Happy Birthday Mom!

Hey everyone!

I hope you’re making the most of this season and all the beautiful flower colors!

With Spring it beings my wonderful Mother’s birthday!  She’s always been an inspiration.

Her birthday falls on rather a very busy day, MD’s Senior prom, so I knew I needed to send her a birthday card incase I forgot!

Well I found this adorable card on Pinterest and knew I could give it a razzle dazzle.

My Mom loves the color purple, so I reached for Wisteria Wonder and Elegant Eggplant inks along with my Stampin up Flower Blossom stamp set.  Here’s the card I came up with!

Love how simple this card is and I really like this curvy script.  Definitely a card I’ll be able to mass produce with different colors!

Hope you all have a Magical day!

Tinala

 

 

 

Blessed to be a Girl Scout

I know I talk about Girl Scouts a lot, but I can’t tell you how blessed I am to be a Girl Scout leader and have amazing friends in this community.

After coming back from Sr Conference, the GS leader I went with who does both TREC amd Snowflake camping, text me saying a Boy Scout master was giving her 7 camp tables and did I want 2 for TREC? YES! of course the question of price came up since our TREC budget is very tight with 11 scouts and 4 adults.  The scoutmaster answer – FREE!! As long as they’re going to be used we could have them.

I know you can’t see me jumping up and down, but trust me I am! So amazing to have this gift. Tables we can prep our food on at camp is such a space saver when you have so many scouts at the tables.  Here’s what the tables look like and the carrying case.

Looks sturdy and so easy to put up. Now I just need to find a lantern pole and we are set!  I’m not going to put my coleman stove on it, since my stove is a Coleman pop up on wheels and doesn’t need a table.

Now the snow needs to melt and the rain needs to stop so we can use it!  I’m working on the thank you card now!

Have you been fortunate enough to to receive something for free from a friend that has made you this excited?

Have a Magical Day!

Tinalala

Girl Scout Senior Conference

I’m fortunate enough to have a Girl Scout who is old enough to attend the Girl Scout Senior Conference at Salve Regina College.  The theme this year is Global Connectivity.

We strated the weekend with a flag ceremony.  Here’s MD carrying our troop flag in.

They had an amazing African band and MD got pulled up to get her groove on the drums.

Such an amazing experience for young women.  We talked about how we can fight against gender violence, and using pronouns to define ourselves.  Later today I’m attending a theater game workshop and listening to Heifer and Unicef!

MD joined the chorus group so she could sing during closing ceremony.

The crowns symbolize the pink hats women and men wore during the women’s March on DC.

The final event of the conference is when all High School seniors join a circle with their leaders to send them off to adulthood. It’s very emotional and of course we cried!

Can’t say enough about how proud I am of MD and wish her so much success in which ever college she attends towards her career in nursing!

Have a Magic day!

Tinalala

 

Getting our Disney on with GS and T1D

So with much excitement and lots of stress and tears my Girl Scout troop is going to Disney again!

This year I’m taking 4 scouts and another adult with me to Disney for a quick 4 day vacation.  All 4 scouts are HUGE Disney fans so it’s sure to be a lot of fun.  Each scout picked a park and was tasked with planning the entire day at the park including what rides we go on and what snacks we eat.  We had already booked our reservations so they didn’t have to worry about that.

To say we had fun would be an understatement.  Who doesn’t enjoy a few days in Disney!  For something even more special for this trip, I decided to make pins to award each scout for their bridging from Cadette to Senior and for MD aging out of Girl Scouts.  I made each one themed for each scouts favorite character.  I can’t wait to present each one to the scout on her park day!

This trip was even more of an adventure because it was the first trip for J with her TSlim diabetic pump! We wanted to make sure we were fully prepared so I grabbed our spare blood sugar monitor with lancets and testing strips (bottom left), enough supplies for a full pump change out (top) and glucose tabs(on right). Can’t leave home without glucose tabs.  So here’s everything I brought in my J T1D kit.

Believe it or not but it all fit in this adorable pouch!

The other thing that was new is trip, I had read some reviews about a product that could keep insulin cool without being too bulky or freeze everything’s else in your bag!  Since we would be going right from the airport to the park getting to our hotel room around midnight, we’d need to keep a vial of insulin cold for at least 18 hours.  So I ordered the FRIO Cooling Product http://www.frioinsulincoolingcase.com/frio-duo-wallet.html

It’s this ingenious product where there’s a packet with beads inside that you soak for ten mins.  Then there’s a chemical reaction that makes the beads cool, you put the packet inside the pouch along with your insulin pens or vials and there you go cool insulin!

