Cards and kids

I've been on a craft kick lately, and I'm trying to get my kids into the act.  Fortunately, they are happy to color, paint and draw, which makes for some fun art projects. 

We did some hand print cards for Valentine's Day:

The thumbs, fingers and sides of the palms are supposed to form the shape of a heart. We didn't quite get there, but that's okay because my kids had a lot of fun making these cards, and that's really all that matters.

Notice the entire roll of paper towels in the background. Just in case!

I like to buy plain white 5x7 cards/envelopes in 25- and 50-packs from JoAnn's and Michael's.  They make perfect canvasses for send-able artwork.

Here, Little Miss made a birthday card for the Big Guy:

I'd like to emphasize at this time that Crayola Washable markers are, in fact, truly washable.

The Little Guy used Crayola watercolors for his card for the Big Guy.  Also totally washable.

The kids really enjoy their craft projects, and I like being able to send their fun pictures to friends and family.  Plus, I'll never need to buy another birthday card again! 

Need a rainy day (or any day!) craft project for your kids? Pick up some plain white cards/envelopes at the craft store and let them do their thing!

Martha Monday--Thank ewe!

I made 'thank you' notes to match the birthday theme and invitations for Samantha's 'Down on the Farm' birthday party. 

The cute little lamb/sheep was made with a Martha Stewart Crafts Sheep punch.

And to kick up the Martha-Stewart-factor about ten notches, I used not regular paper, but a paint sample from the Martha Stewart paint line at Home Depot.  The color?  Lamb. 

On a scale of one to ten, ten being the most Martha-like and one being 'not Martha at all,' I'd rate these cards at a 23.  Eight points for being home made, ten points for the "Lamb" paint samples being used with an MS Crafts Sheep punch, and five points for the word play.  Not that there's a set point system for this, and even if there were, I'm really sure the only person keeping score is me.

Thank ewe, thank ewe very much!

Crafty invitations

Little Miss' birthday is rapidly approaching.  Our theme is "Down on the Farm," and I wanted the invitations to let folks know what they were in for with our parties. 

 
The inside contains the important party information about when and what time folks need to wander on down to the TMI homestead for some farm-fresh fun. The red doors are textured scrapbook paper that I found on clearance, and the white trim (and the inside) is basic card stock.  I printed the inside text two to a page, trimmed them, glued on the barn doors, and then adding the white trim accents. 

These invitations were cheap to make, but took a lot of time.  Thank goodness the Big Guy helped!  I firmly believe that my time is worth some serious cash (there's so little of it--it must be a hot commodity!) so if I had to do it again I would just purchase these printable invitations from Wants and Wishes.  Live and learn, right?!

Overall, I am really happy with how these turned out and I've gotten several compliments on them. And bonus:  making these invitations fulfilled my New Year's Resolutions to be more frugal and to craft more.  Hopefully the parties will turn out just as good as the invitations did!

Valentine's Day inspiration

Valentine's Day sneaks up on me every year and I'm not sure how it manages to do that, being as it comes with chocolates and flowers (two things that really grab my attention!). 

Maybe I don't notice right away because it's still winter, or maybe because Valentine's Day is on the heels of the Super Bowl (which is a really big deal in my house)? For whatever reason, I haven't done too much with Valentine's Day.  However, now that the Little Guy is in preschool and has to give Valentines to his friends, Valentine's Day has become a BIG DEAL in the TMI household. 

Being a Martha Stewart enthusiast, I want to make some homemade Valentines for my kids' classrooms rather than picking up a box of ready-made cards at the store.  It just makes sense to me that for a holiday revolving around love and friendship, tokens of such should be handmade.  Fortunately, I'm finding a lot of great Valentine ideas on Pinterest.

With all these great ideas, I'm set for classroom Valentines for Little Guy and Little Miss for the next 10 years or so.  I am constantly amazed by the wonderful crafts and fun ideas I've found on Pinterest.  Take a look at my Valentine's Day board, and you will be, too!

Crafty driving babies

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to find time to craft and I finally did. Which is good, because January is almost over and if I can't get to a resolution in the first month, then I might as well forget it!

I made a fun card for a baptism. The images and message have nothing to do with being baptized, but everything to do with babies and parenthood.

Here's the outside of the envelope:

Here's the front of the card:

The cars were made with a Martha Stewart paper punch.

Finally, here's the inside of the card:

What do you think? Do I have a future at Hallmark?  I should, because let's be honest...that is just good advice.  And you're getting it here for free, people! For FREE! 

Happy crafting, everyone! 

PS. Don't let your babies drive cars.  For real.

Finished cards

At my little card-making party, I think Amy, Ellyn and I crafted for a good 2.5 hours, and each of us came away with a nice little stack of finished cards.


Look at Amy's card! For a beginner, she is making some awesome cards. Note to Amy: my birthday is coming up....and, well, I like getting cards in the mail...cards that are just like the ones you made on Saturday...just so you know.



The following three cards are Ellyn's. Aren't they awesome? Ellyn is a pro at making cards. Everything looks so polished and professional!

Can I be honest with you for a minute? For a split second, I thought about posting the pictures of Ellyn's cards without credit to the crafter. That way, you all might think that I, a Martha-in-training, had made these wonderful cards. Isn't that awful of me? But I immediately thought of the mostacciolli incident, and I knew that even implying that I made these cards would be a terrible thing to do.

What is the mostacciolli incident, you ask? Well, several years ago, the Big Guy and I went to a potluck. I made baked mostacciolli. It was awesome. AWESOME. People tasted it and raved. When they asked who made it, the Big Guy (jokingly) took credit. WHAT?!? I remedied that situation asap, but my very astute readers will notice that I'm still a little miffed about that incident. Just a bit.

Which is why I had to give full credit to Ellyn for her awesome cards. One day, I will make cards this beautiful. And when I do, I will show them off here with full credit to me: your friendly, honest Martha-in-training.

Card-making party

As I mentioned on Monday, I got down to some serious card-making this weekend with friends Amy and Ellyn. I am big into making cards; sadly, I often don't have time to get out all the supplies, craft for several hours, and clean up the resulting mess. This means I send out a lot of store-bought cards.

And you know, that's just not the Martha way. So, you can imagine how thrilled I was to get my craft on (which I hardly ever do) with two great friends (who I don't see nearly as often as I'd like to).

The first step to getting crafty: take 75% of your supplies and spread them all over the dining room table. The less tablecloth you see, the better.


Ellyn brought probably 20% of her supplies. Her 20% is like my 75%, and my 75% is nothing to scoff at. If I am serious about card-making, then Ellyn is probably one step below Martha Stewart herself. Seriously.

Amy was brand-spanking-new to card-making, but she was a good sport and jumped right in. Amy has 0% supplies, which was totally fine because Ellyn and I have enough supplies for a small nation of Girl Scouts. But after our fun card-making session, I strongly suspect Amy might be making a trip or two to her local craft store for supplies. Once that creative light bulb goes on, there's just no shutting it off!

Even the Little Guy got into it. I tried to keep him busy with his own markers and paper, but pretty soon he was reaching across the table for Ellyn's supplies. He knows the good stuff when he sees it.

Then the Little Guy got down to the serious business of unrolling spools of ribbon. Good times. Perhaps I have a future artist/crafts person on my hands?

But you'll notice that he sometimes forgets to recap his markers. With that in mind, we may be waiting on a masterpiece from him for quite a while.