RaptorMama

Check it out, I made a page!  🙂

Supplies are some older October Afternoon and Apothocary.  Washi tape is from Target.

I also just ordered some fun new supplies that should be here on Friday.  Yay!  There’s nothing more motivating that a big box of new supplies.  Here’s hoping for some scrapping this weekend.  🙂

 

Wow.  Long time no see.  As predicted, having both RaptorDad and I working full time out of the house has been a crazy transition.  Still, I’d love to ease back into the ol’ blogosphere.  Maybe with a goal of once a week posting?  We’ll see.  😉

Today, I had to pop over and tell you about an awesome new app for Project Life.  It came out yesterday and obviously I bought it immediately.  (Sadly, no.  They’re not paying me to say this.  But Becky, are you listening?  I can be bought!  Cheaply!)  I’ve been playing around with it a bit this morning and it’s so easy!  It’s literally drag and drop for photos and cards.  Since I haven’t done a single Project Life layout in 2014, I have a lot to be catching up on!  I think where the app is really going to shine is those weeks that I only took pics with my phone, so I’m going to start with this week and move backwards.  If nothing else, I should be able to get the weeks since has school started knocked out.  And maybe that will motivate me to edit some of the backlog of DSLR pics from this spring and summer.

I’m finally getting a bit of my crafting mojo back, just in time for my favorite season, Halloween!  Raptor and I are going to go buy supplies to make her costume tomorrow, and yes, I’m going to let her help this year.  I think it will be fun project to do together.  🙂

So, you guys may have noticed that things have slowed down here on the blog.  Raptor and I were soaking up her last summer before she heads off to the wide blue yonder, by which I mean kindergarten.  Kindergarten y’all!  Holy crap, when did this happen?!?  There’s about to be a lot more changes around the Raptor household this fall.  Not only is Raptor going off to school, I’m going to be going back to work full time.  In fact, today is my first day!  I was vaguley tempted to take a picture on the front porch with the chalkboard, but ain’t nobody got time for that.

I’m pretty excited actually.  And scared.  I’m going to be working as a para at our top choice charter school which bumped Raptor up to the top of the wait list.  After sitting on pins and needles all summer, we found out a few weeks ago that she got a spot!  There was much rejoicing in the Raptor household.

I’m not sure how much time I’m going to have to devote to the blog.  Right now I’m kind of loving instagram.  It’s so much easier and quicker than blogging, plus I can do it anywhere so if you’re missing out on your Raptor craftiness, check me out at RaptorMama09.  (And yes, I’m still bitter that someone took the RaptorMama handle.  Kidding.  Kind of.)

I’m hoping that once we get into a good rhythm with the whole school/ work thing that I’ll be able to get back to the blogging.  We’ll see.  🙂

Sorry for the excessive exclamation points, but I am really excited!  Here are the front and back pages.

Now I just need to figure out how to get it printed.  Any suggestions?  It’s 40 layouts which I’m thinking might be a bit more than a shutterfly book can be.  I’d love to do a blurb book, but I’m concerned it will end up costing a million dollars.  Thoughts?

 

 

I’m almost done!  All I have left to do are the front and back pages.  Here’s week 39.

You may have heard the sobbing going on around here.  That’s right, Raptor’s going off to kindergarten!  EEEPPP!!!  I’m not ready!!!  She, however, is more than ready.  🙂  I’ve been doing some crafty kindergarten stuff to get my mind off the fact that my *tiny baby* is almost 5.  First up, reusable sandwich bags.  These have been in the works for a long time (meaning I bought the PUL 2 years ago and have done nothing with it) but I finally decided that I needed to get on it since Raptor is (hopefully) starting kindergarten in early August.

I still need to add some snaps, but I’m pretty pleased with how this turned out.  And bonus, the first one ended up tiny (whoops) so I’m going to use it for little snacks like bunnies.  I think Raptor and I are headed off to Joanne’s now to get some more PUL!

 

Raptor thought this was just about the coolest thing ever.  I gave her a can of shaving cream and she went to town playing with it in her water table.

Have you ever played with a can of shaving cream?  It just feels neat!

We were having so much fun (and it was so hot) that we decided to fill up her baby pool too.

RaptorDad gave her a shaving cream hat.  lol.

Incidentally, I have a little summer time photo tip.  Baby pools make great colorful backgrounds!

That sounds so dumb, but I love the way she “pops” against the blue pool.

And this one?  Love.  I *may* have skipped ahead (by 24 weeks) and created a title card for my 2014 week 23 Project Life spread using this picture.

TL;DR?  Go to the dollar store and buy a can of shaving cream.  Your kids will love it.  🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

Almost done!  Just finished Week 38.  Then all I have left is Week 39, the front half page and the end half page.  🙂

I used a photo for the title card and I really like how it turned out.  I also did most of the journaling on the photos.

 

Fun times!

 

All right sports fans, it’s summertime!  That means that Raptor is out of school for the next couple of months and I need to amuse her.  What does this mean for you guys?  Mainly that I’m planning on bringing back the Letter a Week fun!  First I thought I’d recap some of our previous letters.  (Click on the links for the full posts with more activities.)

We did A is for Apples which included some new lacing cards and this transfer work.

Next up was B is for Bumblebee in which we explored a honey comb and did lots of bee crafts.

C is for Caterpillar though we also played with some butterflies.  (Hey, caterpillars turn into butterflies, it totally works.)  We did a lot of fun The Very Hungry Caterpillar activities and made these cool number butterflies.  

D is for Dinosaur!  Raptor was begging for worksheets so I found some neat ones online.  We also did some sorting and classification activities.

 

E is for Elephant!  This one was tricky because everything I found was elephants and peanuts.  Since E is allergic to peanuts, I didn’t want to present them as a plaything.  We went with umbrellas instead.  🙂

 

F is for frogs.  I found these awesome multicolored frogs at the teacher store.  We did some color theory and some basic phonics work.  Plus math!  Raptor loves math.

 

G is for Garden.  More math and more crafts.

H is for Heart!  I’m a big fan of repurposing stuff so I busted out all of our Valentine’s Day stuff.  The girls loved it.

 

I is for Ice!  It’s so hot here in the summer and we had lots of fun playing with the ice outside.  Among the activities were some dinosaur ice excavations and more phonics work.

You’ve probably noticed by now that these aren’t actually letter activities.  Raptor and I just like to play with a theme.  I’m almost done with an awesome J is for Jungle unit, just in time since this is Raptor’s first week of summer vacation!  Hopefully I’ll get it up next week.  🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Y’all, my baby sister is getting married!  I am so so excited for her.  She had an engagement party a few weeks ago and asked me if I could make her some wine charms.  After checking out her pinterest boards, I came across these.  I have to be honest, I love my cricut, but it’s old and I can’t see it cutting out anything that detailed.  I drew up a simpler shape in SCAL which I liked even more.  Here’s the end result.

I cut a slit on one side to get the ring on the glass.

We just put them out in a little dish along with a mini-sharpie.  They were a huge hit!