Bration and all the other crafting craziness I am currently up to!

Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas is Coming...

Hello!

How is it possibly 2 DAYS away from Christmas?! When did that happen?!

I've been busy crafting for Christmas - stuff I was selling at an Artisan's market all month, as well as stuff for gifts. I guess that's how the holiday snuck up on me! lol

Anyway, I wanted to share some of my crafts with you. This is some of the stuff I was selling at The Met Artisan's Market:

Magic Reindeer Food (can't wait to do this with the boys this year!)

Hand Sanitizer Gift Boxes, Candy Cane Chocolate Hearts(!) and Stamped Stone Coasters

Scrapbook Page in a Box and Star Scrapbooks

'Thoughtful Husband' Card Kits and Glass Magnets

Hot Chocolate Cones and Scrap Scarves







I can't take credit for all these ideas - I've recently discovered Pinterest and I am addicted to finding new crafting ideas on that site! If you haven't been there, google 'pinterest'. And I'm sorry in advance for finding one more thing to take up your free time, lol.

Speaking of Pinterest, one of the recipes I found on there was for Cinnamon Butter, so I thought I would give it a try, and I am SOOO glad I did!!! It's my new favourite Christmas find this year!

I made the recipe and put it in these cute little jars from the dollar store (seriously, what did we DO before the dollar store!?) and then decorated them with a little bow and medallion embellishment.

I handwrote (is that even a word? LOL) a tag to say what it was. And I'm sure once my neighbours open them, they will DEFINITELY remember what's in the jar - at least for the few days it is still around! :)

I even gave one to my UPS delivery guy when he brought my Stampin' Up order yesterday, and he was thrilled! Maybe he ate it in his truck! LOL

So, now that you've seen my little gifts and your mouth is watering, I bet you want the recipe... well of COURSE I'm going to share it with you!! It's Christmas! :)






Here's what you need:

2 sticks of butter (half a 454g block, if you live in Canada) at room temp.
1 cup icing sugar
1 cup honey
2 teaspoons cinnamon


Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. DO NOT microwave the butter or it will not keep the cinnamon suspended in the mix - it will all settle to the bottom of your jar. And use REAL butter, not margarine - that stuff is not real food anyway! Calories be damned when it comes to something this good! If you are going to put it into pretty jars, I recommend using a icing piping bag to squirt it into jars and then bang it on your hand/counter to knock out the air bubbles. Much easier than spooning it into a little jar, trust me. :)

Well, I hope you have a lovely holiday with your family and friends, and I'll be back after Christmas with details about new classes for January (including a 'Learn to Stamp' class on Jan. 23rd!) and don't forget Sale-a-Bration!!!

Happy holidays to you and yours,