Setting sail!

I'm sure you might remember the Pirate Pop Up Card from my kiddos' birthday party last summer...well, I've finally got it packed up and available in the Paperthreads store.


Now I realize that you pirate party isn't complete without a cupcake wrapper for the mateys...after all why should the girly princesses get all the fun?

So check out this file, perfect for yer sea-farin folk!


It's already up and waiting for you at the store, so hoist the anchors and avast ye, me hearties!

A peak at me treasures, me hearties!

I wanted to share some of the pics from the kiddos recent "pirate party". Aaaargh, me hearties...

Here they are at the beginning of what turned out to be a fairly prolonged "sea battle"... (That's my DD, the 4 year old B-day girl hiding squatted down in the back...she's always very hard to get photos of.)




One of my DS jumping out of the pool to attack a rival pirate with his water cannonball...



My DD's cake; it's supposed to be a desert island with buried treasure. I made a chocolate cake with a tunnel of vanilla ice cream inside, frosted with gold frosting and then sprinkled with crushed graham crackers to look like sand. Decorated the top with some cut Mike & Ikes, gold coin sprinkles, and bone shaped sprinkles. I cut the palm tree from my KNK kind of last minute that day...



This year my DS got the cupcakes! Evil skeletons pirates clutching their buckets of gold, gems, & a few old bones!

Completed pirate invitations are in the mail!

Whew! Finally got the invites completed over the holiday weekend and off in the mail today!. I though I'd just share a couple of snapshots of how they turned out...

Here's the front. I made a faux layered circle from the background and made a "mat" with some shadow to help save on materials, time, and most of all...postage! I broke out the distress inks and the MM edge distressing tool...such fun!


Here's the straight ahead view of the inside. It was a bit of a challenge to fit all the info in the small strips to the side...but it worked!


An angled view so you can see the pop-up mechanism...


And of course...the back...where I could add the info I forgot, er, couldn't fit, in the inside!


I even added a pirate/crossed swords as a "seal" to the back of the envelopes when I printed the addresses. Thanks for looking!

Avast, me hearties!

So, I'm trying to piece together some tidbits for the kiddos "pirate party" for their birthday coming up in a few weeks. You already saw the preliminary invitation...

Well, I was running to Meijer for a late night, odds'n'ends grocery stop and saw these cool (though little) inflatable kids pools. Now, since their party is in the middle of June and the weather is hot, we had already been planning on having a water balloon fight. I even found packs of all black water ballons (intended for 40th b-day parties, I guess), so they could fire "cannon balls" at each other.

But, can you believe it? I found pirate ships!


And the best part? They were clearancing them out already, so they were only $15! So, of course, I picked up two of them so they can split up into teams, load a styrofoam chest (treasure chest) up with cannon balls, and have a real out and out battle! It's a bunch of 4-6 year olds, so I think they'll have a blast!

I've had a busy day...

I've been working on birthday invitations for my kiddos...their birthdays are only 1 day apart from each other (they'll be turning 4 and 6 this year!) Of course, everything I do seems to involve my KNK in some way, and this was no exception. I really wanted to figure out how to do a 3-D pop-up galleon that displayed when the card was opened 180 degrees...but...I had no idea where to begin, and these need to get in the mail this weekend! So, moving on...

First thing was creating the card insert, then cutting on kraft cardstock. You can see one here laying on my Martha Stewart Scoring Board (more on that later...I realized today how much I adore that thing!)


Next, I wanted to define the ship's wheel. I masked the back of the card with a scrap of paper tucked through the wheel and inked with Tea Dye Distress Ink from Ranger.


You can see now how it really lets the wheel "pop" from the background. I used my Sakura Gelly Roll gold pen to make little faux brass rings on the wheel.


Now on to the magic! Once the insert is folded and creased, I added a separate cut out skull in white cardstock over top of the kraft. You can see here a side view showing some of the depth. Now I just need to figure out how to do the outside of the card, print the details for the party, and get them into the mail!

Just a quick pic...

I was going through the camera today, trying to get some items downloaded, to make some room...and came across some pics of my kiddos at Halloween. They were both pirates!, Aaaargh! Me hearties, I love them so!



The cool thing is that now they can keep using the costumes for dress-up play, we constantly are being raided by the rogues!