preview...

of what's to come for Baylen's Birthday...and 2 year picture ideas... :)

more scrapbooking today...

these are not finished yet, as i have some journaling to do on some and i want to add "ice, ice baby" on the ice skating one if i can fit it on somehow. i may have to get creative and see how it works or result to using letter stickers so it fits.

the halloween layouts i used a ton of stuff from a kit i ordered off scrapbooksteals.com and it's awesome. i have ordered 2 kits off of there so far and loved them both.

Also, if you are like me, I love to keep a few things the kids have made from daycare and save them as momentos, such as some of their artwork etc. I have kept a bunch to try and see how I can incorporate into my scrapbook layouts. Brynn's spider she made earlier this year worked out PERFECT for one of the Halloween layouts. I couldn't be happier about how it turned out. Now i just need to figure out how to use like 5500 more of them in my layouts or actually throw some out. haha

Also, in the Halloween layouts, I used a combo of stickers, rub-ons (which I LOVE and just DISCOVERED TODAY!!) and stamps

Working on some gifts...

I have been making these burpcloths as gifts for the last few who have had babies and now have it down as far as size, shape, and sewing it so it looks nice. I am going to start messing with colors a bit more soon like using RIT dyes and such. So excited about that. :)

Anyway, here are a few I've made to send as gifts as soon as the babes arrive. :) I may get brave and put some up for sale on my Etsy site as well...

baby shower...

Here are a few things I've been working on the past month for a friend's baby shower at work. The inside of hte invite I just printed off computer paper and it reads something like, "Let's help celebrate the arrival of her little cupcake!"

I used the Celebrations Cricut cartridge, Martha Stewart glitter glue and loose glitter. Also placed a cute little baby button brad on the top of the cupcake. All of the cupcakes are different colors. It's a bit plain, and if I had more $ and time, I would have added a ribbon color behind the cupcake to give it a bit of a twist. But, these are going to a BUNCH of teachers and I wanted to save myself some time, $, paper, and materials just because the invites didn't need to be over the top.

I also made some little cupcake toppers. After making them all, I realized I should have used my flower die cut tool instead of the Cricut b/c then it wouldn't have a hole at the top of each one. Oh well. I used sucker sticks and cut them in half w/ wire cutters. haha I'll make the cupcakes just from a box, but use my Pampered Chef frosting tips to give them more volume and color the frosting different colors like pink, yellow, and maybe purple.

scrappin' on my day off

Love having days to craft. wish i had more of them like this. bee was home w/ me today but she's so easy to watch and she is sleeping so that meant, lots of quiet time to have some fun catching up on my scrapbooking and journaling.

New Project...

So I started working on a new project tonight: sewing some cute burpcloths. I have tried a few different methods and think I have a couple down. The first attempt is the dinosaur cloth. It has some quilting I added underneath. I didn't think ahead and this one has several sewing errors on it, and after several emotional outbursts and me wanting to throw my sewing machine out the window, Dj convinced me that even though I think I should be a "pro" at everything the first time I try it (or in this case, picking it back up after 11 years), I watch the DVD and re-thread the machine until it worked. Well, I watched it and then he ended up coming in and helping me figure out what the problem was. Thank God for his patience when I have ZERO. Anyway, Brynn wanted me to make one for her baby Addie, so I took a burp cloth that had several errors and oopsies and just took a block of fabric and sewed it all the way across the b.c. That one turned out pretty well. I ended up pinning it all the way across and the thread lines look much straighter. My third attempt I think turned out nicely...I decided it was nice enough to give as a gift...I'll be waiting feedback from her if it stayed together or fell apart after one wash. I think the fabric on it was simply adorable and definitely modern and chic. Now I am toying with the idea of sewing the quilting underneath of the fabric/between the b.c. I think it would give it a more of a durable feel. I'll mess with that the next crafting session.

Here's to many more successful attempts and I'm hopeful that when new babies arrive within the next two months, that they'll be received more burp cloths from me!!!

:)

On another note, if you are interested in getting some of my "practice" cloths to use, message me on here and I'll send them your way to use with your baby. After all, a burp cloth's a burp cloth and even if there are some sewing issues, the thing visually looks pretty good from the front...:)

Goin' Green on Halloween

Baylen's teacher asked us to try and Go Green if we could when thinking of treats to bring in for his party on Thursday. Thanks to Target, I put together a little package filled with bubbles. Really, though, I just wanted to try my new embossing tool/heat gun and my stamps. I would say for my first time trying it, it was quite messy and some of them ended up having "powder" in other places it should not be. Overall, it turned out fine. I am going to try the non-glittery embossing powder and maybe that will work better? The glitter shit was everywhere. I used a spoon to sprinkle it onto the stamped image (I used clear Versa Mark ink) and then shook off excess glitter powder back into the container.
That was not fun to clean up...who has tips for a mess-free embossing? And how long do you hold the gun over the powder? I just held it over until it kinda changed color/consistency...Does it take a lot of practice to get it right? What am I missing? Hmmm