Shadow Box Fun

Alright folks, I have been on two major trips across the world; Australia in 2008 and Egypt in 2012. From both of my wonderful trips I kept a few items to help me remember the trip as the years pass. Since I was able to have a little bit of free time before rotations start I decided to start marking items off my to do list. First item up was these two shadow boxes and I was even smart enough to remember to take pictures along the way as well. Go me!

1--Buy a shadow box that will fit all the contents you want to add. I wanted to add scrapbook paper behind my souvenirs so I stuck with a 12x12.

2--Buy paper, stickers, and whatever other kid of decorations you want to add. Unfortunately good 'ol Hobby Lobby didn't have any pyramid, sphinx or other egyptian stickers so I just stuck with the paper.

3--Next, gather all your souvenirs  you want to add and try to make them all fit on your background paper. As you can tell I had a lot of junk priceless memories that I was trying to add in the box. So many that I forgot to add a picture of me from the trip. Epic Fail. After you have everything you want begin to glue or pin it down. The next part is the tricky part, making it all fit in the box. I had a few loose items I didn't glue down, but wanted to add at the bottom.

4--Here are the final versions of my two trips. One added bonus to making the boxes, was remembering all of the memories of the trip along the way. Also, now that I am done I realized I never added a date or the name of the cities I visited. I will probably go back and add a piece of paper on the back of each with both those items and anything else I noticed I forgot.

--Egypt 2012--
Hurghada, Luxor, Aswan, Cairo

--Australia 2008--
The Gold Coast

What are some of y'alls favorite trips you want to capture in a shadow box to hang on your wall?

Miss Artesia's Birthday Gift

Miss Artesia's birthday was this past weekend! In preparation for this grand occasion, I decided to make her gift this year. Lucky for me I was actually on top of my game and remembered to take pictures along the way, so y'all can repeat the process if ya want. So here we go, step by step instructions on making a stacked cross similar to this one.

First thing you need to purchase the supplies: 1 large cross, 1 smaller cross, 1 letter, paint, accent paint, scrapbook paper, mod podge, and glitter of course.

Step 1: Paint the big cross your main color.

Step 2: Paint the edges of the smaller cross the accent color.

Step 3: Trace the smaller cross on the scrapbook paper and cut it out. Glue the paper on with mod podge.

Step 4: Paint the letter your main color. Then stack up the pieces & realize you don't like the colors you chose. Start planning how to fix this problem.

Step 5: Add the accent color on top of the letter with your desired painting technique that still allows the turquoise to peak thru. Realize you still do not like the color scheme and start planning how to fix this problem again.

Step 6: Remember that glitter solves almost all crafting problems & decide to add glitter. Cover the top surface of the letter with glue, then add the sparkles! I added a top coat of clear spray paint to help seal the glitter. Re-stack up the crosses and letter, realize hey you finally got what you wanted and glue everything together. Voilà it is done! Enjoy your creation :)

Oh and if you are giving this as a birthday gift, adding a homemade card can be a nice touch!

Happy Wednesday friends!

Weekend Recap

The first week of classes is officially over thank goodness! Man it sure seemed to drag by minute by minute, hour by hour, but oh well that is over and past and I had one stellar weekend. It sure was a pleasant surprise to have a three weekend to top it all off!

Friday

Friday's are the absolute worst for classes. On a normal day we go from 9-11, 1-5 of classes, but we got lucky and only had to go 1-5 this first Friday. Even with the shortened day my brain was NOT focusing. I felt like a 9 year old with ADD all hyped up on sugar. So in my "spare" time during class I started with my Type A personality and made lists of everything I needed to get done this long weekend. To start everything off was a grocery list. Laker Lover and I do one big shopping trip at the beginning of the semester to start us of and seeing that this will probably be our last together we went out with a bang. We ended up looking like two soccer moms getting ready for a little league tournament or something. We had two baskets full of groceries and loaded up the back of her car, seriously, check it out!

