Working on a new format for Monkey n Scooter! Please bear with me!

In the meantime.....the links all still work on this page. But, here is a link to my facebook page with some things I have been working on this summer, as well as some things I have done in the past but am now taking orders for ahead of the Christmas season. (Christmas in July).
Monkey n Scooter on Facebook.  Also, check out my Etsy shop.

Hope to have the new Monkey n Scooter format up and running next week. Working on invitations this week for a Cowgirl Tea Party (Lingerie Shower) and for a 3rd birthday Carnival Party and another apron. So, my goal is to have the pages updated this week, but........

Thanks for staying faithful and keep checking back. Will try to keep the Facebook page updated.

Chee Chee

There is gnome place like home! Check it out here!

How can a mini pizza box become an origami card?

These are so unique, you won't find them anywhere else!

and hop on over to find

cards to go with them!

How can you keep that child or grandchild small forever?

How would you finish this sentence?
Dear Mom,________________________

Hope you will follow the links for some sweet surprises!

This Blue Jean Baby has crafting to do!

Help me decide on the perfect re-purposing project for a stack of old jeans! 

It's That Time of Year

Check out the graduation cards, available in any school colors, uniquely styled with dimensional caps and gowns, gold or silver embossing, or other customized styles. You can find these at For Your Love.

One stop end of the school year shopping!

Check out Teacher Appreciation, Mother's Day, and Graduation gifts at Every Little Thing and gift bags/boxes and cards at For Your Love!

Please stop by this weekend and check out our ch-ch-ch-changes!

Monkey & Scooter is doing some spring cleaning! There are going to be some new blogs in town, each one covering a different area of interest! I guess you could say Monkey & Scooter will be the jukebox to hold all the records--you pick which one you want to play, or play all of them. And it's free!

Monkey & Scooter will no longer have "pages." instead it will just have links in the sidebar to each of the blogs.  I am really excited about this new look. 

Two of the new sites opened yesterday. I hope you will come back regularly and check out new items and articles as I share them.

Bell Bottom Blues is all about denim, just denim.  Such a wonderfully versatile fabric and those old jeans (stained, torn, tattered, splattered, worn) are meant to be repurposed and recycled! Share your ideas and find out what others are doing with theirs! This blogspot started off with a call for your input, a contest. Please comment with your favorite way to repurpose a pair of jeans.  

For Your Love is the home of Monkey & Scooter's stationery items---greeting cards, invitations, announcements, bookmarks, journals, etc. Slowly, but surely, the items from Monkey & Scooter will be transferred to For Your Love and lots of new ideas will be shared, as well. 

(Update 4/27 Every Little Thing is now up and running, in time for graduation, teacher appreciation and Mother's Day)
Every Little Thing is the new home of Monkey & Scooter's gift items--unique ornaments, purses, and other very special items handcrafted for very special people and very special events.

Hopefully, most of these will also be "playing" by the weekend:
It's In the Way That You Use It---with lots of ideas for recycling, upcycling, repurposing, and reusing.
Pretending---costumes and fantasy apparel ideas for your own use and some ready for your purchase
A White Room---home and office decor ideas for those with Coca Cola tastes and Sam's Cola pocketbooks. 
The Shape You're In---meal plans, exercise ideas, ideas to get the family off the Xbox and Pinterest; tips for a healthier living (so you can keep Slowhandgroupie accountable on her quest for a healthier life!)
Let it Grow!---questions I want to ask in hopes that someone will help me start growing some veggies and fruits (again, so you can keep Slowhandgroupie accountable)
My Father's Eyes---parenting tips and ideas gathered for parents at all stages of parenting; words of encouragement and inspiration for those a step behind us, and how our parents'influence our parenting.
Keep on Growing---lessons learned along the way as we are forever maturing.
Strange Brew---out of the ordinary recipes and cooking tips
Tell the Truth---current events, history trivia, and how government and politics affect us
Key to the Highway---vacation and travel ideas, out of the way places and small town paces.
I've Got a Rock & Roll Heart---music music music....incorporating music into "every little thing" we do
Something's Happening---party ideas and supplies from Monkey & Scooter
SMILE Mail---a very special customized service available soon!

Thanks for checking back!

Changes are coming

Please excuse the mess or confusion. Monkey & Scooter is in the process of revamping our little piece of cyber space.  Please visit Bell Bottom Blues and For Your Love while updates are being made to this website.

Graduation and Mother's Day!

A card for any school, color, mascot is a thoughtful addition to that gift package, or a lovely way to give a gift card or check to your special graduate (kindergarten, middle school, high school, or college) and a cardfolio is a great little alternative for that grad going away to college--to hold gift cards, food cards, gas card.

