Some great Fall Books for preschoolers

Last week my preschooler and I studied about Fall. It was a fun subject to learn about and in the process we came across some really great books. These would be terrific for other homeschooling families or families that like to read!

Count Down to Fall by Fran Hawk: This book introduces basic information about the fall season and reinforces counting 1-10. The back of the book also has a few activities which really was a great resource for me as a homeschooling mother.

What Happens in Fall? by Sara L. Latta: A great introductory book of the science behind fall and why the leaves change color.

Leaves Fall Down by Lisa Bullard: This is a fun and short book introducing the concept of fall and why leaves change color. It also has extra resources listed in the back of the book along with instruction for a fun fall craft project for kids.

Hooray for Fall by Kazuo Iwamura: This is just a fun cute book about fall. Terrific for children who aren't ready for a lot of information but are starting to make observations about their surroundings.

We found all of these great books and more at our local library. Many libraries these days are online so you can search before you go and even request them online and pick them up a couple days later. I found this to be a great resource to me so that I can go in with my list and not spend hours in the library. My son enjoys looking at other books or using the childrens computer while I gather our books.

Not just for crafts

There are so many great things I want to share with people and I don't have the time or energy to create separate blogs for each of them so I'm going to be doing it all in one place!

I am happy that many of you have enjoyed seeing my crafty creations and I hope you also enjoy my thoughts on other things as well, including homeschooling and great deals!

Finishing up the Christmas week long challenges

So the week is now over and the weekend has arrived! I would be so much more excited for it if it weren't so dang hot here in VA. It has been the hottest this week for sure and everyday I've melted away. Thursday's mini Christmas challenge over at Catch the Bug was all about SNOW! How I wish it would start snowing outside today, it would bring much relief. I decided to use a cute little snow man stamp that I received in an online stamp swap and I created a shaker tag out of him. It ended up pretty cute.

Friday's min Christmas challenge was anything goes (as long as it's a Christmas project) and I came up with this little tag. I like it pretty well, there had been a blue background paper that I wanted to use but it was a scrap and it just wasn't big enough! Don't y'all hate that, it's the worst!! Other than that little snag I think this one came out good and I can't wait to put it on a package!

Teachers and boys

This is my first creation of the day. I'm pretty happy with it but wish I had not written the green part above the "thanks". I think it came out worse than my mind had intended. It looked much better without it. OH WELL! Such are the trials of crafting. I used a cute little apple stamp from imaginisce and colored it red with colored pencils and blended it with gamsol. I then hand wrote the "thanks" in red marker and went over it with firebrick stickles. For the border I did simple addition in green to tie in with the leaf on the apple. I was going for a nice simple look but I think the image was just too bright to pull of simple. I think it would have been better with less white space and more embellishment.

C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Thank You Teacher
If the Shoe Fits...Scrap It! - Ruby Red
Sew Many Challenges - Glitter

This one unfortunately didn't turn out exactly how I would have liked either. I think my disappointment is coming from my rushed decisions regarding my crafting. It's hard to find the time to do things the "right" way when you have a pre-schooler, and infant, a hubby and a house to take care of. Looks like I need to get into a good groove so I can do all the things I need to and have time to also craft with the right kind of focus. Anywho, I really love this cute boy stamp (can't remember who makes him) and the sentiment from Jedi Scrapbooking. They fit together just perfectly! Hope you all like it better than I do.

A Gem of a Challenge - Let's hear it for the boys

More challenges

So today's mini Christmas challenge over at Catch the Bug was a sketch challenge. I once again created a gift tag instead of a card. I think it turned out pretty good. Hope you enjoy it!


I also worked on a challenge for Tiddly Inks. They challenged us to create a project inspired by a nature movie. I browsed through all their digi's to find inspiration and found their Tree Tops and Somebunny digi's that I thought were so cute! Then I thought about the movie the secret garden. I used some photo editing software to get the digi's the way I wanted to print them off and used a line of trees on the front of the card with the space between cut out, so you could see the inside "secret". When you open it up you find the little girl in her secret garden playing with the bunny and a section for a note. I had fun with this one but it didn't quite come out as good as I had hoped...in my head it seemed much better. I might try this one again with their digi What's Up Dear, I've already got it printed and colored!!

Christmas Mini Challenge day 2

So today's mini Christmas challenge from Catch the Bug's Christmas in July event was to create a project using the image provided. It's a super cute image and I had a grand time using it! So I made another tag and went with the typical Christmas green paired with yellow/gold and a hint of red. I put a little sparkle on the ornaments to give it something special. I really like the way it came out, it think it's one of my favorites! Enjoy!

