Graduation Card and Gift

Other than food, I won’t get to make many grad presents for my son’s guy friends but I will for some of the girls. 
I used the Graduation Subway Art printable I did on this card, along with some embellishments from KandCo’s “Life’s Little Occasions” collection.

This is the Graduation Medley Collection

For the present, I decided to make a necklace and I used Blue Moon’s “Lost and Found” collection of metal pendants as the focal. They come already stamped with different sentiments. I thought “Inspire” was a good choice for a grad.

I used two of Blue Moon’s metal chains and head pins and strung onyx, opalite and quartz beads on the headpins along with bead caps. I secured those to different lengths of chain with jump rings.

I wire wrapped some of the opalite beads and placed them randomly throughout the chain:

I hope the wonderful young lady this is for likes it!

Linking Up At: 

 

Graduation Party Favors: Votive Candles

So…I was trying to think of what party favors I could do for our family gathering to mark our son’s HS graduation. I was perusing the internet and saw some votive candles…an idea I loved because you can always use another votive, but they were $3 each which was more than  I wanted to spend.
I knew Michaels had these:

Clear glass votive holders, 16 pc for $7.99 ( $4.79 w/ 40% coupon) .
While wandering through the wedding aisle, I found these great print yourself votive wrappers for $4.99 for a sheet of 25 ( $2.99 w/40% discount that you have to make a separate trip through the checkout line to use but it’s worth it to me so I did). That just gives me more $$ to spend at Michaels!

These are really easy to use because you go to the Gartner Studios website and download a template you can edit in Word that’s sized / spaced to fit the blank spot on your wrapper. Before I printed the actual votive wrappers, I printed mine out on a blank piece of paper and layered a sheet of the votive wraps over it just to make sure I got the spacing right.

They come perforated for you so you can just print and tear. They also come with double sided adhesive to secure them to your votive.
Our school colors are red and gold / red and yellow so I put some gold bag stuffing whatchamacallit in a clear cello bag, tied with red or yellow ribbon and then attached a little “graduation cap” tag.

For the tags, I started out with a great printable that Diane at Pittypat Paperie created:

and added a laurel wreath and diploma to it. For the original, please go visit Diane to download! At less than $1 per votive, I like my price!

Oh and Michaels has the motherlode of coupons this week: Motherlode Of Michaels Coupons

Linking Up At: 

BFF Open House #3 Wrap Up and Features

Thanks everyone who joined the third of the now weekly “BFF” Open House link parties here at The Answer Is Chocolate! The party is continuing to grow and it’s nice to see new blogs each week! Here are just a few highlights from the party and I hope to see you again this week! Have a wonderful and creative week!
The always creative Bev from Flamingo Toes shared a too cute sweater transformation:

Rachel from Holy Craft made an adorable gift for a friend’s little girl. If you have a little girl in your life, you have to check this out!

With matching SHOES!

Although I didn’t set out to have a black and white theme in this week’s highlights,  I have to show this amazing ring from Tinkeranniebelle:

And to get ready for Father’s Day, Maggie at Midwestern Sewing Girl has this awesome printable that she’s sharing with everyone:

If you’ve been featured, please feel free to snag a featured button from my sidebar!

Again, thanks participating and  helping to spread the word to your BFFs!

BFF Link Party #3 and BFF Midwestern Sewing Girl

Yay! It’s Friday and time for Blog Feature Friday and a party with all my BFFs. This week, if you haven’t met her, I’d like to introduce you to Maggie from her blog Midwestern Sewing Girl!

Maggie is a sweetheart and a talented crafter. As her name implies, she sews but she does tons more! (And I’m envious of her sewing skills because let’s just say Mom was right and I didn’t listen!)
Look at this gorgeous ruffle pillow! LOVE IT:

And she’s got a tute ( tutorial) for it right here (and she even had a giveaway but it’s closed now ….sad face)
You may have seen this project that was featured several places…Nest Specimen Art:

I think having the eggs in just one nest makes the whole thing pop!
And even though a trip around the world is NO where in my future. Maggie takes us on a virtual one with this amazing lampshade she did!

SO cool and she downloaded the graphics for this from The Graphics Fairy. And I have to show this cute Summery pillow she just made

How sweet is this? Makes you want to go out and ride your bike!Much much MUCH more to see over at Maggie’s place so you will have to hop over and pay her a visit.

Now time to PARTY! Let’s see what everyone’s been up to. I know there are lots of graduation, end of year teacher, Father’s day ideas popping up. Link ‘em! Memorial Day celebration  ideas and recipes ( you know I’m going to say especially chocolate!) Link ‘em! Re-fab’d, upcycled, re-purposed. Link ‘em! Just no Etsy shops or advertising please and please link to your specific blog post and not your main blog page!

Graduation Printables

YIKES! I’m in full on “can’t believe my son graduates from high school in less than a month” panic mode! OK maybe not total panic (close) , but lots to do!
Thank goodness for printables because they are an easy way to decorate and you can  incorporate themes into holidays and other celebrations. I made a couple that I’ll be using and thought I’d share! 

I stuck with black and white since there are an infinite number of graduation color combos. I’m going to mat these using my son’s HS colors.  I’ve been using this quote on different items. The whole thing is:

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.

Henry David Thoreau

To use, click on the printable, and right click to save as.

Linking Up At: 

BFF Open House #2 Wrap Up

Thanks everyone who linked up to my 2nd weekly link party! Despite Blogger’s mid-week hiccup, there were some great projects linked up. Here are just a few highlights :

Carolyn from her blog homework, transformed humble cans into these planters with a gorgeous patina finish.

I love this stunning harlequin paint job and transformation from Tracy at Tracy’s Trinkets and Treasures.

Look at this fun necklace that Kellianne from Tinkeranniebelle made for her aunt for Mother’s Day!

And Jocelyn from InsideBruCrewLife didn’t disappoint with these:

Peanut M&M Cupcakes! YUM!  Please feel free to pick up a “featured” button from my sidebar.

And the BFF who won the “Tag You’re It” set of chocolatey tags…..

is:

Evelene  S! I hope to see you all back again this Friday! Have a great week!

Craft Hope Bracelets

I was cruising along the internet the other day and came across a post that now I can’t remember where (grrrrr I hate it when that happens!) about bracelets for an organization called Craft Hope. If you’re not familiar with them:

Craft Hope is a love inspired project designed to share handmade crafts with those who need them.  It is our hope to combine our love for crafting and desire to help others into a project to make a difference around the world.

Hmmm…love making jewelry….there’s a need for bracelets…for such a good cause…check, check, and check.

The bracelets are being collected to be given out to orphans in Russia and the kids range in age from infants to teens. I found these fun beads at Michaels, along with some stretch cord:

I liked the iridescence of these beads and since I don’t often get to get my girl on, I went with “girly” colors and shapes…hearts, butterflies etc. Also since my nest is about to get emptied, I don’t often get to do “kids” crafts so double the fun.

I had actually never worked with stretch cord before. I know! But oh so easy and very fun and these went super fast. It was a perfect way to pass the time waiting for another project to dry.

So my fellow jewelry makers, if you would like to craft for a cause I can’t think of a better one. And for all of you out there who are talented sewers , Craft Hope has another project: Security Blankets for Tornado Survivors.