Dr. Seuss Bags!

Get yourselves to a Target Dollar Spot, ladies, STAT. Look at this cuteness! I love, love, love Dr. Seuss. These are shopping bags I found at Target today. They had buttons, pencils, pens, and little notepads with book covers. I had to control myself. Because they weren't the expensive $2.50 items. Nooooooo, my friend, they were one buck.

What could you do with these? Baby shower. Teacher gifts. Birthday parties. A gift for the librarian. Dr. Seuss's birthday. Anything I'm forgetting?

Cake Anyone?

For the last day of teacher appreciation week, we were supposed to make or bring in a small gift for the teachers.

I made a few of these and stuffed them with candy. Since this cake-making stuff is new to me, I learned last night that if you use thin paper instead of thicker card stock, the cake doesn't hold it's shape as well when you stuff it with candy. It still turned out ok, though. If I tied a ribbon around the side instead of putting the flower on top, it would have kept it together quite nicely.

I also made a clipboard for QTPa2T and Handsome's homeroom teachers. In the past I used ModgePodge for clipboards, but this time all I had was Crafter's Pick Decoupage & Collage Gel, and I think I like it a whole lot better. When it dried, the paper still felt like paper (MP has an elmer's glue-like coating), and the big deal was that there was not a single bubble. Not one. It dried perfectly flat. Then I just blasted it with 2 coats of varnish spray.

So here's my small world blogger story . . .

Handsome's teacher just left on maternity leave for the rest of the year. A few days after the new teacher started, we were talking in the hall because I substitute at the school part-time. She told me that she is a secret admirer of mine. Huh?

I didn't quite get it. She explained that she got to thinking the night before, that my name is Heather and she knew Handsome's last name was Jones ... so she wondered if I might be the blogger Mrs. Jones (in case you're wondering, she didn't recognize me outright when she saw me because my hair looks a bit different than the photos I have of myself on the blog).

Wow! Turns out, she has been reading my blog for a while. That completely made my day. When you start a blog, you think only your family friends will look at it. Then when other people show up, it's a nice surprise. Then someone in real life actually recognizes you, it is a great surprise and an awesome compliment.

Anyway, if you're reading this Mrs. R, you're awesome and I'm glad I've gotten to know you.

I Was Featured

I was featured on Skip to my Lou's Teacher Appreciation post. Woohooo! Thanks, Cindy!

Go check it out here, along with lots of cool ideas for Teacher Appreciation Week.

Paper Cake Tutorial *Updated Again*

I've been so busy getting ready for teacher appreciation week, that I completely missed secretary's day (last week). The ladies in the office at our school are really awesome, so I made these slices of paper cake for them.

I just learned how to do this craft, and it is sooooo easy! You can use them for all kinds of things, too:

~Fill them with candy or small gifts
~Give them to teachers for teacher appreciation week (especially if your kids have 50 teachers)
~Give one to a girlfriend on her birthday
~Make a whole cake, filled with candy, and display on a cake stand for a birthday party.
Wanna learn how?
Get some cute scrap paper, and cut it to fit your printer. My Target Dollar Spot has a pack of scrap paper for $1.00. You won't go broke on this little gift.


Download this image. *Updated- I didn't realize my computer had flipped the image and resized it for me, and it wasn't printing right for some people. So I resized the image and rotated it for you. It should almost cover an entire 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper when it prints. The actual image size should be 9.91" height x 8.05 " width. Sorry if that drove anyone nuts.*

**I've updated this post again ... the image file changes sizes for some people so I've saved the file as a PDF and you can download the file here. This way, the file should print in the correct size. **

Print it, but make sure to print it on the side of the paper that is going to be inside the cake. And test print on white before you stick the nice paper in the machine.

Cut it out.

Fold along all the dotted lines, and then score the folds with a smooth surface. I use the handle of my scissors.

Cut along this one solid line with a craft knife or razor blade.

Glue the tab at the short end of the cake, and

along the side. I like using glue sticks because you have a little time to adjust the paper before it dries. Do not glue the tabs at the fat end of the cake!

Attach the glued tabs like this.

Fill with candy (or whatever), and tuck the tab into the slot. If you like, you can glue on a flower, a ribbon or whatever embellishments you like.

If you would like to see some paper cake inspiration, you can go here, here, here and a bunch of cakes on this blog. If you're not crafty and you just want to buy one, go to this Etsy shop, or this Etsy shop. Their cakes are beautiful.

If you make one, stop by and tell me about it!

1st Day of School, and I Loves Me Some Wal-Mart

Here are some pictures of the kiddos' first day of school. I miss them when they are gone, but I do love to get back to our routine.

