Valentine Treats

Okay, here goes......... my first blog showing a project. I had a request for some valentine treats for my friends children for them to take to school. When making 52 items I try to cut cost as much as possible. The following project turned out costing about .65 cents to make. The tins used were ordered from a Party Favor store online costing .38 cents each and measuring 2 inches in diameter and have a clear top lid.


I covered the top and bottom portion of the tin with ribbon using tacky tape. I placed a heart with a rub -on and gems on the top using a pop dot. On the inside of the tin I placed a stamped image from Nicole's PaperTreyink stamps to hide the pop dot from the inside. After trying many, many, many items inside I finally decided I liked the look of the Hershey kisses arranged to look like a flower. This was a very inexpensive project that was quick and easy. I hope the kids at school and daycare enjoy their treats. Sorry about the awkwardness of this layout and photos..... I haven't quite mastered the art of blog posting yet!


Items used: Marvey Scalloped Heart Punch, Quickutz Icing Rub-on (Hearts), PaperTreyink stamps (Sweet Love) Palette Inks (L'Amore Red and Noir Black), Provo Craft Tacky Tape, Paper Studio gems, American Crafts Ribbon and other offray from Hobby Lobby.

Today is a difficult day. One year ago today I lost my step-son Chad to suicide. The memories came flooding back this morning and my heart is all broken up inside. Chad was 36 years old when depression got the best of him. He lived with his mom and step-dad so we did not see him often. Chad had spent several weeks with us over the summer though and we had such a good time. He fished, rode 4-wheelers, watched movies and just talked with his dad and I; we laughed the entire time, he was always clowning around (as you can see by the photo). Chad had a way of always bringing a smile your face, even during the most difficult times. He had such a good heart. He struggled off and on with depression throughout his adult life and gave into it on February 5, 2007 -- Rest in Peace Chad. If you know anyone who suffers from depression, no matter had small or how severe, be there for them, tell them you love them and most of all pray for them. Be a friend -- you never know when you might be saving a life.

Snow Day

We woke up to a light dusting of snow and a little ice this morning which caused school closings and the morning off at work. I know you ladies living in the north and northwest think we are wimps if this caused closing but what can I say, you're right. Anyway, this gave me the perfect opportunity to start that ever dreaded INVENTORY. Since I have a "business" for my papercrafts I have to do yearly inventory for our taxes which I dread each year. I've not found that "perfect" system just yet. I've been working on my quickutz this morning. I love the new feature on their web page that allows you to inventory your dies. I always thought I had a lot of quickutz; I have the Squeeze, Revolution and Silhouette (a Christmas gift from my husband) and many dies/digitals to go with each one. After selecting all the dies, fonts, goosebumpz, etc I only have 127 of 1755 products listed, that's only 7%, I was shocked. I honestly thought I would be closer to 35 - 40%, I guess I don't have as much as I thought. I would love to hear from those of you who have to do inventory for taxes as well. Please share your techniques for tracking the "in and out" of inventory, your cost of supplies, tools, literature and such. Hopefully, we can all learn some tricks from each other. Well I had better get off of here and get back to inventory, on to PaperTreyInk stamps, stamp pads and cardstock.

Altered Frames

I love the idea of scrapbooking, I'm just not very good at it. It is a goal of mine for 2008 to actually scrapbook pages this year. I have so many photographs and ideas I just lack the confidence in my ability to put pages together. I say this to lead into my project. When I started "scrapbooking" and couldn't seem to make my pages look like everyone else's I thought I would start out with small projects, this led to the my love of "paper crafts or altered art". One project I love to make is these altered frames. I start out with an inexpensive wooden frame from the craft store and go wild. I have made many for gifts and well as to sell at local shows. These were all Christmas gifts made for a friend of mine to give to his employees (hope you girls liked them). I get a lot of request for these even though they are so simple to make I think they make a huge impact with a personal photo.

It's Official - I'm a BLOGGER

I have arrived. Thanks to all those papertreyink bloggers I just had to set mine up. I've been considering doing this for a long time but wasn't sure how to go about it. I only hope that my blog is worthy of your visit, I am a "work in progress" type of gal. I am excited about adding photos of my work, but don't laugh.