A cardfolio is also great for a family who has lost their home--to hold grocery cards, money cards; for someone with family member in hospital for extended stay--fast food, restaurant, money cards; for wedding or baby gifts from a group--money cards, cards for registry sites; for Mother's Day--spa themed gift cards; for a special anniversary couple--restaurant, theatre, dessert, hotel gift cards.

A cardfolio can be a unique way to give school photos to grandparents, or special wedding shots to wedding party members. It can be designed in any color, masculine or feminine: camping, sports, spa day, date night theme, new baby, graduation, floral, animal, auto, motorcycle, military, religious, child, teen, senior citizen, travel, etc.... You can think up a theme or design, we can make it.

 

 

 

 

It's a dress, it's a uniform, it's a costume....it's a Wonder Woman apron!

My daughter has been a Diana Prince fan since she was old enough to put together a 10 piece wooden puzzle of Wonder Woman in 1981.  A few months ago, she came across pictures of super hero aprons and, of course, her favorite was Wonder Woman.  So, for her birthday last month, I promised her an apron.

She found several pictures on the internet and voted for her faves.  I thought it would be a breeze, but piecing together different patterns is not as easy for me as it is for my sister, Seamtress Sally, who draws bridesmaids dresses on brown paper bags and uses those to make dresses for an entire wedding party's apparel.

But, even though it was a month late, I managed to make Wonder Woman's apron. (This is really ironic because dutiful daughter, The Princess, doesn't cook much....Prince Charming does most of the cooking in their castle.)

Anyway, here is the finished product. And WW was happy with her alternate ego apron.

 

Less than 10 minutes after I posted pictures on Facebook, I had orders for 3 more! 

Khloe's First Birthday!

Well, for 2 years I have been the Goodie Bag lady for my little great-niece's birthday parties. Her mom, my niece, tells the me theme and shows me her invitations and I make goodie bags to go along with the theme. I love to fill the bags with little goodies that are appropriate for the theme.

This year, little Kylie is the big sister and her little sister is celebrating her first birthday! So, with this new little one, I begin a new tradition.....this time I do the invitations! It was sooooo much fun.  Her mom told me the theme and we looked at some possibilities and she liked the slider cards with the surprise inside.

So....here is the finished product for Khloe's Sweet Party:

Of course, the invits were a little too thick for a regular envelope, because of the ribbons, but no problem! A sheet of copy paper and some rubber stamps (Alphabet Antiques LC from Stampin' Up) made a cute, personalized envelope! Each invitation was a different color, using a variety of Stampin' Up colors.   

 

The "folder" for the invitation is manilla card stock I purchased at Hobby Lobby.  Using my Stampin' Up half punch, I made a notch to keep the folder closed.  One of my favorite stamp sets, sooooo versatile, is Stampin' Up's Sweet Treat. I loved using it for this project. The cupcake and the topping are two different stamps so it was easy to cut them from different card stocks.  A little Stampin' Up Iridescent Ice embossing powder and some glitter make festive sprinkles for the cupcake.  The topping stamp actually has a candle and flame on the stamp, but I masked the flame and turned the regular candle into a "1".  Turned out pretty good!  The #1 was made using Alphabet Antiques Numbers by Stampin' Up and a Gable Green Write Marker, also from Stampin' Up.

 

Upon opening the folder, you will find the actual invitation, a slider/surprise card, held in place by the half moon notch, but removable. You also see a special request, from Mom and Dad, glued to the inside of the folder. 
 

 

I have to confess, the special request was found by Mom on the internet. We reproduced it. I wish I had the information to share where she found this. It is not only a very cute idea, but an adorable insert for any invitation.  I reproduced it as closely as I could with Microsoft Publisher. It has a gray and white chevron striped background with pink polka dots and orange ribbon banner, printed on copy paper.

Note that Khloe's picture on the invitation is in black and white. You can barely see the multi-colored printing on the picture.  Pull the ribbon at the top, and here comes Miss Khloe....changing from a Kansas black & white, to a Munchkinland full color! As Khloe morphs from black and white, into full color, the party details are also slowly revealed! Her picture is printed in B&W on a sheet of transparency film.  Her color picture is printed on photo paper, glued to card stock.  The party details are printed on copy paper.  The ribbons are from a variety of sources. (In case you didn't know this---if you have really good water-based dye ink markesr like the SU Write Markers and some pastel ribbon....you will always have the color ribbon that you need.  I didn't have a lot of narrow ribbon in a variety of bright colors, but I used my markers that coordinated with the card stock colors and "dyed" my abundance of pastel ribbon. Even the ones that had polka dots on them turned out perfect!  Just give it a minute to dry---and you are ready to go!)

Happy First Birthday

Khloe Miranda!

