The Panda project

I am having the worst holiday season I can remember. Ever.
I don't want to say anymore right now, but if someone wants to say a prayer for me I would really appreciate it.
No matter what is happening right now ( or even more because of it) I decided to start a Panda project for the kids' room. I had the idea since long time ago, but never found the time to actually start it. So, now I've made 3 paintings for the last 2 days :-) I hope I can finish it of course.
The idea is to have one whole wall covered in panda paintings- different size, different style etc.
Here are the first 3 paintings:

- This one is 27"/19"


-This one is 15"/11"


- This one is again 27"/19"


If I have the time, I'll add some more, until then I'm tring to keep thinking positive and hoping for the best.

Scrapbook challenge- Fall Butterflies

I've participated in a scrapbook challenge with a postcard and I felt like sharing it with you.
It's my first card from this type, so I am kind of proud it turned out well enough to be shared. :-)
The challenge theme was Fall Butterflies and I just came up with the idea my butterflies to "fly up" the pages when the card is opened.
I don't have special tools or anything, I used just a regular pair of scissors, 3 sheets of colored paper, a cardboard for the card base, a little glitter, regular glue and a piece of baking parchment paper.
I am kind of laking the whole card-hat-gift bag making, I'll have to put some more effort in it I think :-) I really don't have the time( and money) to make a cake every day and all this creative energy that's been bugging me has to be exploited some how ( in a constructive kind of way off course LoL).
So basically this is the front of the unopened card:
This is opened parchment paper layer:
And here the "flying" butterflies , ta-da:
I hope you like it :-) You can check the bags and card I made recently in my Arts&Crafts album set in Flickr.

Back to school !!!

Believe it or not, but this is my son's favorite day after his birthday :-) I don't blame him, he has the greatest teacher ever and I really do mean it!
She is smart, charismatic, strict but fair, overall the most amazing teacher we could have wished for! Not to brag or anything...but yes :-) we do brag! :-) And why shouldn't we?! She is incredible and we love her and we really wanted to do something nice for her for the first day of school.
I was thinking what to get her...flowers sounded pretty standard, so I came up with the idea to make her a bouquet of pencils :-)
I run to the store and bought everything I needed and voila!

It took me not more than 20-30 minutes to make it, but mostly because I was coming up with the design at the same time :-)
The scarecrow I bought from the store, but I thought it was nice finishing touch.

I've glued different kind of pencils to the bamboo vase and then used multi-color yarn as a finishing touch.
Some of the pencils are with "flower" heads, I made them from yarn and buttons:

This is the back of the vase-

Happy 1st day of school to everybody!!!

August rush

Hi all,
I don't have a cake or recipe now ( hey we've got all winter for that ;-) ), but next week is my daughter's birthday, so I'll have one " Dora the Explorer" cake coming right up!
The bad news is that since I had the stupid accident my arm has been giving me some trouble and my doctor thinks it can be a Carpal Tunnel or something. Now I am wearing this horrible thing on my arm that I can barely move it with, so wish me luck, because this is going to be a difficult cake to manage with one arm. At times like this I wish I was left handed!
Well, what can you do, I just hope that after the cake I am not back to square one with the recovery process.
In the mean time I want to show you something I did for a very close friend of mine.
She just graduated with her Masters degree ( Congratulations, Kelly!!!) and I made her something special:


And for her graduation party I made myself a hat ( me, the person that NEVER wears a hat):


I must admit I really enjoyed making the hat and I really think this is going to be something I'll do again!
I just need occasions to wear them ( or at least something to tell my husband when he looks at the credit card statements ;-) ). I hope somebody gets married soon! LoL
See you guys next week, I hope I have more stuff for you! :-)

Painting fever - the new living room!

Hi guys,
I've been busy, busy, busy! This weekend's project was the living room ( long overdue).
Before we painted it was eggshell color and in my opinion it wasn't painted at least 4-5 years, because the walls were in horrible condition.
Unfortunately, I don't have a picture " before" that can show how bad it was, only one from when we moved in:
Since then, we've bought new curtains ( golden color), new shelves from Amazon, 2 candle holders and the clock over the fireplace. The latter I bought from Michael's.
I've chosen Olympic paint again ( as low odor as possible), the shade is C11-3 Weeping Willow, relaxing green shade I love.
Unfortunately ( again) I am still with my old camera, so the pictures are as bad as you can get, sorry about that,. Still, it can give you an idea how it looks right now, although the real room looks way better then on the pictures :-).




