Mini Heart Bunting Valentine Cards & One For You

Each year the kids and I have fun making valentine cards to give away to friends and family and in addition to this we decided that it would be fun to participate in a valentine card swap this year as well that will provide us with oodles of mail which is just plain fun anytime.

What I hadn't anticipated was making 38 cards! Yes, that was definitely more than I ever could have imagined but creating things with the kids is always fun :)

I love making bunting and my daughter always wants to use my sewing machine so I thought I'd combine the two together and so our little mini heart bunting cards came to life :)

We started by cutting out little rectangles of burlap fabric slightly smaller than the face of our cards and pulled out a few threads from each of the sides to give it a frayed appearance. Then between the two of us we traced over 120 miniature little hearts onto the paper side of some Heat n Bond paper that we would later iron onto an assortment of red fabrics.

With our hearts traced, ironed onto our fabrics, cut out and then permanently affixed to the top of our burlap rectangles in a semi circle formation it was time to get stitching!

Using a nice bright red thread my daughter stitched on the string for our bunting so that it no longer looked like our hearts were just floating all alone finishing the mini heart bunting...

And then she took each of the finished burlap rectangles and stitched each of them to the front side of each of our little note cards. So much more simpler than mucking around with glue and then waiting for everything to dry! Plus getting to use mama's sewing machine is always such a treat :)

I just love how they turned out with their little red stitching from the sewing machine and I was so happy that my daughter had so much fun sewing them. Originally I thought that she would maybe make it through half of the cards we had to make but she just wanted to keep sewing and sewing which actually turned out to be a good thing because we now have extras to share with you!

So if you or your children would like a little surprise Valentine card sent to you in the mail just let me now in the comments below and make sure you leave me a way to get in contact with you for your address :)

The first five commenters will have one personally sent to you by my happy heart stitcher *grin*.

All of the Valentine cards have now been spoken for :)

Hugs,
Rosina

I've Got A Teenager!!

On Monday my son turned 13!!!
I can't believe I have a teenager in the house already. It sort of makes me feel old *grin*. On Saturday he had a couple of friends over for the day and we had his big cake, party food and presents and on Monday the actual day of his birthday we kept it pretty low key. I made his favorite meal of hamburgers and as a joke I stuck a candle in the top of one of the burgers and sang happy birthday to him as I brought it out to him for lunch :) You should have seen the grin on his face. I'm actually looking forward to his teenage years as it brings a whole new set of experiences and he is such a great kid that it can only get better :)

Today we all worked on our Valentine's day cards that we are making for a swap we are participating in. My daughter traced out hearts on some heat n bond paper and then we transferred it to the burlap rectangles above which are going to make the front panel of our cards.

I just LOVE all of the red fabrics and can't wait to show you how they turn out. Last year we made cute little handprint heart cards and we shared our extras with some of you lovely readers and we're going to do it again! So make sure and check back as I will have 5 of our new cards ready to hit the mail just for you :)

Hugs,
Rosina

Valentine Handprint Cards & One For You

Valentine's day is just around the corner and every year we make something special to give to Omi and Opa. Last year we made valentine paper bag books and this year I thought it would fun to get really messy and make handprint heart cards :)

No kid can resist having their hands completely coated in paint!



The trick is to get them to keep their hands on the paper and not their faces, walls, chairs, oh and hair... hair is a really good one to keep sticky paint covered hands out of *grin*. Why is it that as soon as they know that they aren't supposed to scratch a body part it becomes mysteriously itchy??

With our watercolor paper folded in half and each hand thoroughly covered in red paint we then placed them onto the paper doing our best to keep our thumbs slightly bent and our pointer fingers touching to make a lovely handprint heart :) To be fair we did a couple of practice runs on scrap paper before doing our 'good' cards so that we could perfect our heart making technique :)

One tip before getting your little one to stick their hands to the paper is to make sure that you have your card upside down or the opposite way that you would want it to stand when it is complete. That way your heart will display right side up. We made that mistake the first time and when we stood the card upright to dry we realized that the heart was actually upside down *grin*. Still cute but my little guy was not happy his heart didn't look quite right!

To give each of our cards a little shimmer we sprinkled glitter over the wet paint and then using our alphabet stamps my daughter stamped 'Be Mine' and 'I ♥ U' in the center of the handprint hearts for sweet little Valentine messages :)

I just love how cute they look all lined up on the table drying :)

We got a little carried away with making handprints and ended up with more cards than we actually need so if you or your children would like a little surprise Valentine card sent to you in the mail just let me now in the comments below :)

The first five commenters will have one personally sent to you by my little heart handprint creators *grin*.

All of the Valentine cards have now been spoken for :)

Hugs,
Rosina

PS. Looking for more crafty ideas or inspiration? Pop over to Natural Suburbia's Creative Friday and see what others are up to :)

Mail Day

I received a wonderful surprise in the mail today :)

A little packet of these gorgeous handmade cards that I won from Amy over at During Quiet Time. During the Potholder Pass swap I participated in she very generously offered them as a giveaway as incentive to get everyone to mail their packages on time and I was the lucky winner :) I never win anything so this is a real treat!

Each one is created from one of her original lino block prints and I can't wait to used them as my Christmas cards. I have an uncle in Austria that paints and I know he will just love one of these :) You really must check out her Etsy shop! She makes the cutest little ornaments, mug rugs, quilts and more of these lovely cards.

