Thank you gifts - teachers

I found this lovely quote from WB Yates:

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

So, with that in mind, I decided to give my older school children's teachers a little thank you gift at the end of term. We hunted for some small candles and holders that would fit into a little box. I then got the boys to help make those boxes.

The instructions for these boxes can be found on the following website: http://pootles.co.uk/  (By the way, Sam is amazing with the tutorials on there, and she is super helpful!)

This is what the boys came up with:

Not bad for a six year old and an eight year old. Mr 6 even decided that he'd make one for all his teachers at school, and another one for himself!

I'm making these boxes at my next paper craft workshop on the 26th May. Follow this link to RSVP http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/hopefulstamping/events

The products used to make these boxes are retired Stampin' Up papers. Also used the Itty Bitty punches, bow builder bunch, a scoring board and trimmer, and cute brads.

First get together of Scrapbooking club.......

The girls were awesome, and showed some amazing talent in their layouts! And every single one did something totally different. We used Painted Petals papers, which I absolutely love. Beautifully feminine!

Don't you just love how Nynke pulled out the pinks in this?


Michelle's first page ever! I think we may have started a new hobby! Love the colours in this one too!


Paula forgot her photos, so had to use mine. First attempt at scrapbooking here too. Love how the page has come out!


Wonderful papers and a super gorgeous model in them! Can't wait for next month!

Thanks to hubby for the snacks!

Valentine's Cards workshop

On Tuesday night,  I hosted my first workshop. Making cards for Valentine's day. The ladies took my idea and made some awesome cards. Here are photos of the ones I managed to grab. (Some cards were camera shy).

Love the variety that we can make using the same materials and basic ideas.







We then had a play with the fun and fabulous blendabilites pens.... and again, the ladies were inspirational with what they achieved! Again, some pieces of art were camera shy! (blendabilties are currently not available)



All materials used can be found in my store! Will add links when Timmy is asleep. Enjoy for now.

January birthday boys

The end of January sees two of our sons have their birthdays two days apart.... We also have two birthdays in July one day apart! This means I have to make sure that two cakes are made and two sets of birthday celebrations go ahead without too much stress!

The cakes this year clearly didn't go without a hitch. First birthday boy decided to change the flavour of cake as I was putting one in the oven. Fortunately, it was the flavour second birthday boy actually wanted!  But, that cake still took over an hour to bake (three times what the recipe called for). Hubby and I put our thinking hats on and came up with putting it into a larger tin and smashing it around. There was plenty of cake mix to make this viable. Cake finally cooked and was turned into a muddy dirt bike track - which second son would LOVE to do.

Could have been a disaster......... but boy, so glad it turned out great.

While this was going on, hubby went on an emergency shop to get ingredients for first birthday boy's cake. And, that cake went along just fine, after hubby Googled an image of the keyblade in 'Kingdom Hearts' which was what first birthday boy wanted on his cake. Did you know that medicine syringes act brilliantly as cake decorating tools for fiddly things like pictures of keys?? Well, they do. Also, another thing I discovered is that black food colouring mixed with a drop of blue makes a lovely almost silver coloured icing.
 

Kingdom Hearts cake for the 8 year old.

So for birthday cards this year I had actually planned ahead. A little. In other words, I knew what I wanted to do, but hadn't actually done it yet. I love the Regals range of papers and stamps. LOVE. They really speak to me. (I bet you thought I'd be a pastels type of girl). I also LOVE the Boys will be boys stamp set. Absolutely perfect for my little gents. So here's what I whipped up in half an hour for both boys. 

loving this card. Glad this stamp set is here for another year!

The other card using the same stamp set: "boys will be boys"