Scrappy Saturday: Pages & Cards

Once upon a time, I used to make cards for every thing. Every holiday. For every one. I still feel shame that I sent a photo card for the holidays this year, I don't know if I'll ever get back to making 100+ cards at a time again, but I recently made a few for Valentine's Day. 

I'm not sure who is getting them yet, and maybe I'll make some more.. I don't know yet. 

I also worked on some scrapbook pages. I'm trying to do small batches at a time because my attention span isn't great.  

 As it turns out, I have a lot of dance photos I hadn't gotten to. 

 But it's pretty fun to see how much Olivia has progressed from year to year. 

 She still looks so little, though. 

 It'll be interesting to compare these from last year to the ones they are taking soon for this year. 

It was also fun to see pictures from a few Christmases ago. 

 And I forgot to share with you my projects from a recent string art party I went to. 

 I did that top one with the arrows at the party, LOTS of nailing. 

Then I made a teal survivor ribbon for AFE at home. I still have the stuff to make a pineapple, I just don't know when I'll do it or where I will put it. I wish I had more string to make it stand out more but doing it with string versus something on an actual spool is 1000 times harder! 

Pretty soon I am going to a painting party where I'll make some glasses and then another string art party. I might go to a pallet party too, we'll see! 

Scrappy Saturday: started Lucy's baby book!

One of the challenges I've talked about with memory loss has been my inability to remember Lucy's first year let alone her milestones. 

I decided I can only do what I can do so I'm going to rely on other people to help me remember and thankfully, my blog. I know I've mentioned it before about how beneficial this blog has been to me for a lot of reasons, I've made some terrific life long friends and I have a running log of what I was doing and feeling. Honestly, if I didn't have this blog I don't know how I would function. Silly as that may be. 

 Anyways, I started Lucy's baby book and so far, I'm only a few pages in but it's been fairly emotional to look at all of these pictures again. I don't do it often because I get sad because I want so badly to remember how soft she probably was or how she smelled. Did she have fuzz on her head? Was that soft, too? I don't know. 

 It's also strange to see how happy I was. Sure, I was in clear agony for the epidural but I always know that bit of pain is worth what you get. I see my face, smiling, and I wish I remembered how I really felt. Was I really that happy? Was I scared? Did I have a gut feeling about what was to come? I don't know. 

 It's bittersweet to see the kids meeting Lucy for the first time, I didn't get to see it. Or my grandparents? My grandma is currently dying and it breaks my heart that she only got to see Lucy twice. She mailed me her Jello molds for Jigglers, something she was known for- she always had them for the kids when she came, so I hope to tell Penelope and Lucy all about her over Jigglers someday. 

I always save the birth announcement (somehow I think I still got them in mail after all this?!), the hospital bassinet card and name tag, my weekly pregnancy check up book from the doctor, and all of the birth certificate information (not the official one, but the hospital provided one) and various papers we got from the hospital. I matched that up with the photos of the day I woke up. Seemed fitting. 

It's pretty tough doing this book but it might be therapy, too. I don't know. 

Paper Pumpkin - November

We're playing a bit of catch up with the Paper Pumpkin boxes but I'm working on a few other ideas for upcoming Crafty Saturdays, including a giveaway for next week.

I know I mentioned last week that I like the kits that will give me cards to mail out over the projects, and that's true. Especially this time of year, I am that person who sends out thank you cards for Christmas gifts, even though I suspect it drives some people nuts. Sorry, not sorry. I won't lie and tell you that every time I mail a card, I don't feel like I'm single-handedly keeping the United States mail service alive.

The kit for cards this month though was just SO LABOR INTENSIVE. So much so that only one card looked like the finished product.

Tee-dah.

The other cards did not have the string tied on the top because I literally could not be bothered. By the time I was done stamping and adhering the three layers of cardstock and layer of vellum, I was done. You're lucky you even got sequins adhered to your card. This is one card where I thought, "you know what, let me go head and buy thank you cards", even though in my world that's blasphemous. I haven't purchased a card in over a decade, folks. I just can't bring my self to pay $2 (or more.. GASP). I just can't.

