Valentine's Day Treats

So, Valentine's Day is tomorrow. I personally don't celebrate this holiday, but my children do at their school. With that said, I wanted to share the little projects I worked on to help them celebrate with their friends.

This first picture is the treats my Freshman daughter will give to her close friends and my boys will give to their teachers.  I can't take credit for this project's originality, someone else posted a pic similar on their Fb wall and my DH sent me the link, for all I know it's on Pinterest.  I liked it so much, I felt the need to replicate as best as I could.  For this project I used: red construction paper (cut down to 4.5" x 4"), ATG 714 glue gun, ROLO candies, black card stock cut into strips of 1/8" and tapered at one end, black curling ribbon (I didn't measure the length), Stampin' Up die for the tag (sorry, I forgot the name/number).  I ran glue along the 4" ends as close to the edge as possible and I added 1/2 a strip of glue about 1/2" in from one end to stick the black "fuse" on. Line up the ROLO candy to the edge of the paper and roll, make sure you get the fuse in there before closing the dynamite all the way. For the teachers, I ran the ATG along the side of one ROLO and stuck the 2 sticks together, then I ran the black ribbon through a punched hole on the die cut and wrapped the ribbon around several times.  Knot the ribbon and curl the ends. BAM! Instructions for the singles are similar, minus gluing to the other "stick". Surprisingly, my older kids thought these were really cool. *Yay! A pat on the back for mom!*

Below are tags I made for my 2nd grader's classmate treats. I used vellum paper (cut down to 3.75" x 2 1/8"). However, to make things easier, I used a (discontinued) Stampin' Up rolling stamp with flourishes with silver ink and decorated the vellum BEFORE cutting it down to size. Next, using black Craft Smart dye ink, I stamped the "to/from" over the front of the tag. I let this dry overnight to ensure it wouldn't smear.  Using a heart shaped punch, I cut out as many hearts as I could from pink construction paper and used the ATG to attach to the front of the tag. My son filled in the to/from parts and the tags will be stapled to fruit snacks.

For these treats below, I used the same decorated vellum pieces and pink hearts, but since the Kindergarten kids only need to have the "from" name on the tag, I swapped the stamp out for this "For You" stamp I had on hand. I wrote my little one's name on the pin heart, then ran the ATG across the name and adhered the heart to the back side of the vellum tag, to give it a different look.  I also used Real Red ink pad from Stampin' Up for the stamped image.  These tags were stapled to the front.

I hope you enjoyed this entry. I enjoyed getting back into my craft room, it's been quite a while.

If you happen to celebrate Valentine's Day, I hope it's a great one for you. If you don't, have a great day nonetheless.  

xoxoxoxo
Lisa

Mini Word Book Album

Mini word book album for a Birthday Gift

My nephew Dylin was celebrating his First Birthday on April 9th, so I decided to make this mini book for him to have.

Ingredients:
6 toilet paper rolls
coordinating paper (I used "All About Boys" from DCWV in the 4x6" paper pack)
adhesive (I use my ATG gun)
random scrap craft paper
hole puncher
Cricut Machine & Plantin Schoolbook cartridge

Recipe:
Flatten the TP rolls at least 24 hours prior to starting the project, use heavy books or pans.  If you don't want to wait, use your hand-crank die cutting machine (Epic 6, cuttlebug....) to flatten them all down.  Be patient, it takes a while to get them really flat.  Choose your 6 pieces of coordinating paper to decorate the tubes.  I can't give you exact measurements here (each TP roll varies slightly in size), but you want to cut your paper down to be able to cover the whole TP roll.  You should have a little excess paper at the seam to ensure the roll gets covered completely.  Using your favorite strong adhesive, apply glue/tape to the TP roll, especially the edges (you don't want the paper to lift).  Next, I used my Cricut Expression to cut my nephew's name out at 2.5" using blue card stock I had lying around.  Then I used the "Bags, Tags, Boxes & More" cartridge to cut out the "scalloped edge" tag on page 91 (of the manual).  I cut out the tag at 2.5" and cut each tag down (in length) to fit into each slot.  I also applied each letter to the TP rolls accordingly.  Once dried, I hole punched each roll for the 1" rings to slide into.  Embellish as desired- I used stamps and die cuts I had lying around.