Package For Bracelets, DONE!

Hi Everyone,
Just a quick post to show off the way I packaged the bracelets.  I just love how they came out.  All that is left to do is for Rory to add the To - From tags. I decided that a pull up package would be perfect for the bracelets and I think the girly-girls will love it too! The graphic and paper is Stampin' Up and the pull up fold over was easy peasy. Here are the pics:

How Cute are they?? I Just love this awesome SU stamp set!  This fold over was so simple after scoring it I hand colored the stamps and they look awesome. I really think these bracelets will go over big, I have been wearing one for a few weeks now and I have gotten a lot of compliments. I see A.C. Moore and Joann's are now selling completed bracelets for $14.99.  I think Rory and I did a great job and brought them in for less.  I bought the charms at retail, mostly from Oriental Trading and Joann's and when I did the math the charms worked out to be just under $1.00 a charm. If you add the in the retail value of the bracelet, which is about $3.50 and the fact that there are 9 charms, the cost is $12.50. So in my book we made an awesome gift from the heart that was affordable and nicer looking than the $14.99 bracelet (because of the amount of charms) that was being sold at the craft store.  Our theme was snow and the theme carried through from the bracelet to the package.  I am so happy with the way this all turned out that I have made them for my work peeps as well.  I also now have a new addiction for charms.  I have already been buying Halloween themed charms for next year!  Hope you all are having a festive weekend.  Thanks for visiting,
Lysa

Christmas 2014 - We Making Bracelets! How Charming!!

Hi Everyone,
Now that Thanksgiving is behind us and Christmas is in full swing at our house it is time to get our craft on.  I have been working like a mad woman trying desperately to stay one step ahead of things.  Truth be told I am racing just to stay in step let alone a step ahead.  The house is now decked from top to bottom, outside lights are glowing and the "big giant wreath" is hanging. The wreath is a story in itself as it takes a team of three people to get it in place and wired to the house via bedroom windows in two different rooms!  The Christmas/winter dishes are cleaned and in place so that we can enjoy all the caloric holiday frenzy on festive snowman themed plates. They surely make everything taste even better.  In order to clear the decks for the decorations my craftroom is a sight to be seen.  There is a line of boxes dividing the room in two.  Stuff is just piled everywhere and you have to move boxes just to get into a drawer or cabinet.  It really is awful and not a creative space at the moment. This bit of mess can't stop me from having a some crafty fun with the Granddaughter.  Rory and I had decided about a month ago that we wanted to make some charm bracelets for her friends as this years gifts.  Rory and her Mom love their Alex and Ani bracelets so we decided  that was the style we wanted to make. At first I looked into bending the wire bracelets myself.  I was able to find the wire and the mandrel that was needed but the start up cost was a to much for me for a craft that I might only make once.  I have to keep reminding myself  "I am a papercrafter, I am a papercrafter" This is why I am out of space in the craftroom.  So with a bit of searching I found some bracelet blanks online.  Actually I found a lot of sources for the blanks.  Some high end in precious metals and some in coated brass, stainless steel, etc. that were reasonable in the pocketbook department.  I chose to order from a lovely Etsy shop.  The name of the shop is The Jeweled Box and you can fine it here at this link:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheJeweledBox
Anne is the owners name and she is located in Georgia.  My order arrived quickly and everything was as pictured.  I even placed a second order because once I made the first bracelet I knew I needed to make a lot of them!!
I bought most of the charms from Oriental Trading but there are charms all over the place online and in stores.  I saw many at AC Moore and Joann's.  Rory and I sat online at Oriental's website and she chose the charms for her friends.  Then I hit Joann's and chose some too.  Here are some pic of the bracelets that we made.  The pictures are not the best but you can get the idea of how great they came out. I also had to add pics of Rory at work.  I just love my little crafty good bud!

Not the best work surface I know, but like I said the craftroom is one hot mess!

