Grandma Necklaces for Mother's Day

This year spring time has been crazy busy.  Between hosting a bid Brownie Scout event, my daughter's First Communion this weekend, and time unexpectedly needed mourn a beloved Great Grandfather we had our hands full.  Normally, I enjoy planning and creating handmade gifts or keepsakes from the kids to their Grandmothers for Mother's Day but this year things had to be semi handmade and I was the one doing the making.

My daughter liked the idea of giving them a Grandma Necklace, with a jewel or in our case a colored bead representing each grandchild.  We purchased the necklace chains, jump rings, and colored beads locally but to ramp up the wow factor we out sourced the beautifully stamped sterling silver charms.

Only have a few basic jewelry making tools and not a lot of skill or know how but these were easy to assemble as I only had to pry open the jump rings, put on the premade beads, and then close up.  It was a quick way to add a bit of handmade to this gift.

My children call my mom Grammy and Brad's mom Grandma Norma.  It's not often I see a Grammy charm so when Five Little Birds was featured on Zulily I picked it up right away.  At the same time I also got my MIL a Grandma charm.  Hers has the same two July "Rubies" that my mom's has for my two kids and also a April "Diamond" for our niece.

We packaged each necklace inside box and then tucked it inside a pillow box I made using a free template I printed out onto the blank side of a piece of patterned paper from an American Crafts Dear Lizzy collection.  A bone folder helped made assembly easy and within minutes we had pretty little holders to help make presentation lovelier.

I hope they like them!

I've shared this post on Do Tell Tuesday.



Please note this post contains a referral link to Zulily, that earns me credit if you sign up for the service and make a purchase.

Free Printable DIY I Love Mom Card for Kids by Education to the Core

Now that we've seen the Grandmothers for our belated Mother's Day outing I can share the totally cute little cards ER put together for them.  We made a quick accordion folded base and now it's more like a little mini book.  While we gave ours for Mother's Day, I wanted to share it even though it's after the fact because it would also be great for birthdays or any time you want to spread some love. 

We used this freebie from Education to the Core as our base.  That's just a preview of the download above  As you can see, it's really nice with some guided prompts and space to write and draw a picture.  You'll need to click over to the listing at TeachersPayTeachers to the packet that includes the color version we used along with a black line version.

To make our booklet I cut an 8.5X11 sheet of cardstock down to 5.25X11 inches and then popped it into my Martha Stewart Scoring Board and scored at 4.25 and 8.5.  You need to do this twice for each booklet.  The excess flap on one sheet I used to attach two pieces together and on the second I trimmed it off completely.

This will give you and idea of how we attached the two cut and scored sheets together.  On the reverse side, where the washi tape has been attached, that's the backside of the extra flap left over after scoring at 4.25 and 8.5 inches.  The tape is just decorative, a glue stick was used for the actual bonding.

After making our accordion folded base, we cut out each part of the book and attached with a glue stick to make our extra special card for the Grandmothers.  In the last section I added a little pocket to add small photo magnet we ordered on our school's spring picture day.  If we hadn't had that, we'd have attached a picture of ER with the Grandma the card went to. 

 I think it's sure to become a treasured keepsake! 

PF Chang's for Mother's Day

Hot & Sour Soup

Chang's Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Chang's Spicy Chicken

Mongolian Beef and...

These two little faces...made it a good Mother's Day indeed :)

I hope you were feted this Mother's Day!  Because no mom should have cook for Mother's Day, Brad took us all out for a delicious meal at PF Changs, one of my favorite restaurants.  We always get the Chang's for Two meal for us and fried rice for ER.  Everything was so yummy!  I wish we lived near enough to eat there everyday! 

What did you do with your family?


Linking up to Wordless Wednesday at Go Graham Go, Mom Spotted, Mama to 4 Blessings, Five Minutes for Mom and Wordful Wednesday at Seven Clown Circus.

Iron-On Tote Bag Kid's Craft

Happy Mother's Day to all my readers!  I hope you had a wonderful day or even Mother's Day weekend if you were lucky enough to celebrate both days, like I did!  Brad, the kids, and I all went to lunch on Saturday followed by a couple "errands" like going to Archivers :)  Yesterday the Grandmas came over and we presented their gifts in these sweetly colored in bags.

They were inspired by this project.  A clip art is provided with the original project but ER wanted something different.  I found a pretty flower bouquet coloring page on education.com for ours.  You have to sign up for a free membership to download, but otherwise the printable is free. 

I framed each iron on bouquet with ribbon.  The top one was sewed and the bottom two were hot glued on.  I tried two different methods for corners and by far the fold over, shown below was the easiest.  We hid any messy ribbon ends with a big button.