I wrapped the pens and insulin vial in a ziplock bag

and here’s how big the pouch was with the pens and cool packet inside.  Not that bad!

These pouches come in all sizes and the prices were too bad.  I see lots of uses besides insulin and not just medical.  Well I’ll post more each day about our trip.

Have a Magical day!

tinalala

Are you Outdoorsy? Well why not?

As most of you know I love being involved with Girl Scouts and recently I had the chance to be involved in TREC, which is a camping competition for older scouts in middle and high school.  Teens Reaching Extraordinary Challenges!

Our team incorporated 4 scouts between 2 cities in grades 8 -12 who met during the summer to learn fire building skills, using a hand saw, packing a backpack, setting up a camp site and team building skills.  We had a lot to learn and teach but we had lots of fun.  Most of the girls had never used a hand saw before, a few had started a fire before, but this was a competition.

So the competition was in October and we were ready!  Well who would have thought it would be the worst cold rainy weekend in October! YUP!  Here’s some pictures

   This is what our dining are looked like after the first night of torrential downpour – everyone had multiple items soaking wet.  We strung clothes line around the dining area in hopes it would dry.

 

 

 

 

Here’s what our tents looked like the next morning.  When we put our tents up that night there wasn’t a dry spot to be found so we knew in the AM we’d be in trouble.  Thankfully we were properly trained (thank you Ms. Marianne) on how to put a footprint – which is the tarp under your tent – down before we put up our tents so no one’s clothes were wet inside!

Being cold now that’s another topic.  We were fortunate enough to borrow these tents which were all exactly the same, however they were summer tents.  So when the temperatures that night went down to 38 degrees the silky nylon did not hold back it’s piercing coldness.  Unfortunately we did not prepare enough for this cold weather!  We definitely learned we should have had fleece pants, wool socks and gloves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s MD and a scout during the saw competition!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s MD’s lashing which should have won first place!

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the Chicken Veggie Stew which won us 2nd place in the cooking competition for your division.  It was delish!  Chicken thighs, veggies, potatoes slow cooked over coals in a dutch oven!

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the team showing off their Pokémon Patrol team flag which our Second place red ribbon!  They had such a great time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The biggest thing I heard after this event was how much fun they had, friendships they build and confidence they gained by this experience.  Such a great experience for all of us. The team can’t wait to start prepping for next years competition!

So why did I show you all this – to encourage you to try something different this year! We knew about camping, but this event was something different and new for us!

Have a Magical Day!

Tinalala

 

Ornament Ball Wreath

Hello my Lalafriends!

This year I tried to keep all of my decorations to a minimum because honestly it’s too much work putting them up and taking them down when there’s so much stuff going on.

So I had decided to jump on the bandwagon and make an ornament ball wreath.  Now I could show you the process, but there are tons of videos out there and honestly I didn’t watch any of them, but I wanted to share my dos and don’ts.  Here’s my wreath

Don’t get me wrong this wreath is nice and I could keep it up at least through the winter months, but as MD told me, It’s Wonky! Yup!

Ok so Do – purchase your supplies from the dollar store. This wreath which sells for $25-30 cost me $8! Do purchase various size ornament balls and maybe an offsetting color.  I had made this wreath with just silver and afterI had finished it was very plain so I went back and got the ice blue ones.  Do – after you glue the ornaments inside and outside, have a pattern of three ornaments on top and then fill in.  I didn’t make this pattern or three, I just glued these babies on everywhere and it shows!  Do start with a small size ring first, so you have a ‘My Bad’ one first, then you can decide to buy a larger ring after.

Don’t – forget glue sticks and the facts that hot glue when it BURNS your precious skin HURTS!!  Don’t forget to put down a cheap tablecloth first cuz the glitter that comes from these ornaments gets everywhere!  Don’t forget to leave a space for a ribbon or hanger when you glue the ornaments along the back.

Overall don’t be too critical on yourself!  You made this and it’s beautiful, plus you saved yourself a bundle of money you can now buy paper or washi tape or paint with! Priorities!  Can’t wait to hear how your ornament ball wreath came out!

Have a Magical day!

tinalala

Christmas is the BEST time of year!

Hello my Lalafriends!

I hope all of you had a wonderful Holiday!