Getting my craft on!

So I spent part of my day yesterday and today making some quick crafts. My first to share is a set of 4 note cards. I was inspired by the weekly challenge over at Less is More and their "Circles" CAS challenge. I really like the way they came out, I'm going to be selling this set on my Etsy store Tammi's Tidbits, so if you're interested check it out!

My second is a Christmas tag. I was inspired by the Christmas in July challenges over at Catch the Bug. Today's challenge was to use non traditional colors on a Christmas project. I have tons of Christmas cards left over from last year so I didn't want to make a whole bunch more and I thought tags would be the best use of my time and supplies so they wouldn't go to waste. I plan on matching my wrapping with the tags and picking the tag that goes best with the person who will be receiving it. They are also having a weekly Christmas project challenge so I made an extra to enter into that. I hope you enjoy them!

Non-Traditional Colors Christmas Challenge

Christmas Project Challenge

latest crafty creations

Over the past month I have been working on an order of invitations with matching tags and menus for a surprise birthday party. You can see the invitation below. The colors and design theme were inspired by the birthday person's favorite pass time, golf. The client chose the colors white, dark blue, and hunter green and wanted circle incorporated into the design. This created quite a bit of challenge for me because the two accent colors were so dark. I ended up designing this invitation and it came out pretty well. You can't really tell from the picture but the corners on the right side are rounded to help carry out that circular feel. The tags and the menus had similar designs and were circular in shape. It was a fun order to do and I hope I get more opportunities to create beautiful invitations for people.

This next project is a gift for my sister. I used to really be into cross stitching but it has fallen to the side as I've fallen more in love with paper crafts. Since my daughter was born I've been wanting to make her a cross stitch birth record and hadn't found one online that I loved so I decided to pull out my alphabet pattern book and design one myself. During that process I got inspired to do the same for my sister. Her baby is due in August and the nursery is bee themed and this is what I came up with!

I will later on add in his birthday, weight, and height on the left hand side. I can't wait to finish it and send it to her. Next is to finish my daughters after a trip to the store to get the right color floss!

Baby Crafts

So as I was looking at the scraps of all my fabric I decided to make a couple projects for Chloe. I made her a bib in the same fabric I recovered her car seat in and it turned out pretty good. It didn't take long for her to get some good use out of it!

Then with the scraps from the bib I made this little stuffed toy for her to play with later on when she gets into the grabbing stage. It's supposed to be like a little vase with a flower in it. It's nothing special and doesn't look like much but I'm sure she'll have fun with it!

Welcome Baby!

Our family welcomed my precious baby girl Chloe into the world on May 2nd and it's been so much fun having her around. As a typical busy mother I procrastinated on sending out birth announcements. Once I finally got around to it I looked on photo websites to set up a design and although I loved many of them I was not excited about the prices, especially for the quantity I wanted. SO...I designed my own! Take a look!

I hope you all love it as much as I do. I did take inspiration from the many announcements I had looked through. I took all my favorite elements and put them into one announcement. How did I do this you ask? I used the free photo editing software Gimp. I love making projects like this and would love to do more. I'm thinking of creating a portfolio of photo "Invitations/Announcements" and then selling them in my Etsy shop. What do you all think? Would you pay to receive a digital copy that you could print off at home or email to friends? How much would you pay? Thanks for your input!

Sew much fun!

So this past week I decided to catch up on some projects that I've been putting off. I had bought some remnants of fabric for cheap over at JoAnn's and had planned on using this super easy tutorial to make cute Diaper & Wipes Cases. So here is what they ended up looking like.

I am hoping to sell them on Etsy if you're interested in viewing them you can do so by clicking over to my shop Tammi's Tidbits. If you'd like to try this yourself head on over to the tutorial at Make It and Love It. Also feel free to browse around at her other great tutorials!

Gifts!

So I've had a little bit of time to work on some crafts between the constant demands of my precious little girl. My first projects that I've had a chance to finish were some gifts for some special people. My son is finishing up his first year of preschool this week and I wanted to make something for his teacher to show my appreciation of her great teaching skills and warm heart. I wanted to make her something that would be useful so I made her a tote bag that she could use to carry her school supplies in. Her classroom is decorated in Teddy Bears so I tried to find a fabric that related to it without looking to much like a child's print. I thought these cute trees were just perfect!