ER liked coloring with the permanent markers so much, she didn't want to stop.  So our gift bags are especially colorful with freehand drawings on the otherside.  She also included her name, age, and a hand tracing.

These were so fun to make; they'd make great gift bags for any occassion by switching up the coloring page you use as your iron-on decoration.  It would also be a cool gift for kid's birthdays.  Iron on an image suitable for the recipient but leave blank for a do it yourself activity they can do after the party ends.



Linked Up At: Skip to My Lou, Mad in Crafts, Craftomanic, Sew Can Do, Sumo's Sweet Stuff.

Thumbprint Flower Brooch for Mother's Day

When I got the Riley Blake fabric from Oh My Crafts, one of the first things I wanted to make was a big shabby chic fabric flower.  I knew it I knew it would just be beautiful and I was so right!  I just finished this gorgeous flower brooch. With a very special thumbprint center, it makes an extra special Mother's Day present...for um, myself.  Ya, ya, I know...but if I don't make it I won't end up with a keepsake like this.  Cause you know my hubster may be a smarty pants and very sweet but I can't see him whipping out the sewing machine, not in this lifetime!

When I went to figure out how to make the flower, I didn't have to look any farther than A Crafty Soiree, the weekly linky I co host.  Melissa's burlap bows and flowers caught my eye, her flower was exactly the look I wanted.  I pretty much followed her directions for the basic flower so I won't recap here, not when you can go check out her very nicely done tutorial.  Just a note, the circles I used are 3 inches and 3.5 inches in diameter.

I did make a couple of changes.  I decided to outline the circles for my flowers with a thin tip pink Sharpie.  I thought this would give the circles the look of being "inked", a look I really like in scrapbooking.  I also sewed on the folded up circles to the brooch, to make them lay flatter.  This allows the thumbprint heart to be attached more easily.  I love seeing all the stitching, it gives it such cool artsy look.

The best part of this project is that it's a mother daughter creation and I wind up with a keepsake of my little girl ♥  To make the thumbprint heart:

1. Take some white Crayola Model Magic and stamp directly onto it with a pink ink pad until you like the shade. 
2. Mixed both together, transforming the color from white to pink. 
3. Rolled out onto wax paper.
4. Cut out a heart with a cookie cutter.
5. Ink thumb with a slightly darker shade of pink. 
6. Press thumb into the Crayola Model Magic twice to make a heart.
7. Let dry overnight or several days, it will harden but still be slightly squishy.
8. Gently peel heart off wax paper.
9. Add a thin coat of clear nail polish to protect your heart.
10. Glue to center of fabric flower brooch.

I also added some green leaves, that I hand cut and then stitched, poorly as you can see, to felt backing.  Don't worry if bad stitching happens to you too, just hide that part beneath the flower and no one need ever know.  Like how the stripes alternate and are both horizontal and vertical?  Yep, I actually did that on purpose, and was quite pleased by the funky look they give the brooch.  I was kinda worried it would look ridiculous, isn't it nice when things work out the first time?  Use some fabric glue to stick them on, hot glue if you're in a hurry, and a few stitches if you want it to look pretty.  Guess which way I went.

To finish up, since you've already got the hot glue gun out, just glue a pin backing onto the back of your flower, near to top so it hangs properly when worn.  Then enjoy a punch of color on your lapel, handbag, or wherever else you can think to pin it on!  Now you can wear your kids over your heart ♥

Fabric used for this project include:

Dainty Blossoms 3 Pack, Main

Dainty Blossoms 3 Pack, Stripes

Disclaimer: Riley Blake fabric provided by Oh My Crafts.

Here is where I like to SHARE :) including Tatertots and Jello, Tidy Mom, Young & Crafty, Serenity Now, Funky Junk Interiors,   

Be Inspired Kit Release: Limited Time Cluster Freebie

The day before, on May 7th, we went to a Mother's Day Tea with my Godmother and both of ER's Grandmothers.  We shared a table with my good friend Margaret, her two daughters, and both of their Godmother's.  It was such a lovely event!  The pictures were perfect for the brand new kit from Adorible Digital Design, Be Inspired.  I used the kit to create an accordion fold out book.  Before I show you some pictures of the inside, let's take a look at Be Inspired.

