Tiddly Inks Shaker Card and Sketches in Thyme Challenge

Good morning all.  Pull up your chair.  I've got a few things to show you today.  However, I'm going to start with the fun news.  I received an email this morning saying I WON!!! Creative Charms does a giveaway most months.  This month,  I won the kit of the month.  You can see it here.  It shouldn't be long before they have the new kit of the month posted, also. So, I would check it out.  I was just thinking I need to order more velvet ric-rac from them.  Now, I have black on its way to me.  Isn't this fun.  I love getting goodies in the mail (although recently my UPS driver asked if I was ordering bricks).

Now that I've shared my little bit of fun, how about some eye candy for you.  In fact, I have two cards to show you.  Lets start with the Tiddly Ink card. 

This is a shaker card.  The image is on the card base.  Over the image is a piece of acetate (I used part of the packaging from a sizzix embossing folder) then I put a strip of pop dots all the way around the edge.  On top of the pop dots was a second piece of acetate (the other half of the packaging) and finally a frame to cover all the "inners". 

Here is a side view of the card so you can see the layers.

and another showing the impossible little bits of pop dots.

The next time I do this I will have a strip of pop dot tape instead of a hundred little pop dot squares.

In between the two pieces of acetate and in the middle of all those pop dots is sand.  The Wonderkid has a sandbox (courtesy of PopPop) with it comes sand, EVERYWHERE.  So, I decided to "borrow" a little bit of it.  Just so you know, a little goes a long way when you are talking about shaker cards.

Here is the sand and the image.

I used two Tiddly Ink images for this card.  The main image is Sandy Memories.  If you notice, the little boy on the left has a bit of a sun burn.  The little boy on the right must have a good mommy who puts lots of sun screen on him.  The crab, starfish and sand dollars come from Don't Be Crabby.  I printed about a dozen sets of the starfish and sand dollars and colored them, cut them out and afixed them to the frame of the card. 

I finished it off with a button from my stash (I think it was a bag of buttons from JoAnn's) and some of my new baker's twine from the Kraft Outlet.

So, do I have you thinking about shaker cards you could do?

I need to digress for just a moment.  I ordered a few things from Christy at Tiddly Inks yesterday and I screwed up when I did the ordering (I should have waited another minute for the download button but I didn't).  So, I emailed Christy asking if she could help me out.  She was a real trooper and stuck it out with me until I had my images.  Now THAT is customer service because I'm certain she had something better to be doing than emailing with me bright and early on a Sunday morning. Thanks, Christy.

OK, moving right along.  (Now I have the Muppet Song stuck in my head. Do you remember it? Click the link if you want to hear it.)

Sketches in Thyme card.

As the name says, this is a sketch challenge.  Here is a copy of the sketch.

Do you think I followed the design?  What do you think of the card?  I'm very pleased with the way all of the colors pulled together.  The only thing I think it needs is some embossing on the light green section.  The light green is Core'dinations, the dark green is Bazzille and the pattern paper is some that I picked up last week at Archivers.  The ribbon came from my stash.

Can you see the little pieces of bling on the dark green?  They are Queen and Co pearls which are specifically designed to coordinate with the Core'dinations papers.  I have been eyeing them since Core'dinations did a post about them but I just hadn't purchased until recently.  This color is called Shamrock, so I had to use it.  The sentiment is one of the $1 stamps from Studio G.  I picked up two of them last year and now I get to finally use them.

Pop-Up Cards at The Cuttlebug Spot

I'm enjoying trying a number of new types of cards.  If you are ever looking for designs and tutorials, Splitcoast Stampers is the place to go. Oh my goodness, some of the things they have designed.  They are incredible and the tutorials are FANTASTIC. 

This week Cuttlebug Spot is continuing the different card folds challenges.  The challenge was a pop-up card.  Well, that sounds specific but let me tell you, there are lots of types of pop-up cards.  There is the traditional type where you open it up and something stands up, there is the type that you pull something and the card either turns into an easel card or the tag comes out and reveals another design, oh why am I telling you about all the different types.  If you don't know what they are go to this post at the Cuttlebug Spot and look at what the design team cooked up. 

