Manly cards....

I hope youl had a great Father's Day weekend. I worked all weekend but managed to have a relaxing few hours with my sweet hubby and talk with my dear dad. 

Between us, I think my boys were glad to have dad all to themselves. They spent time playing Pokemon while mom was working. My hubby is wonderful with his boys. It helps that he is just a big boy himself but they really do love playing together. It is great for me to watch. 

I made a couple of cards for my dad and my father in law. There are 3 to 1 more boys than girls in my hubby's family so male cards are always on my radar. I was tickled to come up with these.

 I am loving Jim Holtz stuff. It is perfect for the manly card. A while back I found some on sale. I grabbed several items. These just don't go on sale that often.

 So here's what I did....

 Start with a nice brown base....

 Stick the checker print and a thin strip of the striped print on a darker brown....

 I love using a bit of jute. Wrap it around twice then tie a bow...

 I used the foam adhesives to give it a bit of pop. Then stick it to the card base.

 From here I used alphabet cards and a nice pin...

 I usually make up a couple of extra cards. If you have the supplies out for one it doesn't take much more to make a couple of extra.

Now when I need a birthday card or something else I can add a couple more embellishments or alpha cards and have a great card in seconds. It's what keeps me from drowning in last minute, "oh no, I nearly forgot" moments.

Homemade Birthday Cards

Sometimes we just need time to visit and relax. That's what I get when my dear friend comes to visit. We had a great time putting these cards together.

I am trying to send birthday cards to family members so I needed to stock up on them. I get the out, not always on time though so it is a life saver to have some already made and ready to go.

Girl cards are easy, boys well, they can be too they just take a bit more thought. I love the polka dots and bright colors of this one. The dotted edge added just enough to spiff it up a bit.

I LOVE this card. The bright pink. The sharp black. The crisp white. But mostly I love out the tack hangs free. It adds great dimension to go along with the flower. 

Now, if I could just see the smile on their faces. Of course that is probably for the $ in the card. ;-)

Yep, I am the favorite aunt! I earned it with each incentive!

Christmas name tags

Project 48 of 52
I enjoyed making the Thanksgiving name tags that I thought I would do up some Christmas name tags. I love having a cricuit. It makes it easy; just cut several different shapes and add a little embellishment and write in your name of choice.

I found these perfect stickers at Michaels. They are small and just what I needed. How simple is that?

I wanted to keep them simple. Just a nice tag with some glitter writing was simple and fun too.

If you don't have a way to cut tag shapes you can just do a rectangle and round the edges. Here is another of those small stickers I found.

Kaylyn and I enjoyed this project but I think we had more fun laughing and sharing stories. My belly hurt by the time we were done! A few other ideas that I thought of but didn't make up are:
recycle old Christmas cards by cutting them into strips and making napkin rings from them.
Store bought large name tags
Stuff a clear ornament with papers with names on it
Ornament balls with name written with glitter glue
Mini presents with name on the tag
or
Vinyl names on chargers

And it has become official. Everyone asked if we were BYU fans or Utes. Our response was usually "I don't know" or "Go Boise State!" but here in Utah you have to declare blue or red. After going to a BYU game I guess it makes us officially BYU fans. Robin even brought home the mug to prove it.

So here is a summary of my day, a little wassle to warm me while I read Harry Potter (again) and then topping it off with some Christmas tags. Yep, it was a good day.