Do you see the look of pain on the little one's face? That is my-mom-is-torturing-me-with-her-camera-idous.
And I thought you would like a closeup of the most special shirt we bought for the first day of school. Have you heard that one before? Do children think it is a birthright to finish a level before they can do anything else? Will they be struck by lightning and die right on the spot if, *GASP*, they don't finish THE LEVEL? Is it the 11th Commandment ... Thou shalt finish thy level?

Sometimes I drop a tiny little gift off in the teachers' boxes just to say thanks for all the work they have already done, and get the year started off right. I found these notepads at Walmart. Cute, cute, cute.

How is your week?

I've Come Back to My Senses ...

At least, temporarily. It was 6 degrees outside when I woke up this morning, to find my husband on the phone with the furnace repairman because our furnace died last night. What? You mean it has a FILTER in it that needs to be CHANGED, REGULARLY!??? Ooops. I'm from California, like, ok? Some people there don't even have and/or use heaters and air conditioners. But now I know. I also know, now, that home warranties don't cover repairs for lame homeowners who don't take care of their stuff. But here is a more positive tidbit that I learned, that you should know too, is even though the home warranty repair guy isn't covered, the home warranty company negotiates a seriously discounted rate, and we get to use that discounted rate even though we're not covered. So if you don't have a home warranty, it's really worth it. I'm really not bothered by the whole furnace drama today. We have a second furnace that works, space heaters, a fireplace and nice warm clothing. How many people don't have those things? I bet there is a family close to me right now that doesn't have any of that, maybe not even a home. So yeah, I'm appreciating everything I have right now.

So the repair guy will be here soon, my house is a wreck, and I finally have gotten my priorities straight. Yes, I'm posting on my blog after a serious dry spell. I should be cleaning. But all these nice blog friends have been stopping by to find out where the heck I am, and I think that is so cool. I have met the nicest people blogging, real friends.

So I thought I would share a few pictures from last month, and then I'll get back to cleaning. And then I have a hair appointment to make a few tweaks to the haircut I got last week. I have had long hair for about 4 years and I chopped it last week. I got a modified bob, and I absolutely *love* it. I'm going back today because I actually want the back a little shorter. I cut 10 inches off my hair people! And my poor honey, he really loves long hair. I didn't tell him I was doing it either. Anyway, I'll show you some pictures after I get it fixed just the way I want it today. I digress.

Here are some clipboards I made for teacher gifts at Christmas. I really love foam stamps lately, and I stamped their initials and some swirls with my set of Heidi Swapp foam stamps.

Here is a gift I made for my sweet mother-in-law Betty. I just used some scrapbook paper and Heidi Swapp rub-ons, and I distressed the edges of the photos. I threw a couple swirly stamps on this one, too. Betty is so wonderful. I need to send her so many more pictures than I do.
And here is a calendar I made Betty. It is on a clipboard, but it fits in the picture frame, too, which would be really cute. I got the templates for this from Shabby Miss Jenn. It was a tiny bit time consuming, but really pretty darn easy.
Here is January's page. Each month is different, and really cute.
I finished the curtains in the living room, and finally realized that curtain rods have no business being right above the window. I think there are a lot of people who don't know this, because most stores only sell 84" curtains. This is a crime! Anyway, I learn all these things the hard way, and my house has a lot of patchwork from holes I've drilled in the wrong place. The curtain hung just above the window just isn't quite as dramatic, and the one hung just below the molding makes the entire room look bigger. What a huge difference. Now I would like to get some bamboo blinds and hang them higher, too. No worries ... this isn't how my living room looks now. I just wanted to show you the difference and I snapped a pic before I fixed the other side.

Have you ever wondered what to do with . . .

(photo from Paper-source.com)

. . . old Christmas cards? I have saved mine for years, and have never used them for anything. I have the best of intentions. Well, this morning I found a cute, easy project on paper-source.com. You can make monogram tags with their Free Template, and you can adhere them to old holiday cards or scrap paper, so the back is cute, too.

Isn't this neat . . .

I was surfing around the other day, and came across a hummingbird chandelier. I had never heard of such a thing, but they are so cool! I think I need to get one for under my deck, or get one for my mom or something. It would make a cool gift, don't you think? They are a little pricey though. I'll start with the most expensive, and work my way down.
I found this red "Grand Chandelier" on ebay, as well as all of these other ones in ebay stores. You can also find the red chandelier at The Backyard Bird Company. (I think this red one is my fav).
I found this Grand Chandelier and the Mini-Blossom Chandelier at www.bestnest.com. I was going to give direct links, but their website seems to be having problems this morning. I will try to update the link later.