I made the card inspired by Agnes.  The directions come from Splitcoast Stamper and can be found here (printed and video what could be better)?

Here is the card opened up.  It stands by itself.

Doesn't that make a fun thank you card?  Now, if you look at the papers, you might be wondering what has gotten into me.  That is a lot of pink and look, I put flowers on it also.  I stamped lovely images from Tim Holtz on the tag.  Well, here is the deal with the paper and ribbon.  A couple of months ago (maybe 6 now but who is counting?) I bought a box of stuff from Stampin' Up.  I liked the concept of inks and ribbons and paper all coordinating.  This would make it a little quicker when I wanted to make something.  Well, I bought a bunch of stuff and much of it was on sale.  I don't know what I was thinking because I ended up buying bright pink (they call it Rose) paper and ribbon.  It coordinates in a lovely way but reality, this just isn't my color.  So, I tried to force myself outside of my box and not only do a unique card fold but also use papers I wouldn't normally use. 

This shows you the dry embossing on the pattern paper.  That paper came from My Mind's Eye.  It is called Celebration Tracker.  It has a wonderful rose color so in person, it actually matches.  I'm not certain the colors look so good in the pictures.  The flowers were in my stash. 

I'm loving this card style.  What do you think?

Robot Card

I don't have a lot of pictures with this card but I think it is very fun.

Isn't it a blast?  I feel like all of the pieces came together just right.  The robot is from the Robotz cart cut at 4 1/2 inches.  The entire card is 5 x 7.   I used red, black, gray and white cardstock from my stash and a red glitter ribbon that I picked up somewhere along the way.  The design paper on her dress and the bottom of her head is from DCWV Amber Autmn stack.  The heart brad came from Michael's after Valentine's Day sale.  The card topper is a piece of aluminum foil over a piece of cardstock and run through my cuttlebug.  The diamond plate folder is an A2 so I had to run it through twice, thus the ribbon.

The sentiment is computer generated.  It says, "I am a LOVE Machine".  I cut the sentiment out with the scalloped heart Nestability then ran it through the cuttlebug again to emboss the edge.

I have no idea when I will ever use this card (I'm thinking this one will need to go up for sale or given away).

I am very pleased with this card.  It came about because of the Paper Playtime Challenge, Technology.  I was thinking about coloring a cool digi from Tiddly Inks but in the end I decided I wanted to play with my E. 

What do you think?

So, the other thing I've been working on is a light box.  I'm not getting the pictures I want and I'm hoping a light box might solve most of the issues.  The picture at the top is with the light box.  This one is taken outside in the middle of the day.

It is always tough to photograph foil but I wanted it to look as good as possible.  What do you think about these two pictures?  Light box or No?

Bugaboo Stamps Get Well Challenge

It wasn't that long ago when I thought coloring a digi was the hardest part of making the card.  Today, it was the easiest and the card part was the hardest.  I just couldn't get the cards to come together the way I wanted.  I think I might need to work on the sizing of my images. 

Anyway, the challenge was a get well card.  I have two for today.  Both of them use Bugaboo Digi Stamps.  I must say, I love coloring these stamps.  They are easy even for someone with a heavy hand like me.  The sentiment sold with this stamp said something about coffee but  I thought she looked a bit ill.  I used a rubber stamp for the sentiment, it says, "feeling under the weather?"

Here is a close-up the digi and the sentiment.  Can you believe I used pink, again?  I don't like pink but sometimes it feels like an easy color to use.  I also think I can send pink cards to lots of folks.

Here is the other card I made:

The sentiment that came with this card said, "I'm sorry".  I think he looks sad and would be sad to know you were ill.  I was trying to tie the colors of his shirt in with the sentiment block and the frame of the digi.  I feel like it needs something else.  Any thoughts?  I couldn't think of any embossing folders that would work with the rest of the card.  I looked at some design paper for a card topper but nothing in my stash struck my fancy.  I have three more colored images similar to this one (same colors just slightly different hair) so I need some ideas before I put those cards together.

