simply caffeinated

teacher time - day 5

 
hi there! today is the last day of teacher time with geeta and i! you can see day one here, day two here, day three here and day four here. i've got a bunch of different little things to show you. first i have a little bucket of notes. one of my very favorite dies, is this lunchbox note from papertrey. it makes the cutest little notecards, and they are perfect for so many things. you can make gift cards, little notes, and what i use it for most, is actually making lunchbox notes for my kids. so i was thinking that maybe a teacher could use some little notes too. this little bucket is another dollar spot find from target, and they have them all the time. i have a lot of them because i use them for gift giving and for storage too. they are cute! i tied some ribbon around and then attached a metal rimmed tag that i personalized. again, i am just putting my own name on there since i don't know the names of my kids' teachers yet. i will change them out once i know. :) then i die cut a bunch of the lunchbox notes in kraft cardstock and added some paper pieced images. the apple is from paper smooches fruitastic set (i masked off the face) and the pencil is from kim hughes' making the grade set. here is a close up of the notes and of the bucket:

 

this is a project that you could totally do while watching tv or a movie. just sit there and die cut a bunch of these notes, and then stamp or paper piece a bunch of images.

 

i love adding notes to my kids' lunches and they love them too! :) here are a couple quick ones i made using paper smooches sugar rush set. i try to make a bunch of these to have on hand so that i can grab them in the morning, write on them and get them into their lunch fast.

one more last little project to share! i couldn't let teacher time go by without a little punch girl! :) i took 2 scratch notepads from an office supply store and stick them together to create a chubbier notepad, and then i covered it with cardstock and added the punch girl. hopefully the teacher could use a cute notepad on her desk to write her notes in. :) thank you *so* much to everyone that visited my blog this week and for the sweet comments that you left! i had a blast making the gifts and i hope you found a little bit of inspiration here! thanks to geeta for playing along with me this week too! one more piece of business...the winner of wednesday's dvd tin giveaway! i selected a random winner and it is.......shirleynw! congratulations shirley! email me with your address and i will get the dvd tin right out to you! thanks again for your comments and thanks for visiting! :)

teacher time - day 4

hi there! it's day four of teacher time! geeta and i are having a blast posting our teacher gifts this week! :) you can see day one here, day two here, and day three (with a giveway!) here. today i have a *sweet* little set to share. i saw this adorable polka dotted pink box in the dollar spot at target recently and i thought it would make a great addition to a teacher gift so i scooped some up for a dollar each. i find so many great things in the dollar spot, and i really try to use them up. i used the colors of the box as inspiration and went with a berry theme. i had these cute little jolee's boutique dimensional stickers and used them to create some notecards. i haven't really been one to use stickers too much, but i recently saw these and thought they would make really fun, easy and cute cards. i created the sentiment using 3 different sets from paper smooches, thank you is from word up, berry is from fruitastic and much is from pretty phrases.

here is a peek inside the box. the gift consists of 5 notecards and envelopes, a decorated rsvp pen, and a matching book mark. i made the book mark using papertrey's new bloom builder's die #3 and a giant paper clip. i also added a matching bloom to the front of the box. hopefully after using the notes, the teacher could re-use the box for something else. here is a close up of the card and the box too. i hope you are having fun seeing the teacher gifts i am creating, i am sure having fun making them! :) today i am off to my oldest son's middle school orientation. yes, i said *middle school*!!! i can't believe my little guy is big enough to go to middle school. i think we are both a little scared, lol! :) be sure to check out geeta's awesome creation for today, and don't forget to enter into my giveway from yesterday. i will be back tomorrow with my last day of teacher gifts and to announce the winner! thanks for visiting! :) 
 

 

teacher time - day 3 and a giveway!

hi there! it's day 3 of teacher time with geeta and i! you can see my day one here and day two here, and see below for a give-away! :) today's project might be my favorite of all of the ones i have created this week. :) it is a notepad holder made out of a dvd tin. these dvd tins are *so* cool, and the right side is deeper so that you can slip a notepad right in, perfect fit! this one i made for my daughter's new teacher, however, school doesn't start until september and i don't know who she has yet! so i just have my name on the front and i will change it when i find out who her teacher is! :) i found this cute first grade paper at michael's and i thought it would be perfect for this project. i lined the inside left with some cardstock, and then made a little pocket at the bottom so the teacher can slip some papers in there. i also made a matching rsvp pen. the notepad is a standard 5x8 notepad from an office supply store that i cut about 2 inches off so that it would fit in there. i have been making these for years and they have always been a huge hit! you can see a christmas one i made here and i actually made these for a craft fair i was in and i sold them for $10 each (they were really plain, just cardstock and no other embellishments) and i sold out right away! i had so much fun making this teacher one, i had to make one for myself!

