Homecoming and Sad News

I know I've been mysteriously absent for the last couple of weeks but I have a great excuse :) We took a family vacation and went camping throughout BC's interior. We hitched up our travel trailer, jumped on a ferry heading off the island and hit the open road *grin*. I have TONS of photos that I can't wait to share with all of you but it's going to take me a bit to get them all off of my camera and into my flickr account.



Sadly upon our return I learned that my dad had been diagnosed with colon cancer while I was away and has been scheduled for immediate surgery this week to remove a portion of his colon and to check if it has spread to any of his lymph nodes.

It has been a bit surreal. I know it's going to hit me tomorrow when I take him into town for his pre-op appointment and find out what time his surgery will be and I'm hoping that you will be able to remember him in your prayers. He beat prostate cancer 4 years ago and he's a real fighter so I'm keeping optimistic that he's going to pull through this and be good as new but I'm still worried.

I spent this evening making a special cloth bag for him to pack his toiletries in tomorrow for his hospital stay with little embroidered 'I Love You' notes inside of it so every time he opens it he knows we're thinking of him even when we can't be there every minute of the day during his stay.

I'm not sure how much blogging I will be able to do over the next week while he is recovering but I'll try to pop in and give you an update or you can check my twitter status as that will probably be the easiest place for me to post updates quickly and easily while being on the road back and forth from home and hospital.

~ Rosina

Valentine Party

I had been planning to put together a little Valentine's party for the kids but my best laid plans went a little sideways *grin* and I fell behind on the preparations. If you happen to follow me on twitter you may have read my crazy message at 1am on valentine's morning when I was actually baking up a storm until about 2 am while I should have only been dreaming of cupcakes & cookies! LOL



Two dozen cupcakes heaped in pink icing and another couple dozen sugar cookies later I was ready to finish my Valentine's cards for them! Haha, did I mention I was seriously running behind?!

I had found the cutest little pattern for a crocheted heart garland and thought that they would make super sweet handmade cards so I only worked the first 2 rounds of the pattern and they were the perfect size to be hot glue gunned onto the cardstock for little ' I ♥ You ' valentines :) I tucked one on Hubby's coffee maker for him to find in the morning and off to bed I went to catch a few zzz's before I would be forced to open my eyes again *grin*.

All of my late night work paid off and everyone was thrilled to find a tin of sugar cookies, icing and sprinkles waiting for them after breakfast :)

You know it was one heck of a good decorating party if your participants are wearing more icing than the cookies and my little 3 year old was a true testament to that! I think that I'm the only one brave enough to eat his cookies to. There was an awful lot of licking going on during the whole affair. LOL

While they decorated I cut out little tea party sandwiches :) Heart shaped peanut butter & banana bites, scalloped cucumber bites all arranged around a stunning bouquet of red marshmallow roses *grin*.

Oh heck it was just one big sugar fest!

Thank goodness the sun was shining and I could send all three of my sugar pops outdoors to burn off some of that buzz on their bikes! LOL

Hope you all had a lip smacking good Valentine's Day to :)

~ Rosina

Valentine Paper Bag Books

We're seriously obsessed with Valentine crafts this year! Today we made super easy paper bag books and filled them with little love notes :)

If you have never made a paper bag book you've got to try it and they can be used for scrapbooking, homeschool projects, personalized for special gifts like our Valentine's book and so much more. Basically all you need is standard paper bag lunch bags and a stapler. After that it's up to you as to how fancy or simple you want to make them.



We took 3 paper bags, stacked them all on top of each other with the open ends all at the same end and then folded them in half like one giant paper from top to bottom creating a little booklet. To secure them together I used my stapler and put 3 staples parallel to the fold down the length of the book.



I really cheated for the front of the book *grin*. The pretty red heart paper that it is covered with is actually a napkin! We picked them up at the dollar store for our upcoming Valentine's party and I opened one fully and cut off a square, gluing it on for the background. Worked out fabulously layered with the little red & white heart for the title of the book!!!

Gotta love cheap crafting *wink*.

Making heart templates using one of our cookie cutters we traced 5 hearts in white cardstock and 5 hearts in the red cardstock. I made sure to cut the red heart out about a 1/4 of an inch larger than the tracing line so that it would create a nice color contrast behind the white heart.

We glued in each of the layered hearts only on the left hand side of each set of open pages so that it created fun little spaces to draw happy pictures :)

A paper bag book made with 3 bags will create 3 little pockets on the edge of your book for hiding little notes or trinkets inside. Since ours is a Valentine booklet we decided to use the little pockets for love notes *grin*. Taking a sheet of white cardstock I cut it up into 3.5" x 4" rectangles and then we stapled on bright colored ribbons to the narrow end of the rectangle creating a little pull tab for our notes.

I just love how cute it turned out with the staggered ribbons hanging out the side of the book. And if I think it's cute then you know my 6 year old is over the moon with how it's coming together! LOL

The final touches were for her to actually write her little love notes to be tucked inside :) I helped her by writing down the sentences she wanted to write and then she copied them herself onto the card stock.

You'll have to wait to see her finished drawings on the little heart frames inside as they are 'top secret' and mama is not allowed to see them until Valentine's Day *grin*. Have fun making a little booklet of your own!

~ Rosina