Look how many we made in just part of an afternoon

Each bracelet has 9 charms. Can you see the angel and the made with love heart? So cute! Now I can't wait to make the perfect packaging  for these cuties to go in.  I was amazed how easy it was for Rory to work with the jump rings and the pliers.  It did not take her long to get the hang of it.  This project would be an awesome fund raiser for a Girl Scout group or other community group. These charms are all cheap alloy metals and can be purchased in bulk.  I saw everything from book themes to medical themes.  I think I need to make a cancer ribbon one for the girls in the Oncology office where my daughter works.  I don't know you guys . . . it just might be time to buy the wire and the bracelet mandrel so I can start bending the wire bracelets myself, oh but remember "I am a papercrafter, I am a papercrafter"!! Thanks for visiting and enjoy getting your Christmas craft 2014 on!!
Lysa

Lip Balm Holder for Halloween 2014

 Hi Everyone,
I am so happy to say my final Halloween favors are done.  As you know my most favorite non candy favors are made with AVON products.  I love their lip balms and hand creams for crafting.  I am almost always able to purchase them for .79 cents or so.  I also like to buy from AVON as I have a co-worker who is an AVON lady and I would much rather support her than Dollar Tree.  I used CraftArtistist2 to design the file and I used my Zing and MTC software to cut them out.  The pumpkin and bat are Martha Stewart punches that I have had for years.  Don't you just love when you spend money on something and you use it for years! I also printed all the paper using Stampin' Up digital files.  I buy all my favorite papers as digi files because as you know once they retire they are gone.  The pumpkin paper is from the "Cast A Spell" DSP line from back in either '09 or maybe '10.  I still use it all the time because I love it so much.  Here is a picture of the pdf file share for these quick and easy favors:

You can find the PDF file here at this link:
http://www.mediafire.com/view/r5hf80cw3mmtr58/lip_balm_holder_halloween_2014with_photo_and_tips.pdf
and the MTC file can be found using this link:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/n02t6gc70vcxz7i/apothacary_lip_holder.mtc
Here is a picture of the lip balm holders and whats left of the little jack o' lantern boxes waiting to be handed out at work next week:

So to sum up Halloween 2014, I think my favorite favor was the beaded spider.  I made so many of them and could have kept going if I had more peeps that I wanted to give them to.  He may resurface this Christmas as "The Christmas Spider" from the Ukrainian legend. Next week I will be on vacation from work for a few days and all the Halloween paper gets put away and out comes all the Christmas craft supplies. I can't wait for this years Christmas crafting season as I bought some great Stampin' Up paper and supplies.  They did a lot with Kraft paper and boxes this year.  Kraft is my all time favorite for Christmas.  Thanks for pit stopping my blog and I hope to see you again soon.  Enjoy Halloween!!
Lysa

A Beaded Spider, Perfect for Halloween!

Hi Everyone,
I am so addicted to making these little cute beaded spiders this year.  I have made 10 and was thinking of making even more.  There are so many tutorials out there in cyber land all you have to do is google beaded spider and you will find many tuts and pictures of  them.  I think what got me going was the wreath kit from Stampin' Up.  The frightful wreath came with a beaded spider kit.  I didn't really like the wreath but loved the spider.  Everyone started to make them.  Angie over at Chic N Scratch made a nice video of hers and you can check it out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsxF04OFhiw
  Here is a picture of some of mine:

Look how cute they look just hanging out around the house:

I like them because they are creepy in a cute sort of way.  I made so many that I can get one done is less than 20 minutes.  Here are the supplies I used:
24 gauge wire
silver bead caps
silver decorative head pin
acrylic beads by Jewelry Fundamentals 
black seed beads size 15
small white glass beads size 2
silver tube (bugle) beads
pliers
Here is a picture of the beads I used.  There was no "mm" sizing on the package:

 All I did to create the body was thread one small bead along with a bead cap, large bead and second bead cap onto a head pin.  I twisted the end of the head pin to hold it all together.  I cut 4 strands of the wire in 6 inch lengths.  I twisted them around the body where the "head" meets the body of the spider.  I shaped the legs out to 4 on each side of the body.  On each leg I threaded the following bead patten:
3 black seed, 1 bugle, 3 black seed, 1 bugle, 3 black seed, 1 bugle, 3 black seed.
I then finished each leg with a white size 2 bead.  I looped the wire through twice and then clipped the wire flush. I used very thin wire and if you wanted something a bit more sturdy you may want to use 22 gauge wire in lieu of the 24 gauge.  I was posing one of my spiders and bent the leg so many times that I broke it.  I hope you give this little guy a try.  I am off to make a few more to bring to some friends at work. Thanks for stopping by,
Lysa

Halloween Is In The House!