Thanks so much Amy. I just LOVE them :)

Hugs,
Rosina

And The Winner Is.....

It's time for the big giveaway for the super duper sweet copy of One Hand, Two Hands by Max Lucado :)

As you can see we have a really high tech system of drawing names to *grin*.

And the winner is....

CHRISTINE (ossmcalc) !!!!
Hooray and congratulations :) Keep checking your email inbox because I will be contacting you shortly so that I can collect your address so that I can get your book on its way to you :)

Thanks everyone for entering and making this so much fun!
Rosina

Giveaway ~ One Hand Two Hands by Max Lucado

As you know I signed up to be a book reviewer for Booksneeze a few months back as I thought it would be a great way to feed my reading obsession without spending any money *grin*. In return for receiving free material I have to share a quick blurb about each one on my blog and this time I'm going to share with you and at the end of this review you will have a chance to win my copy of this adorable book One Hand, Two Hands by Max Lucado!!

One Hand, Two Hands
Oh, the ways we can help with our hands!
~ By Max Lucado

Max Lucado has created another wonderfully sweet book for children all about their hands. In a fun sing song rhyming way he describes our hands, what they can feel, do for ourselves and most importantly how we can use our hands to help others.

The story wraps up with a great little poem thanking God for our hands and asking Him to put them to good use again :) I must say this is a fabulous book for younger children and something every parent will enjoy reading and using as a great tool to discuss how to make the best use of our hands.

Now for the giveaway!

We enjoyed this book so much that I really want to share it with you. I can ship this to anywhere in CANADA and the US only please just to keep the shipping costs manageable for me :)

Here's how to enter:

1. Simply leave me a comment below for one entry into the draw and if you want more than one chance to win keep reading below :)
   
   
2. Become a follower of my blog or let me know that you already follow in a comment below (you can find the follow button towards the bottom of my right hand sidebar). Thank you so much to those of you that already follow me, you're the best ♥♥
   
   
3. Become a subscriber to my blog by clicking on the 'Subscribe to Rosy~Posy by Email' button towards the top of the right sidebar and each and every one of my new blog posts will be emailed directly to you so that you don't have to worry about missing anything fun *grin*. Don't forget to leave me a comment to let me know so it counts as another entry!
   
   
4. And finally if you want to help spread the love you can "tweet" about my book giveaway on twitter or share about it on "Facebook". Make sure you let me know your twitter name so that I can come by and add you as a friend and make it count as another entry :) Unfortunately I don't do much on facebook but just in case you don't twitter I didn't want to leave you out *grin*.
   

Good luck and I can't wait to pick a winner next Friday September 17th!!

Hugs,
~ Rosina

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Mysterious Mushroom & Giveaway Link

I think that I've spent way to much time watching and reading Alice in Wonderland with the children lately! When I spotted this mysteriously beautiful mushroom that had sprouted up in the potted primrose flower I couldn't help but wonder what it might feel like to be ultra miniature like Alice and have it towering over my head!

Oh boy do I have one heck of an imagination *grin*.

I have no idea what kind it is but it has the most intriguing edges around the cap. Not quite scalloped, more pointed with white pointed tips. I'd love to know what it is if you happen to know :)

Since I'm on the topic of the mysterious marvels of nature I wanted to share a little giveaway that I learned about on Natural Papa's blog. He is giving away a copy of Dirt! The Movie.

Dirt feeds us and gives us shelter. Dirt holds and cleans our water. Dirt heals us and makes us beautiful. Dirt regulates the earth's climate. Dirt is the ultimate natural resource for all life on earth.Yet most humans ignore, abuse, and destroy our most precious living natural resource.Consider the results of such behavior: mass starvation, drought, floods, and global warming, and wars. {via Dirt the Movie}

I don't think that any of us actually think about the dirt beneath us quite as much as we should and this movie is going to shine the spotlight on it and bring it to the forefront of our attention! To find out more about the giveaway and to watch a short trailer on the movie head over to Natural Papa and leave a comment about why you think dirt is so important :)

~ Rosina

Modern Organic Fabrics ~ Giveaway

I just found out about another fantastic fabric giveaway and I had to share it with you all :)

Modern Organic Fabrics is one of my favorite shops to visit on Etsy and she has just opened up her own independent fabric shop featuring all organic fabrics which is awesome!! The more organic choices available to everyone the better and she's got some of my favorites like Cloud 9 and the new Circa 50 line that is due out anytime now.

So to celebrate the opening of her new shop she is giving away a $50 gift certificate! Now that's pretty sweet and it's open internationally which is perfect for those of us not located in the US :)

All you need to do is visit her new shop and then visit thelongthread.com and leave a comment sharing what your favorite thing in the shop is and your in! Just make sure you do it by this Sunday March 14th.

Just in case Sunday rolls around and you and I aren't the lucky winner of the gift certificate, I thought that I'd share a couple other places in Canada where you can find Organic fabrics online :)

Plum Project (awesome customer service & fast shipping)
Pink Panda Fabrics (always free shipping in Canada)
Tonic Living (love shopping here)

I'd love to know where you find your organic fabrics so leave me a comment and let me know :)

~ Rosina

Fabric Giveaway ~ So St. Croix

Need some new inspiration to add to your fabric stash?
Hop on over to Jennifer Paganelli's blog and get in on a fantastic giveway for 3 fat quarter packs in her new So St. Croix fabric :) Better hurry though, it all comes to a close this Sunday @ 5pm!

~ Rosina