I have another tutorial ready for you guys over at a Cherry on Top. I will be showing you a step by step photo tutorial on how to make these:
They are for Valentine’s Day (I grabbed the Hand Sanitizer at my local craft store in their $1 bin – but you could use lotion if you wanted, or try the Dollar Store). You could change the look of these for ANY Holiday, which I love. These would be great for Fall/Winter craft fairs (who doesn’t need a purse-sized bottle of hand sanitizer or lotion, right?)
Click HERE to see the full blown tutorial on making these. Thanks!
So I mentioned the other day that I was buying a new photo printer. Well, it finally arrived and I’m SO excited. After a lot of research, I decided to go with the Epson Stylus Photo 2880. I wasn’t going to purchase a printer anytime soon, but they have a great $300 rebate promo going on when purchasing along with a DSLR camera. I was planning on upgrading my camera body anyway, so it worked out great for me!
The only bad part about the printer is that it’s slightly large. OK, it’s enormous. But it’s wide format printer…so I can print up to 13″ on this bad boy. WOOT WOOT!
I have a few reasons that pushed me to purchase my own high quality photo printer:
For me, the most overwhelming part of scrapbooking is getting prints made. Deciding which pics to get prints of, uploading them, purchasing them, picking them up, etc. – it is very hard for me to know which prints to order, how many, etc. – especially when I’m not looking to scrap them right away. I will often just get a bunch of prints made & then sit down at a later time to scrapbook them, only to find that I wish I had different ones, or a different size, etc. I end up wasting a lot of money on prints I don’t use, and then I don’t know what to do with them?
Size. I find scrapbooking 4″x6″ prints to be daunting. It’s so hard to fit a good amount of photos on one page without over-crowding the page, and then having no room for titles, journaling & embellishments. I could pick some 3″x5″ photo prints, but not all companies will make prints those size. And that leads back to previous bullet point – how do I decide which size of each print to make, etc.
What really made up my mind were 2 blogs that I follow. The first being the extremely talented Kerri Bradford. She offers amazing templates and digital cut files on her site. I was really digging the way you could put photos together in a collage and then put those to a scrapbook page. WAY easier to tell a story chock full of photos that way, right?
And finally, the thing that *really* made me take the plunge was of course seeing what Nichol MacGourik has done with Kerri’s photo templates. Oh my. She is just so talented & her layouts blow me away every time! (if you don’t watch her videos or follow her site, do it…now!!) I really like how she gets to include lots of photos, but also has plenty of space for titles & journaling on all of her pages.
SO – all of that led me to my new printer (and new camera, yay!) Today I was able to give it a test run and even scrap the photos in a layout. It was so nice to sit down, compile the photos I wanted into a collage using this set of templates from Kerri Bradford, and put the photos onto a scrapbook page right away.
I’ve been learning a lot watching Nichol’s videos. I am trying to get better at utilizing layering & embellishments to add pieces of interest to my layouts. I find that it helps to have the coordinating sticker sheet that goes with the collection. It makes adding these touches a no brainer…!
I layered the snowflake with some dimensional adhesive to make it pop up off the page a bit. I added brads and some small staples to finish things off. I also did some stitching along the edges of paper using my sewing machine (I did that prior to adhering any photos to the page)
The only thing I don’t really like about this layout is how Brooke’s hot pink snow suit doesn’t really go with the colors of the paper. But oh well, what can ya do? Girlfriend looks stylin’ in her snowsuit that Nana bought her, so that makes up for it
I had a bunch of leftover stamped images from a few Valentine’s Day projects using this stamp set from PaperTrey Ink. The thing that really made me want to buy this set was that it can be used for more than just Valentine’s stuff. HELLO kid cards!
Our friends have twins who turned 2 the other day – one boy & one girl (God BLESS them, LOL). We were invited to their Birthday party and I needed some fun cards to go along with the gifts. I used some of my already-stamped images and came up with these cards real quick. They measure 3.75″x3.75″. I didn’t use envelopes (2 year olds don’t care about envelopes anyway, right? ) – I just stuck the cards on top of the gift bags.
I used this stamp set from Papertrey to stamp the polka dot background. This is definitely one of my all time favorite background stamp sets…! I used 1 3/4″ and 2″ circle punches, a scallop punch, and some Stampin Up ribbon to finish off the cards.
so here we are at 9 months…just 3 months until my little girl is a year old. I cannot believe it. In case you missed my 2 other posts tonight, I am finally getting around to posting month updates for the last few months. I clearly slacked on those..sorry! Time just got away from me. I really wanted to keep doing this though, because I am using this as a journal for when I scrapbook these photos. In fact, I plan on starting that scrapbook soon, so stay tuned for info on that!