And last but not least, I found this one at Creek Tree U.S.A.

Aren't they cool?!!

Inspiration Friday - Wrapping Gifts

For Inspiration Friday, I will do a little post on wrapping gifts. I recently gave a birthday gift to my neighbor, and I loved how the wrapping turned out so I thought I would show you. I got this cute robin's egg blue bag a while back while shopping at The Cottage Gals, and I had to save it because I knew it would make great gift wrapping some day. Then, last week I was in Joann Fabrics, and they had a display with an entire alphabet of silver glitter letters! I had to control myself and realized that if I bought enough to spell my name, I would be spending too much money (They cost $1 each). So I bought one for my friend's gift (her name happens to be Heather), and I bought "F" "U" "N" for my scrap room. Instead of just stuffing the gift with tissue paper, I jammed my tissue paper through my paper shredder and it was a nice little improvement.

Which leads me to this picture. I downloaded this from someone's blog for future wrapping inspiration, and now I can't remember where I got it. I will diligently look through my blog roll to find the source, so I can give credit where credit is due. ***update: the photo is from Kathy's Cottage. Anyway, instead of using tissue paper, she used cellophane wrap inside the gift instead of outside. I think it really looks great.

I love the blue bag so much, I am thinking about buying a box or a case from an on-line paper seller. I'm not really into going to Target and spending $10 to wrap one gift. I think the prices of greeting cards, wrapping paper and ribbon are a complete rip-off these days. So I am always looking for different ways to wrap things up. Rhoda at Southern Hospitality recently did a post on a great gift wrapping book. I like to keep butcher paper and a blue and a purple/pink paper as a basic wrapping paper and decorate with nice ribbon and something special. This is how I store the paper.

The Perfect Gift

I am always in search of a cute little thing to give to a special friend (at the top of my list of gifts for myself should be a birthdates organizer/calendar because I think I have forgotten *everyone's* birthday this year!) Anyway, thanks to a link on Tracey's blog, I found this cute website called Rosanna which has really great dinner wear. The Fleur French Pitcher or Tea For One would make a lovely gift for a friend. And take a look at the *beautiful* round box for the Pitcher!!! Get out! I really, really, really love a great gift box. The next is a set of 12 Days of Christmas Appetizer Plates. I think I recall seeing these in a magazine before. I will be asking hubby for this set as my Christmas present. That would be a great wedding/shower gift. Rosanna also has a blog, and she is hosting a table decorating contest. I think I know someone who should enter.

When I was blogging around the other day, I also found this website called Wonderful Graffiti. They make vinyl transfers for your walls. You can do monograms, quotes, and other neat things. I couldn't save any of their photos, so I will have to post links. It's worth visiting. Here is a link to their Wall of Fame. They also have a separate website for Wedding Graffiti!

Teacher Appreciation Gift

Hello everyone! I'm back. I have been a very bad blog friend, and haven't posted in quite a while. And here is one of the reasons why I have been so busy . . . baseball. Looks to me like all the running around is worth it.

May and the first half of June are very busy for me. We started with an annual business trip at the beginning of May, then lots and lots of baseball, gardening before the heat sets in, and finish it up with end of school activities. Whewww! To be honest, when things get busy for me, the wheels come off the wagon really fast. So I bugged out of blogging to keep up with our lives (not really an intentional choice, just kinda happened). Case in point, my house is a total pit right now and what am I doing? Blogging. This morning I choose to ignore the mess, or at least tackle it in baby steps.

The last day of school was this week, and I delivered teacher gifts to the classrooms. I like to get something for teachers that they can use for themselves, not the classroom, and I had been thinking about some type of gift with summer items (flip flops, beach towel, etc.). Then I saw Heidi Swapp's blog and she did the same type of gift for teacher appreciation day. So what did I do? I totally, completely copied her cute idea (btw, Heidi is one of the most adorable people on earth!). And here is the final outcome:

I was very pleased that after I bought a hot pink towel, I went to get O Magazine, and it had lime green on the cover. *Perfect.* Since I am chronically self-doubting myself, I wasn't sure if the gifts were good enough for the fabulous teachers my kids had this year. That was totally unnecessary because the teachers went absolutely nuts about their gifts. I mean, they really went nuts. It was cool, because I really wanted to give something they liked.

