My little peanut discovered the markers in my scraproom and her favorite thing to do is take the caps on and off. Oh, and draw all over my white Ikea chair!! That is going to be a page in itself. What can you do - the girl got my crafty gene!

She also has this other adorable thing she does. Whenever someone goes into a room and closes the door (usually the bathroom) she gets down on the floor and tries to peek under the door! It is hysterical to watch and so super cute.

Diaper Cake

Just wanted to share a quick picture of the diaper cake I made for my friend's shower. This one is super simple, but I didn't have much time to prepare.

 

Baby Girl Scrapbook

For the past few months, I have been working on a top secret surprise for one of my best friends. She is expecting a baby girl in April and I wanted to do something very special for her. She is an amazing photographer, but she doesn't scrap. My goal was to create a baby book that she could just tape in the pictures, journal and be done. The first few pages are for months 1-12, but the final few pages are personalized for her munchkin.

Never too young to scrap!

Finding time to scrap with an active toddler is really hard. On a good day, she will sit in my lap and play at my desk with rolls of washi tape or scraps of paper for maybe 20 min. She will also flip through some of my 8x8 albums and look at the pictures. A few weeks ago I put tape on the back of a bunch of scraps and let her make her own "page". She loved it. This is what she created! I was surprised at how engaged she was in it. Hopefully her passion for being crafty continues to grow!

Card Week: Gator Baby

It seems to be that time of year again where I need a lot of cards and don't have a lot of time. I tend to lean on my Cricut to create some simple, yet style cards. I also grab bright, fun papers to help spice things up. Here's the first card this week!

Bright chevron paper, a gator cut, a fun punch and some puffy foam letters = simple!

Daddy's Girl

Now that I have discovered Glitter Girl I am completely addicted. I have never been able to layer in my layouts. But the way that she breaks things down it makes it super easy to figure out to add little bits and pieces and cluster etc. This is another scraplift from her video "To theme or not to theme".
I learned some really awesome tips. 1. When using three 4x6 photos you can add patterned paper under the middle one to break it up a bit. 2. Using similar embellies on each side of the page to bring more cohesion. I found a sticker in my stash that says "Birds of a Feather" and I built around that finding several sheets of paper with birds on them. These are 3 of my favorite pictures of daddy & baby girl.

Scraps - Our little lady

I was listening to Paperclipping Roundtable a couple weeks ago - "Torn by Patterned Paper" - and it was absolutely one on my most favorite episodes. I am in the process of reorganizing and purging my scraproom and there was just something about this episode that helped me use my paper more freely and not be afraid to cut into those papers that I have been hoarding.

As a result of this show, I discovered the Glitter Girl series at Two Peas in a Bucket. How have I not heard about her before? I was completely inspired to start using up my scraps. I loved one of the layout examples so this is my scraplift version.

Baby Boy Cards

It's another baby boom! Time to pull out the giraffe stamp and get busy. I found this cool Noah's Ark paper hidden in my stash that I really like - though I've never seen a purple giraffe before.

Kit-Tastic with May Flaum: Week 1

It is time for another fabulous class at Big Picture Classes with the wonderful May Flaum! Her new class is called Kit-tastic and it is all about helping you create with kits and getting the most from your stash. I always get drawn in to the beauty and one-stop-shopping of page kits, but the reality is, I am horrible at using them. There are many unopened kits taking up valuable shelf space and collecting dust in my room. With this class I am hoping to finally dive into some of them and create some fun pages.

Today, I decided to break into an old Basic Grey Kit from a CKC class that I ran out of time and never finished. I am currently working on a baby girl album and want to make a bunch of pre-made pages that I can use once baby arrives. For this page, I swapped out the recommended blue patterned paper for a pink design. These pictures are placeholder (and are actually my nephew!), but I bet we get similar pictures when baby is born.

 I also decided to hand stitch my title. This was a new technique for me. I had purchased May's Scrapbook Workshop technique book when it came out and then I never did anything with it. This class has inspired me to try new things to enhance my kits. There is an easy tutorial for how to hand stitch. I will say this title took me 2 hours to complete!! But hopefully I'll get faster the more I do.

Big Idea Festival Day 8: Joy

I've been doing my best to keep up with the Big Idea Festival over at Big Picture Classes. I don't have a photo printer at home so I have to work with the photos I have available until I can order more. They don't always map to the daily challenge so I either get creative or have to skip some days. Day 8 was to scrap something that has happened to your recently that brings you joy. I happen to be working on pages for my baby shower album and had some fun photos for this page.

Big Idea Festival Day 5: Happy Challenge

If you haven't had the chance to experience the Big Ideal Festival at Big Picture Classes I cannot encourage you enough to go check it out. It is 14 days of guest designers, challenges and prizes and all of it is FREE! It is a great place to find inspiration and to learn about the different teachers and classes they offer. This is my third year participating and each year I am more amazed at the event that they create.