To make the tote bag I used an online tutorial at Sew, Mama, Sew! I am still a beginner at sewing so the bag didn't turn out perfect but I think it turned out pretty good for my first try at a tote bag. I did learn some fun new techniques going through the tutorial and I can't wait to make more!
I also made her this cute pillow for her classroom. It's supposed to be a bear but my son thinks it looks more like a monkey. I used a simplicity pattern for it (as well as the one below) but had to alter the design a bit to make it a bear since it was originally supposed to be something else. I think it came out cute. I could use some more practice on some of the techniques involved in the process but I had a fun time making it.
This adorable pillow is a gift for my nephew who is due in August. His nursery is decorated with bees and when I first saw this pattern I knew I had to get it and make him this pillow. It is just so darn cute! I plan on making another one so he will have a set of two, maybe three if I can squeeze enough fabric out of my yellow. I'm sure the more I make the better they will turn out.

Hello there! So I've been MIA for a bit. I've been out of the loop for a while because of the newest addition to my family! I gave birth to my second child on May 2, 2011. Here she is!

Her name is Chloe Mae and she weighed 7 pounds 14 ounces and measured in at 20.5 inches long. We have enjoyed getting to know her and settling in as a family of 4. I have not had too much spare time to do crafts but I did happen to get some done this week. I will be sharing those with you all later today hopefully. I have to get as much done in my baby free time as possible, I was hoping to do it all right now but my little girl is just not having it. So keep a look out for another post soon!

Give away at Practical Scrappers!

The team over at Practical Scrappers is doing a great giveaway of eyelets and brads from Eyelet Outlet! They are doing two prize packs one for old followers (just leave a link to your blog with a post about the giveaway) and one for new followers. For the new followers all you have to do is click on over to Practical Scrappers and become a follower, it's that simple! Good luck everyone!

Busy Busy Busy

So I've been a little MIA from the blog for a bit. It's gotten really busy around here, and I don't see an end to it anytime soon! My son is finally feeling better and so we're off doing our regular play dates and he's back at preschool 3 times a week. Besides all the normal things one must take care of in life I'm busy planning two baby showers, one of which is my own. On top of that I've been trying really hard to get my sisters Thank You cards finished. Luckily I did get them done today!!! It was hard finding the time to sit down and get them finished but I did it!! They are going to be heading out to her tomorrow. Here is what they ended up looking like.

Besides that project I had attended the baby shower of one of my friends last week and I took pictures for her so she didn't have to worry about it. I burnt them to a disc and then made her a quick little scrap book of the pictures. Instead of printing out all the pictures and cutting and gluing I just made collages on my computer and printed those out and put them on a shaped book that I had gotten a while ago from Michaels dollar bin. I did put a little more effort on the cover, If you scroll down you can see the finished product and the inspiration from the shower!

Some great finds today!

One of my favorite blogs to visit daily is Free Digital Stamps, I love digi stamps and I especially love finding them for free! One of the best ones from yesterday was Scrap-A-Licious-Times with a TON of great sentiments. I couldn't find a way to leave her comments to tell her a great big thank you for her generosity so I decided to tell everyone about it hoping that would give her some extra traffic. They really are great sentiments so please go take a look and grab them while she's got them!!

Birthday Surprises!

Today is my friends 25th birthday! I am taking her out to lunch and wanted to make her a birthday card. This is what I ended up with. Since I love participating in challenges I love to use them as my inspiration for cards that I need to make or projects I have waiting on my desk. That way I kill two birds with one stone! So this card was inspired by Dutch Dare Card Challenge Blog and the sketch they had up this week. It was also inspired by Cardmadfairy's Digi Days Challenge of spring! I hope you all enjoy these projects!
I found this cute Fairy digi here. Then I found the lovely flower background in my scraps and some cordinating scraps. I colored the fairy using pastel colored pencils and Gamsol. Then added a little glitter with some clear stickles on the wings and Distressed Stickles Vintage Photo on the 25.

This cute sweetie pouch is my solution to gift wrapping my friends small gift I got her. I found the template at Waltzing Mouse in their freebies section. I printed it out then printed the digi image large enough to cover the whole template. I found the image here. Then I colored the image in using pastel colored pencils and Gamsol. After putting the box together I added the flower detail out of my stash and mounted it on some of the left over scraps from the card. Just a couple of brown rhinestones and the same Distressed Stickels on the branches to give it a little glitter and it was done!

Baby Shower gifts

There are tons of babies due to arrive this spring! One of my friends from my playgroup just had her baby shower this weekend and she is having a little boy. I like to give gifts that are more than just store bought so I made her a decorated wipe case and a diaper & wipes case carrier. One of my other crafty friends found the tutorial online and we've been making wipe cases ever since! The tutorial can be found at the Make It and Love It blog here.


