Card books

The whole world already knows that Pinterest is a great source of inspiration...right?!?! Well, months ago I saw THIS great idea for something to do with all of your Christmas cards. So, I got to work and created my own 2011 Xmas cards book.



I put the card we sent out to everyone on the first page...



It's nice because I'm able to keep all the cards from the year, including the fun photo cards...



And all the beautifully hand made cards...



And then I got a little obsessed and started going thru the kids cards from their births and their birthdays and made a book for each year and I plan to do this on each birthday for them so they can have a book for each year. Who knows if they will someday appreciate them, but for now, it's fun for me :)

I love the way their birth books came out...I was able to include their birth announcements, cards from when they were born, notes from flowers that we got sent and cards from their baptisms. These books are very special to me now.













And here are some quick shots of their birthday books. I tried to stay somewhat with the theme of their parties, or what they were into that year...





If anyone has any great and wonderful tips on taking better pics of things, please let me know! I always seem to get the coloring off and/or a weird glare or just bad lighting over all. I tried to edit a bit in photoshop, but the colors are a bit off and dark. They look way different in real life!

Valentine's Day Projects

Here is a look at what I was working on for Valentine's Day this year!

The theme for the kids was Dinosaurs..."You're Dino-mite!" I found some plastic dinosaurs at Target that I picked up and then use the Create-a-Critter Cricut cartridge to put together these cute Valentines. For Colin's class, I tied a bow around the toy dinosaurs and attached them to the Valentine.





Colin was quite amused with them...



By the time I got done with his 7 for his classmates, I still had 18 to do for Brandon's class and I decided not to tie the dinosaur on because it was taking forever. I ended up just putting them in plastic baggies with the Valentine, dinosaur and a chocolate candy. They actually turned out really cute, and man, I forgot to take a pic of the final product, but here's the rest of the cards...



For Colin's teacher, I made her a scrapbook, with the help of the other mom's. We each asked our kids why they love their teacher and they came up with their own answers. It's always cute to hear what a 3 or 4 year old will say! I made the book with my bind-it-all and then used Valentine's paper that I got at the Dollar Spot at Target and each mom gave me a picture of their kid to use for the book.











I also made a few mini Valentine's albums, which were featured at a MOPS fundraiser as a Make-and-Take. I got to teach a bunch of girls how to make them and they got to take them home with them. Here's the one I used as a sample...




And my neighbor asked me to make a few for her for her kid's teachers and I thought they turned out super cute!!

SMASH book

The idea of a SMASH book is that you can smash whatever you want into this book. Whether it be pictures, receipts, pieces of things you find about your day that you'd like to hang on to that you don't have anything else to do with it. You can write in it, glue in a page from a magazine, a lucky penny you found on the street. You can do whatever you want with it! My friend Tamara and I decided to create our own smash books about 6 months ago and I have been filling mine up. Here is a quick pic of mine:



My friend Lauren, from Ten23Designs, hosted an awesome New Year's Giveaway contest and I thought I would make a Smash book for one of her give away items! Here are some pictures of the book. Included in the book are misc pages of scrapbook paper, fun colored envelopes and clear plastic pages to put in whatever you'd like.









The winner of my Smash book will be receiving it soon...it's in the mail!!

wall letters for my nephew

My sweet nephew, Vance, needed letters for his awesome nursery....I would have made them prior to his birth, but since his name was kept a secret, I had to wait until after he was born to get busy on them. I tried to match the owl/deer/naturistic theme he had going on. Found some cute scrapbook paper, and just used brown ribbon to finish the edges. I think they turned out cute and they fit well with the theme. I love you little Vance!



(Do you see him in there sleeping peacefully?!?!)

Here is a close up:



and here are the paintings i did for the room for her shower gift, hanging above his changing table :

finished an OLD project...finally!

I used to LOVE cross-stitching...now I don't have much patience for it, as I like stuff to be done quickly and see results fast. Cross stitch takes awhile to do. I had started this, um...I don't know...maybe 7 or 8 YEARS ago...found it in my closet awhile back and decided to finish it.

Well...I ALMOST finished it. Then my sister, Erica, was visiting and was looking for a project to do...she loves to cross stitch. So, i "let" her work on it and next thing you know, it was done. I got it in the shadow box and it's ready to be hung somewhere. pretty cute, not necessarily my style, but it is something I made with my heart, by hand (with the help of my little sister!!)

notebooks, jotters & scrapbooks oh my!

I have been busy scouring Thrift Shops and Yard Sales in search of game pieces and flash cards to make my fun little notebooks. Also looking for used (no value) gift cards to make jotters...good for writing a quick note, for grocery lists, etc. I keep some in my purse so that while we're waiting to eat at a restaurant, my kids have something to doodle in. I have also been finishing up some mini albums & various other half-done projects. Everything you see here (and lots more) will be for sale at the St. Catherine's Vendor Craft-a-Faire this weekend. I have a lot more projects in mind for the future (next year and/or a possible etsy shop!!)









These are actually works in progress...the top two are now finished...added embellishments and made a "theme" for each one. Just need to add your own pictures!







These are my jotters made from stuff in the recycle bin and/or old games...









flash card jotters/mini notebooks:



gift card jotters...perfect for that shopping list...



journal/scrapbook:



mini album...add your own pics/journaling!





accordion album with pull out tags...





more to come soon!!!