For Day 5 of the challenge, May Flaum's Big Idea was to play with your supplies and create a layout in a way that makes you happy. What makes me happy are simple scrapbook pages with lots of white space that highlight an important photo. This is my favorite photo from the summer (and maybe ever) so I thought it was perfect for this challenge.

Baby Shower Card

One of my co-workers is also having a baby girl this fall and I wanted to get her something extra cute for her shower. I found this adorable pink elephant set and designed a card to match.

Elephant onesie, bib & card

Elephant cut from Create a Critter cart

Baby Shower Thank You Notes

I really wanted to make all of the Thank You notes for my shower. I started off with a design that matched my birdie theme. I got through about 10 of them before I realized that it was going to take too much time and I needed to simplify the design. Here's the card that a handful of family members will be getting.

I actually think I like the second design better. They were much easier to produce which is great since I needed 30 of them! The hardest part was I Sticked a border around the edge of the cut out.

Now I need to write them out!

Baby Thank You Cards

I have a good friend who has been so generous to us and has given us boxes and boxes of old baby clothes ranging from Newborn to 24 Months! I started doing a few loads of laundry today and am just in awe. Baby Girl is going to have an amazing wardrobe. Here is the thank you card I'll be dropping in the mail tomorrow. I love this onesie cut from the New Arrival Cricut cart. Definitely one of my favorites.

Another friend of ours gave us the absolute most adorable onesie ever so I put together a second version of the onesie card for her. The color is distorted in this pic, but the onesie is light pink with Thank You stamped across the front.

Nursery Decor: Closet Hangers

One of my favorite things to make for baby shower gifts are closet hangers. You can see a few that I have made here. I was really excited to come up with a set of these for myself. I fell in love with the Pottery Barn Kids Penelope bedding. It is a really pretty feminine mix of greens, pinks and a hint of yellow.

I wanted to try to match the pattern as close as possible. I searched my Cricut carts for different bird options. I think I had 5 to choose from, but this little birdie ended up being the cutest of the flock. She is from the Create a Critter cart and you'll see her pop up in some other nursery stuff I'm working on.

I went with a slightly different approach than previous gift sets I've made since I opted for the same image on all six of them. And rather than ribbons, I added some fabulous bling.

Pottery Barn Penelope Bedding Set & Matching Closet Hangers

Close-up shot

Nursery Decor: Alphabet Wall Art

I have zero blog entries for May 2012. It looks weird not having May in the monthly timeline. There is actually a really good explanation though....I've been celebrating that I am going to be having a baby! It's a GIRL! Pregnancy has been exhausting, so I've had to prioritize sleep over scrapping. I'm finally starting to feel like my normal self again and am dedicating my time to creating fun decor for the nursery.

The first project I decided to tackle was making some alphabet wall art to match the color scheme we've chosen for the nursery. It will be multiple shades of pink, light green and light yellow. Here was my inspiration:

 

And here is my custom piece of art: 

This photo makes it look like some of the letters are cut off due to the white background, but in person it looks totally fine. I used the Lyrical Letters Cricut cart. They have six fonts to choose from, but Jumbo worked out the best. Each letter is cut to 2 inches. The frame is Ribba from Ikea.

Baby Cards

Two of my friends recently celebrated the arrival of their baby boys! The blue papers in my Counterfeit Kit were perfect for creating boy cards. I used the Cricut Sugar and Spice cartridge (which yes, is the girl cart), but I changed the color of the stork from pink to blue. The white ribbon and orange scraps were an add on to the kit. Sweet and simple!

Nautical Baby Shower

My nephew's baby shower was a blast! The sailboats and whales were just too cute. My banner fit perfectly above the dessert table. And the diaper cake managed to stay in one piece. I'm in the process of working on completing the guest scrapbook. I had everyone sign a onesie cut-out and took their picture in front of a large sheet of nautical fabric (which I called the photo booth). Now I've got to match photos and comments together. My goal is to bring it to the hospital for mom the day of his birth.

Baby Closet Hangers

Baby Cards

Safari Hangers

Transportation Hangers

This is one of my all time favorite Cricut projects. There is a door hanger template on the "My Community" cartridge and the possibilities for what you can do with it are endless. The idea of the baby closet hangers was something I had seen on the discussion boards a while back. This year I've got so many baby showers and I wanted to surprise my friends with something special. The first set of hangers is for my friend who is not finding out the sex of the baby and is going with a safari theme. The second set is for my soon to be nephew!! He is getting a sailboat themed shower/room and I expanded his set to be about transportation. Each set will come with a matching shower card.

May Counterfeit Kit Mini Challenge #1: Cards

Mini challenge sketch:

Mini challenge - no sketch

Two of my friends just had baby boys and I've been trying to find the time to put together some cards. This weeks Counterfeit Kit Mini challenge was an inspirational card sketch. For my first card, I followed the sketch, but for the second one, I was inspired by the sheet of alaphabet paper in my kit and went a little different direction. The Its A Boy ribbon was a last minute add that was not part of my original kit. It probably would have been, but it was hidden in a box under a pile of stuff...Somehow I remembered I had it!