My Favourite Place to Sit

It has a high wingback and legs that tilt back just enough.  The upholstery is breathable, not at all itchy.  The deep grey colouring fits with any décor, not that  I care about that, and I recently purchased a foot rest to go with it.  I have a cushion on it and a blanket laid over the back of it (my blanket that was made out of my Dad's shirts).  This chair is my favourite place to sit.   I love my chair!  The seat cushion is soft, the back is strong and supportive.  It's a goldilocks type of chair: not to hard, not too soft, but just right!

This chair is the most comfortable chair I have ever owned.  I can curl up on it with a blanket or sit back and relax.  I have sat in this chair to read, watch Netflix, draw, write lists, make phone calls and just think.  It's so comfortable!

My Mum also loves sitting in this chair.  She often flops onto it when she gets home from work.  She lays back and prattles on at me, while I'm crafting.  She tells me all about her day, even before I ask how it was.  I can continue what I'm doing while she talks to me.  I like it when she sits there, at least she is still for a few minutes.  If only my chair could make her be a little quieter as well?

When I have a lot of cards to make, I sometimes need a break in between steps or while wet things dry.  This is when my chair is so wonderful.  I simply take a couple of steps from my craft table to my chair and break is on.  When I'm ready to get back to it, I only have to take a few steps and convince Shelly to let me have the chair at my craft table back.  My chair is wonderful. My chair is perfect.  My chair is my favourite place to sit.


Where is your favourite place to sit? Let me know in the comments. :)

It might be someone else's furrvourite place to sit, too!  

Card Making Fun

It's been a little while since I shared any card making projects here.  I have continued to make lots of cards and experiment with techniques.  I have added a few things to my stash too.  However, I am still catching up on the sharing side of things.  I try to group my projects by technique or type of card.  Some of the cards I have been making are very similar to older cards I have made, so I feel like it would be boring to show you again.  Here are a few cards I have made over the past few months.  No fancy techniques or special products to talk about, just a couple of bits and pieces.  

Cards from the Road

You may have seen my recent post about the supplies I took with me on a short road trip.  Most of these cards were created by my nieces with the limited supplies I had with me.  There are a few other cards but I didn't get a chance to photograph them.  Oops.  

I made the card on the right and when miss 7 year old saw it,

she wanted to make one like it. I showed her what I had used.  

She didn't like the sentiments I had, so we didn't put one on.  

KISS cards

I love the idea of simple cards that I can mass produce... or at least make a set of them at once.  Catherine Pooler calls these KISS cards (Keep It Simple Stamper).  Here are a couple of sets I have created this year. 

I got a new stamp set that has some lovely sentiments in it.  

I had to make these encouragement cards.

I only made one of these cards, but as you can see, 

it's so simple that it would be easy to reproduce and make a set of them.  

I made a bunch of cards exactly like this one. 

I don't know why I didn't take photo of all of them.  

Coming Soon: colouring stamped images, using stencils, easy watercolour backgrounds, rainbow cards and more.

Until Next Week: Enjoy Creating! 

Frozen Party for a 5 Year Old

Long time AGT readers will know that I planned and hosted an epic FROZEN birthday party for my niece when she turned 10 (click here to see the details).  She is now 13 years old and her youngest sister is turning 5 this month.  Miss (almost) 5 said that she wanted a Frozen Party too.  Luckily, my mum and I don't like to throw things out, so we had lots of decorations and even prizes ready to use.  This made life so much easier.

As you can imagine, a birthday party for a 5 year old is quite different to a birthday party for a 10 year old.  We used the same snow flakes and streamers that were left over from the first party.  The main difference was that my 5 year old niece was more interested in games and fun so we kept it far more low key.

The photo booth had less pieces in it and only a few dress up props.  This was plenty.  We played a "Who am I?"  Pass the Parcel.  Each layer of the parcel had a picture of a character from Frozen, or photos of family members.  When the music stopped, the person holding the parcel was allowed to open one layer of wrapping paper, then to keep the trinket/ lolly, they had to tell everyone who was in the picture.  We played music from the movie for this game.

We got some much better photos, but due to privacy, 

I prefer not to show them on this blog.  

I made some glittery white playdoh (click for the original recipe) for the next game titled - "Do you want to build a snowman?"  Everyone got a ball of playdoh to make their own snowman. I played the song from the movie while we built our snowmen.  This was a big hit. After the organised games, this was the winner during the free choice activities.

Nearly every family party we have includes a "Pin the whatever on the whoever".  Of course, this party was no exception. We played "Pin the Nose on Olaf", which I bought for about $5 a few years ago.  We have played this game a few times and it's still good.  So worth the $5.

