Hair Thingy Box

I don't know what else to call this thing. But it works like a charm. Having two girls means having lots of hair clips, hair elastics, head bands, brushes, combs, etc. I was getting very irritated having them all in a messy pile on the counter (their bathroom does not have drawers). I had purchased a drawer kit from Ikea ages ago thinking I would use it for scrap supply storage. (can't come up with a link to it, but I think they're FIRA and I am sure they're still in the store - I hope so). Never happened. Finally this idea struck me and I am so pleased with how it turned out. I used BoBunny's Alissa collection for this. My Silouette helped me to print and cut the drawer labels. The black swirls of crystals are from Prima.

To adhere everything, I used Mod Podge in matte. There were a few places where it bubbled. Then miraculously, when it was completely dry, the bubbles were gone. There were also a few places where it bubbled and dried bubbled. Of course that would be on the very top. {sigh} Oh well.

Making Memories Of Us

This was a layout I created way back in January 2010 with the leftovers of my kit projects from Christine Middlecamp. She rocks and after completing her kits, I was feeling very inspired to continue using the techniques she had taught me. I didn't post it because I was going to submit it, but too much time has passed and I don't feel like it anymore.

Birthday countdown

As I mentioned earlier, I am in the middle of planning my daughter's 5th birthday party. I saw an idea for this Birthday countdown board here on my friend's website. Loved it and knew I had to incorporate it into our household. I wish I could say I had it done 30 days prior to her birthday, but it was more like 13. She loves it and is having a blast moving her cupcake each morning.


If you look at my inspiration piece, you'll see I changed up the foundation a bit.

- I covered the whole inside of a baking sheet with patterned paper (Cosmo Cricket - Girl Friday).

- Everything is inked with Colorbox Chestnut Roan ink! Do this before gluing anything!

- But I used Susie's advice and did it with adhesive spray rather than my scrapbooking glue. Because the sheet is longer than 12" I had to overlap the pieces. Note: lay all of the base papers out prior to gluing to make sure it will fit the way you like. Once you put the spray adhesive on the back, you pretty much have one shot to get it on.

- After the base pieces were on (the blue lines and rainbow striped), I began gluing all the other pieces with normal scrapbook glue (I use Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive).

- I cut 1.5" square pieces with my trimmer out of all the various papers. Then I glued them down right next to each other in a grid.

- Glued crystals at the corners.

- Then I opened up Word, created a table with 5 columns and 6 rows at 1.5" wide and high. In the table I typed numbers 1 thru 30 (one number per square). Make sure they're centered and a good size font. Then I printed them out on Kraft cardstock. Cut the table into strips with my trimmer. Then used this Martha Stewart punch to cut out each number.

- I used one of my Soufle pens to get the inner circle drawn around the numbers. I punched a 1" circle out of scrap paper. Then I layed the circle negative over the number and just traced around it with my pen.

- Glued the numbered circles to the center of each square.

- Then I used this punch to make the scalloped border pieces to glue over my seams of my overlapping base papers.

- I used American Crafts thickers for "BIRTHDAY". If you look closely at the "t" you'll see that I had to manufacture him. I was out of t's and so I think I took an "E" and cut off the sides and repositioned them to form a "t".

- I used Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type letters for "countdown for". I did mat these letters with some cream colored cardstock.

- Then I used my Silhouette to "print and cut" cut clouds (5_clouds_Coo679_20509) with our names on them out of white cardstock and their shadows out of more Girl Friday paper. I also used the Silhouette for the cupcake piece (3_cupcakes_C00366_20509).

- For the clouds and cupcake, rather than glue them down, I glued magnets to the backs. The kind I used are old school Basic Grey magnets. They're super thin and worked great. No clue if they are still made or not though.

Now the cupcake moves as each day passes and when it's time for someone else's birthday, we simply move that cloud up to the top. My original intent was not to have the other clouds at thebottom but it's not bothering me too much right now. If worse comes to worse, I will place them in a baggie and then stick them to the back of the cookie sheet.

Sorry I didn't take pictures of the process, but this project is super easy. I love how it adds some color to my kitchen too.

Be Cute

So yesterday I finally broke into my Studio Calico kit to create a layout. I like the kit but am not sure how I feel about the value. I will for sure order one more kit from them in the near future to make my final determination. I guess I expected more embellishments. Though I am not sure why when I carefully read the contents of the kit prior to ordering. But I love how everything does coordinate really well!