So, Brooke is growing so fast and learning more & more everyday. She keeps us laughing all the time…and definitely keeps us on our toes! Only the beginning I’m sure…
OK I have a confession. I am obsessed with her chunk. I could NOT resist this shot. I mean who could? And I will also confess that even though it’s January, I sometimes delay putting her clothes on her for a few minutes. Just so I can watch her roam around in her diaper. Because she is SO cute with all the chunk everywhere. GAH. Love it
…and below she is finally saying “ENOUGH with the pictures Mom. SERIOUSLY!!?!”
At 9 months, Brooke:
is completely, 100% mobile. She is EVERYWHERE. Crawling forward, zooming around, pulling up on anything & everything entirely on her own.
has stood in place, freestanding a few times without holding onto anything (yikes!)
is almost walking. Yes, I know. Way too fast. I don’t think it will be much longer until she takes a few steps…!
chats it up all the time. MAMAMAMAMA and DADADADA are a few of her favorites. I’m not 100% sure that she knows what they mean, but loves to say it a lot. It’s super cute!
is a human vacuum with food. Loves anything & everything we put in front of her. She just *sort of* started taking things off a spoon, like yogurt. But prefers to feed herself way more. She LOVES broccoli and American cheese. But for the most part she eats anything we give her.
still has zero teeth. HA! Every week I think it’s going to happen but still nothing yet.
sleeps great (aside from when she is sick but who can blame her). She still falls asleep a lot in the car and naps great so I can’t complain. She typically takes one small nap in the morning and then a longer nap in the afternoon.
spends time in my crafting room with me sometimes after her afternoon nap. I bring her up there when I’m trying to finish something up & she has a great time. I don’t bring any of her toys up there, I just give her a few of my things to play with. She loves exploring and getting to play with new things, and be with Mama of course
still going to swim class & loving it.
still smiley all the time, even at total strangers. Love it. Such a happy girl – We are truly blessed!
I’ve been taking her photos in her playroom lately. We are still working on finishing the room, but I’m sure you can tell by these pics that we sort of tiled the floor with those foam squares. It works out great and adds nice color to the room. I hope over the next few weeks we can get some paint on the walls & add some decorations. I am sure I will do a post about it on here once it’s complete!
…and here is my REALLY delayed post for Brooke at 8 months. I promise I will try & keep up for the remaining 3 months of her first year!
my chunky legs…Mama loves them! They have a few bruises from all the crawling around & pulling up I’ve been doing…!
oh this? This is just another thing for me to stand up on…right?
…right??
At 8 Months, Brooke:
is *finally* crawling FORWARD! yay! For a while all she would do is scoot backwards, and end up in corners, and get frustrated, haha!
is pulling up on anything & everything. She is STANDING up people. On her OWN. In fact, she did this before she learned to crawl. It’s crazy how fast she picks things up!
is doing great with food. Has her pincer grasp down totally now. Feeds herself like a champ. We have never fed Brooke solid food – she has always fed herself. It works out so much better that way. She sits and eats family meals *with* us. Whatever we have, she has (as long as it’s somewhat healthy!) All in all, meal time is a fun time in this house. Which we like!
is very chatty. Lots of dahhh dahh dahh and mahhh mah mah muh muh mum mum. We love listening to it…even if it doesn’t really mean anything
is already switched to the lowest level on her crib mattress we had to do it once she started pulling to stand. Just wasn’t safe anymore. I admit, I am sad
has officially pushed us to start babyproofing the house. Baby gates are in, and we are slowly figuring out ways to keep her contained but also let her explore. It’s challenging (and tiring!) but oh so fun.
Loves her Momma and Dada. She is sort of in a “I want my Mommy” phase right now which I hear is typical for this age. It is especially bad if she’s tired and I walk by while someone else is holding her. She instantly reaches out for me and Lord help me if I do not grab hold of her. Let’s just say she’s not happy. LOL.
She is still VERY smiley and happy. Smiles at everyone! Not many things freak her out – she’s easy going and up for most anything.
Is loving her swim classes and any & all activities or events we take her to. Santa didn’t even scare her (yay!)
SO – now that Brooke is over 9 months old, I figured I should post her SEVEN and EIGHT month updates. D’oh!