But again, I mailed out the last of these cards last week so I'm back to having almost nothing in my stash. Yikes!

Paper Pumpkin - October

Oh lordy lambs, I am so behind in showing you my Paper Pumpkin projects! I haven't been letting them sit, I've actually done October and November, I just forgot to share them. So I'll share this one, but look for a Paper Pumpkin giveaway happening soon!

Easily my favorite Paper Pumpkin boxes are the ones that will give me a set of cards to complete. I use these far more than the "projects" and these are things I can see myself replicating again sometime in the future.The other nice thing about these is that these cards are a little more involved than what I would normally make so these aren't the type of card you'll crank out in a short amount of time. Sure, there aren't a lot of steps, but they can be a bit tedious, a nice way to break yourself out of your comfort zone as a crafter.

I really liked this set because they were shaker cards! I have never made a shaker card because it seemed a bit more involved than I like, but this was actually really easy if you used the foam adhesive strips that it came with! I do remember back in my day of having cable TV with a crafting station, that you can use transparency sheets to be the clear piece that holds your sequins in, but in this box they gave you pre-cut pieces so it went faster.

Would you believe me if I told you I've already used these all up?

It's true! They are all gone! I should also note that I like to dress my envelopes up with a little bit of washi tape (I like my envelope to stand out in someone's mail) and this tape is actually left over from a previous Paper Pumpkin box but matched perfectly!

If you're interested in having a little box of fun come every month, you can get your own Paper Pumpkin for $19.95/month!

Crafty Saturday: Thanks!

I haven't had a whole ton of time to do crafty things, but I have had a lot of gifts and meals dropped off lately so I'm going through thank you notes like you wouldn't believe.

A very good problem to have, obviously.

My last Paper Pumpkin and my most recent one were kits to make favors. I'm finding that while the stamp sets are cute that come with them, I'm not super jazzed about the actual project because what am I going to use these favors for? Nothing. So I'm more excited when the project is for cards because those are something I'm actually going to use.

So I finally got around to doing another Paper Pumpkin box and this was the September box, I believe. But it's a teal/orange color combination I don't normally do, it feels very southwestern to me and that's not really my thing. And it had a lot of fussy elements (like tying string to very small buttons) but I managed to make six cards and three gift tags (which truthfully, I'm probably not going to use). All of them have been mailed out to folks, so I need to get busy and make some more!

Crafty Saturday: Baby's First Shoe Shadow Boxes

One of my favorite baby gifts to give to someone is a shadow box to eventually display baby's first shoes. It's something I came up with when Olivia and Jackson were little because I wanted to keep their shoes, but didn't know how to necessarily do that.

I have them hanging on the wall by their room next to my 4x10 collage photo of them at 9 months.

So when I had Penelope I knew that I would do the same thing so I'm consistent with every kid. Plus I always think maybe in 40 years or something, these shoes will look super old fashioned or something, and would be a cute thing to have in their homes to show their kids or grandkids, who knows?

I just finished her box and have a box ready to go for Fetus Four. No shoes yet, but who knows. And I always use my favorite pair of their shoes that I would always put on their feet, not necessarily their first walking shoes.

But I've made them for gifts, as well. I tried finding more photos of other boxes I've done but this was the first (and most recent) so we'll go with these. I sent t his as a gift to a blogger friend because I had noticed her daughter always wore a pair of green shoes similar to the red ones Olivia had above, but without a bow. So in my head, I thought those would go in this box really well. That and their daughter isn't girly girl so much so I thought the orange/green combo is girly but not overtly so and would look nice together.

I have gotten lots of requests about making these as custom orders and YES. I would happily do that for anyone! I'd need a general idea of what the shoe looks like so I can match colors, so I always suggest that if you are giving this as a gift, maybe buy a super cute pair of shoes to go with it so it's like a gift set. People often email me a picture of what the shoes look like and I go from there. So if this is something you are interested in, let me know and I'm happy to work with you!