 The dimensions of the little boy card is 5 x 7 and the woman is 4 1/4 x 5 1/2.  If you get a chance, check out all of the wonderful submissions for the challenge. I'm going to go look now, I'm guessing I'll be a bit embarrassed to even show these cards but if folks will give me ideas on what to do to make them better, it will be worth a bit of embarrassment.

I have a couple of very cool projects coming up and two challenging challenges (shaker cards and pop up cards).  Check in tomorrow and I may have a better Bugaboo digi project for another challenge blog.

Kraft Journal Bling Challenge and Cooking with Cricut

Before I get into my card, I have tons of Kraft Outlet/Journal news.

First, if you look on the right side of my blog there is something new.  I WON!!! Can you believe it?  I was one of the top three at the Kraft Journal last week.  You can see the card here.  I was so excited and honored to have won.  They had a number of wonderful submissions for the challenge, I especially liked Jan from Chai Tea 'n Me.  And any time I see Laurel from Seabrook Design I know I'll be in for a treat.  You should definitely check out the other entries.

In addition, my order from Kraft Outlet arrived.  I can't wait to start playing with my dictionary pages and library cards and library envelopes.  It is going to be fun.  If you haven't had a chance, check out their cool stuff. 

Now for my card.  The challenge at Kraft Journal is bling and the challenge at Cooking with Cricut (remember this is not a Cricut Cake site, it is paper cutting and they have a ton of cool cuts) is swirly and twirly.  Now, I'm not a huge bling person.  I think it is one of the reasons I like kraft paper so much.  Kraft paper feels more organic and not so formal.  However, I rose to the challenge and channeled my inner princess.

The card base is kraft.  I tried to decide if this would have worked with white or cream cardstock as the base and I came to the conclusion, no.  It really looks best with the kraft.  The pattern paper and the three layers above it are all DCWV's Amber Autumn stack and coordinating cardstock.  I must say, I looked at these papers a number of times and thought I would never use them but I'm very glad I had them. 

Here is a close-up of the cut.  It is from the Martha Stewart Elegant Cakes cart.  Isn't it absolutely wonderful?  I cut it at 4 3/4 inches.  The bottom layer (darkest brown) is a glitter cardstock which cut amazingly well in my Cricut.  The middle layer is the shimmery brown and the top layer is the blue.  All three colors are also in the bottom layered pattern paper.  I can see a number of additional cards in these wonderful Martha Stewart carts.

Then came the bling.  I used my favorite, Creative Charms, gradient gems.  I chose the largest brown gems and the next size down in clear and blue.  What do you think of my bling?

Then, to finish off the card...

I added an 1 1/2 strip to the inside to dress it up just a big. 

Does it look swirly and twirly?  How about bling?  Do you think I got it right?  What would you recommend changing or adding?

Bah Humbug CD Challenge

This week's challenge at Bah Humbug Manor, use a CD/DVD.  They were very open to how/what we did as long as we stuck to the theme.  Well, I had a wonderful time with this one. 

This is the front cover of my project.  I wanted it to look like a wrapped up present.  The lettering is cream colored vinyl cut from Lyrical Letters cart with my Expression.  The paper is from Recollections (Michael's Brand) Old Fashion Christmas. 

Here is the front and back.  Look, I was able to get the ribbons to line up from the front piece to the back.  By the way, that was a pain but I'm so pleased with the way it looks.  So, you aren't really impressed so far, are you.  Anyone can put a ribbon around a piece of paper you silly girl.  Right?

This is the inside.  On the left I continued the paper from the outside.  It is a new piece of course, I had to cover up that ribbon I used on the outside.  The right is a picture with the black vinyl stuck above it.  Again, I used Lyrical Letters.  If you read my blog for any period of time you will notice I never hand write.  I hate my handwriting so I use it for nothing more than list making (I make quite a few lists, though so I haven't gotten out of practice, yet). 

