Thank You Cards!

What’s the best part about Birthdays?  Gifts, of course!  Kidding…well kind of!  Gift giving has always been a huge part of my family.  We get together for every birthday and do the whole gift thing!   I love giving birthday gifts.  Finding or making that ‘perfect’ gift is so much fun.  That is probably why I like, okay love, getting gifts as well…don’t judge, you know you love getting gifts too!  When you receive a gift that is your style or something that you love, you feel really special knowing that your friend or family member really knows you.

What’s the worst part about birthdays?  Writing thank-you cards, of course!  I am terrible about thank you cards and always have been.  When my husband and I got married I hated writing all of those thank you cards for the gifts and honestly when I had about 5% of the cards left to do, I stopped!  How bad is that?  My mom is totally cringing right now.  Anyway, if you are one of the 5% that didn’t receive a card…thank you so much for the wonderful blender, vase, picture frame, plate and silverware you gave us!

Last week was my birthday and my amazing friends took me to lunch and gave me some wonderful gifts and some gift cards to places that I love to shop at!  Since I just got my Cameo a couple weeks ago, I decided to use it to make some handmade thank you cards!  Now, honestly, I soooo wouldn’t have done handmade thank you cards, but I needed something to blog about! Hehe. True story.

I love birds and orange so this card is so me. 

   

First I cut out the branch, with the Cameo, out of the front of the card.  I had a lot more success with cardstock then I did with vinyl.  Then I cut out my bird without it’s wing.  Took me a while to figure out how to separate the different parts of the image, but I finally figured it out.

  

I wanted the wing to be out of fabric so I used the fabric interfacing for it.  Now, I was a little skeptical about whether the Cameo would actually be able to cut fabric, but I am a believer now!  Wow, does it cut great!  To use the fabric interfacing, you will need to iron it onto the back of your fabric.  Once you have done that, peel off the white sheet that is on the interfacing and put it onto your cutting mat.  Now you are ready to cut.  It cut so good, that when I first looked at it, I couldn’t even see where the cut was. 

I planned on attaching the wing so it was 3D on the bird, but the fabric wasn’t quite stiff enough for that, so I cut out the same wing shape on cardstock, then ironed the fabric onto the cardstock. 

  

Here is all the pieces ready to be assembled.  Next I stamped ‘Delight in the little things’ on the front of the card.

You can not have a cute card in an ugly plain envelope, right?  Nope!  So I put a strip of patterned tape, recently purchased at Target, down the left side and a flower stamp on the bottom right side of the envelope.  I think it turned out super cute.

 

 

 

 

So remember, my birthday is April 4th! 

No, really…when choosing a gift, really think about the person and give something that they love or that would mean a lot to them!  It matters, trust me!

Now off to hand out my thank you cards!  Hope they don’t read this post first!

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Start Your Engines!

Boogity, Boogity, Boogity, Let’s Go Racing Boys! 

My son’s 5th birthday party was awesome!  At the time he was a HUGE Nascar fan and really wanted a Nascar themed party.  I love throwing birthday parties, especially themed ones,  so when he said he wanted a Nascar party, I immediately started picturing kids racing around a race track.  How stinking fun is that for 5 year olds? 

After talking with my dad about how I wanted a race track with race cars for the party, he came up with the design for these amazing Nascars made from cardboard boxes!  My dad, mom and I cut the designs out of cardboard, painted them, assembled them and printed all the decals and logos on label paper from our printer.  The tires are made from small black paper plates with CDs on them for the rims.  The best part of the tires is that they have Velcro on them so the kids can get new tires at the Pit Stops!  How totally cool is that?

 

        

                           #18 Kyle Busch                                                                    #14 Tony Stewart

        

                        #55 Michael Waltrip                                                                 #11 Denny Hamlin

        

                          #16 Greg Biffle                                                                      #20 Joey Logano

This was a special, smaller car made for younger kids at the party.  The name Manas on the side of the car is what my son calls my mom.  What language is that?  It isn’t one!!!  My son made it up when he started talking and it has stuck.  We think it’s cute.

Gentlemen(boys), Start Your Engines!

               

Zooming around the track they go!  Left turns only!

Pit Stop time – getting tires changed by their pit crew of one!  Time is of the essence!

Yes, that is me in the number #14 car!  I totally could have beat those kids (notice I am last), but I didn’t think that would be too cool of me, so I ran slow!  :)  No, seriously, I would have won!

After the racing all the kids were given trophies and medals for doing such a great job.  Then it was cake time!  The Nascar candle in the top left of the cupcake cake played the Nascar theme music. 

Everyone had a great time, even the parents raced around the track! And I am happy to report, there were no crashes!  Each kid took home a checkered flag gift bag filled with Nascar goodies! 

        

And of course…you can’t get into a Nascar race without a ticket!

The birthday boy with his grandparents(the Nascar engineers)!  Please pay no attention to the my dead lawn behind them, it has been fixed and now looks great!

You want to know what it so great about those Nascars?  You know you do! We have gotten SO much use out of them: a Halloween costume, a Halloween party, a what you want to be when you grow up school spirit day, playing with them at  home and wearing it to an actual Nascar race! 

All in all it was a very memorable 5th birthday party for my awesome son!

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