Creating Kris

Happy Valentine’s Day cards

Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope everyone is enjoying a “love”ly day with their loved ones this weekend… I’ve continued to be very busy with lots of cute projects, which I’ll share with you over the rest of February.

So I’ve already shown you the little Valentine treat folders for DS’s kindergarten class. Once those were complete, I started to turn those same stamps and punches towards other uses: making Valentine’s Day cards for my immediate family.

I created a few smaller ones with some of stamping done on vellum paper and then a couple larger ones.

All cards were made using different combinations of the following materials: white cardstock, black cardstock (CM), vellum (SU), Riding Hood Red cardstock (SU), and Pink Pirouette cardstock (SU), Basic Black ink (SU), Riding Hood Red ink (SU), stamps from the Happy Heart Day set (SU), a stamp from the All Through the Year set (SU), roller-stamped hearts in Real Red ink (SU), punched circles (1″ and 1&3/4″), punched scallops, a scalloped-edge rectangle, punched tags (large and small).

For the three small cards, I placed them in a regular-card-sized clear envelope and then added some little Valentine candies at the bottom. The cards were made a little at a time… just whenever I had the chance to get to my craft table and pick up where I left off.

Have I mentioned yet how much I absolutely love that our dinning room is currently set up as a huge craft area for the whole family? Since we moved from a small house with only one eating area, we had no extra furniture for the dinning room. And since we have not really been able to remedy that in our time here (we didn’t even have the money to be able to buy an air conditioning unit as planned!), the temporary set-up just became more long term. And I’ve resolved to just enjoy that while it lasts!

Our set-up is great; we’ve got a few IKEA shelves along the wall, with plastic drawer units on the bottom to organize all the craft items. There’s our fold-out craft table with 4 folding chairs (of dubious comfort levels, which is why I usually roll over the chair from the kids’ computer). I have my scrapbooking bags stashed under one shelving unit and bins on the shelves that hold all my punches, ribbons, templates, etc. It’s nothing compared to some of the beautiful craft room designs I’ve seen, but it suits us just fine!

All in all, I’m very glad I have a handy place where I can work on my creative projects and not have to tidy it all away in between! I can usually carve out enough space to make cards as long as I can contain the kids’ projects to “their” (unofficial) side of the table. Today I was back and forth between card-making, baking some yummy Vday treats (stay tuned to see those!), and crashing on the couch with my ice packs! I hope everyone else enjoyed their day/weekend.

DIY: cute Valentines for kids

This year I wanted to do something special for my son’s new friends in his kindergarten class. With the collection of scrapbooking and stamping supplies I’ve amassed over the years, it wasn’t hard to come up with a new type of “Valentine” that he could give out…

With a few trims and stamps, I was able to come up with a little folder-style Valentine that would hold a couple of treats inside. I used two colours of cardstock; you can pick any colours or patterns that are Valentine-themed but make sure your base cardstock is thick enough to hold itself up.

Here are the instructions for where to cut and score:

• Cut your cardstock to 2.5″ wide by 7.5″ high
• Score the cardstock along the width at 1″, then again at 3.5″, then at 4.5″
• You should now have 4 sections: a 1″ lip, a 2.5″ square, a 1″ base, and another 2.5″ square
• Scallop-punch the 1″ wide lip on the far end (optional)

I decorated the folder with stamped images and did a bit of layering with circle-punched pieces of cardstock in different colours. From there, I made three hole punches on either side at the top – lining up the top flap with the top of each 2.5″ square. You could also skip this step and plan to staple the top (either with or without a ribbon). Have your child sign the Valentine before the final assembly…

To finish up: adhere two candies on the 1″ base of the folder (you can use a gluedot, sticky strip or photo split); fold up the folder and be sure the top lip is folded on the outside; slip the ribbon through the holes on either side and tie a knot; trim the edges of the ribbon on an angle (optional).

the finished Valentines, ready to go!

My son has had fun this week decorating and signing his Valentines (with 22 little buddies in the class we spread it out a bit!), so I hope his friends have fun opening them up and enjoying the candies when they get home.

And I also hope readers have enjoyed this tutorial! Please feel free to share it with others by linking back to it at: www.krismom.com/2010/02/diy-cute-valentines-for-kids/ (permanent link). Stay tuned for another blog post in the next couple days when I’ll share some more Vday creations…

a few funnies…

My son is such a little sunshine in my life, he has the funniest little expressions. His way of seeing the world is so unique and special, especially since he is SO incredibly smart! I have no doubt he’s picked up on the “gifted” genes from both his parents.

Here are a few favourite Avery quotes from the past little while…

Avery: “I’m so smart I don’t need any other people”.

Avery (after being told to go back to bed as the TV in our room is turned off): “You’re just doing a trick on me – when I go back to bed you will just turn that TV back on again.”

Avery: “I saw the muffin bag on the counter Mom!”
Me: “Oh you did eh…?”
Avery: “So what’s for breakfast?”
Me: “Guess!”
Avery: “I don’t know!”
Me: “Muffins!”
Avery is genuinely surprised and delighted to find this out! LOL

Me: “Well how did they watch that back then? There were no TVs!”
Avery: “WHAT?”
Me: “In the olden days, TV hadn’t been invented yet.”
Avery: “That is just. not. possible.”

Avery asks his dad: “Was it awesome?”

Avery tells me (as I leave the couch): “But Mom, the game was just so awesome that it *made* me kick the couch. It’s done being awesome.”

And another few that I’d scribbled down (on a note paper that got lost again and found again about a million times!):

“I need you to just do this by yourself.”
“See, I told you it was gross.”
“That so freaked me out!”
“I always share with everyone the candy that I get at Halloween.”
“I obey you to play Xbox!”

scrapbooking the last pages of 2007

I know things’ve been a little quiet on the blogging side of things, but I assure you I’ve been turning my creative inclinations towards other passions lately and it has not all gone to waste. I took advantage of a good sale to print out nearly 300 digital pictures and have been working at getting my albums sorted out.

As a first completed project of the year, the “Family 2007″ layouts are now totally scrapbooked. This album (or rather section of an album; it shares space with 2008) was mostly complete for the longest time even before 2009 rolled around. Then I’d somehow skipped over November and December ‘07 in favour of jumping right into the beginning of 2008 and ending up scrapbooking from January to June of ‘08 in one big cropping weekend in October (which I paid for dearly in pain afterwards due to a fire alarm!).

In my recent album organizing efforts, the unfinished area stood out as a priority. So I finally chose some digital pics to print out from those couple months and got to work…

I finished the title bar to the first 1/2 layout of November (Paul’s 27th birthday), and then added another 1-page layout (of Stella’s 3rd birthday) on the other side. On the next pages, I did a 2-page spread with the title “Here comes Winter” and I think it turned out really nicely…

For the final layout of 2007, I did a 1-page layout which was kept to just one un-cropped photo and a block of journaling – all about my experience of being “Always behind the camera!” and why I love scrapbooking for my family.

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