So here is my layout:

The cardstock, chipboard frame, and patterned paper came from the kit. I inked everything with Walnut Stain by Ranger. From my stash: Bingo card (Jenni Bowlin), White Chipboard letters (old school Heidi Swapp), lined diecut card (Jenni Bowlin), green flower sticker (Heidi Grace), die cut with flower (S.E.I.), "cherish" sticker (old school Making Memories). I wanted to Glimmer Mist the green cardstock but the nozzle was clogged and was only dripping out ink. So I went with it and sort of threw it on there. Then I sprayed over it with some gold Maya Mist. The chipboard frame comes bare so I just grabbed some of my Ranger Distress Inks and patted them down on top of it. I used Aged Mohangany, Shabby Shutters, and Fired Brick. Then I sprayed that with the gold Maya Mist too. All and all, it came together very quickly and I am pleased to say that I have finally created a layout!

Ummmm ... yeah!

Holy cow! Once again, it's been a long time since I have posted here. I just noticed that my last post was #200. That seems like a lot of posts but then you realize I have been doing this since 2008 and then it doesn't seem that impressive.

Anyways I feel like I have been busy but I am not sure I have a whole lot to show for it. I did snap pictures of some projects I have completed recently and will share them over the coming days.

We were on vacation from 8/28 thru 9/11 so that explains some of my absence. We went to Utah (Zion and Moab) as well as Colorado (Breckenridge and Colorado). It was a great trip except for the ER visit with Hannah and then the subsequent stomach flu that worked it's way through the whole family taking away a grand total of 6 (yes that says six) days of quality family time. One of us was always staying with the healthy child or taking both children so the sick adult could rest. Unfortunately this always happens with us when we take a vacation. Usually it's only me, but the last two times we have done a big vacation (coincidentally both were to CO), the whole family gets sick. I tell ya, it's enough to make me swear off ever leaving our house again.
Then we returned and Hannah started school. That's an adjustment. She's still in preschool but goes every day now. Of course she's doing well and loving every minute of it.

She also started soccer. It was a bit of a fiasco getting her situated with a team. Too long of a story to even bother posting here but now she's on a great team and is very welcomed. She scored her first goal ever and of the game last weekend. And can you believe that I didn't see it?!!! No, I was tending to the other child who simply had to have a drink of water at that moment. Oh well. I am sure there will be more to come. It's a total blast being on the sidelines cheering for her. The whole game consists of twenty minutes of play. The way it's set up the girls are playing the whole time with a 5 minute break in the middle. Towards the middle of the 2nd half, you could see Hannah was gassed. It was as if she was thinking, "Yeah, if the ball comes near me then maybe I'll try to kick it, but I am not running from either side of the field anymore." Clearly we need to condition her some more. :)

Her birthday is coming up in less than 2 weeks so that means I am knee deep in planning. We're doing a Candy Land themed party. This weekend NEEDS to be go time otherwise we are screwed! You know I will post pictures of how the party turns out here. I am nervous because this is the first year we're not doing a bouncer. We're going to try games instead. That means I need to be on top of everything and attempt to keep all their attention. There could be 25 kids. Yikes!

So I thought I would end this post with a project Hannah did since most of this stuff is about her. On Tuesday she was in my scraproom and asked to play with one of my embellishment containers that holds my brads and eyelets and stuff. Fine, sure. Then she says she wants to use them. I tell her she has to have a specific project in mind. She decides she wants to do a layout. I tell her to find a picture she wants to use. And she picks a cute one of herself. Somehow I managed to find time to sit and help her do a layout. She picked everything out (paper, embellishments, etc - I even let her use the one and only favorite crystal brad of mine that I had been saving for a very special occasion; you know the kind that never seem to come around?). She trimmed the paper down. She placed everything. The only thing I told her was that nothing could hang over the edge of the page and the paper had to go down first and then the photo and then the embellishements. I did all the gluing, but I swear I put it exactly where she laid it out. Throughout the process I kept saying I thought she had too many pieces of paper but she wouldn't remove any of them. I made her tell me about the layout so I could journal for her. She wrote her name on the "CUTE" die cut piece. So here's the finished product and I have to say, it's pretty darn good. So excited to have another scrapbooker in the family.