Friday, April 29, 2011

Teacher Appreciation Week-Bulletin Board & Door Decorations!

Where does the time go? We only have a month left of school! Wow! It's Teacher Appreciation Week next week, so in honor of all our teachers at Blankner I made this Star Wars themed movie preview now hanging in the school's Cafeteria. I listed all the teachers and staff in the credits.
Teacher Appreciation
 4'x12' School Cafeteria Bulletin Board

2011 Teacher Appreciation 3rd Grade Door Decor
(That's Wesley's teacher with Elastigirl's body.)

2010 Teacher Appreciation Pre-K Door Decor
(from Dr. Seuss' "Are You My Mother?")


2010 Teacher Appreciation 2nd Grade Door Decor
(This is Wes' 2nd Grade Teacher.)
Basically, I designed everything and then printed it out at Fed Ex Office on Their Large Format B/W printer. Then I colored everything with soft pastels, cut it all out and mounted it.


Have a great weekend and remember to make our teachers feel extra special next week!

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Happy Easter!


Peter Cotton Tail

In between coloring eggs with the kids, preparing Easter baskets and a neighborhood Easter Egg hunt, I couldn't resist making this cute little sock bunny. It's a variation of the one found here. I inserted floral wire to make the ears curl. The body is stuffed with batting and the feet are filled with rice so it stands up. I followed this pom-pom tutorial to make the bunny's cotton tail.


Heading to church and then off to my sister's to spend the day with family. Hope you all have a wonderful Easter!

Monday, April 18, 2011

A Delightful Doll Tea Party!

My niece, Kaylee, just turned 8 and she loves her American Girl doll, Ruthie and her dog, Buster. So, we celebrated her big day with a fancy Doll Tea Party right in her own backyard (and Buster's stomping ground).  She invited a few of her friends, and their dolls, of course.
5"x7" Invitaion (FRONT)

5"x7" Invitaion (BACK)
I designed and illustrated this Tea Party invitation with my new Wacom Intuos4 Sketch Pad. I love it!
My Doll Tea Party Invitation is now available at my shop! CLICK HERE!
I'll be posting the rest of the collection this week.

 I got an enlarged B&W printout of Kaylee's invitation, hand colored it and featured it at the entrance of the Tea Party.

We set the table with an assortment of china from three generations, plus a few Goodwill finds, my mother's teapot collection and a very generous neighbor who had some fabulous tablecloths. Thanks Debrah! Can you find my tea pot? It's my ewehooo! cameo.

Kaylee, the guest of honor and her doll, Ruthie wearing their matching birthday outfits.


The first thing the guests got to do upon arrival was dress for Tea. 
I found these Chipboard purses at the craft store (you can also find them here). I simply spray painted them and added their names. They decorated them with flower stickers and rhinestones. Inside each purse was candy lipstick and a small mirror compact.
 The girls decorated hats for themselves and their dolls.

My sister, Reba and I raided my 93 year old grandmother's closet for dress shoes and scarves. She had 88 pairs of shoes the last time she counted. She wears a size 4-1/2, perfect for little 8 year old feet!

I made each of the girls a set of gloves out of white knee socks. Easy tutorial to come.
The dolls were seated at their own special table, where Ruthie was at the head.

 Abraham Lincoln(s) were surprise guests. You can imagine all the dolls were tickled pink!
 Then is it was Tea Time!




 Lots of toothless smiles!
And a toast to Kaylee!

A friend of Reba's baked cupcakes from scratch and each girl got her own delicious treat with personalized mini-bunting, doll sized too!
Make a wish!



 The Party Favors were over-sized Tea Bags filled with chocolates. The Pink Polka-dot Tea Bags, Pink striped straws (used for the Cupcake Bunting) and Divine Twine are from Whisker Graphics.

What a delightful day!
Buster won't admit it, but I think he had a great time too!

Friday, April 15, 2011

Madrid Spain— The Perfect Getaway.

Right: The Communications Palace Building; Old Madrid

The best things in life aren't planned and this trip was definitely one of them. We had no time to map out this vacation— well, vacation for me, business trip for Chandler (too bad so sad for him). I did well to buy a Madrid tour book a few days before we left and spend a small fortune to rush through my passport renewal. But I wasn't going to miss out on this grand opportunity! 

Oh, did I mention that my husband had been complaining about a tooth ache for about 3 months and finally went to the dentist the Monday before we left? Yeah, the dentist said he needed to get his wisdom tooth out and that he might want to go ahead and get all four taken out at once. Ummhmm. Yeah. That's right. My frugal husband chose to get all four (count 'em "4") wisdom teeth taken out, even though only one was causing the ache.  His logic was that he would save money because he would only have to pay for anestesia once to get them all yanked. Such a deal. However, Chandler chose to overlook the fact that  he was traveling to another country at the end of the week and that high altitudes might induce excess bleeding and that if problems occurred overseas, like excruciatingly painful dry socket, we would be spending our precious little time together in a dentist's office in a foreign country. Lovely. He got all four wisdom teeth pulled two days before we left. Popped two Codeines on out 8 hour flight to Madrid and slept like a baby. Maybe he did know what he was doing.
Bourbon Madrid
The park you see in the picture above runs down the center of Old, Madrid with roads running along each side. 
Real Jardin Botanico, Bourbon Madrid
 The Alcåzar Castle, Segovia
Segovia is about an hour North of Madrid. It's an amazing old town set high on a rocky cliff.


 The Maze from the top of the castle.


 A view of the town of Segovia from the castle.

 The Roman Aqueduct running through the old town.

From Segovia, drove south to Toledo, another picturesque little town.
 Our hotel...
 ...with a view of the Bill Fighting ring. We missed the first fight of the season by a week!

 Outdoor Market, Toledo
Looking out from the city.
 One of the many churches. Incredible detail.


Bernabéu Stadium, Madrid
Back in Madrid, there was a huge Football (soccer) championship match— Madrid vs. England. Madrid won, 4-zip.

After watching all the football hoopla, took the Metro to the Plaza de Oriente in the Opera district. 
 
 We had a lovely dinner at an outdoor bistro.
And then we walked back to our hotel. That's when we realized Chandler had left his iPhone4 on the table at the restaurant. But that's another story. Aside from that, we had a spectacular time!

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