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... :)

Stew Leonard's

We got to go to Stew Leonard's!!  For those of us that live in FL, this is an experience.  Stew Leonard's is a grocery store up here that is an adventure and a store.  They carry a lot of their own brand name stuff.  They also have a lot of many prepared foods. Needless to say, you can just run to the store and picked up your already made meal or pick up a prepared one to just throw in the oven.  It is a really cool store.  They have animatronics that are perfect entertainment for the kids.

So, anyways, here are a couple of pics.

Benny has more on his phone but I have to figure out how to sync his phone without him getting all my contacts.  So, as soon as I figure that out I will post those as well.

Christmas in CT

Yup, you read the title correctly.  This FL girl is in icy cold CT for the Christmas holiday.  My hubby is from here and so we came up to visit.  All I have to say is burrrrrrrrrrrr.  It is SOOOOOOOO cold up here!!  I honestly don't know how people survive this year after year.  It gets really cold in FL but it only lasts for about a week.  Then we have a nice chill.  In CT, it is just plain freezing allllllll the time!!!  I'm even cold inside the house...LOL!!  It hasn't snowed yet though.  Supposedly, it might snow this weekend. I hope it snows before we leave on Christmas day though.  It is always sooo pretty when it snows and you don't have to go out and work...LOL!!

Anyways, I am off to play set-back with the family.  So I will post pics later.  Hope everyone is doing well :) Mercy

Christmas Decorations Are UP!!

Actually, they have been up for a couple of weeks but I just haven't uploaded the pics yet.  I have them on my cell phone and I haven't synced it yet :(

I will be uploading them shortly though.

And here they are!!!

Our Christmas Angel fell down after we put it up on the top :( 

We are going to have to find another one that is beautiful and lights up...I'm a little picky when it comes to my angels...LOL

Benny's Santas.  He LOVES to collect Santas.

We may not have a fireplace but we make do...LOL!!

Our Christmas table top.

Our Christmas village.  We got them yeeeaaaarrrrrsssss ago at 90% off...gotta love a sale!!

A closer look.

Hope everyone has a blessed Holiday Season!!  Mercy