The designer Louise created the Be Inspired for times when bad things happen, but life goes on.  This is mainly reflected through soothing color palatte and the premade word art options with encouraging phrases. I really like the different styled fonts used for those.  It's also a great multi use kit.    A blue polka dot alphabet coordinates and helps you personalize any words or titles you'd like to add.  There are lots of pretty flowers, buttons, leafs, hearts, and tags you can use for journaling.  A banner, colored string & stitching, and frames help make creating your projects a snap.  The designed papers are bold and graphic and come with coordinating solids, not shown above.  Please note the ornate frame used on the front of my design team project IS NOT included, that's been recolored from the Colours of Spring kit.

Here is how the mini book I made with Be Inspired unfolds.  The Mother's Day Tea was a fun excuse to get dressed up and for each girl to bring a special doll, some even came dressed like them.  Little finger foods were served and there was entertainment in the form of a ballet show, storyteller, and some dancing finished up the afternoon.  ER was absolutely mesmerized by the dancers and their beautiful costumes.

The colors of Be Inspired provided a great backdrop for my pictures, which had a lot of busy colors in them.  They really pulled everything together and provided a lovely way to showcase my favorite photos from the day.  It was easy to decorate each mini canvas with few elements, that adds a special touch without overwhelming things and really let all the designs of the patterned paper shine. 

Freebie Alert: Blog Train Featuring Be Inspired Clusters: Available ONE Week Only!

I turned two of the clusters I used in my fold out accordion fold book to create cluster freebies for you!  You can snag them for just one week, along with the clusters the other design team members have made.  Download the cluster above, here. and the cluster below, here.  Sorry, links expired!  The clusters are now availbe for purchase, click here to see more.  Please remember these are for personal use only.

Continue along the Blog Train to collect the rest.  You should've come from Amanda, the next stop is at Larissa's.  Have fun seeing all the page layout examples at each stop.  For a full listing head back to Adorible Digital Designs, where you can also find purchasing information for Be Inspired and find out how to win it!!!  Here's a preview of all of the gorgeous clusters, available for free this week (links expired) and for purchase afterward:

If you download my freebies, please leave me some comment love and let me know what kind of hybrid projects you'd like to see!

Shared on: Scrappy Saturday's at Scrappy Gifts.

Disclosure: As a member of the Adorible Digital Designs Team, I receive access to kits to create promotional items.

Celebrating Mother's Day

This year we had both Grandma's over for Mother's Day for an informal BBQ.There was delicious food, we prepared the Moijo Lime grilled chicken and fruit salad. Norma brought her fabulous Chinese Slaw and my mom contributed a delish grilled potato salad with corn and avocado in it. Everything was sooo good!A very special edible centerpiece was baked up and decorated the night before. I can't take credit for it, my new book What's New, Cupcake? showed me the how to. I'll admit it did take me a long time to make everything, but I think next time it would go faster. Okay I have to show it again, a close up this time. Aren't they super cute? I'm rather impressed with myself☺ ER did not help with the flower creation, because you use melted white chocolate as the "glue". I half didn't believe it would work and used too much but believe me, the chocolate will hold everything in place.You know we had to make something special for Grammy and Grandma Norma! I love the sweet smiles on the faces of ER and my mom, oh the anticipation! The cute little scrapbooks I shared earlier. I think it's important to involve your kids and at least see if they are interested in your hobbies. I hope ER continues to want to craft with me as she gets older. You can see her first ever scrapbook, here.
I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day! To find more Mother's Day posts, celebrations, tips, and activities stop by ABC & 123, we're hosting a linky starting today. We'd love for you to join up too!

Preschool Mother's Day Celebration

Yesterday was the Mother's Day party at ER's preschool. It was really nice to attend and enjoy the event without having to plan it! The moms all came back early to pick up the kids, who spend the first half of class getting ready.

We were treated to a special performance, two sweet little songs. I wish I could show you the cute little video of them singing, but I can't because all the kids are on it. One was about a rainbow. There were word cards displayed in that room, that were pointed to as they sang each color. All the kids painted their own rainbow to hold up during the it. Here are the lyrics:

Red and yellow

And pink and green

Purple and Orange

And Blue

I can sing a rainbow,

Sing a rainbow too.

The second was "Mommy" to the tune of "Bingo". Here are the adapted lyrics:

I love her and she loves me.

And mommy is her name-o.

M-O-M-M-Y,

M-O-M-M-Y,

M-O-M-M-Y,

And mommy is her name-o

Then all of the children gave their moms the gifts they'd made, starting with this sweet little handprint flower. The poem reads:

A piece fo me
I give to you.
I painted this flower
To say "I love you."

The heart is you.
The hand is me.
To show we are friends-
The best there can be.

I hope you will save it
And look back someday
At the flower we shared
On your special day.

Happy Mother's Day Mommy!
I love you,
(Child's Name)

We also got a sweet little beaded necklace, in a little paper pocket the kid decorated. Inside was a special dictated message from our kiddos.

