Social Worker Appreciation Month – Have You Thanked One?

Social work is a hard and often thankless job. The hours are long and the pay is low, but it’s some of the most important work out there. It takes someone special to do this kind of job.

We have been SO BLESSED to have THE SAME caseworker for the baby’s case the ENTIRE time. If you haven’t been in this world, let me tell you, this is HIGHLY unusual. Our case is almost 2 years old and our worker has been a stabilizing part of it. She made a tough, scary situation easier.

To thank her and show her our appreciation, I made a few things.

Here’s everything together. I made the boxes and bags, too, using my WRMK Template Studio 🙂

Up close of the shirt. I found the saying on Pinterest and designed something in Silhouette Studio to fit my needs. I use Siser glitter HTV in mint and now I think I’m in love with the sparkly htv 🙂

I used the same htv on the mug. Also a saying I found on Pinterest that I put into Silhouette Studio and played around with. I even got to use the conical warp tool!

I used my mug press attachment for the first time and I’m kind of in love with that, too! I do wish I’d made it a little smaller, but it’s a live and learn thing I guess 🙂

The mug says: You can’t fix crazy. All you can do is document it.

This card though.

It should have been easier.

I inked the flower stamp in different colors using a stamp positioning tool. But the effect was a little washed out. I did pick lightish colors though. So I grabbed my markers and inked up select areas of the stamp and stamped again.

I still wasn’t happy, so I got out my prismacolor pencils and added details and colors by hand until I was happy. And I LOVED how it turned out BUT I felt like there was too much white space. Hence the bricks.

I used my Cameo’s pixscan feature to cut out a mask for the stamped image. Then I ran some paper and a metal die through my Evolution Advanced die cutter to make a brick stencil. I masked off the flower and inked up the background. But it was a little, eh. So I got out my pencils and enhanced the bricks. Then I felt it competed too much with the flower. That’s the image you see right below.

So I did some fussy cutting (one of my least favorite things to do) to rescue the flower. Then used some other metal dies and an embossing folder to come up with what you see below. I was finally happy with it and called it a night. You can see the finished version below the bricked version 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!

Oh, the flowers on the are mine because my husband’s awesome 😉

Xoxo

Christmas Cards Part the Second – Here’s Three More

1. This card was super simple but has a wow effect. If you’re pressed for time, this is a good one to try 🙂 And to help keep it simple and quick, I used my Silhouette Sketch pens for the greeting.

 

2. This card was supposed to be a trifold card, but I could NOT figure out how to make it work. I ended up taking the pieces apart and layering them with foam tape. And I like how it turned out 🙂

 

3. This card was old school stamping and card assembly for me 🙂 I used a Stampendous stamp, colored with markers and pencils, and used a few metal dies and put everything together.

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo

Links for projects

Card 1: Flexi card file

Card 2: Silhouette file

Card 3: Stampendous stamp

 

I Made a Pineapple

School started Wednesday. It’s a weird mish-mash of schedules now, and I’m not sure how I’m going to make this school year work, but I’m sure it will 🙂

School break down:

3 graduated. Of those 3, 2 are enrolled in college classes. All 3 working and sharing a car.

3 in school. They’re spread out over 3 different schools. 2 of the 3 have extra-curricular activities.

1 still at home.

The one I’m most worried about is the little guy who started kindergarten this week. He’s had a rough beginning and that still plays out in cycles in our home. Right now, we’re in one of our good cycles. But change is SO HARD on this kiddo, I’m waiting for us to start spiraling downward again. Maybe he’ll surprise me, like everyone suggests while I’m gearing up for another round of power struggle battles.

In preparation for these rough times on the horizon, I made a paper pineapple box for his teacher. I put a few goodies in it. He has the same teacher two of my other kids had and I’m so grateful 🙂 But I want to show her my gratitude ahead of time while things are good 🙂

Here’s some pictures of the box.

We got him started in school and that first week went well. Next up is the solar eclipse and we’re in the path of totality, so the schools are teaching around it. My next success will be my boy getting through this amazing event with out burning his retina’s. I think this it totally doable 😉

Stamp and Die set, Pineapple

 

Hello Card

I’m taking an online copic class. Yesterday we were supposed to practice coloring things with circles in them. I don’t think I have any simply shaped circle images so I used some flower stamps (and coordinating dies) by Stampendous.

I also tried out different color combinations, which was nice.

So I stamped and colored everything. In this picture you can see all the pieces. You can also see the difference using colored pencils to darken shadowed areas and lighten the highlighted areas makes on the flowers (compare the bottom two flowers on the right to the other flowers).

After coloring all the pretties, I used the coordinating die set to cut them out. I then used  a metal die from a Sizzix set I have to cut out the brick work in the top left corner, then addded the flowers and leaves to the bottom right.

Finally, I used a stamp and metal die set from ArtC for the Hello.

Thanks for stopping by!

Xoxoxo

For My Foster Son’s Birth Mother – A Mother’s Day Card

I think about her a lot.

I wonder how she’s doing.

I wonder if she’s safe and healthy.

I wonder if she’s happy.

And on days like Mother’s Day, I wonder how she’s survived the loss of three children, and potentially a fourth.

I’ve wanted to reach out on previous Mother’s Days to let her know the children she gave birth to are safe and happy. That they’re doing phenomenally well even though we’ve had our struggles.

But I’ve never had a way to reach out until now.

So this is her card. I’m not sure what I’m going to write in it, but I may not get another chance to do this, so I don’t want to squander it.

Something Simple

I needed something simple after all the wonderful Mad Hatter Tea Set work.

The stamp and die sets are from Stampendous 🙂

Thanks for stopping by 🙂

I Appear to Like Hummingbirds

I have another hummingbird card. Used my copics and twinkling H20’s.

I used one of my metal dies to cut it out then designed the background in Craft Artist 2 which I then moved into my Silhouette design space and cut out a few separate pieces and put it all together 🙂

Thanks for stopping by 🙂