Crafty Saturday: Baby Announcement edition

If you know me at all, you know I am ridiculously prepared for most everything. I am currently planning out our family Christmas card because it always takes me awhile to cut and assemble things and I want to get a head start on them while I can. But I also have my baby announcements done, which I have always filled out before I leave the hospital.

Don't laugh, I can't help myself.

People always laugh and wonder what is wrong with me, but I know if I don't do it right away it will never happen. Plus, it gives me something to do since I'm not a big TV watcher and newborns sleep... a LOT. So I always pull the bassinet up to me and fill the cards out with TV as background noise and take my time.

 My options for paper choices at Michaels was kind of limited, but I found a few pattern papers that looked pretty and were all in the same purple and teal color family. I bought myself a new stamp set and my first little die cut set to go with the stamps so I can use my Sizzix machine Matt got me for Christmas, and Michaels had some purple flowers in their dollar spot.

I had a general idea of what I wanted to do so one evening I spent cutting all of the pieces out.

And over the next few days I assembled. Penelope is at a very need/whiny/be-with-me-all-of-the-time stage so I can only get a few done at a time. Which was OK, I clearly had plenty of time to finish these.

And finish I did! Aren't they cute? My only regret is that the piece directly under the circle? I wish I had matted it in white or something so that it stood out from the background paper. But by the time I noticed it I was already committed so I said this will be good enough.

I found my little foot print stamp and a generic birth info stamp for the inside. I've got my envelopes all labeled and stamped, my little invites for our Meet the Baby/End of Summer BBQ party ready, and everything in my hospital bag. The only thing I'll need to do is print a baby photo and insert it, but I can do that when I get home and do the one hour photo thing and voila- baby announcements are done!

It felt SO GOOD to get that project off of my desk, that's for sure. Not that I don't have a ton more lined up but still. One down..

Crafty Saturday: supply stock up and Back to School card!

I've been on such a roll with scrapbooking that it was becoming pretty obvious I had to stock up on some supplies so I could keep up with my current pace. I haven't found a really great place to get scrapbooking supplies at great prices, but one website I do check fairly frequently is Crafty Steals. They often have kits in various sizes and prices that you can actually do a lot with and get a lot of use out of them. I bought a few recently and I've been tinkering with some of the products.

This was the entire shipment that I got. It's a pretty wide assortment of stuff and I think I paid around $80 after shipping for it all? The only complaint I have is that you don't get shipment tracking information and it takes a long time for you to get your stuff. I think I waited almost three weeks before it arrived.

One of my favorite companies is Doodlebug Designs, so I bought this summer/mermaid kid thinking some of it I could use for Penelope pages and some I could even use for Fetus Four's future book. I also bought a summer kit by Echo Park, and then some Fourth of July kits because I have nothing for those pages!

So here's my Doodlebug Designs Fourth of July Kit. It came with a bunch of paper but look at all of the embellishments I got! I can use those on pages but I can also use them on cards and not just Fourth of July stuff!

Also, that was the summer/mermaid kid I got that is also Doodlebug Designs. Their stuff is automatically geared towards kid pages but I always love the bright colors and fun embellishments. My next confession is that sometimes I get something and it's SO CUTE I don't want to use it. Which is insane, I know, but it's totally true.

But all of that aside, this baby is due in what, three weeks? I have to get my butt into gear when it comes to Back to School.

I know, some of you just had the first stab of a panic attack, didn't you? Well my goal this year was to be 100% done with my clothes shopping as well as the school supply shopping because I know full well I'm not going to want to battle the crowds with my two school age big kids, a toddler, and a newborn.

NOPE.

But in addition to all of that, I also give a Back to School teacher gift to my kids' teachers every year. I don't know what my plan is once they get to middle and high schools when they have more than one teacher, but at least for the elementary teachers, I always do a fun little basket. I'll post more on that basket perhaps next week, but I wanted to share the card I made to go into the basket! I always, bare minimum, do a card with my contact information and just a general "good luck/looking forward to the year" note for them. Honestly, I have to think Back to School is just as stressful for them as it is for us. They have to learn a whole new set of kids, their strengths and weaknesses, a new schedule, sometimes a new curriculum, and I feel like whatever I can do to encourage them, I'm all for it.

