Madison Avenue

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Birthday Week!

Birthday week! My kids have birthdays just two days apart.  My son turned 19 and my daughter turned 16 this past week.

The obligatory birthday pic

I had been thinking of having her a surprise Sweet Sixteen party since last year and then time got away from me as it tends to do and combined with some setbacks, it almost didn't happen. It wasn't a "real" party, but she was surprised and I think she loved it anyway.

If you know me, you know I am "themey." Everything has to have a theme and it has to coordinate. I searched Pinterest for ideas for a sweet sixteen party and most of the things that came up were candy related. Then I saw a Starbucks party and I knew that was it! She's a Starbucks girl, she likes her iced and flavored coffees and frappuccinos.

I wanted to do a party with her church youth group but couldn't get the timing worked out. The youth leader graciously allowed me to bring cupcakes and some decorations on Wednesday night, the day before her birthday. I enlisted the aid of one of her friends to coordinate the teens to yell "surprise!" when she walked in. I wish I could have been there, but that would have given away the surprise. Scroll on to see what I crafted for the big event!

The Starbucks themed decoration board for the party. The idea was to make it look kind of like a Starbucks store, with the chalkboard menu and pictures of drinks.

I tried to duplicate the look of the Starbucks coffee cup with the wrap. I made about 4 dozen "Starbucks Salted Caramel Frappuccino cupcakes." YES!  I! MADE! THEM! If you know me, you know I don't "do" food. I just don't like to cook/bake/decorate and I HATE to clean up the mess. But I found the recipe on Pinterest and it sounded easy enough so I just went for it. They turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself! My daughter's reaction was priceless when I told her I made them. "YOU made these????"  She thought I had gotten them from my cake supplier ;)


The surprised birthday girl. She couldn't believe I pulled it off.  She couldn't believe that her friend, well known for not being able to keep secrets, kept the secret!!

This is what she got in her lunchbox the next day, on her actual birthday. She wasn't supposed to open her lunchbox until lunchtime, and I had included a note that she had to wear the crown in order to get lunch (which I was bringing to her). The little stinker found it before lunch and then left it in her locker so she wouldn't have to wear it!  Sometimes she's no fun at all!  It's not a very good picture of the bottle, but I glittered the bottom part of it. One side says "Birthday Girl" and the other side says "Sweet 16." I made the vinyl part removable (I mean, she's only a birthday girl for one day) but the glitter part is really pretty and is supposed to be washable even in the dishwasher so we'll see how it holds up!

Nothing crafting related here but this is cute! The only thing she wanted for her birthday was a dog! She didn't get one, ha! But we had gone out to eat and as we were leaving the restaurant, this super friendly dog (and her owners) were outside. So she got some dog loving and a doggie kiss on her birthday after all!



The cake!!  I made the cake!! My kids don't like traditional birthday cakes, so she had requested a cheesecake. I had been wanting to try cutting a sugar sheet in my Cameo and I'm happy to say it worked very well!! Glenna at MyPaperCraze has a fantastic tutorial on cutting sugar sheets. There were a few spots that were difficult to remove, especially the centers of the letters "A" and "R" (thank goodness there were only those two)! It's not perfect but overall, I was very pleased with how it turned out. I will be doing this again since it was a pretty easy way to decorate a cake! (Bonus that it was also yummy!)


Of course, no party is complete without a birthday banner! Yes, even though they are not all in the picture, there are sixteen pennants.

That's all for now, time to work on my next project!

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Thursday, August 27, 2015

Summer Crafting!

Wow, summer went by way TOO fast! With vacations, computer problems (still ongoing), printer problems (still ongoing), iPad problems (I had to do a complete reset and I ended up losing ALL of the hundreds of photos on it :'( ), I feel like I accomplished a whole lot of nothing most days. But here's what I've been up to since May.

In June, an internet friend (whom I've never met in person!) had a pretty major surgery so I made her a get well card. The layout was inspired by a card I found online at AmazingPaperGrace.com using this stamp set from Inkadinkado.  Becca Feeken makes some absolutely amazingly beautiful cards. Go check her out.


I made some 4th of July shirts for my daughter and her friend who were spending the day together and wanted matching shirts.


 I also made a 4th of July shirt with dogs on it for my dog loving friend and a shirt for myself!


I posted them on Instragram and was thrilled when Siser North America (the company that makes the heat transfer vinyl I use) saw it and regrammed it!!




An old high school friend now living on the west coast had a birthday mid-July and I wanted to use a new Stampin' Up stamp set I had to make her a birthday card.


This set is called "Big Day" and was a Sale-a-Bration promotion item with qualifying purchase. The inside says "and perhaps a little ice cream."

Also in July, another wonderful internet friend (again whom I've never actually met in person!) graduated from nursing school.  She is such an inspiration to me.  She is a single mom of three kids, holds down two jobs, homeschools, goes to school full time and also shuttles her kids to their various extracurricular activities.  All on her own. I don't know how she does it. I ordered this stamp just to make her a card because I thought it was the perfect sentiment. "She believed she could so she did."  Congratulations Fanchon.


I guess I was into the pink/black combination at the time I made those cards! July is a blur and I don't know where it went. I think I started several projects but never fully completed anything. A week or so into August, my daughter talked me into painting/redecorating her room.  It was transformed from bubble gum pink to a bluish-greenish color called "sparkling brook." It is still a work in progress and I have some more ideas for decorations.  I did make some (no sew!) pillows and I just love this one with the "dream on dreamer" phrase in gold vinyl. 



