Slacker

Okay, so I am such a slacker. My main excuse for not blogging has been lack of a camera, since I broke mine at the beach in June. Oops. But really, I could probably find more things to blog about without pictures if I tried. They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so it just saves me a lot of work if I have pics.

I feel like my kids are growing up overnight and I won't have any pictures of them for over a month of growth. Can you imagine how sad it would be to not have pictures of your children? What if something happened to my pictures or scrapbooks that destroyed them? I would be absolutely devastated. I have a terrible memory so if I don't document my children's lives I wouldn't remember much. I can't even remember how much Savannah weighed when she was born. I forget all the cute things she says. Luckily, I also forget some of the not so pleasant things too.

Just thinking about this with the lack of a camera has really made me appreciate my scrapbooking so much. I have backups of all my pictures in case something were to happen to my albums, but I would sure cry over the loss of all the books. I'm not an expert scrapbooker. My pages are not all beautiful or creative, but they hold some of my most precious memories. Creating each page allows me to reflect on my children in a positive light. I appreciate them more, and can even laugh at upsetting things like Caleb covering himself in melted chocolate. Scrapbooking is "me" time. It (usually) helps me relax and appreciate my life and my family.

So, pull out your scrapbooks and create something beautiful the next time you get a chance. If you do not scrapbook, I would like to extend a challenge to you to try it. You don't have to commit to scrapping for the rest of your life. Just pick a favorite vacation, or a birthday or something small like a year in review and make a small 6 x 6 album, complete with pictures and journaling. Relive the memories and the feelings and don't worry about the layout. Just enjoy the experience and appreciate the time spent doing something totally worthwhile and rewarding.

Stamping with Bleach

This is a cool technique! I haven't done it a lot, but it is fun to experiment with different colors of paper because you get different results with each color.

1. Pour a small amount of fresh, liquid bleach onto a bed of folded paper towels, making sure it's wet but not full of puddles. Or, instead of using paper towels, saturate a piece of felt. You can pour the bleach out when done & reuse the container later with fresh bleach.
2. Put undiluted liquid bleach in a spray bottle & mist over a protected area...spray away from your face, wave the stamp though the mist. Don’t spray directly onto the stamp. The stamp only needs to be barely damp to work on your cardstock.

Tips & Instructions:

Test all methods first on scrap cardstock. I like using a sandwich size tupperware container to hold my paper towels. Keeping bleach in a spritzer bottle or container, you’ll notice that bleach will become cloudy with time. This is the bleach reacting to light (notice that bleach bottles are opaque). Just pour out unused bleach & refresh your container when ready to use again. Experiment for what works right for you & practice. When using the paper towel pad or felt pad, dab lightly onto the bleach pad a few times to make sure you have your stamp wet & covered. Stamp your images onto the cardstock. Hold the stamp down for several seconds, so that the detail of the stamp gets impressed onto the paper. If you want a lighter/less detailed look, hold the stamp down not for very long. Watch the change. Clean your stamps immediately after using them with Stampin’ Mist.

Just for Kids Games Class

Who: YOU and your friends and family!!!

What: "Just for Kids" Games Class

When: July 18th, 2009 1-4 pm

Where: Rhonda's house

Why: Make fun games/projects for kids as shown below!

How: Register for the class before July 1st by contacting me and letting me know what projects you'd like to make.

How much:

Mini Puzzle $1.00

Memory Game (14 pairs) $3.00 (28 pairs) $6.00

Bingo Game (set with 6 cards) $5.00 (set with 10 cards) $8.00

Tic-Tac-Toe $1.00

ABC Upper/Lowercase Game $2.00

ABC Picture Flashcards $4.00

Box $4.00 (I have a limited supply of these--first come, first served)

I'll try to post the rest of the pictures soon. I broke our brand new camera at the beach last week, so I might be out of luck for a while. Sorry!

As always, please invite friends and family & let me know if you have any questions!

Ribbon Hair Clips

I have made a variety of hair clips for Savannah in the past year. It's been fun to try different styles, but as always I try to keep them simple. My first attempt was with the curly ribbons, which are my favorite but also the most work. (Although I've started working on some new ones that are incredibly time consuming, but will be worth it when I get them done...) Very fun to figuring out how to make though!

More recently I made simple ones tying bows with ribbons and gluing on fun flowers & brads. Much cheaper than buying them in the store! If you're interested in making some, this is a fun class for moms and their girls.

Technique of the Week--Glassy Glaze Enamel

In order to really make me keep doing something on a consistent basis, I decided to start featuring a "technique of the week" on this blog. The post will highlight ways to use a specific product or paper crafting technique. If you have a specific technique or product that you would like to learn more about, let me know in a comment and I will feature it on an upcoming post.

Glassy Glaze Enamel is a very thick embossing powder. I love embossing things, and this glaze is useful for creating a thick, solid glaze over your project. The name pretty much says it all, so I feel rather redundant trying to explain it. I guess I'll just show you a few examples of it put to use then!

Works great with craft ink for embossing on tiles:

Use it to make your entire project appear to be covered with glass or plastic (I used VersaMark, another FABULOUS product, to get the enamel to stick to the whole image):

After covering your entire paper with 2 layers of enamel, put the paper in the freezer for a minute and bend the paper to crack the glaze, creating a cracked glass effect:

Pre-designed Scrapbooks

I made some scrapbooks for my brother's twin girls. I got the albums from Making Memories and added some ribbon & rub-ons to the little ones. These pre-designed books are so great because they're simple to make and to use. For the 12x12 combined album I used a retired set of designer series paper from Stampin' Up! The two individual 6x6 albums were made using a Simply Scrappin' Kit--one of my all-time favorite things from Stampin' Up! Most of the accessories are random brads, eyelets, metal plates, etc. but I also used my friend's fabulous Cricut to cut out some titles. What a great tool! All my sis-in-law needs to do now is add pictures and journaling. Here are a couple examples.

Preschool video

I couldn't get my email to attach a video clip of the kids in our little neighborhood co-op preschool, so I'm posting it here so they can check it out. My house has never been so clean, thanks to all those hard workers!

Birthday Bruises

My wonderful son is the most accident prone person I have ever met. He's even worse than I am (even when I pregnant), which is hard to beat! So, we're putting off the "professional" birthday photos because every time I want to get them done he falls and whacks himself (usually somewhere on the face). No I don't abuse my child, I just have a VERY active, clumsy baby. The latest happened last night after his bath. He was crawling on the bathroom floor, when his hand slipped out from under him and his cute little teeth cut his mouth right open and gave him a nice fat lip, once he stopped bleeding. Looking good, Caleb! Hopefully, the bruise on your forehead from the night before will fade soon, along with the ones on your cheek from the beginning of the week. I envy your energy and your ability to bounce back so easily to move on to the next injury. I'm surprised that you haven't need stitches yet, so that's a plus! Happy Birthday! We love you!!!

Savannah's excuses

So, this has nothing to do with stamping, but it does involve art, so I decided to post this anyway. Savannah has been playing with her friend Aubrie this morning and they pulled out the markers to color some beautiful pictures. After a couple of minutes Savannah told me she got some on her hand and needed me to help her clean it. She came down, and her ENTIRE hand was covered in black marker. (I would have taken a picture, but my camera batteries are dead and I needed to clean it up ASAP.) So, while cleaning her up I lectured her about how we never color our bodies and how she should know better. I asked her why she did it and she looked at me with an innocent face and said, "The marker made me do it." Who needs the devil when you have markers forcing you to do things?

Party Favors

For a child's birthday party, here is a quick and cute party favor idea for the guests. Simple yet fun!