Hi Everyone,
The past week has been so crazy busy that I barely had time to play in the craft room. The whole living room and dining room are glowing in black and orange and we are totally ready for Halloween.  Rory and I made a new banner for the mantle way back in September.  It was the last day of summer vacation and I have had it hanging off the china cabinet since then.  It looked so silly amongst the summer patriotic decorations.  I am sure everyone who stopped by thought I was a bit off my rocker.  I did have a hard time getting good pictures (as usual) but I thought I would post them anyway.  I think Rory and I did a great job. Here is the picture:

Well, that is really a better picture of Rory than the banner!  Maybe this one is a bit better:

and here is a close up of the letter S, I was glad I could catch a bit of  the gold sparkle:

So here is our crafty recipe:  The banner base pieces are from the Stampin Up banner kit called chalkboard.  The DSP layer is from SU's cast a spell from years ago.  I have the digital file so we printed the paper using CraftArtistPro2. The stars and the medallions were also made and printed with CAP2 and we used the Brother SnC to cut them out.  I made so many of the stars and I still want to make more. The letters and shadows were cut with my Zing through make the cut.  I love watching Rory use the computer and the die cutters. She really is a wiz with the Zing. If you look closely behind the letters you can see we added an embossed piece.  We used our sizzix and a cuttlebug embossing folder of a web.  Last but not least we even used my favorite Martha Stewart bat punch for the little bats. Each piece is sprayed with champagne mist so it sparkles. Wow, that's is a lot of product.  But worth it for sure.  We did not plan to hang this in front of the mirror but it was so long that this was the only place we could put it.  So if I had to change one thing, I would have made sure that the backs of the pieces were black.  I think that the chipboard reflection makes for an unfinished look.  All in all we love how are banner came out.  Today I have to finish some craft kits for Rory's friends that are coming over for a little celebration.  The girls will be making the paper pumpkins that I made last year.  We needed a quick and easy craft to do and this is perfect. Here is a peek at the project and the kits:

Don't the kits look great in the Stampin Up cases??  Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by,
Lysa

Halloween 2014 Favor Box

 Hi Friends,
Well don't you know Halloween is coming fast and furious.  I could not believe when I got to work today and the first time I typed the date this morning I thought to myself "How the heck did we get to Sept. 17th!"  Time is surely slipping past me. So this weekend I am taking down all the summer/patriotic decorations in the hope that I can get Halloween up the following weekend.  I made my annual speech to the family about how I was going to scale it back.  I say the same thing every year. "No bales of hay, Not taking out the Halloween dishes, Not going to put up the 5 foot twisted wire Dept. 56 tree . . . etc" and then every year I do the exact opposite and put up pretty much every single decoration I have.  Well, that would be me. Say one thing and do the other.  So today I have for you this years candy favor.  I cased it from Stampin Up.  You know they came out with the curvey keepsake die.  Which I think is kind of a blast from the past as this little bon-bon box has been around forever and a day.  I have it as a .gsd file from my Wishblade years!  Now what got me was you have to cut it in 2 pieces.  Which is great when you want to make it with 2 patterns. Plus it does save a bit on paper as you can cut it with half of a sheet of 12X12. My problem is  I really don't like the way it goes together and it was just a bit to big for me.  I have to make about 30 or so of these so I need to take candy cost in to consideration. As it is I went with Hershey Kisses instead of my normal Hershey Nuggets. I created the pattern where the base was 2 inches and it was huge so I shrunk it down to my liking.  I used my CraftArtist2 to draw the box and exported it to a .pdf file so that I could cut it with my Zing using MTC.  I saw these pumpkins all over Pinterest and thought they were so cute.  I see SU peeps are making Frankie and Vampires and all sorts of cuties.  I even saw a penguin.  I loved them all and thought I would share my file with all of my digi cutting friends. Here is a picture of the pdf file:

For those of you who want the PDF you can find it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/view/8e9iqkb93h8a92z/bonbon_box_with_pic_2014.pdf

And the MTC file is here, I have included the faces and the leaves with the MTC file:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/vu58hx4v42c1y9x/curvey_box__share.mtc
I hope you like this file and I think at Christmas you can make some really cute boxes by adding a cut out window. If you need this box to be larger you can easily resize to your need.  Hope to be back with a picture of Rory and my banner that we made in the next day or so.  It came out great and I can't wait to see it hanging with all the other decorations.  Please let me know if you have any problems with the file.
Thanks for visiting,
Lysa

Skullys, Kittys and Tear Bears . . Oh My!

Hi Crafty Peeps,
Today is September 1st. How sad is it that summer is on it way out.  Well I guess it is only sad for people like me who love the heat.  Our August here in Jersey was a cool one so I didn't spend as much time in the pool as I would have liked.  It was however a perfect August for outdoor activities.  You can see by my lack of crafty blogging that I was at least enjoying the nice weather.  I did manage to show Rory how to make a tear bear.  In fact I made a second bear and a kitty.  Rory chose a panda to make for her Mom.  We had a lot of fun and she had an easy time so I can see why these little guys are a great craft for the kiddies.  I will say I did tear the parts for Rory.  I made each pattern piece 4 layers thick.  Rory stacked and glued all her layers as well as assembled her bear.  I think she really loved brushing it out with the wire brush.  Rory even did all the shading on her panda.  Being all the pieces were torn prior, Rory completed her panda in about 2 and half hours.  I think she did an awesome job.  Here are a couple of pictures:

I think you can tell Rory is pretty darn happy about the way her panda came out.  Now me, I made a second bear just like the first one that I made for Rory. Here is my pic:

I really like making the brown bear.  I wanted to make another but I need to buy more of the mocha colored paper.  I did have some more of the black and white so I thought I would give a kitty a go.  I tried to copy a picture of an assemble one that was posted on line.  I have been using CAP2 to make my patterns.  Here is a pic of my kitty.  I want to make a witch's hat for him. I just haven't gotten to it yet.

 

He looks so sad with the big droopy eyes! And he is way to big, but I love how he came out.  Don't you like his wire whiskers? 

Now for the skully:

So back a few year Stampin' up had that awesome ornament on the cover of the holiday catalog.  2012 I believe it was.  If you remember or look back on my blog you will see I was making them with a Halloween theme instead of a Christmas theme.  I only made about 5 or so.  I kept them all and use them around the house at Halloween.  Well my friend Karen asked me if I would make one for her as she wanted to give it to her son.  He is a dude who loves Halloween and he (like me) love skullys.  She knew which one she wanted so I made it up for her this weekend.  I even made a box for her.  Here are a couple of pics, I should have taken some along the way but I didn't! Silly Rabbit, I am no kind of blogger.  Here are the pics:

I even stamped her up some tissue paper.  My favorite part is my skully embishment.  I printed the skulls with the 31 out on SU whisper white cardstock and then domed them with Lisa Pavelka magic gloss.  Gee I just love that stuff.  I use my Teresa Collins stampmaker UV light to cure it.  I use the light to cure my gel nail polish too.  In fact the only thing I don't use it for is to make Teresa Collins stamps - go figure!  I can't wait to bring this ornament to Karen, I am pretty sure she is going to be thrilled! Tomorrow is the last day of summer vacation and I am staying home from work with Rory.  Guess what we are doing! Yup, we are going to spend the day in the craftroom and we will be making our Halloween banner for 2014! I can't wait, I don't know who is more excited.  OK, I think it's me! Hope you stop by again as I have some Halloween goodies coming up.  Thanks for stopping by,
Lysa

Not 1 but 2 Crafty Good Things!