Here is a close-up of the left panel.

 

And here is the CD.

It fits in the case still.  I used my crop-o-dile to make the hole in the top of the CD.  I was very nervous when I punched the hole, afraid I would crack the CD.  It was no problem.  It punched a hole easily.  I then used some wire from my stash (I know, why do I have wire in my stash, yet another thing I don't know). 

This is the back of the CD.  I decorated it so the CD could be used as an ornament at Christmas time.  I'm thinking about sending this to the Wonderkid's Great Grandma.  I think she will love it and I think she will want to hang it very prominently. 

Here is the front of the entire package. 

What do you think?  I'm considering making a few of these and using them for gifts. When I make the new ones, I'm thinking I should emboss the paper from the cover.  Any other suggestions?

Don't you think Granny Mac and the Grandma's will love these.  And, how about the Wonderkid?  Isn't he a cutie?  Who could turn down that little guy?

St. Patrick's Day Frog Shape Card

I thought I would play along with a few challenges today.  Interestingly, two of them were very simple, embossing.  I like to emboss something on most of my cards so this wasn't much of a challenge but it left me so many options that I had trouble narrowing it down to one thing.

Here is what  I landed on.  I made the frog, and turned it into a shape card, from Create a Critter.  The challenge on Scrappy Mom's challenge site is a cut from Create a Critter.  This is a very cute cart but I just don't use it as often as I should.  Every time someone sees a card made with this cart they fall in love with it.  I welded the shadow for the frog to make the card base and then put the frog together as normal.  I embossed his belly with the Cuttlebug Spots and Dots folder.

I also cut the hat from Simply Charmed.  It is the hat from the leprechaun cut. I embossed it also, using the Cuttlebug Argyle folder.  I tried to heat emboss the hat band but it didn't work the way I planned, so I covered up my "creative learning experience" with a piece of black cut like the hat band and added a large gradient gem from Creative Charms.

If I had any Scrappy Mom's stamps I would have used one of their stamps but I don't have any, yet. So, I made a computer generated sentiment which I printed on a card liner shaped like the frog.  I used the base cut and did it in white.  Then I printed the sentiment on a piece of plain paper and placed the frog cut over the printed sentiment.  After I had it lined up I used my removable Tom Bow to adhere it to the paper.  I printed it again and then adhered the card liner to the card.

Back to the Scrappy Mom's stamps... I love the new ones.  If you haven't had a chance to check them out, go here.  If you want to join the challenge, you should go here.  The challenge doesn't close until the 28th so you have plentyof time to join in.

Cooking with the Cricut had the challenge to emboss something on your project.  I like their challenges and have been playing along for a couple of weeks.  For everyone thinking this is a cricut cake site, it isn't.  It is a great place to get ideas and they sell cut files if you do SCAL or MTC.

The final challenge for this little guy, Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog (FCCB).  If you get a chance check out some of the inspiration pieces.  I especially like this one from Crafting Cricut Mom.  I've been thinking about cutting that pear for awhile but I haven't gotten around to it.  This makes me think I need to move it up on my list.  What do you think of Helen's great card?

Sketches in Thyme

I don't use sketches very often for my cards but I tried one a couple of weeks ago and it turned out lovely so I thought I would try another.  The sketches at Sketches in Thyme always seem quite lovely so I started in on this week's challenge.

It wasn't until I went to confirm what time the challenge is due that I noticed the card I had just completed was NOT for this week's challenge but instead used last week's sketch.  Oh well, I love the way it turned out.  So, here are both of my cards.

The first card (the one that follows last week's sketch) uses more of that stunning Graphic 45 paper, Fashonista.

I used one of the ATC sized images for the central feature.  I made an off center mat in black with three lovely vintage flower brads from Creative Charms.  I then stamped the sentiment using Versamark and black embossing powder.  I don't have a circle punch large enough for the stamp so I used my Expression to cut it out.  Believe it or not I was able to cut the circle without using Design Studio.  I used the center point feature by pointing the blade in the middle of the stamped image.

