Disney 2012

Soooooo, Disney is having an AMAZING special right now.  They are having a FLorida Resident special of 3 parks for $99!!!!  AND you can buy a 4th day for $30 more!!!!  This is such an abso-freaking-lutely great deal that we had to take advantage of it.  We went to Magic Kingdom on Day 1 and Animal Kingdom on Day 2.  We will be going to Epcot and Disney Studios in a couple of weeks.

Anyways, here are a couple of pictures of our day.

Hope you enjoy :)

I've got an award!!!

First of all, I would like to thank Lisa at http://gobeagirl.blogspot.com/ for thinking of me!!  I am sooo happy to get an award...wowsers.  I started looking for inspiration on YouTube and now I have my own channel and blog.  How time flies.

It is really difficult to come up with 5 names to give this award to.  Most of the blogs that I go to regularly have sooo many followers.  But here are the ones I came up with.  I look to these ladies for techniques and inspiration.  I am sooo happy that I have found them.

1.  Amanda- http://www.butterflyamandascreations.blogspot.com/
2.  Ana- http://scrappypinkcorner.blogspot.com/
3.  Annes- http://www.annespapercreations.com/
4.  Sari- http://sarispyssligasida.blogspot.com/

I know I need to come up with 5 but it is hard to not repeat some people that have already gotten the award.

So, here are the rules.  You need to copy the badge and then post 5 blogs that you follow that have less than 200 followers...this was the hardest part for me.

Thanks again Lisa and thanks you all for your inspiration :) Mercy

Birthday card for an AP

Here is a card I colored up for one of the Assistant Principals at my school.  I think she came out adorable.  If you guys only had a picture of her, you would see how similar she looks to the actual AP.

Here are some closer shots.

I used the recollections cardstock paper for the card.

I used stickles on her barrettes and her belt to give a little more dimension.

I used some of my Hobby Lobby trim for the inside of the card.

Hope you enjoy :)

Family Tree Project...what a surprise!!

So, Roman comes home with a project for his kindergarten class, a family tree.  I read over the requirements and quickly get an idea in my head of what to make.  I was super excited to get started.  The only problem is that we come from Cuba and my parents are older than most (my dad is 94 and my mom is 74). Getting information for this project is going to be a challenge.

I decide to start with my husband's family.  He's from Italy.  All I had to do for his family was call with mom and 2 aunts and I got all the information I needed.

My side........what I hunt!  I called my mom but she really couldn't help me much.  She was able to give me the names of  her siblings (9 of them)  and some of my dad's (only 11 of the 13).  Her memory is not as good as it used to be.  I couldn't ask my dad because he gets waaaaaaayyyyyyy to sentimental on the subject.  So then I called up one of my sisters.  She was able to give me all of my siblings birthdays.  Next, I had to call the only aunt and uncle that live in the states to see if he remembered all of his siblings names.  This is when I found out that my dad is not 1 of 13 but 1 of 15!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Yes, you read this correctly.  My grandmother had 15 children.  I go crazy with 2 and she had 15.  My uncle couldn't remember all of their birthdays but at least I got 2 of them.  This is also where I found out that they had always considered themselves 1 of 13 because 2 had died young.  The eldest daughter had died at 14yoa and the youngest son died when he was just 2-5 days old.  My uncle didn't even know his name. I then called the only cousin that we have here and he told me about his dad.

At the end of it all, what I had was a tree with many mysteries.  It's really hard to get information from my parents side of the family because they are in Cuba.  My family has always been very poor and so there are not many records. All the ones that have information are also older and that makes it even harder.  We can't just pick up the phone and get answers because it was sooo long ago that the information has been lost through the years.

Not to worry though.  I will be trying to expand on this tree.  I am sending a paper for each of my aunts and uncles to fill out with their children.  We may not have to backstory on all of them but at least we'll have something.

Oooops, here is the picture of the project. I got soooo carried away with the story that I forgot about the picture...LOL!!

I cut out the apples with my Cricut.  The red apples are girls and the green apples are boys.  The apples with a brown leaf means that they have passed.

Hope you enjoy :)

Mr. Julain's 1st Birthday!!

That's right, my niece's son turned 1!!

Okay, I might have to do a little background story here.  I am the youngest of 6.  My eldest sister is 18 years older than me and the closest brother to me in age is 10 years older.  Needless to say, some of my nieces and nephews are really close in age with me.  I have nieces and nephews that are only 3-4 years younger.