I peaked in O before I wrapped it up, and there was an article on Sarah Jessica Parker's new clothing line. I apparently missed the Oprah show on it. Anyway, the clothes are really cute, and everything is under $20 or something crazy like that. The nearest store to me that sells the line is about 30 minutes away, but I think I might go down there and check it out. I like you Sarah Jessica Parker! Thanks for cute clothes that moms-who-are-putting-3-kids-through-college-in-the-near-future can afford. Oh, and thanks for clothing that doesn't make me look like an old fart or a 19-year old!!! I'm 36 . . . not dead yet!!! (that was a shout out to all department stores and any other store to whom the statement applies).

Alright, now the towel gift reminds me of something else I have needed to do. I was tagged by two lovely friends: Elizabeth Hill Cottage and Notes From A Cottage Industry to tell some random/quirky things about myself. I was actually tagged a long, long, long time ago (actually last month), but better late than never. One tag was for 7 "things" and one was for "10", so let's see how many I can come up with.

1. I *love* reality tv. Don't know why. Survivor started it and I am still a die-hard Survivor watcher. I also love Top Chef, and Rockstar (INXS and Supernova) and my new absolute favorite reality tv show, just discovered it and I can't believe I missed the first 2 seasons, is . . . So You Think You Can Dance (You know what I'm talking about Martha. Wow! Those kids can dance. Sooooo much better than Dancing With the Stars. One of my other favorite shows is Jon and Kate Plus 8. I wish I was as organized as Kate. There are other shows, but I won't go into the entire list.

2. I *love* the smell of Baby Magic and Dreft. It beams me back in time to when my kiddos were babies. Sometimes I have a hard time letting all that go, so I just get a little fix with baby soap.

3. I gave birth to Baby Bunyan. He wasn't the biggest baby in the world, and I don't have anything on women who have twins (or more), but my middle child was 10 pounds 14 ounces. I kept telling the doctors he was big, but I knew they finally believed me when the doctors and nurses were all hanging around *after* their shifts just to see how big he really was. He was a tank.

4. Ok, here's a yucky one. If I push my shoulders back, my shoulder blades pop out so much that I can actually put my fingers under the blades. I love to gross my kids out with this one.

5. I really, truly hate the sound of eating. Not just smacking out loud, but if I can hear a person chewing food at all, even if they are being polite and quiet, I can't stand it!

6. I am very, very happy when the carpet is vacuumed. I just love it. It makes my house look so neat. I am really a neat-freak at heart, but there is some kind of defect in my brain that keeps me from being as neat as I would like.

7. I am anal-retentive about how my towels are folded. Lengthwise, I fold in each side, then I fold them in half, and roll from the edges in. I'm sure that doesn't make any sense, but if I fold it wrong I have to start over. It even drives me nuts. ocd????

8. I could spend an entire week in a book store or a library.

9. The beach is my favorite place in the world. I don't really care for swimming in the ocean. Just standing on the beach is good for me.

10. I am the most scatter-brained person I know. I forget everything (everything!), lose everything, and half the time, I can't even remember the words in the sentence I'm saying. My kids have learned to fill in the blanks. (Good thing they help me out, because I think being a mother is what killed some of my brain cells.)

There you have it. I'm going to tag just 1 of my beautiful blog friends. Trish at Harmony Hill Music.

Now I have one last thing to say. I am not a computer genius, nor am I a complete moron either. BUT, I have spent most of my time on this post messing around with stupid things that Blogger software is doing, eg, too many returns, not enough returns, difficulty getting pictures in the right spot, etc. Is it just me, or is this a frustrating editing software to use?

Finding The Perfect Gift

A while back, I posted "finding the perfect gift" inspired by my blogger friend Martha. I thought I might share neat little things with you once in a while. This is my latest find . . . gingham dish gloves. Soooo important to keep your hands soft while scrubbing those dishes. Aren't they adorable!?? You can find them here if you are interested.

I also found a great little Mother's Day gift at Target (close your eyes Mom). It is a Shabby Chic pillow and it looks great in my living room. I'm going to have to part with it soon, though. Can't wait to see what my beautiful family is getting me for MD. :-)

Finding The Perfect Gift

I was just reading Martha's blog at Elizabeth Hill Cottage, and she was talking about how fun it is to give someone a really special gift. I can't say I'm great at picking out the perfect gift, but I have kept a list of neat things I have found because I enjoy gift giving (I'm terrible at actually remembering birthdays though, so I need to work that out).

In December, I found a link to typhoonus.com on Inspire Co's blog, and I found this cute little 3 cup vintage espresso maker. Isn't it adorable! You can get different sizes and they come in 3 colors. I bought one for one of my friends for Christmas, and I know I'll be purchasing another one in the future because it is so adorable. I think I need to buy one for me too!