Coaster Brag Book & Thank Heavens!!!

TODAY IS JOE'S LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!!!!! Sorry for the caps but I am so happy! No more not seeing him 3 days out of the week because he was school and then work right after! He will be graduating on Sept. 9th with a Bachelor's degree in Computer and Electonics Engineering! I am so proud of him! He is has come a long way and let me tell you, 2 years seems like forever! Now, onto the fun stuff!

My MIL asked me to make her a photo book to show to an old teacher she was having lunch with today, so this week I have been choosing pictures (very hard to only pick 20!), deciding how I wanted to make the book, and actually putting it together. I ended up doing a coaster book which I have never done before. I thought, well, I better use these million coasters I have sitting there! Maybe after you guys read this you will be inspired to use all of yours!

All I did was Modge Podge my 4 x 6 pictures onto the coaster on one side, let them dry, and trim the extra off (the coasters are 4 x 4). Then I Modge Podged the rest of the pictures on the opposite sides of the coasters, let them dry, and trimmed them too. Next, I sanded down the edges and punched a hole in the corner with my Cropadile. I added a few rub-ons throughout and made the cover with Cosmo Cricket Dutch Girl paper and the corresponding Bare Naked chipboard alphas. The 4 holes in the corner with ribbon on front was accidental. I punched the wrong corner to attach to the ring so I had to think of a way to fix it. That was it! Then I put them in the order I wanted, put them on the metal ring, and added ribbon. It was pretty easy once I knew how I wanted to do it!

• heavy weight 4 x 4 square coasters


• Cosmo Cricket Dutch Girl DP


• Cosmo Cricket Bare Naked chipboard alphas


• Making Memories rub-on letters


• red paint


• Modge Podge


• sandpaper


• Cropadile


• ribbon


• metal ring from Walmart (in office supply section)
  

Just wanted to show some of my favorite pages!

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I also wanted to share a few pics of our new 'pet'. After watching the Praying Mantis show the other day on Discovery, we decided to catch one (wasn't hard at all!) and keep him in our old aquarium to observe. Once we put him in we put 3 crickets and a few flies in. He must have been hungry because in the first 30 minutes or so he ate 2 crickets and a fly. You should have seen my kids sqealing! It is really cool how they slowly approach them and snatch them up so quick! I was extremely interested myself! It's been 3 days and he (Manny, we named him) seems to be doing well! He is eating very nicely anyway!





Well, since it is supposed to be scattered thunderstorms today, hopefully I will get a few minutes to make a card or two today! Have a great Saturday!