Here is a close-up of the image.  I think it is amazingly close to centered.  It looks pretty good when you aren't seeing it enlarged at this level.  I used a Tim Holtz stamp for the writing on the bottom of the card base.  Instead of using a ribbon, I decided to use a strip of black paper.  The card base and the sentiment circle were inked with Antique Linen Distress Ink. 

This is a close-up of the main image with the Creative Charms vintage brads.

But that isn't all I have for now.  Here is the card for this week's challenge.

I used Anna Griffin's Flora Collection.  I bought this on clearance at Hobby Lobby a couple of months ago.  I don't know if it is still in stores or not.  When I went searching for a link, I found out it was released in 2009.  I love this stack, and I'm not normally a huge fan of Anna Griffin but the colors in the stack are very rich and wonderful.  I love the browns and she also has some papers with brown and a deep red.  It is incredible.  All of the paper is double-sided so I used the front for the rosette and the flower inset.  I used the back for the top half of the card.

Once again, I pulled out my Creative Charms embellishments and used some chocolate brown velvet ric-rac and a velvet poppy.  I switched out the pearl brad in the center of the flower and replaced it with the vintage amber brad.  If you click on each of the items, you can go directly to the page where Creative Charms sells each item.

In this picture you can see I have added a piece of the cardstock from the bottom of the front of the paper to the dark brown card base.

I hope you enjoyed both of my cards for today.  I'll be back with one more, a monochromatic card.

Tiddley Inks Monochromatic Project

I don't think monochromatic is my kind of work.  I don't have enough pens to really give something depth with just one color.

However, here is my card for the Tiddly Ink's challenge.  I love these images (although I'm finding them tough to color -- my problem not the artist's).  I need to practice a bit more so I can get better at these.  I have one that I'm wanting to color but I haven't taken the time.  It is a cute little carpenter. 

But I digress.  Here is my card.

I like this sweet little image.  I used my cuttlebug to emboss the Core'dinations gemstone paper.  I love the way this paper looks after being embossed.  It is wonderful to send something through my cuttlebug and not worry about seeing a white core when I finish.  I thought the hearts gave a sense of missing someone and wanting them home.  The ribbon is from my stash.

Here is a closer look at the image and the embossing.

I used the new print and cut feature in SCAL2.  I love that I can print something in a circle or along any path I dream up.  I also love that I can use whatever fonts I like.  This one is called Chiller.  I'm not convinced I quite have this feature "mastered".  I don't feel like I can get the printed image in the right place on my mat so I can cut it.  I need to mess with it a bit more to figure out how to make it work better. 

Wouldn't it have been wonderful if I printed the houses and the sentiment in a circle around it and then cut the whole thing out?  Now that would be cool.  I'll need to work on this for a bit more to figure out how to make that work.  I think it can be done. 

Thank you for looking at my creation.  All recommendations are sincerely appreciated.  Including feedback on the new look to the blog.  Do you like it or not?

Fall Card

I think I desperately needed to do a card without an immediate purpose.  And so, I was very excited about the challenge over at Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog.  The challenge for this week is a creation with at least one Cricut cut that shows your favorite season.  While I know a lot of people will be doing spring and flowers and all that, I couldn't look at another pink or green piece of paper (at least not for a couple of hours).

I think it has been at least a few days since I mentioned how much I love Core'dinations paper.  I received a huge box of it just this last week (it weighed 35 pounds and I think at least 30 of those pounds were Core'dinations papers).  All of the paper, except the cardbase, are Core'dinations.  I used two Sissix embossing folders from Stu Kilgore to make the card topper.  The card topper is from the Sandy Tones Color Core All In the Family pack.  The leaves are all cut out using my cricut and the Sesame Street Seasons Cart.  I bet you never thought to look on that cart for leaves, did you?  I used my Tim Holtz sander to bring out more of the embossed images and my Tim Holtz paper distresser to rough up the edges.

Here is a closer look at the card.  You can see some of the distressing on the bottom right corner of the card topper.

