Welcome

I am a mom of older children and have noticed that the time has come when I do not have the hustle and bustle of little ones constantly around my feet and life now seems to be a bit of a let down. Well life has changed and now I have more hustle and bustle then ever. I am the Grammy Nanny to my 3 grandsons.
I was savoring the time that was mine and now have to share it with everyone all over again. The growing pains are upon me again and trying to define who I am again. The upside is that I get to cuddle little ones again! I still haven't truly learned to hug myself yet nor to be understanding to my own feelings. Did anyone notice how hard it is to be nice and understanding to yourself? That being said I hope that you will be part of my journey into yet another part of my life.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

The Part time jobs

Well my first part time job ended in November and then I had to leave the bakery job as well because the kids got sick and then there were days off of school. I am the person who is supposed to take care of the kids. I remembered the stress and anguish I felt when I had to work and did not have anyone to watch my kids, I did not want to feel that ever again and there I was feeling miserable doing something that I was really enjoying. So till the kids get bigger I am just going to suffice with staying home and work on getting somethings on Etsy. I have so many ideas and have not completed a single one and there really is no excuse. It's time!
Here are some of the cakes I made there.












Snowman Top Hat Treat Bag Topper

Today I was asked to make a snowman hat to go on a cellophane bag. The bag will hold a hot cocoa packet and some mini marshmallows. I went and Googled to find directions apparently they are called snowmen soup but I like the one my friend picked out. I didn't feel like cutting the pieces by hand so I made a file on my Silhouette for it.


The steps were simple:
  • Draw rectangle with the soft cornered tool and I made the size to be 3.5 x 4, because that is the width of the treat bag I have. 
  • I then drew another soft cornered rectangle this time making it .75 x 5, this is for the brim. I didn't want to put more pieces together then I had to so I overlapped the brim onto the hat rectangle and aligned the bottom edges and centered the 2 rectangles. Once they were overlapped and in position I welded them together creating the brimmed hat. 
  • Using the duplicate tool I mirrored above the hat and made sure that the 2 hats were just overlapping each other. I then welded these together. You will notice that the middle cut line goes away. I took the line tool and drew a line between the to points of the soft corners and then changed the line to a dashed line that way there is a fold line to make for an easier assembly.

  • For the ribbon I used the hard cornered rectangle and drew the rectangle right on the hat so I knew how I wanted it to look .5 x 4.039 approx. I filled it with red so I could see what it looked like. 
    • I used Blenda Script from DaFonts.com to write warm wishes on the red ribbon. My goal was to write it with the gel pen on the cardstock then cut it with the machine.
  • I then found a snowflake I liked to place on the ribbon and sized it to eye appealing. I used silver glitter cardstock for this.
  • Remember: 1. when you go to cut that you take the pieces that are not being cut and place them aside 2. go into the advanced cut settings and change the text to sketch pens 3. make sure when cutting the ribbon that the sketch pen is tuned off and you have the blade back in, I put the words on first so there wouldn't be a chance of paper slipping while writing.
I wanted to add the file for the topper but can't seem to figure out how to insert it. This is a very difficult page to add or change pictures or files. I hope this made making your own file for the treat bag topper easier.

Monday, August 24, 2015

1st New Part Time Job

I went from not working for the past 2 1/2 years to having 2 part time jobs. My first one is at a bakery for 2 days a week while the kids are at day care. Although the oldest is now finished, he will have to come with me. I am learning a lot from working there. I really enjoy it.
Here are a couple of the cakes I have done so far.





These are the characters for a 1st birthday cake coming up.





Making Cards

I am attempting to make cards for Cards 4 Love I only have 3 cards made right now. So disappointing. I really had grand ideas from all the videos and my own ideas but then life happens and I have to put aside my wants to do what NEEDS to be done. So a new day has started and camp has ended for my oldest grandson and we are going to find paperwork so I can start a 2nd new part time job next week and get a reasonable amount of cards done with envelopes!!
I was looking around for card ideas and came across this Plane Penny Slider  I love penny slider cards and realized that I made a card using snowflakes and thought that would be great. While I am making my cards I have to think about cards that would be good for other people to put together. I will be volunteering at the Middletown Public Library in September to make cards for the same program for cards for the troops and the kids of St. Jude hospital. The first session will be for adults during the day and the second session will be for the kids in the evening. It will be fun.

Here are the cards so far.

I like side step cards. I would also like to try bendy cards as well but I am going to make some penny slider cards first and then move on to the next sets. I just have to get started. I will bring up some of the Christmas paper and put some of the summery paper packs down in the basement for storage. I am getting excited.

Monday, August 3, 2015

Tote-Ally Awesome tote and Dandy Lions bouquet

I really wanted to enter the County Fair again this year but it just didn't happen. I was hoping to enter a paper bouquet of flowers but it just didn't work out.
I did make some totes for the teachers and little dandy lion bouquets for the end of year gift for my grandson's teachers. I bought the totes from AcMoore Craft Store and Added an iron on apple swirl monogram design on them. We also added little bouquet of dandy lions my grandson helped make. The tag was made by laying the plain brights that have been drawn on by the Silhouette using the sketch ability and gel pens. The monograms on the totes were a little difficult because the design on the bag was not straight. I didn't take a pic of the actual bouquet we gave the teachers. I wrapped the stems with ribbon and tucked them into the little change purse that came with the bags.

 I had so much fun making the dandy lions that I made a bouquet for me that I placed in a jar I had found digging in the yard. I Google dandelion leaves and created the leaf from an actual pic of a leaf.
I also made some tiny daisies to put in the little bouquets but don't have pics of that yet.




Rock and Roll Birthday Banner

Here is a birthday banner I created for a 10 year old boy.



















I still have to learn how to take better pictures of bigger items. I made the letters from Black Betty Font in 2 layers black and red. I also created the extra stars and purchased the flames from Silhouette store. I used DCWV Glam Rock stack from Michaels. I got it in the clearance section. It was so perfect for a rock and roll theme. I am so annoyed that I don't know how to turn the pictures around or place them where I want them to be. GRRRRRRR!!!