This was a lot of fun to make and it was pretty simple and didn't take much fabric or time. I'm proud of myself as well because this was my first project by myself on my new sewing machine. In the past sewing machines and I have not gotten along but with some tips from a local seamstress I'm doing good! Now I need to jump back on the sewing machine and get that car seat cover finished! Only 6 more weeks till the new baby is due to arrive!!

Baby Shower Invitations...DONE

So I finally finished my sisters Luncheon Tea baby shower invitations. I decided to do a variety since it's popular these days to mix and match your china at tea parties. I love the way they turned out and I'm happy to have them done. Next project is to make the matching thank you cards.

Exciting!

Hey everyone, so today is going pretty good. I'm working on getting my sisters baby shower invites finished. They are almost done!!! I should have them complete by the start of the week if not earlier. Then it's on to tackle my invitations! I just wanted to share some exciting things with you. I've been having tons of fun getting back to the challenges on all the great blogs around and because of it I've been featured in two email newsletters this month! It's super exciting!! I know it doesn't seem like much but it feels good to know that someone else is enjoying your crafts. It's a far cry from being any type of "professional" crafter but it's the best kind of recognition for a stay at home mom who crafts in her spare time. It gives me the hopes that maybe one day crafting can not only be a hobby for me but some kind of career one way or another. So in case your curious on what was featured and where just take a peek below.

This card was featured in the McMahon Five Designs.com Newsletter Edition 80! You can see there website here. If you'd like to sign up for their newsletter there is a button right at the top of the page!

This card was featured in the Coloring Page Tuesday Alert on the 15th! If you'd like to take a look at Elizabeth's awesome site with tons of free coloring pages (here I printed it smaller to create a digi image for my card) follow this link. You can sign up for her weekly alerts by clicking on the Color! tab under the main title.

Simple and sweet with some St. Patty's day treats!

First of all let me wish everyone a happy St. Patrick's day! I hope you enjoy the fun day and stay safe!!

So today I have a nice simple card to share with you. I created this for the Less is More challenge One Layer Card - "Off the Edge". I started with a plain white card stock and stamped my cute little dandelion stamp in Blush from CM. The stamp is just a single flower so I stamped it a couple times to make it look like a small bunch. I think stamped my sentiment in black. I added some clear stickles on top of my flowers for a little pop and rounded the card edges and it was done! Such a simple and fast card to create but it has a lovely charm about it!!

My son is 4 and he started preschool last fall. This winter has been difficult for him. He's been constantly sick and has missed out on school quite a bit. He's been out of school all week and missed out on the Leprachaun hunt so I decide to have our own this morning. I had it ready and waiting for him when he woke up. Here is his hunt with a nice prize at the end!

Happy St. Patty's Day

So tomorrow is St. Patty's day and I'm having a product party at my house with some of my friends. As a thank you for coming I'm giving away a gift to one lucky lady!! I wanted to make a cute little bag to put it in and this is what I came up with!

Since I was making a project already, I decided to try and incorporate a couple challenges along the way. So my first challenge for this project was FF #70 over at If the Shoe Fits...Scrap it! They challenged everyone to make a St. Patty's day inspired project so it fit completely!! I also tied in Challenge 66 from Colour Create, they asked everyone to use greens, olive greens, browns, blacks, and creams.

I started with a plain white card stock and printed a Tea Bag Baggie template that I found at Waltzing Mouse Stamps. After cutting out the template and assembling it I cut out my green background from some scraps (I believe it's Bazzil's Swiss dots collection). Then stamped my sentiment in versa mark and embossed it in black on cream paper and attached it to the background. I then hand stitched brown ribbon on the border of the sentiment creating folds as I went. The last touch was a Luck O' the Irish lapel pin that I wanted to include as part of my gift. Oh I almost forgot, I also inked the edges of the white with distress ink.

Thanks for looking and reading! I hope you all have a great St. Patty's day tomorrow!!

Baby shower preparations

Bear with me this is a lengthy one.

So yesterday was a bit of a tough day. I've got about 7 weeks until my little girl is due and there are tons of people around me that are having babies as well. I was on Facebook and saw that one of the girls I knew growing up (who is due not to much later than I am) had her baby shower and put up photos. So of course I had to look at them. It looked like a fun shower and there were TONS of people there. I recognized so many of the faces in the photos and it just made me sad.