I’ve had these typed out for a while but just haven’t gotten around to posting them. I really have no excuse (other than the cute baby you see in these pics) – all I know is I have been a slacking slacker who slacks. So without further ado, I will be posting her 7, 8 & 9 month updates. All in one night
…always happy
At 7 Months, Brooke:
is *almost* crawling. She loves to get up on her knees and rock back & forth! She also scoots all over the place, but backwards. She gets stuck sometimes and gets pretty frustrated!
loves to eat her puffs & cheerios. She loves shaking the tupperware container that has the puffs & cheerios even MORE though
speaking of eating, Brooke is becoming quite the pro at feeding herself! We never fed Brooke by spoon – we have let her pickup & feed herself right from the start, and I think she prefers it that way – she is getting really good at it!
sits up like a pro!
is STILL putting anything & everything into her mouth. ALL. THE. TIME
still no sign of any teeth. Certainly the above bullet point would suggest teeth are on their way, but alas, we have no teeth yet!
Hi everyone – just sort of a miscellaneous post for you today with a few few projects that I have been meaning to share. I’m uploading all of these to my Etsy Shop so I wanted to blog about them here, too.
SIDENOTE: You might wonder why I am always mentioning items in my Etsy Shop. Sorry if it’s annoying – but its my way of keeping this blog going & paying for all that it entails! Yes, that includes the crafting supplies & fun toys like my new camera I just ordered (yay!). I am doing my best to pay for my hobby through making the items that I love. It makes it much easier and I feel less guilty when I want to buy a new toy. The good news is that you all benefit from this when I share with you some new pics, and also some new layouts using my new Epson printer that I just bought. (SUPER excited about that one. ) Anyway, NONE of that would even be possible without all of you awesome readers, so thanks for being patient & listening to me babble on and on….
ANYHOO – onto the stuff!
These are some more Tic Tac Holders. I had to some that were more boy-themed. Here is what I came up with. Love these stamps. I will be offering these for sale as a set of 4, you choose the designs you want.
Some more Ghirardelli holders using Whimsie Doodles stamps. I printed these on blue cardstock & used my Copics to color in a few details on the fish.
Lastly, some hot cocoa sliders using more of the stamps from Whimsie Doodles. I can’t get enough of these stamps – they are just too funny!
and I know I am a little biased because I love photography & all – but I think this one might be my fave. This is a great one to give to all the Photographer’s in your life…!
hope you guys are having a great week! I will be anxiously watching for the UPS man to deliver my new printer so that I can get started on some layouts. Hehe
I used some SUPER adorable digital stamps on these from Whimsie Doodles. How funny are they? (“I really MUSTACHE you to be mine”. HAHA!)
The stamps at this website really crack me up. They have so many fun ones to choose from – I have to say thank you to Melyssa, the owner of Whimsie Doodles for sending me these fun Valentine stamps to try out. I can’t wait to show you the other projects I’ve come up with using these.
For those of you who are tired of the same “themey” (expensive)Valentine Cards that you buy in the store, this post is for you. Brooke is not school aged yet, but I’m sure that when we get there, she will have a LOT of little friends to hand out Valentines to. I thought I would share how to save a little money and make some yourself. (ones that are way cuter!)
Not only are these inexpensive, they are unique and ADORABLE! You can find these awesome free printables on Lori’s blog. I simply printed them out on a color printer, cut them up and adhered to some colored cardstock. I added some stamping to the back to address the Valetines & that’s it, done!
Lori is SUPER talented. She has an Etsy shop with some adorable prints (a few of which I will definitely be buying to decorate Brooke’s playroom!) PLEASE remember: if you download these free images, remember they are for personal use ONLY. IÂ saw this post recently on Lori’s blog and it made me sad. I think it’s just a really crappy thing to do to someone who is giving so much of themselves to others. (people really stink sometimes!)
I think the rocket ship is my fave… it’s so darn cute. These are so much better than anything you buy in store. So…don’t buy any in store, OK? Be sure to print these, and then thank Lori for being so awesome and making them available to us for free. Â
I’ve been trying to use my Silhouette more for cardmaking in addition to scrapbooking. I found some really cute digital cut files in the Silhouette online store so I decided to make some cute cards out of them…
This cut file is from Lori Whitlock. I used a favorite Hero Arts background Cling Stamp to stamp the text background on this pink cardstock. I added some pink ribbon from Papertrey Ink on this set, but I also changed it up a bit  and used some light pink satin ribbon on the other pair of cards.
The white cardstock on here is American Crafts cardstock – it cuts like butter on the Silhouette so I knew it would be perfect to use for this small text. I was concerned it would tear or not cut out properly, but I have to say that this cardstock really does an amazing job when used with the Silhouette.
This set could be used for Valentine’s Day or even a Birthday card. I love this little owl (also from Lori Whitlock)…I just had to buy him when I saw it listed in the online store…!
The sentiment on this stamp is from an older company called Cornish Heritage Farms. They had gone out of business a while ago, but last I heard they might be coming back – I’m not quite sure.
