Happy Anniversary!!

This week David and I celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary.  It's pretty awesome to know that you are married to your best friend, to know someone always has your back, and to understand that there is a special someone who is a witness to your life (haha, I got that from Shall We Dance, but it's a great quote and so apropos)!  To mark the occasion, I created the following card for my beloved.  He is not one for real mushy sentiments and is a very visual person, so I developed a card in contrasts to display how our relationship changes me.  I hope you enjoy it.

The front of the card is basic black and white.  I used images from Teen Scene and French Manor.  The font is from Art Nouveau.  A little black ribbon tied in a knot and a few black beads was all it needed.

The inside of the card is a blast of color and glitter.  It's hard to tell in these pictures, but the cardstock behind the wording (as well as the background on the front) is a very textured off-white cardstock by Recollections.  It's extremely fiberous and I think it would also work very well with torn edges.  A little pocket on the inside top of the card contains a very personalized sentiment and is topped with a green ribbon knot.  Green inking around all the edges finished the look for me.  I'm not sure it turned out exactly the way I imagined, but he sure did like it.  Thanks for taking a peek.

Being an only child, my granddaughter Tacoah doesn't often get to play with other kids and as a result has become a very imaginative child.  While I was on vacation, my daughter asked me if she thought I could come up with some kind of puppet theater that we could use to interact with her and her imagination.  Since she loves Spongebob and I got the cart last year, a project idea was born.

I started with an 18 x 24 inch tri-fold foamboard.  Using spray adhesive, I covered this with felt.

I then cut out the homes of the primary characters and a few extra props as seen above.

Finally I cut out the primary "puppets".  Most of these were cut at 6".  After assembling all the layers for everything, I laminated each for durability and then attached the characters to craft sticks to make the puppets.  I put the hard loop piece of velcro on the back of all the props to enable her to interchange her scenes on the felt tri-fold.  They stick surprisingly well.   I picked up some flower foam at Michael's to store the puppets upright when not in use.  These rest of the props go into an 8 x 10 envelop that can be stored inside the tri-fold when it is closed and tied shut. 

So there you have it....one SpongeBob puppet theater.  She's spent hours playing with it already, so it was well worth the time it took me to make it.   Now to come up with something easier for the next project.....

The Great Shrinky Dink Caper

This was my first attempt at using shrinky dinks with my Imagine machine.  The goal was to make "charms" for my granddaughter's crocs.  After wasting a whole sheet to determine what settings I needed to cut through the dang stuff (blade 6, pressure 5, multicut 5), I managed to cut out and bake the following four charms.  I learned that layers are not good.  This stuff gets really thick when baked.  I also learned that I need to find different jewelry hardware for these to work in shoes.  Oh well, it was a great creative learning experience and I hope to try it again soon.  The turtle and ladybug were from Walk in my Garden, the kitty from Best Friends and the teddy bear from Better Together.  Enjoy!