Hi Everyone,
I have interrupted my Halloween stars, but for good reason.  First, my friend Donna is having a Birthday! Yup, and it is a biggie( I just won't say which birthday) but she sure deserved a special card this year.  Now, Donna is heading off to Disney for a big celebration to mark the special day so I thought a Disney card was in order.  I have been lovin' making the cards in a box so I set out to make a Disney themed card in a box. Here is what I came up with:

I really had a blast making this card. I got all those images from cricut manuals because back in the day (meaning like '06 or '08) silly Provocraft published all the manuals as .pdf for download.  I still have them all and use them all the time.  I use CAP2 to make all the graphics, right down to the hat with Donna's name.  I mirrored all the images so that the card looks as good from the back as it does from the front.  Here is a picture of the back.

After printing, all the die cuts were cut with my Brother Scan N Cut.  Which does a really nice job as long as you are making cuts with the white border.  Cutting on the line in "Direct Cut" mode is short of perfect (because there is no negative offset) so I chose to use the white border. I left some space on the back to write a small birthday wish to Donna. I gave her the card and she loved it!! All her fav Disney friends can't wait till she hits the road for Florida.  Her Son and DIL work for Disney so it is always a special time when she visits!  Happy Birthday Donna!! Thanks for all you do for so many!  We all love you lots!!!!
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!
So, while I am on the computer visiting forums, pinterest and the like I stumble upon a Tear Bear.  Really, How the heck did I miss these cute little guys.  Well, that is easy to answer.  I was never really a scrapbooker.  I took one look at these little cuties and said to myself . . . "Self, you gotta make one of those"  So I did. I placed a small order for Mulberry paper with The Mulberry Bear.  You can find her on her ebay shop or at www.mulberrybear.com. What a pleasure it was buying from her. I was so excited how my first bear came out I just has to show you all.  Here is a picture:

I am told few crafty peeps are making these now a days, but I can tell you I will be making more.  I fell in L-O-V-E!  I made my pattern in CAP2 and exported the page to a pdf file.  I then used that file with my ZING to cut an acetate report cover.  At first I was tracing around the cut plastic and then I realized to use the negative as a stencil. I can see I need some practice on the face and the shading but for a first try I was a happy crafty girl. The mulberry paper is an awesome medium and I was happy to add it to my crafty stash. As usual I have to go from 0 to 60 so my next plan is a black cat with a witch hat! Take a peek on Pinterest to see some awesome Tear Bears and consider trying to make one. There are many cute critter patterns available for purchase online. With that said it is back to Halloween!  Thanks for visiting,
Lysa

Halloween Mojo 2014!

Hi Everyone,
Oh yeah, Back to School items have taken over all the store shelves and TV along with print ads are ramming back to school down my throat.  Now as a Grandma and crafty Nonna all it means to me is that the pool will be closing soon and it will be time to drag the 20 or so Halloween boxes down from the attic and get the decorating mojo going.  So seeking inspiration while I was floating in the pool, I started to feel a tad sad about putting away all the patriotic decorating goodies.  All my stars will be boxed up and put away until next May.  I just love my barn stars (some call them nautical stars).  So I thought why do I have to live without stars until May.  I thought lets make me up some Halloween Stars.  So I did.  Now I am hooked and will most likely make one for everyone I know.  I found these to be quick and easy using my CAP2 software along with my digital Stampin' Up papers.  My Brother Scan N Cut made easy work for cutting out the stars.  Here is a picture of the prints as they came out of the printer:

 I know it just looks like a page of flat stars, but they get better.  I wanted the assembled stars to look good from the back too so after the SnC cut them without ejecting the mat I slapped down a piece of black paper on to the mat and hit the cut button again.  This way a solid black star in the exact same shape was cut.