Check out my 40th class reunion

70s Party for my class reunion

Kylie's 2nd Birthday

Can't believe my great-niece, Kylie, celebrated her 2nd birthday in August. Seems like yesterday we were celebrating her mom's toddler birthdays!  Again this year, my niece gave me a theme and put me in charge of goodie bags for the birthday party. You know I love children's parties!

This year, Miss Kylie had a Hawaiian luau party. The weather didn't cooperate very well.  We pretended like the rain cascading off the roof was actually a waterfall and we were standing behind it. Well, it's a kid's party---you are supposed to use your imagination!

Anyway, here are the goodie bags, which were filled with little packets of Whales (like Goldfish crackers), gummy fish, Dum Dum suckers, squeeze frogs, and blinking rings. They were a hit!

Happy  Birthday, Kylie!

 the boys had surf boards and tiki masks on their bags, with rope handles.






 








the surf boards and palm trees were made from sheets of foam, so they stood out from the bag



































the girls had hula skirts with bikini tops, using leis for handles

Bookmark your appreciation

More Thank You notes, this time with a little gift of a bookmark to show your appreciation.

The flower outline is stamped on vellum. White card stock was used for the flower and stem, with a little row of pearl braid embellishment added at the bottom and an organza ribbon at the top. A vellum pocket holds the bookmark.

Floral tributes

Yesterday I finished up my thank you notes, for those who sent flowers to Mother in Law's funeral.

I made each one a little different style, with the same colors and papers.  I really liked the idea of making the lily 3-dimensional.  As you can see in the picture on the right, the lip of the lily is layered, so you can look right down into the flower, just like a real  lily. Thank you so much to the stampers on Splitcoast Stampers whose originals inspired me!

"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, The Master calls a butterfly"

Isn't that a lovely thought? That quote by Richard Bach is on a stamp in Stampin' Up's Ageless Adornment stamp set. Working on thank you notes for those who made memorial donations, I colored lots of butterflies today.

After browsing the Splitcoast Stampers Ageless Adornment gallery, I came across several cards made by other stampers. After pinning my faves on my Pinterest board, I decided on the one that would be my inspiration. Mother in law loved butterflies and purple, so it seemed fitting to color my butterflies purple.

Here are samples of the 8 cards I made today. Each one is a little different. I think they turned out pretty (the photography is not so great). Getting them in the mail tomorrow.

I am going to  the lily stamp to for thank yous to those who sent flowers. Here are my favorite lily cards from Splitcoast Stampers.  Which one do you think I will choose as my inpiration?

Thank you Split Coast Stampers!

Day before yesterday, I did something I have not done in a very long time...too long. I had my own private little Stamp-a-Stack event. I made a stack of similar Thank You cards for those who brought food to us when Mother-in-law passed away last month. Shamefully, it has taken me over a month to send these out.

I recently marked something off my bucket list: organizing my Rubber Stamps. I am very proud of the finished result, which took me a over a week to complete. I made 3 labels for each stamp set--one for the side of the stamp set case and one for the end. That way, no matter where I have to store them, I can easily see the label--in a drawer sideways, on a shelf the long way.  On the label I had the name and the number of stamps in the set; then I numbered the sets consecutively. I made a notebook page for each set, stamping an impression on the page for each stamp in the set. If the stamp set has a coordinating wheel stamp, I stamped it on the back of the page and made a note on the label that the wheels are on the back. I labeled the pages with the third set of labels I had made and placed them in a binder with an alphabetical listing of the stamp sets, along with their color-coded assigned numbers.  The sets are color coded, also for ease of storing, wherever I might be and whatever the storage situation might be. They are coded by size. All the large sets (the case the set comes in) are coded one color, the next size are coded another color, and so on.  I can now look up my stamps by set name by going to the alphabetical listing, find the number and look it up in the stack of stamp sets, without having to pull the sets down and go through them looking for the one I want. OR...I can flip through the notebook looking at the stamps and find the stamp, or individual stamps that I am in the mood to use, and find it in the stack! LOVE IT!!  <3

So, day before yesterday, when I decided to finally get down to making Thank You cards, I pulled one of my favorite Stampin' Up sets, If the Halo Fits, and got down to the business of stamping. I love to use Splitcoast Stampers for inspiration. I found the If The Halo Fits gallery and browsed for a while, pinning my favorite cards.  When I had an idea of what I wanted to do, I went back through my pins and chose the one I wanted to use as the basis, which came from CarrollAnne's Corner.

I completed 8 cards and mailed them this morning. This weekend I will be working on more Thank You cards using the Ageless Adornment set. Which one of these butterfly cards will be my inspiration?

Here is my organized stamp set collection and my Angel card. The card had Iridiscent Ice and Hologram embossing powder for embellishment. Gives it a nice shine and texture.