Archives for June 2012

End of year teacher gifts

June 18, 2012 By JulieK

I love to make little presents for the teachers at the kids’ school, just a little token of appreciation for all their hard work and dedication. I am just so thankful to all of them for everything that they do… So, I make a little something for all the teachers that the kids have, plus the principal and other staff too… CLICK HERE to see what I made for the teachers last year… And, here’s what I made for them all this year… I bought packs of small notebooks, and made covers for them, and included a little mechanical pencil.

I trimmed white cardstock to 5 1/2″ x 8″ and scored it at 4″ and 4 1/4″ across the long side. I used a little scrap to create the pencil holder, then used a couple pieces of patterned glitter paper (DCWV from the Citrus Stack) for the cover. I think they came out really cute!! They are all a little different… I bought little white sandwich bags to package them with a little “thank you” note one the front of the bag… Here’s what one of them looks like… Notice the front cover only goes over to the pencil.

And here’s a picture of it opened up…

Now, I also like to make a little something special for the kids grade teachers… They work so hard and I have loved all the teachers that the kids have had in the school so far… This year, I made them each a little altered clipboard that I decorated with patterned paper and ribbon. The patterned papers are Fancy Pants, and of course the ribbon is May Arts. I decorated the clipboards, and then made a little book mark with the scraps! I used large index cards for the “paper” on the clipboards that can easily be replaced when they’re full. Here’s a photo of the front with the bookmarks.

And there’s the back with the cute little bow!

For the Love of Peonies

June 14, 2012 By JulieK

I have a decidedly black thumb in general. I can kill nearly any plant I come in contact with, and unfortunately it’s not because of a lack of trying… BUT I am so happy about a couple of my green thumb accomplishments!! These are “my” peonies… They were elsewhere in the yard when we bought the house 12 years ago, They had been largely ignored when the kids were littler… some were in a very overgrown side bed, and some were also in the back garden (which my husband roto-tilled and I was still able to save them)… My Gram told me not to get my hopes up when I transplanted them because they can be finicky, she had some in her little front garden that just would never bloom (and she had the greenest of thumbs!). Anyway, like “my” iris, these peonies are the pride of my yard… And this year’s blooms were particularly stunning! Here are a few pictures from last week…

Delightful in Every Way Mini Scrapbook

June 11, 2012 By JulieK

I’m so excited to be teaching this Thursday evening at Ink About It in Westford, Ma!! I think that there’s a few spaces left, give the store a call at (978) 392-0321 if you want to join us. Class starts at 6:30, and we’re usually done with the book (it will be completed in class) by about 8:00 ish… This book is 6″x12″ when it’s closed, but it opens in the middle of the book, with different size pages on each side. The fabulous Authentique papers and stickers just make the book adorable and easy to customize because you get the entire sticker sheet!!

Here’s a view of the cover with the book closed

And here are images of the inside, if you click on the images you can see the full image.

These are some of the products I used, they are affiliate links, please see my disclosure page for more information about the affiliate links.

Happy Birthday Mini Scrapbook (New Blog Look Too!)

June 4, 2012 By JulieK

Do you like the new look?? I’m very excited about it!! I still have some tweaks to do, but I am really liking it!! Don’t forget to look in the new menu bar above, and follow me on Twitter and Pinterest!! There are “pin it” buttons in the post to make it easy to pin specific photos as well. And, don’t forget to let me know what you think!! Thanks!! Special thanks to Stephen at Wyld Web Designs for moving my WordPress.com blog over to a self-hosted server… He got everything set up for me so that I could go in and make it look pretty!! Now, back to our regularly scheduled posting :)

Looking for a super fun, quick and easy book for birthday memories and photos? Here’s a class that I taught last month at Ink About It in Westford, MA. There’s the wonderful papers by Simple Stories, with their perfect page sizes for this 6×8 inch book! I added some chipboard inserts, plain pages, and some pockets (just patterned paper folded!) Because you’re binding it yourself with the Zutter Bind it All, you could also punch and include birthday cards!! The possibilities are endless!!