Just a simple little learning worm card. The inside is blank, but isn't the front super cute? I have this little stack of accent paper I've had for a few years now that is all school related so I've been using that for teacher cards for a few years.

Do you love it? Do you want it? Do you feel like totally not making it because you don't have the time? Head over to my Etsy shop- I have three in stock! I know, you're like- holy hell, Sara! I know, I'm going to try to resurrect my shop in the hopes of a little extra income (we desperately need it) but also to help out you non-crafters who want to give super cute, original, unique stuff. I've got you, boo. I'll be adding things periodically (hopefully) and I have a few larger gift items I can custom make for people in the future... but more on that soon.

Until next week lambs, happy crafting!

Crafty Saturday: Fourth of July Pinwheels

For years I've toyed with the idea of making some paper pinwheels just because... and then my good friend Connie, who is also a Stampin' Up demonstrator, told me she had a Paper Pumpkin kit she's never used and it was mine if I'd like it.

I obviously am not turning down free crafty supplies because any mental illness I may have doesn't reach THAT far. Thankfully for us all.

I actually subscribed to Paper Pumpkin ($19.95/month plus shipping and handling) last month when they had a flash $5 first box sign up, so I'll show you what I got in my first box, probably next weekend. I still have to make the project and I want to show you a finish project with each box so be patient!

Inside of every box is a little booklet with your instructions. If you are truly a beginner, or are gifting this box to someone just starting out, it's a perfect subscription for you because you truly don't need to have any clue and you can make these adorable projects.

It also gives you the website in case you need even more detailed instructions than what is provided in the booklet. I haven't gone onto it yet, mostly because I haven't needed to, but there may be other ideas for your kit.

So inside of this kit you received:

• Pinwheel Party Photopolymer Stamper (not shown really well here but there were three stamps on the sheet)
• Night of Navy classic stampin spot
• 24 precut Designer pinwheel forms (8 each of 3 different patterns, all were double sided)
• 24 paper straws
• 20 Whisper White banner punch outs
• 24 cellophane bags
• Basic Gray baker's twine
• 24 silver brads
• 24 silver clips
• 96 mini glue dots

Now, I only made about 16 pinwheels and saved the rest of my pieces for another time. I also didn't use the silver clips, baker's twine, or cellophane bags so I put them in with my stash because I can easily use them on a future project. The project itself was pretty easy, albeit a little putzy for me. The finished project was super cute, though!

I currently have them in a mason jar on top of a shelf as summer decor, but I plan to have them out for our Fourth of July BBQ, of course. A couple are also going to be re-used in Back to School teacher gifts (post coming soon) because they would be a cute little basket filler. I do recommend using a two sided pattern paper for doing pinwheels to give it more dimension and color but of course, you could always use a solid color of card stock if you were trying to stay true to a party color scheme.

So there it is. If you are interested in doing crafty projects but don't want to take the time to think of one, shop for supplies, cut each piece out by hand, and then assemble- I very highly recommend the Paper Pumpkin subscription. All of the hard, tedious stuff is done for you, all you have to do is assemble using the instructions they give you and you're done. So many of these kits give you things that you can later gift to someone and be that over achiever giving out hand made gifts, so keep that in mind, too!

Crafty Saturday: scrapbook queen!

It's been kind of nice having a chunk of time every day during Penelope's nap to work on some crafty things. I might even have a few things for the Etsy shop soon, too!

I have been doing some re-organizing in my office/library/craft room and sorted through pictures of the last few years. You'll be happy to know I think I might be totally caught up from 2010 and previous. HA! I'm trying to see the bright side to being six years behind..

I should have waited to do this page because two days later I got my order from Crafty Steals with Fourth of July stuff, but that just means I can do the last couple of years with stuff, right?

