This week, Lauren and I have had every afternoon to play, color, paint and practice letters together (Mommy, let’s set-up Minnie Mouse’s pre-school!) while Ash and Sarah are off at school. For awhile now, she has been writing her name as “Lolo” and while it remains the most adorable thing ever, it’s not proper and let’s face it, it’s not her “real” name.
So, we’ve made it to the “R” in Lauren. We had to call in some reinforcement to remember the name of that guy. Luckily, we have stamps and paint and extra sized paper on hand.
We sang our way through “Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Purple” throughout the entire stamping process. And chanted “R is for rainbow” over and over until I think it took some effect.
Since rainbows are so fun, we took some time to create one on her little toes, too. I wish I had yellow and green nail polish around when I was a kid. Of course, there wasn’t Target, Coolest Store Ever, to buy these unique and happy items at.
See, a happy LauRen!
She certainly colors our lives!
On the backside of the pre-made dollar spot find it was plain aqua/turquoise-ish blue and I thought outside of the box and cut the card in two (hey, bonus- a 2fer!), so the above card is the front side and card below uses the backside. I think this might be by most favorite color combination (and the doily makes me smile, too):
Alrighty, up for a weekend challenge? Go grab a pack of dollar spot cards(there’s a good excuse for a Target stop today!) and get them dressed up! Let me know if you do, I’d love to see what you create!
Her leprechaun trap wasn’t successful (see those cheery little guys dancing beside it?) but it was a big hit when she shared it with her friends at school:
My aunt and I put together this butterfly mobile thing that was meant solely for decorations. It wound up being a little bit of a headache because the butterflies get all twisted up inside of one another when the slightest change of air current, but it sure is purty… especially in afternoon light:
It was such a beautiful day outside so I chased these little ones around for a bit. I love that it’s the middle of March and warm enough for short sleeves, bike riding and long walks. An accidental shot that is out of focus and not framed well, but something about it- I just can’t bring myself to delete it, so I’ll share it:
On that note, let’s not forget the celebration of {decorate your soul}’s 10,000th comment and almost 1,000th post. Insert sound bite for drum roll for a $16 Target gift card (thanks Brandy for pointing out I should use random. org and get with the 21st century use of the Internet)…. and the winner is:
I’ll get that little gem in the mail to you this week 
In this second card, I love these little birdies together, and I really love them on pop dots. To get a this look, you stamp directly on the background paper, use a second sheet, stamp the body again and Xacto out the silhouette . Pop dot the birdy above the legs.
Andy called this next one my ”Love Behind Bars” card. I think the hearts on string was a fun touch- I’ve showed the inside of the card on the right so you can see how I camouflaged the string behind the front. This can easily be switched out for other themes, I think. Topping my mental list is a polka dot card!
In this fourth card, a simple and quick card was created with scraps (I think this may have been better with markers, alas, I only have colored pencils on hand):
This quick and super simple design was inspired from a layout that my friend 
Happy Valentine’s Day, my friends 
I’m a little squeamy with the cute overload here- wait until we get to the pink ones…
Here is a quick shot of my little helpers all hard at work last weekend:
4. Wow. Typing tutorials are kind of tough.
The bottom will look like this once you have both sides up:
7. What step am I on? Shoot.
9. Decorate top with ribbon, adhere across and under the top lid if desired. I had used glue dots under the ribbon, but wound up reinforcing with regular tape under the lid.
10. Almost done, stick with me here 
Once you close the box top, you’re complete with your Valentine Candy box. You can stamp the labels and wrap them around the nuggets later. Or eat them and stuff the box with an IOU. Don’t you deserve it? Good job!
I typically would not have put red with any form of aqua, but here it works, no?
They were pretty excited with the results. Can you figure out what Lauren’s basic ornament was?She worked on this guy for a very long time. Here’s her masterpiece- it’s a present.
Ashleigh is our budding artist in the bunch- she really takes her time in art projects and uses her creativity wonderfully:
Sarah came home later in the afternoon and painted her own Christmas tree, but it hasn’t been photographed. But it’s here.
Seriously, I think I have a crush on him.
(l-r: Becky (her Josiah is below left), Susy with Lolo, Dana with Adam, Ashleigh, Melanie, Janelle, and me)