I am pretty pleased with how it all turned out. I am still dreading next weekend when we are going to paint the kitchen, since it is all covered in wallpaper. We had hell of a time trying to scrape the wallpaper in the bathroom, so I can't even imagine how much work we would have in the kitchen.
I'll keep you posted how it would turn out!
Oh, and I am happy to say I have a pretty good idea what I am making about the cake challenge. As soon as we finish with the kitchen I'll make the cake. Be patient and at the end of the month I'll show pictures :-)

Father's Day surprise

One of the surprises we had for our Daddy was that we decided to give him his presents today instead of Sunday( mostly due to safety reasons for keeping the presents undiscovered).
We were thinking really hard what to give him and finally we came up with the idea! We made him a poster size scrapbook "blog page" with a poem that we wrote for him.
This is the page:
This is the poem:

"To be a Dad is job demanding
and you need to have an understanding
That diplomas do not count that much
a lot of times you count on hunch.

To be a Dad it means you're there
when the life is not that fair.
To be a Dad it means you know
to heal two boo-boos in a row.

You'll wipe a nose and play a hero
then learn to count from ten to zero.
You'll wish there was a manual
and even better if it's annual.

You'll read bedtime stories half asleep,
and then give hugs so they won't weep
that "poor monster" turned up dead,
a story you wish you haven't read.

To be a Dad is wonderful, yet scary
It means you'll play with cars and fairies.
You'll have to learn to braid girl's hair
combine boy socks to get a pair.

No Friday night, no Sunday morning
you don't get a fair warning.
No holidays and benefits as well,
not even Linux laptop from Dell.

You'll have on speed dial 911,
invite the firefighters to have fun
in you back yard halfway burned
and deal with neighbours half-concerned.

Kids will leave you hardly any hair
and sometimes you might gasp for air
But the love they'll give you is so much
that you've hardly dreamed of such!"

I also came up with the idea to have a " Poll" and " Featured articles" on the "blog page".

This was the poll:

Does your Dad get upset

when you play with his new laptop?

1. Only when when I play

   with it in the bathtub – 32%

2. He was OK, before I changed

   all his passwords- 10%

3. What he doesn't know

   can't hurt him- 25%

4. I don't know, we'll find out

   tonight-5%

5. That was his new laptop?! -28%

And these were the featured articles:

1." How to lose your Dad's patience in 5 minutes and to live ( happily) after"
2." Why does Daddy wear earmuffs at home?"
3." How to convince Daddy that Play Station is a sport"
4. "Sleepover survival guide for Dads"
5. " 10 ways to keep your boyfriend alive"
6. "Dad's series of unfortunate events when Mom's not home"
7. " Dad Factor-charisma or a shot gun"
8. "Who let the Dad out?"

Our second gift was a coffee mug that he can take to work, because until now there was coffee stains all over the car:

Stay tuned for the cakes recipes ( finally) that I promised!
Happy Father's Day

When Monday is Tuesday

Did I say I was going to throw a party when this month is over? No?! Hm, I thought I did, but maybe this is one of the gazillion things I've forgotten lately.
9:00 pm- I am seating peacefully ( for the first time today) at the table, eating ice cream and thinking how I am going to go to bed earlier today, when the phone rang.
A very close friend of mine called me and in the usual chit-chat manner we swapped information about our kids ( the same age). What a coincidence! The other kid and my son are having their first "graduation" tomorrow! Very exciting! Even the parents from my school are organizing something like a small party after school at the park. And then....then it dawned on me! I FORGOT THE PRESENT FOR THE TEACHER!!!
What was I thinking!!! I totally forgot I had to give her something tomorrow!
So, I jumped in the car, bought couple of things and in an instant I had a gift basket with a Bulgarian table cloth, a wooden plate with the Varna cathedral and couple of other things.


Then I made a special card for our special teacher.