I totally forgot about the time we took the kids to Copper Falls!! It was fun finding these photos on the bottom of the drawer.

As it turns out, I don't take many Easter photos, but I have a lot of Easter supplies. Figure that one out, because I certainly can't.

Finally. I went skydiving in 2010 and I've been hanging onto to my certificate that fits in no drawer and I didn't want to get rid of, and I finally printed some photos for a page. I ended up cutting the certificate border off and just keeping the pertinent information so it was a one page spread.

In past years, we've done SO much over the course of summer that the entire season has it's own small book, but for the sake of time and wanting to get photos done, I ended up just picking my favorites from 2010 summer and doing the page.

Also? The downside of scrapbooking things from years past is I spend a whole bunch of time staring at the photos in awe at how small my kids were. Remembering how hard I thought everything was at the time and now thinking those were the easy years! They've both changed SO much in just a few short years, it's kind of remarkable.

OK- so that's what I got done this week! I have some SUPER cute projects I'm going to show you in the next couple of weeks. Next week is going to be a Paper Pumpkin kit someone gifted me that's Fourth of July related, then I'll show you new stuff I've ordered and I need to start working on birth announcements for Fetus Four. Yikes!

Crafty Saturday: Getting some pages DONE

I got kind of on a roll this last week with scrapbooking. I have so many photos waiting to get onto completed pages and into books that I sometimes feel overwhelmed and don't know where to start. I'm years behind, actually. I've decided to just start with the top of my pile and go from there. I actually took a couple of hours one day sorting the photos I had already printed into piles. From there I decided to work on the smaller piles first knowing those would be easy pages to put together and frankly, if I can do a lot of smaller projects, I feel like I'm getting more done and that motivates me to keep going.

So I got caught up on the kids' school books. They each have their own scrapbook just for school photos and memorabilia. I have the same format going for both and that's made it SO easy. Their fall page has their fall photo on the left, class photo on the right. This is an example of the spring page. It's got the spring photo on the left, and a pocket page on the right. I usually keep their report cards, certificates, and something with their handwriting in here. All other artwork and sentimental things go into what I call the "forever box" in my closet, labeled with their name and grade. Then this is where I put photos from the school year (field trips, concerts, etc), first/last day photo, and anything else I had. So both kids are caught up and I just need to print the last day photos from this school year to finish them out.

I forgot that I had pictures of the archery class Jackson took a little over a year ago. Yikes. But he actually enjoyed it, so I'm glad I have these because he looks SO little to me!

I decided to scraping every single moment and doing a lot of collection pages. This is my double layout for summer 2012. Only my favorite photos and holy moly- I stared at these for so long because it doesn't seem so long ago and yet.. four years already.

I found the group photo of the volleyball team Olivia played on this fall! She had a GREAT time and I really need to get her signed up again because this might be her thing, aside from dance.

Aw.. Father's Day from 2012. That time we went hiking in Jay Cooke park and the kids were terrified that Matt had gotten us lost and we couldn't go as far as we wanted because the bugs were horrible and so was the mud.

Oh yes, and the photos from the worst 5K I have ever done. We all remember that, right? Always fun to relive horrible things while scrapbooking them for other generations to then laugh at me. But that's OK, all part of life.

I've got some pages for next week planned already so maybe I'll remember to take some photos and share those, too. I also have Jackson's birthday scrapbook to work on (years 5-8) and I printed photos from our Michigan trip (2010), Chicago trip (2012) and South Dakota trip (2014) that I will hopefully get around to. Maybe.

Crafty Saturday: Yet another One Sheet Wonder for your lazy entertainment.

I'm kind of stuck on these, lambs. I feel like I could whip these out all week if I had to. I keep thinking maybe I'll do some sets and put them in my Etsy shop, but we'll see. Maybe, maybe not.

Unfortunately, I can't find the template I had used for these cards, but again, I'm in need of thank you cards knowing I'm having a baby in a few months and I really won't have time to whip them up as needed once I'm super sleep deprived and wrangling four kids pretty much solo.