on this one i used some double sided paper from my mind's eye, and some scrabble letters. i have tons of these letters, i am always on the look out for scrabble games at garage sales and i have gotten some at crazy good prices! :) here is a look at the inside:

ok, i know this is a mega-post! if you are still with me, i'd like to offer a little giveway! i just bought a bunch of these tins and i would love to send one to someone that would like to try this fun project! so just leave a comment on this post by friday morning at 8am pacific time, and i will pick one a random winner, and announce who it is with my teacher gift friday! the winner will receive one naked dvd tin, and i will also include a notepad and a pen so they can create a fun matching set. i used to buy these tins online from a craft website, but they stopped selling them so i had so research a new place to get them and i found them here. by far, the best price around! i have seen them for as much as $5 each on other sites! also, their shipping is fast and reasonable, and they don't have a huge order minimum which i have also seen. i hope you enjoyed today's project, be sure to go check out what geeta has in store for you today! i will be back tomorrow with more teacher gifts! thanks for visiting! :)

teacher time - day 2

 
hi there! it's time for day 2 of teacher time! each day this week my friend geeta and i will have teacher gifts on our blog. you can see day one here, and this is my gift for day 2. it is a wipe board made out of a frame. seriously couldn't be easier to create. i used an inexpensive 8x10 frame and a dry erase marker, both from target, and added some pink gingham paper and stamped images from an old kim hughes set from chf called making the grade, and that was that! it works just like a wipe board, use the dry erase marker and then just wipe it off. it might be a fun tool that teachers could use to write daily messages on or something like that. :) and for decorating it, the possibilities are endless! here is a close up of the bottom: 

 
 
here is one more little item i created, a bookmark. this could be for a teacher but i made it for my daughter as a bookmark. i used the new bloom builders die #3 from papertrey to make this cool flower, and then attached it to a giant paper clip found at a office supply store. i hope she likes it!

 
i just saw that the color challenge over on scs is red, yellow and blue, and they suggest making school themed cards so you know i am all over that! lol! here is the card i made:

 
 

i used the same making the grade set, and added the happy from paper smooches' santa paws set. i need some back to school cards so it worked out perfect! :) be sure to head over to geeta's blog to check out her creation for today! and i will be back tomorrow with another teacher gift to share! thanks for visiting! :)

it's teacher time!

hi there! i am really looking forward to this week because i have a bunch of fun projects lined up to share! i may have mentioned once or twice (or maybe a hundred) times that i *love* making teacher gifts! besides being fun to make, i love how excited my kids are to give them to their teachers, it just really makes me happy. so starting today until friday, i have projects lined up each day to share. and i am even more excited about it because my awesome friend geeta is also doing teacher projects on her blog this week! she always has super creative and fun ideas and i can't wait to see what she has planned. :) first i'd like to share my card for this week's cas challenge on scs. it is an inspiration challenge based on the word *hot*. the first thing i think of when it is hot is the beach! :) i used a bunch of my retired a muse stamps, plus a sentiment i just ordered from a store called colorful creations in ma. love that sentiment! :)

ok, now onto today's teacher gift!  

 
i don't think you can ever go wrong with a cute set of notecards for a teacher. i give them all the time and the teachers say how much they like them and use them! so this is a clean and simple set i made doing some paper piecing on the apple from the paper smooches set falling for you and the thank you from paper smooches word up.  then i made a little box to hold them.

 
i used a clear card box from papertrey, and cut it down to fit my 4.25 square cards. then i added large eyelets to the sides of the box and added a ribbon handle. i created a tag that matched and attached it with a small binder clip. i *love* office supplies, lol! :) i really hope you like my teacher gift today! be sure to go check out geeta's creation for today and then come back here tomorrow for more teacher time! thanks for visiting! :)