If my son was awake, I would have involved him, but unfortunately he was sleeping at that time. As a matter of fact, so was I ( I was so tired I've almost broke my jaw from yawning).
Thank goodness I had enough things for the card, U think this scaprbooking thing is starting to pay off :-) I don't know if it is obvious from the picture, but the green thingy is not glued, as well as the white bottom page.

And here is one more:


I promised I'll post the recipes for the cake, I didn't forget! I promise I will do it this week.

Scrapbooking Epiphany- Part VII

I cannot believe it! I have finished it!!! Finally!!!Twenty five pages biography in 8 days precisely!!! It's a miracle people, a miracle!
Somebody would think that a small person like this didn't live enough to fill 25 pages of scrapbook biography, but this is not true! There were so many interesting things I wanted to include, that I had hard time cutting the total number of pages down to 25 :-)
But it is official- my very first scrapbook is ready!
I really hope they like it at the school , but I hope even more that my grandchildren appreciate it one day as well :-)

- Halloween 2007:


- Winter fun

- The "finishing touch"


Now that I am finished with this, I can breath a little more easily. I have only to figure out what kind of cake I will make him and we are all set :-)
I'll keep you posted! :-)
You can check the previous scrapbook pages here.

Scrapbook - Almost there! VI part

Since today we were invited on a BBQ, I wasn't sure I would have time to do any pages for the scrapbook. But, luckily ( and thanks to my husband) I've set aside couple of hours and the result is 4 pages down!!! Can you believe, I have only 3 pages to go! This seems so unreal, considering how desperate I was when I first started!
I am actually quite happy how the pages turned out! One of the first ones that I can say I like!
Perhaps I would do better for my daughter's album, but for now it will do.

Here are the new pages:
- The 4th Birthday


- pets and events 2007 ( the spirals are made from wool thread, but it is not recognizable on the pictures. Sorry, I still haven't bought the new camera I wanted :-(



- Travel 2007

- sister's Birthday ( I made the page design the same design I made the actual cake)

Here is the previous post.

Scrapbooking progress part V

Here I am again! I can almost see the finish line! 17 pages down, 8 to go! Not bad for a week of work.
Here are the new pages that I made yesterday:

-Getting the news that we are pregnant

- the 3rd Birthday celebration

-Little sister is born


- Our home


- Friends


Here is the link to the previous part.

NASA Birthday Invitations

Remember the Birthday invitations I published couple of days ago?
I am talking about these:

Well, I had trouble finding the right envelope for them, since the size wasn't standard and I wanted it to be somehow connected to the whole " space Birthday" idea.
So...while browsing in the store today it suddenly hit me! I can make them look like NASA letters ( not that I've ever actually seen one, but a party equivalent of them)!!!
And that is what I came up with, whit a 6/9 business envelopes, a red marker, Open Office Draw and a monochromatic printer.


If I just had color printer I would have saved so much more time! But unfortunately when we bought ours ( not that is bad, it's working great actually) we thought that we would never need to print anything in color.
Here is one of the "stamps" up close":

Now I have to think of a cake to go with these and I would be fine for the Birthday :-).
That's all for today, folks!

Scrapbook- I see the light!!! ( part IV)

Thanks to a lovely lady from a Bulgarian forum with the beautiful nickname Despina, I have many ideas how to make the pages that I have left easier, faster and better!
Well, sleeping would definitely help, but if not else, I feel a little bit more confident now that I can finish them on time.
Here is what I made tonight, FORTUNATELY before 10 pm, and I think it shows:
- the 2nd Birthday


- "Daddy and I together again"

- First Halloween in the US

Tomorrow hopefully I will have a lot more to show, since I have to finish at least 6 pages to be on track.
12 down, 13 to go! Here is the previous part (III).

Scrapbook dissapoinment- III

I am so disappointed in the way the last pages turn out :-( Working after the kids fall asleep just doesn't work for me. I am so tired by that time, that I can barely keep my eyes open and it definitely shows in the result. I made 9 pages so far, 16 left.
When I finish it I would probably redo it later, because I don't like the state of it now :-(.
The Baptism page:

I made a pattern with a pencil on the black cross and it looked like engraved, but I only shows on this picture.


The " mommy and daddy's little helper" page.


The "Travel before the age of 2 " page:

The 2004 Christmas page:

Well, that's it :-(
Here are the first and second part.