But I wanted to try out my new Watermelon stamp pad, and I found a paper that had that in it but also a dark purple, so I grabbed these inks. I also grabbed the So Many Scallops stamp set, which is easily my most used stamp set. I have the matching scallop punch and the next size up scallop punch, and I use them all a LOT. And again, my favorite card sentiment set with a cool little font.

So these are my finished cards. I had just ordered some washi tape from Stampin' Up and I wanted to use it on this project. I also found a little box of gemstones in a basket I had forgotten about, so I used a bunch of those up. This collection only took me 20 minutes to make and look, I have eight thank you cards ready to go should I need them.

If you missed my first post on the greatness that is a One Sheet Wonder, click HERE and catch up but also find a link to some super easy templates you can do at home in less than a half hour!

Crafty Saturday: One Sheet Wonder- win for lazy people

I really like to do crafts, specifically scrapbooking and card making, but considering I'm always exhausted while being pregnant and having three kids running around, I have little time to really be creative. So when I do get in the mood for such things, my go-to project is and always will be a One Sheet Wonder.

This is literally the easiest thing to tackle if you feel like you aren't creative enough to make your own cards. You can crank out 8-12 cards in less than a half hour. If you know me at all you know that I absolutely hate buying store bought cards. A little piece of me dies every time I do. I have a hard time justifying $3 or more on something that most people throw out. With $3, I can make a set of these and bam- I have a quick gift, I have enough birthday cards to last me a few months, whatever. If you are trying to cut money out of your budget, considering getting into this because truly, it's inexpensive.

I should also note, this is a GREAT project for kids to make thank you cards for birthday and holiday gifts. I'm a big believer in teaching kids the value of sending an actual thank you versus just saying it, and this is something my kids like doing. Give them a pack of cards, help them pick out paper and assist with cutting and leave the rest to them. You'd be surprised at what they come up with!

To get started, go on Pinterest and look for some free templates. HERE is a great page of endless templates. It doesn't really matter which one you pick out, but if you're a beginner I would suggest picking one with the least amount of cutting.

I've had this one on my desk for awhile that I printed out so I figured I'd just use this versus wasting time looking for a different one. The easiest way to start, for me, is to pick out a piece of 12x12 scrapbooking paper, preferably something with an all over print. Then I look at my template and figure out the easiest way to cut. Obviously, this one is divided into four columns, so I started by cutting out the far left column, then cutting that strip into the sizes it tells me, and repeating for the rest of the paper.

So now I have a bunch of super cute pieces of paper all cut out. Will I use all of these? Not for this project, but with most templates you'll find on Pinterest, people show their finished cards so you can essentially just copy their layout and change the embellishments to fit your project.

Another thing I use for these projects are these little packs of cards, normally $1 at Michaels. They aren't always cut perfectly, but if you're looking for a quick gift or inexpensive project, this is the route to go.

My paper had citrus fruits all over it so I found these two stamp pads and this little stamp set to use. I'm making thank you cards, and I just like the font on these stamps.

I didn't have any citrus embellishments, so I opted for these flowers which also come in $1 packs at Michaels and they are the perfect something to put on the card. Some cards got ribbon, some didn't. I decided to layer a piece of matching card stock under my cut up pieces so it stands out more from the card, stamped my sentiment on, and done. You'll notice some of the cards have more than one pattern paper piece on them, some only have one- it's really up to you how you want them done. They are super simple, super easy. I'll share another One Sheet Wonder set I made next Saturday using a different template and different paper. Stay tuned!

And of course, if you are in need for some fun stamp colors (that last a LONG time), or inexpensive and cute stamps, embellishments, or paper packs- head over HERE and shop! Check out the Clearance Rack (link on the top left column)- there are some SUPER good deals on stamps, paper, punch sets, etc. You can order from this demonstrator online, have it shipped to your house, and sign up for the email alerts to get the good deals!

Happy crafting!