Author: Raptor Mama

It’s no secret that I have much love for October Afternoon and let me say that their new line, Travel Girl, did not disappoint!

I’m pretty sure that all of the papers are from this line aside from that one Project Life card that I had leftover from my Amber kit.  I had a lot of fun layering the papers on this page.

I struggle with embellishment clusters, but I think these came together pretty well.  🙂

I used a label sticker, a piece from the ephemera pack, and a punched heart for the base.  Then I added a slide frame from The Pier.

I finished them off with some twine, a wood veneer arrow, and some pink gems.  🙂

 

 

 

It’s time for another Zoku post!  I make regular popsicles for Raptor and the girls with some frequency, but Raptor Dad wanted to mix it up and make creamsicles.

First he put in some juice to make the outside shell.  I use this organic juice.  If I add a bit of water, one box will make 3 popsicles.

After a few minutes (once the outside has set up) suck up the remaining juice with the turkey baster thingy.  If you don’t have that, you could just dump it out.

You’ll be left with a nice spot to pour in some yogurt.

First he tried to do it directly from the tube, but it was too thick.

So we mixed it up with the leftover juice to thin it out.

It worked like a charm!

It took a bit longer for the yogurt to freeze, but freeze it did.

So cool!

The girls definitely approved.  🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got an inflatable pool this year and we’re loving it!

I decided to build my embellishment clusters around the little slide frames.  I even busted out some old prima flowers.  🙂

I went for the layered look again.  My strategy was to keep adding paper until no more would fit.  I think it worked!  🙂

Papers are from The Pier.

 

 

 

Raptor has started back to school!  This means, time to start packing lunches again.  🙂  I pack her lunch using a lunchbots bento box and some heart shaped silicon cups.  I like the heart ones both because they’re cute and because they fit perfectly in the box.  It’s worth getting the Wilton ones by the way, they are much thicker and sturdier than the knock offs.

Today Raptor got ham, half a peach, some cucumber, mini tomatoes, a cheese stick, and a few bunnies.  She ate every bite.  It does take a bit of time to make her lunch (honestly, not that much more than making a sandwich) but the other day she told me out of the blue that her lunches were always beautiful and she loved them.  Totally makes it worth it.  🙂

 

 

Raptor and I went to check out the local water park today.  We had fun, but I think she’ll like it better next year.  Still, it was a fun day.

I was actually impressed that I managed to squeeze in some layering on a page with 4 photos.  🙂

 

 

I might be just a bit addicted to these slide frames.  🙂

I used a bunch of my scraps on this layout which always makes me happy.

 

This week I have fewer trays as I’m planning a bunch of activities involving actual ice.  I can try to have a follow up post with pics of those if there’s interest.  🙂

First up is a sight words activity.  Raptor got these books for her birthday and she loves them.  Handily enough, they have a list of sight words on the first page.  🙂  I wrote them out on the (laminated) snowflakes and then wrote the letters on some of those decorative marbles.  I’m interested to see what she thinks of this one.

1-5 for E.

I’m not sure if this is going to be a hit or not, but Raptor has been loving her addition work lately so we’ll see.  I was thinking I would make it a game for A and Raptor either while E naps or she and I will play as a team.  The idea is to roll the dice and then use the counters to add the numbers.  Another idea is to have E roll just one dice (die?  what is the singular of dice?) and then count out the number.

Other activities I have planned mostly include freezing random things in ice and dumping them in our water table.  I’m thinking glitter, pony beads, food coloring…  Possibilities seem endless.  I might revisit our ice excavations too.  Probably painting with colored ice? Maybe a special field trip to the shaved ice place?  Raptor goes back to preschool this week so we’ll have to see.

I’m also going to be making some changes to the Letter a Week format.  The littles are going to be spending more time in the car as A starts first grade and I’m thinking I’m going to transition some of the work from trays to bags for the car.  In fact, I just scored some awesome fabric from Hobby Lobby and I’m planning on making the bags this week.  I haven’t quite decided if I’ll split the work between trays and bags or just go with all bags.  Thoughts from others who have dealt with the school pick up line?  It’s about an hour round trip with about 40 minutes of that being in line.  Last year I was lucky enough to be able to leave them with RaptorDad (he would take his lunch break while they napped) but his schedule is changing this year so that’s no longer an option.

 

 

 

I can’t believe it, but I’m actually caught up!  I’m working on week 17 and taking pictures for week 18, but I’m caught up!  I’m so much happier with this project when I’m working on it in real time.  I feel like I lose too many of the little details that make me love it when I’m behind.

I didn’t take very many photos this week so I kind of struggled with this layout.  Raptor had her gymnastics showcase so I took a ton of pictures of that.  But the rest of the week?  Not much.  No worries.  I got to use some of the cute filler cards!

I used the “Love This” card on the far right to make the journaling bits with the pictures.  It’s a bit simple and repetitive for my tastes, but it’s done!  🙂

 

Busy week!  Blues on the Green, swimming, and story time at the fish store.  Good times!

I love these letters from The Pier collection, but I sometimes struggle with how to use them.  Unless the background paper is pretty plain they’re very hard to read.  I decided to do a little experimenting.  First I tried painting the back of the letters.  In theory, I think this would look great.  Unfortunately, my green paint was dried up and I’m not known for my patience.  Next I tried some spray ink, but it was taking forever to dry.  The next morning it looked great so I think you’ll see it on a page in the future, just not this one.  lol.  In the end I used a regular ink pad and it gave it just enough color to be readable while still letting the background paper show a bit.  Just make sure that you put the ink on the backside of the tile.

I used several pieces from the ephemera pack in the embellishment clusters along with some washi tape, wood veneers, and some hearts I punched out with the Martha Stewart punch.

 

Here’s the whole page.  Side note: why yes, I am addicted to my underwater camera.  🙂