Just a note about the SnC:  I find while it has its place in the world of digital die cutters. it is not perfect.  I don't use it for anything other than fussy cutting print outs and stamped images.  I often have issues with that as well.  There are a lot of work arounds as I have mentioned in the past but until Brother adds a negative offset in direct cut mode this cutter will not meet the need in which I bought it for.  Wow, was that ever a boring statement! I don't recommend this cutter for peeps who only have one cutter.  But if you are like me and have an arsenal of cutters you would enjoy having this one as well.  You can clearly see by the picture the condition of my mat shows that I use it all the time. OK,enough venting! Here is a picture of the star after it has been cut, inked and assembled.  I will for sure have these bad boys hanging everywhere come October. (who am I kidding, I start decorating for Halloween the second week of September):
TA DA..... Here it is:

 What you can't see in the picture is that the star is completely covered in gold Tsukneko ink that was mixed with rubbing alcohol and sprayed on .  It really does look amazing in person.  I hope you like it too! I am off to get my chores done so I can get a bit of pool time in as our summer days are numbered.  Have a great day and thanks for checking in.
Lysa

I Have NOT Fallen Off The Earth!

Hello Crafty Peeps,
I am off on a treasure hunt. I hope to return soon with a Halloween project at some point in August.  Rest assured I have an awesome tan and the pool getting used each weekend. Work, is well, WORK! but in my spare time I have been treasure hunting and I have been having a blast. Sounds a bit cryptic I know, but truth be told I learned a long time ago (from Dorothy Gale) that if you can't find it in your own backyard it isn't really anywhere.  Wishing you all a happy and warm summer and I can't wait to get my Autumn craft on!
Lysa

Digi Pages, That's What I Call Them!

Hi Everyone,
I have a few days off for the July 4th holiday so I am happy to say I was able to get into the craftspace for a bit.  The room is filled with all kinds of new and awesome Stampin' Up supplies and I have been enjoying playing with all of them.  SU has just added  "Project Life" to their line and as I was browsing the catalog I kept going back and forth trying to decide if I wanted to jump on the Project Life band wagon.  After much "I think I will" - "I think I won't" I settled on "I think I won't".  Truth be told it was hard to decide.  What brought me to my answer was  looking at all my "digi" pages that I make using my Serif CraftArtist 2.  I love making pages, flip books and such with CAP2 and have shown pages here on the blog in the past.  I just never thought to try to give a Project Life feel to a page.  I went on line and saw many PL templates for digital formats for sale and for free as well. I also could see it would be easy to create my own template using CAP2.  Now I just had to decide what size I wanted to work with.  This was a bit of a challenge as I have been stuck in 8-1/2 X 11 landscape mode for years.  I just like the way it looks.  So to help me move out of my comfort zone I created 2 pages, one 8-1/2X11 and the other 12X12. I was hoping that seeing them side by side would lead me to a clear choice.  Here is the 8-1/2 X 11 (my awesome little Rue):

and here is my 12X12(my beautiful and talented niece):

Once I finished and had a look at them I found that I didn't really like either of them.  It's the BOXES! I have seen a lot of PL pages both real albums and digital and they were beautiful but this format is not for me. Yes it was simplified and the dragging and dropping of pictures into little boxes was easy peasy but to me the template took away my creative flair.  Here are two Halloween digi pages that I made and have posted before:

ahh, much better!  We should always give new things a try because you never know when you are going to fall in love with a new craft or style.  In this case I am staying on my digi page train and leaving the Project Life band wagon behind.  I am glad that there are so many options for preserving our memories and our lives because what works for each of us is different. So however you scrap is the right way.
Enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend and thanks for stopping by,
Lysa
I just have to add last years Halloween digi page!!!

LOVE IT!!!

