We Love You Mom - Family Tree Shadow Box

This is a little late...Mother's Day was last month, I know. But my mom lives in Arizona and since we knew my parents were coming to visit in June, we decided to collectively celebrate birthdays, Mother's Day and Father's Day when they got here. One big party if you will! Because of that I didn't want to post this project early and ruin the surprise for my mom - So is born the Mother's Day craft post in June!

I saw this idea on Pinterest but unfortunately I don't know the original creator because when I click on the link it says it was flagged for spam. So if you know who gets credit for this, let me know so I can share here. Anyway, I decided to expand on this idea and make it for my mom from all her kids and grand kids. A family tree of sorts. I started by printing out the words I wanted to use on various colored card stock so that I could mix and match.

I then free handed a tree out of this cute polka dot paper. There is just something fun about the idea of a polka dot tree, don't you think?

 Initially I was going to glue the tree directly to my background but it just didn't pop like I had hoped it would so I glued the tree to an orange piece of paper and cut a border around my original tree. Now it pops!

 From there, I cut leaves out of the words as well as some blank leaves in the same colors. I glued as I went until the tree came together.

 Then I added some accents to the leaves using different markers and some glitter nail polish to make the main message stand out. Using Google Image, I found a chick and squirrel silhouette and printed them off to add some life to the tree.

Chick silhouette - just copy image, paste into Word, size as you want

Squirrel silhouette - just copy image, paste into Word, size as you want

Into the shadow box it went (I got this one for 40% off using a coupon at Hobby Lobby) and here's the finished product:

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Looking for more great Mother's Day gift ideas that are from the heart (and won't break the budget)?  Or maybe you have an idea you would like to share with the world. Check out the Mother's Day Your Way Contest over at NerdWallet - http://www.nerdwallet.com/coupons/contests/

Teacher Appreciation Subway Art

My biggest little guy is wrapping up his first year of Kindergarten tomorrow. Seems like not too long ago I was writing about his first day - boy does time fly!

Nathan was blessed this year with an amazing teacher who poured a lot into him and helped him walk through this first year of school as the youngest child in his class. She has had nothing but positive things to say about him and has helped him grow and stretch in new, wonderful ways. I wracked my brain to come up with a gift worthy of all her hard work and decided on something that I hope speaks to the beauty of her teaching.

I started by printing off this subway art I found over at Today's Fabulous Finds, after inserting his teacher's name first by using Word. I put it in one of the zillions of frames we had laying around and had a great base for my picture. In fact, you could really stop at this step if you wanted.

I wanted to jazz it up a bit though so I dug through my craft disaster area supplies and found these chipboard letters that I had picked up on clearance at Michaels awhile back.

I found one of each letter and glued them around the outside of the frame to make an alphabet border.

Finally, I created some small Ric Rac Roses courtesy of this tutorial from The Ribbon Retreat Blog and attached them to two of the corners using hot glue.

All done! A beautiful wall hanging for a more-than-deserving teacher.

Magnetic Paper Dolls

I told you to be on the lookout for my post on Magnetic Paper Dolls...and now you can look no further! This is yet another Pinterest inspired idea. The amazing talent over at Make It and Love It created an awesome tutorial that I actually copied exactly for my nieces birthday.

Aren't they adorable? And this isn't even half the books worth of dolls and outfits so I can get a whole other gift out of the book. Great deal!

While I was making this set for my niece, my boys became totally enamored with it and I actually had to take it away from them to give it to her. It gave me the great idea to search something out for Isaiah who is getting ready to celebrate his second birthday. I came across this link for printable paper dolls and printed them out myself on card stock and then went about the same process of sticking them onto magnet paper and cutting them out. Easy peasy!

I really love the retro look of these and think they will be fun for my little guy. I see many more magnetic dolls in our future because the possibilities are truly endless. You can find all kinds of really cool printable paper dolls online that range from Little House on the Prairie, to wedding themed, to Princess dolls. And for boys you could do super heroes, dinosaurs, heavy machinery, and so on.  And this gift is truly affordable. Printing at home and picking up a cookie sheet at the dollar store makes for minimal cost there. And if you have a Hobby Lobby near you I recommend using their 40% off coupons to get cheap magnet paper. You know how much I love affordable, easy gifts that have that special homemade touch!