Bravo!

Hi all, as you read this, I hope to be relaxing in the CA sunshine, watching my baby sister get married! Ack!! I am so SO excited and happy for her. :) I am also so sooooo grateful to my husband's wonderful parents for taking over for us, watching our house, and our 3 kids (and 3 pets) while we are away, Now that's love, I tell you! "Being us" is no small feat, I realized as I was typing out the schedule for them! LOL. ;)

The Monologue Showcase that I teach to kids was a week ago, and it went really well! I am always SO proud of my students for getting up on stage, completely alone, and performing in front of 75+ people. Those kids are amazing! Every one steals my heart, I just love them, and acting coaching is a real joy for me. To be able to share that with kids is a gift. I'm so grateful to be using my degree in such a way that helps Fine Arts outreach in the public school system. I have always been passionate about keeping the arts in school. I'm so glad that, even though it's a small way, I can be a part of doing that. Next year I will be offering a variety of classes and after-school theater opportunities for kids. I can't wait to get started. :)

Anyway, I like to give the actors a card, and a little giftie to commemorate their performance. Click here to see the things I made for the last group, so you can see. I had 5 of the same kids from the last time, so I wanted to make things a little different, different gifts and cards.

I had ordered cupcakes for the little backstage "cast party" we had after the performance, and the lady told me that the only cupcake toppers they had that would work were stars colored blue and green, and would that be ok, since it wasn't very "theater-ish." I said yes, I knew drama mask cupcakes were going to be impossible to come by at such a late date, and from that point just decided to skip the drama masks for this round and do stars as the theme. I kept the colors in mind, too, and focused in on teal and green.

I started out by making the "gifts," I had some plastic snap together buttons/pins in my stash. I formatted some text in a circle that said "Best Actress" and then "RXI Monologue Showcase 2013." I only had one boy in the class, so one "Best Actor" was also made. After I printed them out, I used a Spellbinders die to cut them out, and I added a die cut star, some teeny stamps, and a gem to each one before snapping them securely inside the button.

These cards were so great for several reasons; they used up a lot of old things, many elements were pre made and they were super-quick, they also used up some unopened things, and finally they were really simple. I used the outer stars that were left from making the buttons, I'd used the TCP 3x3 Stars CutUp, if you click you can see how there's both an outer and inner star on each die. I was in Michael's last week, and found these Jolee's Star cabochons on clearance for only 99 cents a package! I bought one gold and and one silver pack. Quick and cute! Plus, since they weren't being mailed I didn't mind that they were very 3D in nature.

I found the stamp in a set I'd never opened. It was one of the many sets I'd won from the Spotted Canary prize packages I got a few years back. Seemed to work well for this! The banners are cut with a Paper Smooches die from white scraps. Those glittery photo corners I bought years ago. I've used up all the gold and silver ones, but still had plenty of the teal ones. The paper is downright ancient, from a DCWV pad that I've had for half of forever called "Mod Retro."

Well that's all I have for today, after I get back to CO, I'll have some more fun things to show you and I'll be catching up with comments and blogland then too!

xo, Noelle