Guest Posting

Good Morning! Today I am super excited to be guest posting over at Life with the Ellwoods! Go check it out!

Photo Birthday Card

First I have to thank my sis-in-law for inviting me to be her first guest blogger. She's so crafty, and I'm proud that she asked me to contribute to her site. Warning: this is my first ever blog post. Now that the stage has been set, on to Act I.

When I was pregnant, besides giving us all the usual unsolicited advice, many people felt the need to warn me about how drastically different life was going to be. “You’ll wonder what you ever did with your time” was a phrase I heard a lot. In the midst of all the changes that were happening to my body, the doctor’s appointments, job changes, additional sleep requirements, and the busyness of preparing for baby, I thought that my life was already getting crazy and my free time had already been severely limited. Oh how naïve…kinda like when I was admitted to the hospital and the nurse asked, “On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the worst pain of your life, how bad are your contractions?”  A 10, definitely a 10.  Four hours later I was longing for those easy contractions. On the other side of a miracle, the world looks different. Perspectives change. Love changes.

Now when people give me advice, “Enjoy every moment” and “They grow up so fast,” I really try to take it to heart. I’m trying to make the most of every moment and make special memories for our family. The birth of our daughter has been a great source of inspiration to me, and I’d like to share one of our projects that I believe captures the candid, joyful everyday moments that I’m blessed to share with our little girl. I made the photos into a card to give to my husband (another great source of inspiration!) on his 28^th birthday this year. I hope this project serves to inspire you as well.

I believe that good preparation can give you an edge in just about every area of life. School, work, a speech, cooking, and especially a project involving a 6 month old. Yes, preparation is key.

 I started by purchasing a package of plain white onesies. I had a couple other projects that required them, so a three pack was perfect for me. Plus it never hurts to have extras when your subject could involuntarily stain her outfit (back, front, top or bottom) at any moment. A friend gave me some felt scraps that she had leftover from her one-year old's birthday party.

I started by dressing Naomi in her onesie and using the old finger measuring trick to see approximately how large the letters should be to fit nicely across her belly. You know, the trick where you hold your fingers apart at the right distance and try to transfer them to something else before you squeeze them together or open them up any farther than when you took your measurement? Very technical, I know. Although the perfectionist in me is cringing, no, screaming in agony, having an infant has taught me that getting it done is more important that getting it done perfectly. Anyway, I cut the first "H" out of the felt and then used tape to affix it to the onesie for a test letter. The size looked just about right.

Next I cut out the other letters using the “H” as my template for the height and width. A shopping trip with Naomi’s grandma provided the needed downtime to finish cutting out all the letters. Baby’s sleeping, someone else is driving – instant free time for projects! I laid the letters out in the backseat as I finished each one to avoid putting the same color letter too close to another letter of the same color, and I was careful to cut each of the letters that were repeated from different color felt. I’m still allowed to be a little OCD.

I prepared for the photo shoot by laying out all the felt letters and placing a few pieces of rolled up tape on the back of each one. Once all the letters had their temporary sticking solution, I put the baby in her onesie and propped her up on our bed during the middle of the day when the sunshine would provide plenty of natural light through the big window in our bedroom. I noted the time of day in case I had to do a re-shoot or needed to finish another day. That way the pictures would have approximately the same lighting conditions.


I used my Cannon Rebel Digital XT on automatic to take all the pictures. The flash never came on because of the good natural light. I attempted to work quickly so that the light would be close to the same from start to finish. This was somewhat of a challenge with a squirmy baby. Between trying to crawl away, eat the felt letters, eat the tape, and grab the camera, it took about an hour to take all the pictures. I took several with each letter just in case one didn't turn out well. As it turned out, my first attempt to get through all the letters yielded the perfect combination of candid shots from the first smiles to the final squirms.