Yes that is the back of a range rover FILLED to the top with groceries!

After we motivated ourselves to unload the back of the car and put away all our groceries, we wound down the day with a little Pitch Perfect movie time. Man oh man if y'all haven't seen that movie, go rent it, redbox it, buy it, whatever, just go see it!

Oh and just fair warning y'all, Rebel Wilson plays Fat Amy is absolutely HILARIOUS!! Seriously just watch it, but in case you don't have time this week here is a quote to get you through the week.

Saturday

Saturday started off super early and I went to drop by car off to get new tires on. Whoop Whoop! I am getting ready travel across state for all my rotations! So stoked :) Well after I dropped off my car I did a few things on the computer and took me a little nap. It was we deserved of course! After I went and picked up my car, I hit up one of my favorite stores, Hobby Lobby! Man folks I could spend lots of time and money in that store. I ended up getting some paper and stickers to work on a few cards for my friends and the soldier. Here are a few of my products!

Laker Lover cooked us a delicious dinner and we worked on some homework. We ended the night with the Little Rascals. Another one of my favorite movies!

Sunday

I had quite a lovely Sunday on this long weekend. I met up with Bob for lunch at Olive Garden and some much needed catching up. It is always great to spend time with old friends. It is amazing how much one conversation can make your entire day. After lunch I swung by Bahama Bucks and picked up an afternoon treat for Laker Lover and I. We spent the afternoon at home catching up on a few things then met up with Fratty Frat. Laker Lover, Fratty Frat, and I went and got dinner and a movie. Have you guys seen Gangster Squad? Well go out watch it if you get the chance. It is a good one for sure. Oh and G-Ma if you are reading this, I think you will like this one!

Monday

The last day of my break was spent at home. You know the usual home errands, laundry, cleaning, the list goes on and on. I also had some school work I needed to get done as well. In between putting up laundry and cleaning up my crafts from my card making this weekend, I was able to watch one of my favorite childhood classics, Mary Poppins. Come on y'all you know the drill ... "A spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down, medicine go down, medicine go down." Such a wonderful classic! As with all good things, they must come to an end, and the day was finished up with a shift over at the good 'ol Walgreens.

I hope everybody's weekend was just as lovely as mine!

Soldier's Angel

I started out this new year with a bang! One of the things I am doing is adopting a soldier. I signed up with an organization called Soldier's Angels. If you haven't heard about them and are interested in doing your part to help out our beloved soldier's over seas, check it out!

By adopting a soldier you are committing to sending 1 letter a week and 1-2 care packages a month. Well after I got my first letter sent off quickly, I decided to put my crafty side to work! I sat down one night and made 10 greeting cards. Yep you heard me 10! Now only 7 of them were for my soldier, but hey that's still a pretty good start if you ask me!

A few of the cards I made for my soldier.

Now that I am set for a few weeks on cards, I started to think about what I was going to send in my care packages. If y'all know me, you know I am not going to do anything half hearted. Since I do not have any experience with this type of project I decided to brainstorm with friends and family and do a little researching on Pinterest. Man on man it did not disappoint! I found pages and pages of ideas and themed packages. So true to my nature I copied it all down and organized it in a word document. After I got finished typing it all up, it was at 5 1/2 pages. Yes I am sure you are thinking I am a little crazy and you might be right, but hey at least I kinda know what I am doing now.

For the month of January I am doing a football themed care package. You know with just having the college national championship and playoffs for NFL I thought it would be fun. So I hit up shopping over the weekend and got some stuff together. The hardest part about this entire deal is trying to make it all fit in the boxes. Luckily I made it work and got some snacks, a nerf football, movie, and sports illustrated magazine in the box! Whew, thank goodness!

Its kind of hard not knowing who his team is, so this is pretty generic.

My first official care package!

If any of y'all have done this type of thing before and have suggestions I would greatly appreciate them! :)

I hope y'all are having a lovely week!