We all know I love school supplies - and that love gets bumped up a notch when you can personalize them!

I really can’t wait until my kids are a few years older and I can start ordering from a service such as Identity Direct. This particular company has over 400 personalized items for kids and I am loving the pens and pencils. When I was a little girl my Grandma always gave us (my cousins and I who were around the same age) all personalized pencils for Christmas - I think we got either a set of so many, like 20, or a small box of them, probably 20 there too. I loved them! I remember just being thrilled because 1 - they were school supplies and 2 - they had my name on them! Since my kids are mini versions of me, I know they will be just as excited. The site has a wide variety of items - from pens and pencils to personalized story books, clocks and labels. I even had a personalized backpack when I was in high school and a daytimer with my name in college.

My Mom sent us a sock puppet kit for Christmas last year and we made one and then never got around to making the other. It wasn’t too hard to figure out though I remember it taking a little while. So here is Fluffy! You can’t see but he also has a belly button because, duh, everyone has a belly button! He has mismatched eyes too but they are the same size, which I guess was more important to Alice then them matching colors! You were supposed to cut a tie and put that coming out of the top of his head but the only ties we have are ones that Chris just bought and there was no way we were cutting them up - so it is a ribbon. The ribbon kind of hangs in Fluffy’s face, but he doesn’t mind. It distracts from him not smiling I think.

Most of the time Alice or Jake sleeps with him, or he has a special place on Alice’s bookcase. Now there is a gift that she still loves too, Fluffy. She wants to make more but we just haven’t. Maybe we’ll do that this weekend, Fluffy does need a friend.

Well, kind of altered. Maybe more like covered. A few weeks ago one of my girlfriends started looking for wedding things - ideas for centerpieces, dresses, etc. - and she mentioned wanting a notebook to keep notes in. I’ve had a few moleskine (love them!) notebooks for a little while and wanted to cover one so I said I would and send it to her. Her colors were going to be a teal and chocolate brown. I wasn’t sure I could get the teal right, but I tried!

I used a few different Stampin’ Up stamps and paper, and sparkly rhinestone things from A Muse. From the picture it looks like a lot of teal - but really it all blended very well. I used a few quotes (my favorite stamps are quotes) as well as the Doodle Alphabet stamp set for spelling out “Julie”. The two eyelets hold vellum onto the paper under them and can swing out so you can read the quote. Of course you can see it a lot better in person as well.

The chocolate brown paper was a lot of fun to do - I just used versamark ink for the stamp and didn’t put any embossing powder or such on it. I just stamped and then dried with with my heat gun. It just makes the mark stand out and looks so good!

The space in the middle is for a date - I’m not sure for 2007 or the full date or what. They have a tentative date right now, I think.

When I talked to her last she said the notebook was too nice to use and she hadn’t written in it yet! That made me laugh although I know how she feels. I just love how this came out - it took a couple to a few hours and after I was done stamping, figuring the layout took quite a bit! I’m happy with how it looks and so is Julie and her Mom so I figure it’s a good job.

I’ve done quite a few cards lately too - it feels really good to be back into crafting!

Technorati Tags: Stampin’ Up, moleskine notebook, altered items

I’ve wanted a tattoo for a long time - but then I end up changing my mind. I change where I want it or what it should be, even if it is just a tweak. Can you imagine getting a tattoo then wanting to tweak it? Yeah, that wouldn’t be cool! I do think I’ll get one someday - and who knows when someday will be here.

I’ve had my share of temporary airbrush tattoos though. They are usually at those small street fairs in towns and usually offer a wide variety of tattoos. Whenever I’ve seen them and had them done, I’ve always had to wait behind teenagers. I wonder if they ended up getting a tattoo once they were of age? I always liked how fast they could get done.

I remember when my best friend’s little brother was little (he’s a teenager now) and we told him that drawing on yourself with a pen was tattoos - in a short while he was covered and though we thought it was funny, their mom didn’t. I wonder if he’s interested in tattoos now? I’d definitely stick with airbrush until you know for sure what you want!

I’m probably going to draw up one, or talk to an artist friend to help with the drawing, before I do it.

Over the years I think I’ve turned into a fairly decent cook. We’ve gone from ramen noodles and hamburger helper to very rarely eating prepared meals like that. We make just about all of our meals from scratch - mashed potatoes from real potatoes, homemade mac and cheese, spaghetti and meatballs are a few favorites - and though somedays it is annoying to have to do, most of the time I enjoy it. And of course what also helps is Chris cooking some nights! Most of the time it is his days off and he does all the cooking on those days, which is a much needed and enjoyed break for me.

I have a shelf devoted to cookbooks - $1 Tupperware and Pampered Chef ones, the red checked really popular one, an LA Weightloss one, a couple of crock pot ones, a candy one from the 70s, a fat little farmers cookbook that was a gift to Chris from his Aunt - and what do we use? The farmers one and once in a while the red checked one. That’s it! It is a rare day in this house that we try something really new - I remember trying a Rachel Ray recipe one time and after frantically running around my kitchen (I swear her 30 minute meals are only 30 minutes because she cooks everything on high! Hahaha) we realized that the food just didn’t taste that good! I’m sure other recipes are good, but that meal certainly wasn’t.

Today I threw a roast in the crockpot and later I’ll make mashed potatoes and heat up a can of corn. Hard work right? Well no, but it is slightly boring!

I’ve also been looking for a freezer cooking cookbook - you know, where you make meals for like two weeks at a time and freeze them so they are ready? I know that the farther along I get the more I won’t be interested in cooking and if Chris has to go away for work, I really won’t be interested in cooking! It’s so easy to feed kids - especially mine, they’ll eat whatever you give them. If popping a pan in the oven is all I had to do, that would be ideal.

Anyway, over at AMomsReview.com they are giving away chances to win five free memberships to EMealsForYou.com! You do need to be a mom with a blog and be willing to try the service and then provide honest feedback about how to make it better. I’ve heard of other services but haven’t tried them out for fear of recipes we wouldn’t like! Head on over to enter, you have until August 3.

How many of my crafty girls are on Twitter?

Scroll done a touch and you’ll see a twitter badge - my picture along w/ my posts and my friends are in the badge. At the bottom is a twitter logo w/ “are you following me?” beneath that. So are you on Twitter?

It can be addictive! It’s very fun though - fast blogging, very fast, like a sentence or so. I was using a windows vista sidebar gadget but for some reason it wasn’t updating my timeline so I am trying out a few more applications. I have one open now but geez it is a *huge* window.  Another was okay but once I put my settings in, I couldn’t figure out how to change them! That’s never good.

So join me on twitter! If you click the twitter button below the timeline, it should take you directly to my page. Keep it open while you set up your own page and go back and add me as a friend. I’ve been on there for months now but changed my user name, which is why it says I joined just yesterday.

Check out this page showing step by step instructions of how to transform maple leaves into roses! How very cool is that! I particularly love the last picture showing all of the roses with leaves underneath them - what a beautiful centerpiece. I can so see those on a table for a fall wedding!

Hhmmm, ideas, ideas! I’ve been talking about us renewing our vows next year - but we haven’t settled on a date. Part of me wants the spring time and the other part wants it to be closer to our anniversary date. So it’s between April and December - weather wise what bad choices! South Dakota in December - under a blanket of snow. And there is a chance that could happen in April too! Really we have to go on Chris’ work schedule. But these roses made from leaves, great idea and they turn out so nice.

Technorati Tags: roses, craft projects, craft ideas

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