Stampin Up RGB Codes

Hi Everyone,
Now that things are settled down and summer is in full swing I can get back into the craftroom with a lighter heart.  I still am in the throws of the bedroom makeover but sometimes it is good to walk away for a moment to regroup thoughts.  I joined SU as a hobby demonstrator back in March.  I had no intent to sell, I just wanted to build my SU collection.  I love all that I have purchased and have a goal to stay with it for one year. Being that I don't sell the $$ commitment is big.  $300.00 a quarter, so I have sworn off the likes of AC Moore, Joann's & Michaels so that all my crafty $'s for this year will be spent with Stampin Up.  Now you all know I am more of a digital gal than a rubber stamper and my heart really belongs to Serif CraftArtist 2.  I love to make my own designer series papers and I like digi stamps more than rubber stamps. SU's My Digital Studio is fine but I love my CAP2 so I was happy that when I purchase digital files from SU they are all available for any other software package you use.  So if your a Coral fan or a PhotoShop fan etc... your good to go.  I needed a quick reference guide for the SU RGB Codes.  There were a lot available all over the internet but I wanted one that was on one sheet so that I could hang it by my computer for fast and easy reference. So I made one and thought others might have a use for it as well.  Here is a picture of the page:

  I have a .pdf file available here:
http://www.mediafire.com/view/jqhj5bl44op28oh/SU_MDS_RGB_codes_with_color_swatch.pdf
I left a blank block for next years In Colors because we all know how fast the year goes.  I reviewed and checked the page over and over so I am pretty sure I got it right.  The codes are direct from my MDS software.  If by chance someone catches a mistake please let me know so that I can fix it. Here is a quick idea for you.  I love to print tone on tone when I need a piece of coordinating paper.  So I will say create a page of small hearts in Real Red and then print them on Real Red cardstock.  You will be pleased with the tone on tone effect. Hope you enjoy this file and before I go I want to give a shout out to my precious Granddaughter Rory for a job well done as she leaves elementary school and moves up to middle school - Here's to you, Rueski Rue, I sure do LOVE YOU!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!
Lysa

A Sad Good Bye to My Friend Greystone

Hi Everyone,
There is sadness at our home today as we said good bye to our cat Greystone. The last few weeks have been hard but I could not let today end with out posting a picture of our Grey.  He has been with us for 17 years. We had adopted him from a rescue shelter. He brought more love, laughs and happiness to our family than words could say.  So here is to you my friend Greystone. I will miss you deeply and I will always hold you in my heart.

Thank you Grey for so many great memories!

No Time To Post - It's Pool Season!

Hi Everyone,
Just a quick shout out to all! The pool is open and I have been happily swimming and sunning.  My favorite time of year for sure.  The whole living room, dinning room and kitchen are dec'd out in the summer patriotic red, white and blue. So I am one happy girl!  I did have time to craft this little card in a box to give to my friend Nadine in honor of her 30 years on the job! WOW 30 years, that's twice as long as I have been on the job.  Here is a picture of the card I made:

I just loved making the die cuts.  This time I used my brother scan n cut to cut out most of the stamped images (which by the way are digi stamps).  I also used some Stampin' Up punches.  I printed the stamp images and the DSP I made in CA2 in the SU color Perfect Plum and Blackberry Bliss.  The base cardstock is the new In Color Blackberry Bliss.  I just love the colors. I am already planning my next card in a box. I think it will be a red, white and blue patriotic one.  Enjoy the last day of the Memorial Day Weekend.  It's time to hit the sunshine!!
Lysa

Teacher's Apples

Hi Everyone,
WOW, I have been busy with no time to sit down at the computer to post. Today is Mother's Day so before the company arrives for brunch I thought I would enjoy a few minutes to myself and post a picture of this years Teacher Appreciation apples that Rory took to school this past week.  They came out great:

I love these sliceform apples.  I made these using Stampin Up cardstock.  The colors are Cherry Cobbler, Always Artichoke and Chocolate Chip.  Each apple holds 10 wrapped Hershey nuggets.  You can easily pull a candy out from the corner side.  Here is a picture of the apples wrapped and ready to go:

 

The tag is made with the new SU scallop tag punch that I love so much.  You can make the tag any length that you need. The bow is SU burlap ribbon that I shredded, gee I love that stuff.  I signed on as a hobby demonstrator back in March and you can see I have been enjoying my discount.  All the teachers loved their apples.  I have been making them for years and they are always well received.  

I am off to get ready for company. We are having Brunch here today and I can't wait to see the family and spend some time with everyone. Wishing all the Moms out there a Happy Mother's Day! Thanks for stopping by,

Lysa