Anyways, my 2nd sister, Maki (Marta), has 3 kids.  I basically grew up in her household.  When they built their home, they added on a 2 bedroom house to it on the back.  My mother, father, and me lived there from the time I was 13-14 years old until I got married when I was 20 yo.  So, I was always very close to her kids.  Her eldest, Yessy, is 8 years younger than me.  She is the one that would chaperone me on my dates.  I would take her with me to the mall and the movies and everywhere else.  She was the made-of-honor at my wedding and is the godmother to my eldest.

Yessy's son is the one that has turned 1.  So, I had to make him a birthday card.  But, I didn't want it to be just any card.  I wanted it to be a keepsake card.  I had just bought the "Wild Things" stamps from Greeting Farm from a private seller and I really wanted to use them.  I honestly couldn't wait to ink up those stamps because they are soooooooo cute.

Soooooo, here is what I came up with.

Here are some close-up views.

I LOVE the monkey and the tree!!!!  I cut out the tree on chipboard in the cricut.  Then I cut out each leaf on the cricut and glued them on.  I came out soooooo dimensional!!

On the video I have all the colors I used to color the stamps in.

I really debated over giving her the card because I fell in lOVE with it.  I ended up giving it to her, begrudgingly...LOL!!

Co-worker Birthday Cards

Sooooo, as you guys may remember, I am a school teacher.  I teach science to 4th graders and I am also the grade chair this year...YAY!!  We decided to chip in together so we can celebrate the birthdays for administration and each other.  I decided to make handmade cards for each of them...not sure what I'm going to do for the guy's cards.  Anyways,  here are some of the cards that I made for December and January birthday's.  I wish I had a picture of each of them so you could see how similar they are to the card.

Here are all 3 cards to start off with.  Sorry,  I didn't have enough time to make a video :(

Here is Ms. Wilson's card (Flirty Anya).  She always has her hair straight and she loves purple.

 This is Ms. Harris' card (WS-Diasy).  Her hair is a mirror image of hers.  The way she has her hand on her hip is exactly like Ms. Harris' sass.

Ms. P's card (WS- Camille).  I think her blonde hair came out perfect for her.

All of them liked their card.  BUT the BEST part was that when I showed other teachers the cards, they knew whom they were for without me having to say anything!!!!!!!!  That made me feel soooooo good.  

I hope you guys enjoy :)

Shadow Box Christmas Gifts

Here are the Christmas Gifts I made for my siblings.  There are 6 of us and all of my siblings are older than me.  So what do you get someone that has everything?  Something handmade, of course!!  I bought the shadow boxes at Michael's and then started to come up with an idea.  I had the K and Company paper stack that I used for my mom's butterfly album on my desk, so I decided to use it up.  Here is what I came up with.

I made the video on my iPhone, so I am sorry it's so small :(

Here are some closer pics of each of the frames.

My frame, I'm the youngest.

Carito's (Caridad, eldest sister) frame.

Buki's (Jesus, 2nd brother) frame.

Maki's (Marta, 2nd sister) frame.

Pedro's (eldest brother) frame.

Juan's (3rd brother) frame.

I took the frame over to some of their houses and had them pick which color they liked best.  I think they were all pleased with the results.  I made them so that they could put my parent's picture in them but they can put whichever picture they want to feature.

Hope you guys enjoy :)

Altered Box

Here is my FIRST altered box!!  Yeya, over at http://stores.2creativechics.com/StoreFront.bok , gave me the box as part of my design team package.  I thought about it for a while and then decided what I wanted. I painted with brown with some craft paint and then began to alter.  I had sooo much fun!!

Here is the video that I made explaining it and lower down you will see pictures.

This is the front of it.  I LOVE how it came out.  The wheat leaves, mulberry flowers....well.....everything on the front cover is soooooooo luscious.

Here is a side view.  I am sooooooo in love with Yeya's box pleated brown trim.  the color is amazing!!

And my FAVORITE part is the handmade flower.  I think it came out really nice.  The chocolate brown color of the pleated trim came out stunning.  I love the vintage button that she gave me in the DT package.  It is gorgeous.

Well,  I am sorry for how late this post is.  I made the project on the 9th of January but it has taken me this long to up it up on the blog.  I really need to keep on top of my blog this year... :)