Swim Party Invite

Inspired by Meredith Burnsed’s brilliant use of punches, I made this invitation for my son Matt’s 8th birthday party to be held later this week at our local lake/pool:

I used the Lively Little Ones stamp set and colored in the images with Prisma colored pencils.  I used the circle and word window punches for the sun and circle punches for the waves.  The sand is kraft cardstock stamped with the sand image from Shore Thing.  The presents and cake are from Crab & Co. and the sentiment is from Eat Cake.   I used green glitter on some of the waves and added little cardstock confetti too.  Can you tell I had fun with these?

Feeling Punchy

I saw these FANTASTIC punch ideas on SplitCoastStampers by Meredith Burnsed – here’s a link to some of her original work. I just had to give them a try (and add just a few of my own ideas too).

 Tab punches:

 

Circle and oval punches:

 

 

 

 

 

 I still have some more shapes to do using the Word Window punch when I get a chance.

I thought this would make a great class for kids and adults to do together, but I didn’t get much of a response.  Maybe I’ll try again next month…

Gift Frame

While we were away, my neighbor watched our cat and collected our newspaper and mail for us.  So I wanted to make something sweet for her – she has a new baby granddaughter and I thought a cute little frame would be something nice…

I bought a $3 MDF frame at Michaels and ModPodged some really pretty vintage-y paper from K&Co. with a nursery rhyme theme.  Then I added grosgrain ribbon around the outside edge and some pretty paper flowers with some buttons.  This looks so much cuter in person than it does in the photo – the colors are much more subtle than they appear in the picture.

Pretty Tea Card

Just a pretty little card I made a few months ago.  My daughter’s preschool asked us to make an RSVP card for their Mother’s Day Tea.  I made this and sent it in, but forgot to take a photo of it.  But it’s one of my favorite cards I’ve made so I thought I’d share it with you now that I have it back:

The card is made with Basic Grey paper (how can you go wrong with that?!?) and SU! cardstock (Old Olive and So Saffron).  I also used a stamp from Stampington & Co. and colored in the teacups with Regal Rose and Rose Red markers and the words with Old Olive.  I also included some Basic Grey ribbons and of course, the GORGEOUS Prima flower.

Where have I been?!?!

Okay – I know that it’s been a while since I’ve posted…a LONG while, I just realized!

So…where have I been? Out in the sun, enjoying the beautiful warm weather – it’s summer, for goodness sakes! 😉

My family and I have a membership to Lake Kandle – a nice, old fashioned lake and swim club. My kids took swim lessons every day for two weeks, and since we were already there, we just stayed for the day. Every day. For two weeks. THAT’S why I haven’t posted. But I am getting very tan, if I do say so myself.

We had an odd July 4th – the weather was not the best, so we decided to just stick around home for the day. Mike and the kids went to the Pitman parade and I volunteered for our church’s Open House in the afternoon. We just completed a new church building and opened it up so that the community could come and see what we’ve done. We had a great turnout – several hundred people came through. You can see our new building at the Pitman United Methodist Church website. Then we watched the 4th of July fireworks right from our front yard. Every year, our little town (Pitman, NJ) has a fireworks display at Alcyon Lake – which happens to be at the end of our street. So we set up chairs out front and watch them in comfort – we don’t have to deal with traffic, finding a parking spot or whining kids (well…the kids still whine, but we can just send them inside) – it’s a nice tradition that we enjoy every year.

We also were away all last week on a camping trip at Big Timber Lake Camping Resort in Cape May Court House, NJ. We reserved our site last year so that we would be right next to the swimming lake – here’s the view from our campsite:

It was WONDERFUL to be so close to the lake!!! At night, after it closed, it was like we had our own private beach. And the kids took advantage of that to play in the sand and look up at the stars.

Unfortunately, Mike had to work all week, so it wasn’t much of a vacation for him. But the kids and I had a great time.

So did Daisy Doodle. She was QUITE the center of attention! In addition to being close to the lake, we were also right on a path where people walked by all day long. Here’s a shot of her and Emily watching the people go by….

So…Daisy’s MO was to sit there looking all cute and everything until people stopped to pet her. How could you resist this face?

Well…let me tell you – no one could resist her charms! By the time we left, Daisy practically had her own fan club. Other campers were coming up and having their pictures taken with OUR DOG! One man took a photo on his cell phone and mailed it to his fiance. When she saw it, she drove all the way out to the campground to see Daisy in person. And there was one French-Canadian family that came by every single day and spoke to her in French. They said that they never saw a dog that made them so happy (let me just say that if Daisy went missing, the first place I was going to look would be Quebec – she had several French admirers during the week!).

As for me, I managed to finish several books – I started reading novels again this summer. Why did I stop reading them in the first place? Well…the problem is that I love reading SO much (and always have) that I tend to become so involved with the book – reading every minute I get – that I let everything else fall apart around me. But now that the kids are older, I find that I have more time to dedicate to reading – they don’t need all of my attention. As a matter of fact…I think I’ll start a new blog category about the books I’m reading this summer and my thoughts on them…

Anyway…I do have several craft projects to share with you, too…I’ll post them under the appropriate category…