I also printed out some colouring pictures and mazes for the kids to do during free choice time. The Sensible Mom also had some great printable activities and there are more colouring pages available.

Food included: sandwiches, troll balls (meatballs), a cupcake tower (which was also the birthday cake), Sven snacks (carrot sticks) and some chips.  I planned for a water station with a carrot in the bottom, but the teenage brothers and sisters wanted soft drink, so my water station didn't happen. You can see below, that the table was decorated with doilies and snowflakes (cut from doilies and laminated).  We used $2 blue plastic tablecloths on the table and we hung white plastic tablecloths over the vertical blinds to make a snowy backdrop for the photo booth.

Home made cupcakes, decorated by Grandma!  The best. 

We decorated the table using ideas on my Pinterest Board.  

We played a quick game of "Musical Statues" where the children danced while the music played and when the music stopped they had to Freeze (pretending Elsa had frozen them).  I also had 'musical chairs' up my sleeve as an extra game in case they needed more organised play time.  After eating, I gave the children some free time to play with playdoh or colour in and there were a few of their favourite toys to play with as well. This gave us time to take the children one or two at a time into the photo booth and take a photo of them.  That was fun.  The adults enjoyed this as well.

All in all, it was great fun.  Miss (almost 5), had a wonderful time and that's what it's all about.

Check out all the fun and ideas from other parties I have pulled off for my nieces and nephews by clicking here. Check out my Frozen Pinterest Board here.

Party Hard, Sleep Hard!

It's Almost Mothers' Day!

This Sunday is Mothers' Day.  

If you need some ideas for the perfect Mothers' Day gift, check out my gift guide published in 2018.  

I love my Mum and I always will.  
I'm so grateful for her and everything she has done for me .  

This year we will go to church and have lunch together (as we do on most Sundays) and I will pay.  I can't wait. 

Look at the pretty card I made for her.  

Don't Forget to tell your Mum she's awesome! 

What Craft Supplies Do You Take On Vacation?

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I recently went on a five day road trip holiday with my Mum.  Read about how I survived the long haul drives here.  All this raised an interesting question.  It was interesting to me anyway.  If your craft (whether it's stamping, scrapbooking, drawing, painting, knitting etc) is also your therapy, do you take craft supplies with you when you go on vacation? If you do take craft, what do you take?  How much do you take? 

I know some ladies who will pack up several stamp sets, all their dies, a die cutting machine, all their inks and more.  I think that's a bit excessive.  Also, I was not travelling all that way to sit in a cabin and craft.  I can craft at home.  I was going to see the family.  I knew that my crafty time would be limited.  However, my nieces love to craft with me, so I figured that I would probably have some little helpers with me too.  This helped me narrow down what I took with me.  Do you want to know what made the cut? 

Firstly, we were attending a few birthday parties, so that determined some of my supplies because I knew my nieces and nephews would like to make birthday cards.  I also gave myself a limit - only what fitted in my craft caddy - and I didn't have a long time to pack.  This really helped.  I didn't have time to think about all the fun things I could do, I was more focused.  Here it is. 

This is an OLD photo of the 

craft caddy I took with me. 

Craft Supplies I packed for a 5 day Road Trip/ Vacation

A few basics:

• card bases and envelopes
• scissors and glue
• lead pencil and eraser
• a set of fine tip pens 
• visual art diary (for planning/ drawing)

The rest:

• a bunch of pre-cut "Happy Birthday" die cuts in several colours
• about 20 tiny rolls of washi tape (an assortment from a Kmart multi pack)
• zip lock baggies with an assortment of die-cut shapes 
• some pre-stamped sentiments
• a few pre-cut sentiment strips 
• small shape punches (a heart, a few flowers, a circle, a butterfly)
• some ink smoosh backgrounds and patterned paper from my stash
• foil transfer accents (purchased at a local bargain centre)
• a small Xyron sticker maker 

What I wish I had packed:

• some watercolour markers
• a basic sentiment stamp set (I have a few that I could have chosen to take with me)
• a black ink pad 
• an acrylic block or stamping tool
• a bone folder

You might notice I took a lot of bits and pieces that I had already cut and stamped.  Most of these were left overs from previous projects that I didn't get to use.  I didn't take a lot of time getting these organised and I wasn't worried if my little helpers went crazy with anything or everything.  

This is the kind of sticker maker I have.

It was a gift from the BFF.  Thanks, Bestie! 

The girls loved using the foil transfers (which didn't require a laminator or special glue).  They also had lots of fun with the sticker maker.  It was cool to make their punched out shapes into stickers.  

What would you take if you had limited space and time? Let me know in the comments. 

See you next week!