I am a Navy wife and moved away from my home town over 6 years ago. I left behind my entire family and all the friends and people I grew up with. The house my parents still live in was were I celebrated every birthday from my 1st to my 19th so just imagine I had 19 years of history there and grew up along side many of the same people from kindergarten through high school. I know it might seem silly to some but seeing photos of celebrations with so many people that you've known for so long just makes your heart ache when you are no longer in a place with ties like that.

I envy people who have these big elaborate parties with tons of people who are a part of their daily lives knowing that I gave that up. Do I regret leaving that behind and not getting those experiences, no because I love my husband and where ever he goes is where I will go. If I have to follow him across the ocean I will, but it still hurts to know what you gave up at times. I gave it up for love but miss it at the same time.

To further my sadness my sister is also pregnant and is planning her shower with a couple of our cousins and our mom. It's going to be this big elaborate fancy lucheon tea. It's going to be beautiful and she's expecting 60 guests. I am so happy for her and want her to have the best shower she can (she's been waiting over 5 years for this baby) but at the same time I'm jealous because I know mine isn't going to be what I truely want. I'm going to have to give up some elegance to bring down the cost. I'll be lucky to have 12 guests and extremely lucky to have any family there, and if I do it will be from my hubby's side of the family. I guess I'm also a little jealous that someone else is planning her shower where I am planning my own. I am controlling and like things a certain way so it's best if I'm involved but it kinda hurts that no one has asked to help.

So to sum up my feelings of the day I was yearning for more and saddened that it isn't possible. I wasn't sure if I even wanted to have a baby shower any more. Some of those feelings are still lingering today and I'm sure they will stay there for a while. However, in an attempt to get out of the funk and look forward to my shower again I jumped head in to planning. I've looked all over the internet for things that inspire me and I created an inspiration board. To help me get the best shower for a reasonable price I made a price comparison chart that I can take around town with me so I can make sure I'm getting the most for my money. That way I might be able to afford a little something extra. So I'm trying to put the sadness and gloom behind me and focus on making the best shower I can with what I've got. I need to be grateful that I'm going to have one, that I can afford it and that I do have friends to share it with. I know thats more than some people have. Oh the life lessons we must continue to learn.

Where I found my inspiration:

Top Left - Evie S. Things of Beauty

Top Right - Life In Pictures

Center Left - I Could Make That

Center - Wedding101 Blog

Bottom Left - Emmaline Bride

Bottom Right - Ma Joie Press (Blog)

Emily over at Through Emily's Eyes has some exciting things to share today! She has made her 700th blog post!! WOW! That's a lot of time and dedication there. It seems like it would be so simple to just post and post and post but it really does take some time and effort, especially with a crafters blog because you have to craft something first! Finding the time to do post can be difficult. So congrats to her on her fabulous blog and I'll be reading the next 100 posts and beyond! So to help celebrate she's cleaning out her stash and giving away a HUGE Candy batch!! Look at all the goodies she's got already and she's gonna have more! She is going to keep the post up at the top until March 27th at midnight CST. So hop on over there and leave a comment, become a follower and spread the word!!

Emily has inspired me to do my own little candy giveaway related to posts. Currently I'm at about 125 posts so I think at 150 posts I will be putting up a candy of my own. So keep an eye out for it! I'm not sure if it will be as grand as Emily's but I'm sure it will be worth stopping by.

Spring Inspiration

Spring is definitely on it's way...there is tons of spring inspiration around in the blog world. Today I've created a card for two challenges that brought spring to life! The pictures of the daisies were the inspiration picture over at Flutter by Wednesday's and of course I had to incorporate a butterfly, fairy or angel. I choose to use a butterfly. The butterfly image came from McMahon Five Designs via a sketch challenge (I used this as my template for my card) Crafter's Digital Art Center. I think these two challenges were just perfect for each other!! I love how the card turned out.

I started my card by printing off the wonderful butterfly image and the "You make Happiness Bloom" sentiment that I found over at Create with TLC via the Free Digital Stamps blog. To make the petals of the flower I cute out a bunch of small circles using my Creative Memories cutting system then gluing them to the back of my yellow circle. As you can see in the picture at the top left I glued one side of the green straight onto the blue background but made the other side the inside of the card. I covered the back of the flower with the same green as well to make it look more finished. My final touch was the butterfly which I cut out and bent the wings to make them pop off the card. Thanks for looking!

Hello...

Today I've gotten a head start on being productive. I guess it helps that my little Chloe (due May 4th) doesn't care for me to sleep in lately. So here is my simple little Hello card. My inspiration was a sewing challenge over at Tickled Pink. I love this cute little image of theirs. Hope you like it! Thanks for stopping by.