This Christmas seemed to come up on the Lalafamily very quickly!  We didn’t get our tree up until the weekend of the 17 with everyone’s schedule.  Here’s what our tree looked like this year – it’s not a real tree and this year our decorations were very limited. Of course the Disney and handmade ones were the first one put on!

There were lots of conversations about what Christmas will be like next year with Megan being away at college.  We know she’ll be home for the holiday, but it will be different.  This year I did TONS of Amazon shopping.  Oh yes, every time the mailman came with a box everyone came running. Everyone was very happy with their gifts from Santa!  The girls got cameras – funny the same cameras I had as a child that became outdated with 35mm! MD got Cards Against Humanity which is a very dirty game, but educational for some.

 

I received a bunch of camping stuff, I got a great table easel I have sadly yet to use – but I see a winter acrylic painting in my future and a watercolor kit!  Here’s the camping table I got and the cot, that MD is testing out for me in her new Doctor Who pjs!

Overall it was a great Holiday!  I hope you had a wonderful Holiday as well!

Have a Magical day!

tinalala

Where has the time gone?

Hello my Craft friends!

I am SO sorry I haven’t been here in so long but things have been crazy.

First here’s a family update – we’ve finished all of our college tours for MD and after a lot of sweat and tears we submitted 4 college applications.  So far we’ve been accepted to 1 which was her #2 college so she isn’t very happy!  J is doing well with her diabetes now that we are on the Tslim pump, although we just had 2 days of ketones and high blood sugars at 300-500, but she’s good.

Girl Scout update – this is where my time has been spent away from crafting!  In October I participated in a GS camping competition which was amazing! I’ll post pictures in another thread.  Second my personal company provides volunteer grants to its employees for service provided to a 501c3.  Without going too far into it, I’ve been fighting with my council in order to ensure the troop receives these funds and not Council.  To say I’ve been advocating for scouts very loudly is an understatement to the point that council has left me with a sore cheek from being slapped and a nasty taste in my mouth from their greed.  Thankfully I’ve received all the funds needed in 2016 and my troop has elected to go back to Disney in February!  I’ll have some posts about that planning and what I hope to do to surprise them.

Lastly it’s 2017!!  I’ll send a post showing what I got for Christmas and one of my goals is to start doing more videos so fingers crossed!

With the weather turning, it’s actually snowing now, I can’t wait to start crafting and sharing with you again this year!

Have a Magical Day!

tinalala

Thinking of You!

With it being the summer, I don’t always get to see all my friends because their busy on vacation with their family.  However I wanted to send them a quick note to let them know I was thinking of them.  Plus I have a friend who is ill and needs a get well card.  Recently I purchased Timeless Textures from Stampin up specifically for the texture part of the stamp set for my art journal.

 

I saw a video making a card that I thought would be perfect.  Here’s the video by Jeannette Cobb https://youtu.be/ZKGLZHxvQKE.

Here are my cards

The first one is Crumb Cake and Early Expresso

The second one is with Pool Party and Island Indigo

The third one is with Wisteria Wonder and Elegant Eggplant.

I made two cards of each color and it took me under 30 mins for all six cards!  This will definitely be my go to card for all occasions!  Now who to send them too!  Hope it inspires you because everyone likes to get a little something isn’t the mail from a friend!

Have a Magical Day!

tinalala

 

Look What I Got in the Mail!

The other day while scrolling through Facebook I saw a post about receiving samples from different vendors.  I went onto the Golden and Liquitex websites and requested samples via email.  I received an email back from the customer service saying due to the high amount of requests there could be a delay.

Today I received two exciting boxes in the mail!

First the Golden box – inside were three 1fl bottles of paint – Pyrrole Red, Hansa Yellow and Cerulean Blue.

So exciting the three primary colors! What a great base to work with.  I think I’m going to add them to my Out/About box to use when we are at the beach this summer!

The second package was from Liqutex and inside had these three brochures.

Inside each of these brochures where different packages of paints

This is the Heavy Body acrylic packet which had Quinacridone Crimson, Yellow Medium Azo, Phthalocyanine Blue and Gloss Medium

The second packet was Mediums and had Pouring Medium, Ultra Matte Medium, Flow Aid, and String Gel

The final packet had all Cadmium Red Packets with heavy body, soft body and a paint marker.

Im very interested in the paint marker

Some of the Mediums I have never heard of so I’ll be researching them.  Can’t wait to get these items into my art journal and create!  Interested? Contact the vendors and wait for your packages too!

Have a Magical day!

tinalala