Can you tell that the wheelbarrow originally was filled with sunflowers which I covered up with the leaves?  The leaves were cut from a package of 1.75 x 12 inch strips of Core'dinations ColorCore Cardstock.  This package of paper showed up in my mailbox one day last month without an explanation.  I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth so, I'm using it.  At first I couldn't imagine what I would do with these little strips but I must say, they were perfect for these small leaves. I could have made the leaves almost twice as big and still fit them on the strips.

Thank you for checking out today's card.  I'm hoping to put together a couple additional cards for tomorrow.  We'll see if the weather calls me outside or if I still get some crafting done.  I've been sitting in my craft space with all of the windows open.  It is such a wonderful feeling.  I think spring might have arrived here in Georgia.

St. Patrick's Day Card

I knew I wanted to take part in the Catch the Bug Challenge and the Cuttlebug Spot Challenge.  Normally, that would mean two cards for me but I did something unusual for me, I combined the challenges.  I know lots of folks combine challenges all the time but I normally like to focus on one challenge at a time.  For me, the point is to be inspired.

After being frustrated by Paul Ford's choice of ATC's as a challenge on Catch the Bug, I found an ATC would have been just about perfect for this card.  In the end, my image was a little smaller than an ATC (only 2 inches by 3 inches).

Here is the card open.

I love gate fold cards.  I've never made one this way, but I really thought this was fun.  It is fairly plain (the image seemed to argue for less as opposed to more) but you should see some of the incredible cards at the Cuttlebug spot.  I'm always in awe of Donna Mundinger's cards (Popsicle Toes) but check out her incredible card which is all the more amazing because I don't normally think of this as her "style".

Now that I sent you to a ton of other blogs, lets talk about my sweet little card.  I used my cuttlebug to emboss the green panels on the front.  I choose the Spots and Dots folder.  The image and sentiment were cut out using the Deckled Nestabilities in my Cuttlebug.

This is one of the many turtles I colored.  I think he will find his way onto a similar card.  I find that the best way for me to end up with an image I'm happy with is to color a few and see what works.  On this image I used a lighter green and almost no shading.  If you look at the image I used in the final card, the turtle is a brighter green.

Don't you love this turtle?  If you are interested in buying him for St. Pat's or many other holidays, you can purchase him here.  Jodie has everything from Halloween to Canada Day with this turtle.  She also has a sweet little dragon as a freebie this week.  I'm still thinking about what I want to do with him.  You should check him out.  I'm really loving digis.

Thank you for checking out my cards.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend.  I'm hoping I'll be back with a few more cards this weekend (although the weather here argues for being outside -- it was 70 degrees yesterday).

Kraft Outlet Challenge

This week's challenge at the Kraft Outlet is "Hip to be Square".  Well, I thought of a number of different things to do for this challenge but this is where I landed.

 The card is a square (5 x 5 card base) with three layers of cardstock ( a pretty green from Stampin' Up which I think I bought when they were discontinuing but don't hold me to that, I'm not a SU specialist).  The base of the brick wall is a cream cardstock from my stash.  The stamped images come from a company called Florishes.  I bought them at my LSS.  The sentiment also comes from the same set. 

Here is a close-up of the stamped images.

I thought this would make a nice St. Patrick's Day card.  Can you tell where my mind has gone now that Valentine's Day is over?

What do you think of this design?  How about the inking?  This card is so linear, it feels very square.  Thank you for looking and check out the other cards over at the Kraft Outlet Challenge.  There is still time to join in this challenge.  It is due by Sunday evening. 

Bah Humbug Doilies

OK, when I read the challenge on the Bah Humbug site I almost didn't take part.  Doilies?  Where do they come up with these ideas?  Doilies?  Really?  I don't like doilies.  I don't live in a doilie kind of a house.  What was I going to do for this challenge? 

Well, I rallied.  I knew we didn't have any doilies in the house but I thought about it and realized I could make a doilie.  In fact, I have cuts for a half dozen different doilies (don't ask me why, I'm not sure).  So, I made a doilie to put on my card.

