Hello to all. My days have been really busy lately. So sorry for not posting more often. I have my own two little ones to chase, plus I have been teaching all day and these last two weeks I have been teaching paper crafting in our after school program as well. Wears me out, but I have been having fun. I have 20 6th-8th grade students in my class for card making. For this project the students made 10 cards and a matching card box. Here are some samples of their work.

Student #1 Front

 Student #1 Inside

 Student #2 Front

 Student #3 Front

 Student #4 Front

 Student #5 Front

 Student #6 Front

Here is what I need from you. I need you to vote on your favorite card above. Place you votes on the poll in my sidebar. I told the students the winner gets a prize, for entering they all got to be featured on my blog. These are the six that have entered. We practiced using spray ink, distressing the edges with ink, dry embossing, and learning to stamp. This was the first time all the kids had ever used any of the techniques. I think they turned out great! What do you think?

More Christmas Gift ideas on the cheap!

This year our budget was tight so I ended up making almost all my Christmas Gifts.  In the previous post you saw my message board I made my Mom.  I made 3 more done in different styles for the other women I had to get for this year. However, in the hussle to leave the house on time for the holidays I forgot to take photos of those.  I had one done for an elementery classroom for my sister-in-law that was for writing to do lists and list of what needed to be copied. The second was done in a music/drama style for my aunt for work. She works in the music department at a college and it had room for notes and appointments as she is a busy woman. Finally the 3rd was for my Mother-in-law who I made on similar to my Mom's but done is brown and blue colors.  It has a place for notes and grocery lists too.

I did remember to take photos of my gift card holders I made using my cricut and SCAL program.

To make this gift card holder I used an SVG file of a fish and cut it using my SCAL program and my circut using green paper. I made 2 of the same cut so my fish is 2 sided. Then I used the blackout feature on two brown cardstock sheets which gives you a solid filled in version of your shape. I adhered one green side of the fish to the brown cardstock fish and used some scrap paper to tape in a pocket that would hold the giftcard, then I taped the other green fish to the other brown fish shape and then adhered the two brown pieces together leaving room for my giftcard to slide in and out. Still using scrap paper I hand cut a fish hook and taped it to my giftcard, tied some natural hemp from CTMH to my hook and my pole which is just a rolled piece of left over brown cardstock. So this is what it looks like put together with the giftcard inbetween the 2 brown pieces of cardstock.

So now when you pull on the fishing pole the giftcard comes out. My brother is a big fan of fishing, hunting, anything outdoors so I got him a card to Cabellas.

For my mother-in-law and brother-in-law I made a much more traditional holder...a stocking. This one I hand drew the stitches and cut the toe and heal out of my second pattern paper. I used ctmh jingle paper and stickers.