Dear Mommy,

You color my world is so many ways. You are my rainbow and you are very special to me:

"She plays dominos with me, sings songs with me at bed time and lets me watch TV and pushes me on the swings"

I love you.
Class ended with a healthy rainbow snack. Did you notice rainbows were the theme of the party?

Mother's Day Tea Party

Today was the big day, that we've been so busy getting ready for, our Mother's Day Tea Party! It was so much fun! Everything looked beautiful; the food was delicious and everyone had fun doing the activities. Aren't our fancy tea hats pretty?

It was wonderful giving my mom and mother-in-law a special day to show them how much they mean to our family and how much we love and appreciate them! Spending time with our mother's is really what this day is all about, I love how this event gave my daughter a chance to bond and spend quality time with her Grandmas, creating wonderful memories and helping reinforce to her how much both Grandmas love her.

We're also spending Sunday with them, so we'll get lots of quality family time in! Originally, my husband told me that since we were having the tea, maybe I'd like to not drive across town to see his and my mother and celebrate mother's day with my daughter and family. We could do whatever I wanted. Then I thought about it, and realized that what I wanted to do was spend it with them☺

I have been holding on to these tissue paper pom poms since last summer, when I got a great deal on a kit by Martha Stewart. I originally planned on using them for ER's 2nd birthday party outside under our gazebo but it rained and was so humid on the day of her party that we couldn't use them. I'm glad I had the perfect opportunity to hang them up.We used the three painted polka dot pots for our centerpiece, I added a name tag to each one and decorated it with a silk flower. You can find out how we made the pots here. It was so easy, albeit time consuming since it was spread out over a few days but even a very young child can help make them. The purple pansies looked great in them, and coordinated so well with our color scheme.My mom brought her pretty china tea cups for us to use. The Grandma's each had a place of honor with their handprint heart photo frame "cards". Mom also brought her Grandmother's silver flatware, tea pot, cream, and sugar. It was so special using things once owned by my Great Grandmother, how appropriate for a Mother's Day celebration!

Our first activity was to make fancy tea party hats. I got this great idea from my Family Fun magazine, that's been such a good subscription! It has fantastic ideas and it's worth every penny!

All you do it cut two pieces of 30x30 pieces of wrapping paper. Lay them together wrong sides together. Have one person hold it on their head, while another wraps colored tape around the widest part of the head. Trim off the excess paper in a circular shape, leaving about five inches border. Flip up the sides and the front "brim" of the hat. Decorate with tissue paper flowers.

To make the flowers cut large and small circles out of several layers of tissue paper. Cut a circle out of cardstock that is smaller than the smaller circles of tissue paper. Layer from largest to smallest. Put a brad through the center and attach to hat.

For once I managed to time everything really well. While the Grandmas worked on making the hats, I made the tea sandwiches. We had a nice variety and I am pleased with how everything turned out. We had four different kinds of sandwiches, cranberry orange scones, heart shaped brownies, fruit kabobs, chocolate covered strawberries, pound cake petite fours, and a fruit tart.

Family Fun Magazine also helped me out with some of the sandwich ideas. We nibbled on mini pitas filled with hummus, cucumber, and tomato. I made mini croissants with cherry almond chicken salad I purchased at the deli. For something sweet we had baguette spread with Nutella and banana slices and whole wheat triangles filled with honey walnut cream cheese with pear slices. Everything was really good!

I made the chocolate dipped strawberries and pound cake petite fours. The petite fours are the only thing I didn't love but my mom liked them. We think that Brad and I didn't care for the almond extract added to the frosting. I'd try them again, but only add vanilla extract. They did look pretty, even if they were slightly neon colors instead of the pastels I wanted. When they say only add a drop at a time of food coloring to the frosting, they mean it! I wish I could take credit for the fruit tart, it was so yummy but that delish treat came from Whole Foods Market and so did the great two bite mini scones.

Look a man at our Mother's Day Tea! It's Brad, he came home for lunch to enjoy a tasty lunch and see his mom aka Grandma Norma! For some reason he didn't want to wear my hat for the picture ☺

Here is me and my mom aka Grammy.

The other little activity I planned was decorating frames. ER painted these when she painted the pots. The Grandmas helped her add some cute flower and butterfly foam stickers to hers. Later on, I will give each Grandma picture from today's tea to put in it. ER would not look up at the camera because, "I'm working!"

It was a lovely day, and such a special treat to have all the ladies together! I've added this to I Blame My Mother's Kid Friendly Friday.

ER and Grammy

ER and Grandma Norma

ER and Mommy