 

clean and simple teacher thank you

hi there! i say it all the time, but i love making teacher gifts. i have been busy over here making a bunch of teacher gifts for the upcoming school year, so when i went to make this week's cas challenge card, i immediately went with a school theme. :) i used the fruitastic set from paper smooches for the apple, and i masked the face off to have it just be a plain apple. the sentiment is from another paper smooches set called word up. i also used some paper from a muse, the distressed dots paper from pti, a paper clip and the spiral edge punch from su. next week i will be posting all of the teacher gifts i am making, starting monday. do you like making teacher gifts too? if you happen to need any ideas, be sure to come back next week! :) thanks for visiting! :)
 

august spark!

hi there! i am here with the card i made for this month's spark challenge over on the paper smooches blog. this month is an inspiration challenge and kinda stumped me! i really had to think about it, and this is what i came up with! the inspiration photo is below, and i really used a lot of the photo in my card. i was definitely inspired by the colors, i used a flower from friendly flowers for the pink, some leaves from fruitastic as the light blue, some white and brown. i liked the woodgrain in the picture, so i used a woodgrain embossing plate from pti to emboss the brown cardstock, and then sanded it. i added a jewel to the center of the flower for the jewels in the picture. the sentiment is from pretty phrases. this was a really fun challenge that definitely stretched my creativity. this also works for this week's free for all challenge on scs, to use a frame. i hope you like my august spark! thanks for looking! :)

 

 
 

gnomes!

hi there! i have to say, i just love these cards i am sharing today. but it's not about the actual cards, it is the image that i am in love with! how cute are these gnomes?!?! i *love* them! i have been searching for a cute gnome stamp for a long time and i have never found one that i loved. i saw this one online the other day and knew it was the one for me! turns out, it is a digital stamp, so i saw it, bought it and had in printed out in less than 10 minutes. :) it is from pink cat studios, and there is actually a whole gnome line. this is the only one i have bought so far but i definitely see more of these gnomes in my future! :) this first card i made for the color challenge on scs, to used red, yellow and kraft, and you can throw in a little green for leaves (so i threw in green grass). i used a sentiment from the paper smooches set fruitastic. i am not a super colorer, so please try to not to look too close at my not-so-fabulous coloring! :)

this next card i made for 2 challenges, the current less is more challenge and this week's cas challenge. the less is more challenge is to create a card based on the colors of your country's flag. i live in the us so i went with red white and blue. hopefully it is ok if there are a few other colors thrown in. and the cas challenge is a super fun sketch based on a card by terri, aka die cut diva. it has the image on the far left and the sentiment on the bottom leaving lots of nice open space. for this one i computer generated the sentiment with a kim hughes font. i am going to give this one to my husband so it says *there is gnome-one like you*. :)  
 
and this last one is the original card i made for this week's cas challenge. i used a penny black stamp called constellations and a retired a muse sentiment, and i embossed the image and sentiment in white on kraft. i am not usually an embosser but i wanted to try something different. it is definitely very clean and simple. :) i hope you are having a wonderful week! thanks for visiting! :)

less is more

hi there! i've got a couple simple cards to share today. life has been super busy this week and i haven't really had any time to create anything, and then when i finally got a minute, i wasn't really feeling super creative. but then i saw this week's less is more challenge is to create a fruity card, and i just couldn't resist playing along! i just got this new fruitastic set from paper smooches and i have been wanting to play with it! i created these 2 super cas cards, using the little cherries and these cute bananas! :)

 

and here is one more card, for this week's cas challenge on scs, belated birthday cards. i decided to go with a bee-lated sentiment, so i printed on the computer using a kim hughes font. i also used a metal rimmed tag, the little bees from the paper smooches perky plants set, and the martha stewart fringe scissors for the grass. i hope you are having a bee-utiful day! thanks for visiting! :)

 

cas-ual friday

 
hi there! i am playing along today with this week's cas-ual friday challenge, called the long and short of it. the challenge is to create a 4x9 card with lots of white space. *love* this challenge because i *love* white space! :) i made tons of rainbow colored tags for the card i made last week using pti's tiny tags die, so i decided to use these cute little heart ones for a similar card for my dad. he is going through a really rough time health-wise right now so i thought i'd make him a card letting him know i am thinking of him. i do have an orange heart but i thought skipping it and adding the sentiment in orange would be a cute idea, especially since the sentiment was miss you. :) since these are tags, this works for this week's cas challenge on scs too, using tags. i hope you are having a wonderful day! thanks for visiting! :)