Have you priced decorative pillows lately?? Wow. $25 - $40.  No way. I think mine are way cuter than most of the ones we saw in stores anyway!

I had picked up some plain tanks this summer that I told my daughter I would decorate for her, so we found some cute designs and I made them this week.



Now that school has started back, I am trying to be more structured with my days: housework, exercise, craft time. (Although not always in that order!) I've got some exciting things I'll be working on in the next several months so stay tuned!



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Saturday, July 4, 2015

Graduation 2015

So clearly I'm not too good at this blogging stuff! I've been doing a good bit of crafting, just not blogging about it.

In May, my son graduated from high school. I created some announcement covers and matching thank you cards.


Originally, I did not plan to do this and ordered photo announcements with the graduation information on the back. I attached the announcement into the cover with photo corners, making it easy to remove, but it still confused people when they couldn't easily find the necessary information. If I were to do it again, I would probably retype all the information and put it on the other side.


I had the great honor of being asked to make some decorations for the graduation dinner. I decided my theme would be "Let your light shine." I first made a table lantern with a battery operated tea light for each graduate.


I added a tag that I stamped the verse "You are the light of the world. Let your light shine out for all to see." Matthew 5:14, 16. When looking for a stamp with this verse, I found a wonderful stamp company called Our Daily Bread Designs. They have a great variety of Christian stamps as well as dies and other papercrafting supplies. I will be purchasing from them again.

I also added a centerpiece to each graduate's table, using a plastic graduation cup as the base. I created some decorations on skewers, added their name to the front of a graduate tag, and stamped "Let your light shine" on the back of the tag.



That took care of the graduates' tables. I needed a few extra centerpieces for other tables so I filled some mason jars with paper shred and made some paper flowers. I did a print and cut of the verse "Let your light so shine" (from the Silhouette store), and attached two of them together around another battery operated tea light. Red burlap, lace and some washi tape finished off the jar.


Next, I cut out some graduate silhouettes as large as my Cameo would cut, attached them to a skewer that I painted black, set it into a spool also painted black and glued to a square of thick black chipboard. I made a tassel from twine and attached it with a button. These were set on one of the food tables.



I made some little graduation caps to fit on the dollar tree plastic wine glasses, in which I put some mints. The tassel was made up of each graduate's name. At the last minute, I decided it needed something else, so I cut vinyl in a chevron pattern for the bottom.


I loved the big numbers in the Silhouette store with the cutouts for photos. I put a photo of each graduate in the smaller holes, then filled the larger openings with various group photos.


My favorite thing of all was this Instagram sign. I got the idea from my friend Lauren at The Thinking Closet. She even featured my version in a Reader Showcase on her blog.  How awesome is that??  Go check it out here!


It's just too bad that only two people took advantage of it! The one thing I was most excited about turned out to be the biggest fail LOL! Isn't that they way it always is though?

My son was one of 14 graduates from a small Christian school. Each graduate also had to make a memory board and they were all displayed for everyone to see. They were all really creative and lovely! I made name banners for each of their tables.


Graduation was bittersweet. I'm excited for his future but those 18 years sure flew by quickly! I clearly remember his first day of kindergarten. His little sister was devastated when she realized we were leaving him there! I get to do the graduation thing again in 3 more years! :)







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Saturday, February 14, 2015

Happy Valentine's Day!

I realize I skipped right over Christmas. I made a few things, just nothing I was totally thrilled with! I don't usually do much crafting or decorating for Valentine's Day but I was inspired by some things I saw and decided to give it a whirl.

I bought a really cute Valentine's Day paper pad at Hobby Lobby, and this card was the first thing I made using it.

I originally made it with the intention of sending it to a friend, but later made another one I liked much better and sent it instead.  I just realized that I didn't take a picture of that one.  Boo :'(  Then I saw a video on youtube of someone making a LOVE banner and thought it was so cute that I would use my pretty paper to make one too.  I just "LOVE" the way it turned out!


I was in JoAnn's and saw a chalkboard wallhanging that looked simple enough to make so I had my daughter take a picture of it.  When I was out again sometime later, I thought about that chalkboard and bought a little one at AC Moore to recreate the one I saw at JoAnn's.  I started working on it before looking at the photo again (my daughter was at school and I had forgotten to have her send me the photo.)  The top is the one from JoAnn's and the bottom one (Love One another) is the one I made.
Totally nailed that recreation, don't you think? Maybe I'm not actually as plagiaristic as I think I am! Ha!

My Silhouette Challenge group on Facebook has a themed monthly challenge that I try to participate in. This month's theme was Print and Cut, with a bonus of using hearts.  I wanted to do a little something for my daughter's piano teacher so I made a candy holder and some print and cut stickers for the bottom of Hershey kisses.  I also made a post-it notepad holder and added it with the candy. Cute!
But my favorite thing of all was the card I made for my husband!
The coffee cup was a print and cut from the Silhouette store, so as soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to use it for the Silhouette Challenge. The phrase originally said "I love you more than CHOCOLATE" but I changed it by cropping the word coffee out of another phrase and replacing chocolate.  I just really love how this turned out!!

One more - I also made my husband a Sharpie mug. I wasn't going to add it here because it didn't turn out very well, but when I opened one of the gifts from him, well, the picture says a thousand words :)


Happy Valentine's Day everyone!



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