Cash gift: Don't "blow it" all in one place!

When I gave my son's friend his last gift and he said "Aw, no bills?" I knew what I would be getting him for his birthday!  I came across this idea on Pinterest and thought that would be a fun way to give him the cash.  I taped together the bills, rolled them up and placed them in an empty tissue box.  They seemed to need something to keep the first bill from falling back down into the box though.  So, I created a top out of cardstock and taped the first bill to that.

The recipient likes alligators and crocodiles so much, he chose green as the first color for the bands on

 his braces!  This alligator is from Create a Critter.  I ran the brown background through my Happy Birthday Cuttlebug folder.  The sentiment was printed on my computer.

This card will be entered in the following challenges:

Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog#157--3D project

Simon Says--Anything goes

Celebrate the Occasion # 109--Clean and Simple

Through the Craft Room Door--Anything Goes

CAS-ual Fridays--Clean and Simple Birthday

Tuesday Throwdown--Make your own background.  I took inspiration from some of their DT members and used my Cuttlebug for this.

Desert Island Crafts--The items I chose from their itinerary are:

• No flowers
• No markers
• Use a birthday sentiment (the embossing has a Happy Birthday sentiment)
• Make is square not rectangle

Gifts for my Scrap Girls

A few years ago, my sister invited me to scrapbook with her and her friends.  Since then, I've become a regular member of the group, even getting my "official" t-shirt :)
Our group recently submitted a HUGE CM order and I was the lucky party hostess reaping the rewards.  I decided to make a little thank you gift for them--personalized wine glasses with a coaster.
I picked up the wine glasses at second hand stores, and it's a good thing I did, since it took me a few glasses to really get the hang of it (Smoothing out the vinyl stencil on the rounded wine glasses was tricky!) and my husband ended up breaking one.  I made a vinyl stencil in my Cricut using Ashlyn's Alphabet and dabbed on Armour Etch, leaving it for 15 minutes.  This is a pic of one side of the glasses.  The other side is personalized.

I used the tutorial found here to make the coasters that slip around the base of the glass.

My first attempt at bottle cap magnets

My mom enjoys purchasing soda in glass bottles from a local bottling plant for our big family get togethers.  The bottles are small, which is perfect for all the kids in the family, and they come in lots of fun flavors like cherry and grape.  This summer, at one of our family get-togethers, I saved a handful of the bottle caps.  This week, during my Christmas vacation, I finally decided to try making some magnets with them.

I purchased a 1" circle punch to cut out the designs.  After using an Exacto knife and some tweezers (pliers would have been easier) to remove the rubber from the inside of the caps, I used Mod Podge to glue the pictures in.  After researching a bit online, I wanted to try using Diamond Glaze to fill in the caps.  I didn't find any at Joann's though, and rather than running around town to look for it at other stores, I decided to try using Glossy Accents.  I followed the directions and did not shake the bottle.  There were still a few tiny bubbles, which I removed the best I could with a toothpick.  When the Glossy Accents dried though, there were tons of minuscule bubbles.  When this bottle of Glossy Accents is gone, I think I'll try something else.  I used an old tube of Goop to glue the magnets on.
Here are the finished magnets:

Teacher gift

I made this stationery set to give to a volunteer teacher.  There are 8 cards in the box for her to use, and one that is for her telling her thanks for all her hard work.  The box is a recipe box from the $1 bin at Michaels that I covered in paper.  The idea for the box came from a video done by Momo.  The flower on the card is from Gypsy Wanderings.  The brown paper was run through the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder.

This will be entered in the following challenges:

Peachy Keen Stamps Challenge #42--use embossing

Cute Card Thursday challenge #142--floral frenzy