I was so excited about making my doilie that I cut the middle out of it.  I decided it then looked like a wreath and needed a bit of color.  So, the doilie was strung with a lovely bit of ribbon.  Then, it needed a stamp.  I want you to know, I tried three different stamps and had problems with all of them.  It reminded me that cheap stamps aren't worth the bother.  I eventually landed on this stamp and some embossing powder.  I used the Tim Holtz Distressed Red Brick Embossing Powder. 

Here is a close-up of the stamped image.

What do you think of my doilie? 

Love Bug Shirt

This is what I made for the Wonderkid to wear to school today.  I thought he needed a new shirt for Valentines Day.  I partially chose this because one of his teachers refers to him as a love bug.  The bug and the words "love bug" come from Simply Charmed cart.  The "I'm a" is Mickey Font.  Using Design Studio I added the heart to the "o" on "love" instead of the smiley face from the cart.

I used four colors of heat transfer vinyl (htv).  I use my regular iron but I iron it on my washing machine as opposed to an ironing board.  I've heard other people say they used a cookie sheet, I think that is likely to work also.  I also use a small sheet of teflon to make sure it gets good and hot. 

Here is a close-up of the shirt. It is tought to tell in these pictures but the lettering is pink and the heart is pink.  It looks pretty cool in person, a little washed out in this picture, though.

What do you think? Is this fun or what?

Valentines Treats and Teacher Appreciation Days

The Wonderkid's school decided to have Teacher Appreciation Days this week instead of at the end of the school year.  I understand the thinking (parents aren't likely to be as busy right now as they will be at the end of the school year) but I can't imagine not doing something for the teachers when school ends.  Any way, it gave me a direction for all of them candy making fun.  In the end, I covered anything in chocolate that didn't move (and the Wonderkid did his best to cover himself in chocolate). 

Here are the chocolate covered strawberries.  I'm still working out how these will get packaged (assuming they make it out of the house at all).

Now are you starting to understand why I wasn't able to take part in any of the challenges this week?  It has been a little crazy around here.

These are some of my favorites.  They are chocolate covered oreo cookies.  Wilton sells these wonderful molds.  I must say, I was a little challenged at first because I hadn't fully followed the instructions.  You get the best results if you pipe the different colors of chocolate into the mold and let it harden just a bit, then pipe in the color that will surround the cookie.  After you push the cookie into all the chocolate-y goodness you put the filled molds into the refrigerator.  Once the chocolate takes on a frosty color they will just drop out of the mold when you turn the mold over.  Then, put the cookies into a cello bag (I buy the Micheal's brand bags with a coupon).  Then, I pull out my Cricut and start making the toppers. 

Here is one with the topper.  Because we are celebrating Teacher Appreciation Days but it is also Valentines, I used a conversation heart and wrote "Thank U" with the same font style as the conversation hearts.  I put the conversation heart onto a black out of the heart and put all of that over a wonderful frame from SVGCuts.  All of that went over a 4 inch x 3 inch scored and folded piece of designer paper.  All of the papers I used came from the K and Company Valentines stacks.  I must say, I loved knowing that everything would coordinate and that the backs would be as beautiful as the fronts. 

Here are a few more of the cookies.  You can see I made a number of different designs and used different DP.

What do you think of the cookies?

Here are the pretzels.

I made them with both chocolate and white chocolate.  Wilton has molds for the pretzels also but I decided not to take the time to mold them.  I also find that the molds use a lot of chocolate so I don't like to do too many of them.  I put together a dozen pretzel rods for each of the Wonderkid's main teachers. 

Here is a huge pile of the pretzels and you can read the stamping I did on these.

I did some that said "Thanks!" and others use a Tim Holtz stamp.  "it's the little things that make life big."  I thought those were fitting and allowed me to use them for some of the neighbors and family friends.

What do you think of all the treats and their pretty packaging?

Tomorrow I'll show you the shirt I made for the Wonderkid to wear to school.