Workshops, Workshops, Workshops!

I just love that feeling when someone (besides your kid) says with wide eyes "Oh, this is sooooooooo neat!"  It makes all the days and hours of hard work all worth it.    On top of that, there’s just nothing like being around others that get just as excited as I do when I learn something new OR realize “Hey, I actually CAN make that!”

We held our first workshop last Friday and had a great time making Treat Tubes, Monogram Cards, Stone Coasters and yes… Christmas Cards (hate to be the one to remind you, but….it is right around the corner you know!).   

If you missed this one, don’t worry, there will be more!   There are so many ideas rolling around in our heads that we’re serving adhesive and paper cut outs for dinner and crafting with Mac and Cheese! (Ok, not that bad, but I won’t talk about the paper scraps in the casserole if you won’t).

Halloween Party projects

Every year about August I start thinking of this great Halloween party I'm going to have.  So I plot and plan...then poof.  It's the middle of October and I chicken out.  I justify it by telling myself next year will be even better!  Guess what...next year I'm going to have this really awesome Halloween party!

We made a bunch of stuff during the planning stage, here's some of it.  I'll add more pictures later when I dig the rest of the stuff out of the box (translation:  I'm too lazy to take those pictures right now).

Frankenstein box for the invitation, made with CTMH Cricut cartridge. (yes, I was going to hand deliver them because I'm not normal)

 Treat tubes for party favors, made with Art Philosophy Cartridge and Halloween Perfect Fit stamps

 Halloween box for prizes made with CTMH Moonlight paper and complements

I know this looks like an upside down bat...but it's really a right-side-up owl!  We thought this would be a good alternative to the "You've been boo'd" knock-and-run game that the neighbors like to tease us with.

Fun Fall designs

We live in Phoenix, Arizona.  So when someone talks about the Fall, we reply "Who, and are they hurt?"  Bottom line:  we don't really get to experience the greatness of the Fall season.  Instead we have Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin box made with CTMH papers and their Cricut cartridges

Candle wrap for table decoration, made with CTMH Cricut cartridge

 

 

 

  Mini Magazine box to hold cards, made with CTMH Cricut cartridge

 Card with 3-D leaves and Moonlight paper

3-D Pumpkin Place card holder and table decoration, made with CTMH Cricut cartridge

Bookmonster bookmarks

I saw this idea on Pinterest ( I love that place!)  I wish I knew who designed it because besides wanting to tell them it's awesome, I would like to give the appropriate credit. If anyone knows who ORIGINALLY designed these, please post a comment so I can give appropriate credit.  The corners of a few pages go into the monsters mouth and it marks the page.  Brilliant I say...just BRILLIANT!

We started out making these for classroom Halloween Party gifts for my son to pass out...but we had so many comments from friends that we decided to make a whole lot more and offer them at the Holiday Boutique.  The good news is...if nobody likes them then I don't have to make more for my sons party at school! See...there's always a bright side.

La Belle Vie Purse

We stayed up until after midnight making a ton of these because we liked them so much.  I KNOW...midnight!  What's wrong with us??!!

Christmas Gift Tags

Have you ever have one of those ideas that seemed brilliant at the time?  Well...I have brilliant ideas ALL the time, but my Mom (she's not here to defend herself so I'll blame it on her) agreed that having a booth at a Holiday Boutique the weekend before our own Open House was a brilliant idea.  It was...at the time.  Now, 3 days beforehand, we are acting like beheaded chickens but strangely enough, we are still laughing and enjoying every minute of it!

We have been working on these Christmas Gift Tags to sell.  I apologize for the bad pictures.  We've added "Learn to take good pictures to post on the blog" to our list of must-do's.  But I think they get the idea out there at least. 

Busy day at Squish central today.  We finished so many things for our upcoming October 13th Holiday Boutique that we were able to take a minute to breathe deep and take it all in.  Then 60 seconds later it was back to crazy mad crafting to also get ready for our October 20th open house.  We were clearly not thinking straight when we scheduled these on back-to-back weekends.  BUT, in true squish fashion we will get it done.   I swear,every time we cross something off the list we add 3 more things.  Tonight, my right arm is very green and glittery - it kind of looks like crop circles (we had a slight mishap in the production department). 

We are still waiting for our IT department (i.e. my works-for-me-for-free-sister) to actually come to work (i.e. my house).  When she does, I promise we will get some pictures of our hard work on here, as well as get rid of this super boring black and white layout!

 

Ok, so I'll admit it, I have no idea what I'm doing with this blog!  But, my sister has more faith in me than I do right now so I'm trusting her.  "Just type" she says.  "Be funny...but not stupid" she says (what...doesn't everybody's sister talk to them that way?)  So here goes.  Funny but not stupid.   Whatever that means.

My Mom and I love crafting, and people are always telling us "You should do this for a living".  The problem is, we have a hard time believing that anyone in the real world would actually like our stuff.  After all, we just do it for the sheer fun of it.  The only people we've had to fool up to this point are my rarely-creative-but-(I'll never admit that they are) super-smart sisters, our spouses, my Dad, and our ginormous group of friends (like, 13 of them).  And they think we're geniuses!  So at the risk of either an epic fail or a beautiful success we are in it together.  Either way, we'll come out on the other side laughing.  And we'll probably have a scrapbook about it too, so there's always that.

Once my sister stops making fun of me and shows me how to do more than type in a blog I plan on posting pictures and updates of our SquishPop journey.   And I promise to keep it funny...but not stupid.