Thank Ya!

As I've said before, thank you cards can be the perfect touch to a lovely party. It's your last chance to remind your guests of the great time they had while showing your appreciation for the lovely gift they gave. And if your gift was crappy... they should still get a thank you note. If you make your own thank you cards I suggest you do as I do, give the ones that didn't come out so well to the persons that gave you crappy gifts :)

Before Team Edwards and Team Jacob, there was Team Mator and Team McQueen.  I am Team Mator all the way baby!!!

What is your favorite childhood book?

A good friend of mine was having a party for her son. She wanted to do something special for his first birthday party but she didn't want gifts. More specificaly, she didn't want toys or clothes. Her son is her first and the first grandchild on both sides. Believe me when I tell you he has more toys then he will ever play with and more clothes then most adults. For example, I am pretty sure he has more shoes than I do.

She loves to read. She read to him almost everyday he was in her womb. So I thought, why not have everyone bring him their favorite childhood book. Great idea right? His library would grow and their gift would last longer than if they bought a simple toy or piece of clothing. This little boy made out like a bandit.  Guests brought varies children's books as well as young adult books. I personally bought him the Percy Jackson Series. I did not read this as a child, but I truly loved the series as an adult.

Her theme was monkey. I helped make her party invitations, which came out super cute. We did a waterfall card (similar to a previous post). A few days before the party, I decided to make a gift for her; some thank you cards.

These were so easy. Here is what I used:

The cuddlebug was used to emboss the leaf background. I used my cricut (everyday paper dolls cartridge) to cut out the monkey and a 2 inch round punch was used to add some interest to the card. I decided to use white on white because I wanted the monkey and the thank you sentiment to stand out. She loved them.  I hope you do to.

What was your favorite childhood book?

Big Brothers

I come from a big family - both in number and in lbs. :) My oldest brother discovered the South Beach Diet about three months ago. This is a man who drank diet coke for breakfast, loved his pizza, and could finish a bag of chips in less than 10 minutes. Three months later, he as lost over 45 lbs and he feels and looks great. So great that he started preaching the word (or words I should say) South Beach. Now, 9 of us are either doing South Beach or at least reducing our fat, calorie, and sugar intake. As a family we are down over 200lbs. It is truly amazing. The least likely of us is showing all of us how to live a healthy life. We send in our weekly lbs lost (and rarely lbs gained)  to him on Sunday mornings.  Throughout the week he sends us encouraging text messages and makes phone calls, seeing how we are doing. He always gives words of encouragement and he never makes us feel more guilty if we say we ate a brownie :)

Sometimes big brothers can be a pain in the butt and sometimes they care about making your butt smaller. So I decided to make my brother a thank you card.

The sentiment is a stamp image and it says "You are beautiful - inside & out'. The card itself is a standard size 4.5"x 6"made of kraft paper. I used three patterned pages from DCWV- The green stack. My embellishments are a button with a thread tied through and a yellow flower brad. What looks like twine is actually embroider thread. It's a manly card but its still adorable. I think he is going to love it.