 

I downloaded all the pictures from my camera to Picasa, picked out my favorites, and cropped them to approximately the same size. I found some 8.5" x 11" card stock that you could fold in half to create a personalized card and 8.5" x 11" photo paper. Then I created a Word document to paste each picture on an 8.5" x 11" page. I changed the margins to 0.1" all around, and sizing the pictures to 1" x 1.5" made them fit on the page perfectly. I printed the pictures on the photo paper, cut off the excess, and pasted it to the front of the card stock. A mushy personal note later, and it was instantly the best birthday present I've ever given my husband. Now her dad and I can enjoy all those little moments forever.

Iron on Printables for Baby Onsies

I've got some printables for you today! I made girl ones originally for my niece; however today I thought to myself ... I should share these and make some for boys too! So here you go! Download the ones you want my clicking their name. Here's a sneak peak of what they look like. I have the words and numbers printed backwards to make it easier when your ready to print it out on your iron on paper (believe me... I've messed this up way too many times to count :) )

1 Month Old Girl
1 Month Old Boy
2 Month Old Girl
2 Month Old Boy
3 Month Old Girl
3 Month Old Boy
4 Month Old Girl
4 Month Old Boy
5 Month Old Girl
5 Month Old Boy
6 Month Old Girl
6 Month Old Boy
7 Month Old Girl
7 Month Old Boy
8 Month Old Girl
8 Month Old Boy
9 Month Old Girl
9 Month Old Boy
10 Month Old Girl
10 Month Old Boy
11 Month Old Girl
11 Month Old Boy
1 Year Old Girl 
1 Year Old Boy

Thank you for stopping by! I hope you have an amazing day!

States Book Project

This week the little one and I are starting a new project. We are assembling a "States Book." It will be magnificent, lovely, fun, educational, and super interactive. OK, OK, OK so maybe I've got big plans for this and they may be unreasonable but I'm excited about it and the munchkin is too (and being excited about learning is a GREAT thing). Here's my vision:

• laminated coloring pages to include
• an outline of the state with major river and tributaries
• a star to mark the capitol
• the state's flag
• FUN facts about the state (including admittance to the union, state bird, state tree, state song, and any scientific findings found in that state.
• an outline map of the USA where each week we will place a colored in state onto the map to track our progress.
• For dinner that week we will try to include cuisine from that state.
• at the end of this whole project we will assemble a binder of all the states we've studied so that once school starts she can reference it!

We are going in Alphabetical order and are starting with Alabama. At one state a week this time next year we should have a completed "States Book". I would love ideas from you! If you know anything special and wonderful/ unusual about your state please leave me a comment. I'm going to be posting my printable pages as we go so get ready for ALABAMA!

New Up-cycling to come!

Hello all! I haven't been posting for the last few days because I have a BUNCH of neat projects in the works... but none finished :(. My hubby decided to jump on the crafty band-wagon this week and while I LOVE all the help it means that my house is a complete wreck as he finishes his projects. Here are a couple coming your way!

 Hubby working on the coffee table he found (free = awesome!) Can't wait to show you this one!

 We got this entertainment center from a friend of mine hoping we could use it as an entertainment center. Once we got it home we realized that our tv doesn't fit... what to do?!?! UP-CYCLE! It's going to become many AMAZING projects (a chalk board, a wooded background for sayings in the little one's room, a laundry folding table, shelves, etc...)

Then surgery began...

 He's so handsome!

 This is the glass door from the cabinet of the entertainment center. I'm almost done painting the border and after that I'm going to paint the glass with homemade chalkboard paint complete with flowers and everything!... Much more to come on this one!

Tater decided he needed to help, isn't he cute!

So that's it for now, I'll be posting lots of fun pictures and how to's very soon!!!

Crayon art

My daughter wanted me to post a picture of the crayon art she did several weeks ago. She is very proud of it! It really came out nice with the metallic crayons mixed in!

Canvas Painting Made Easy

So my brother-in-law got married this past weekend and the crazy person inside me decided that I should make them and wedding present. I painted this in the living room and its a good thing I decided to roll up the carpet because I made a BIG mess :) Here goes...

You'll need:

a Canvas

Vinyl lettering (I chose 2" high in Helvetica type)

3-4 colors of paint

A hairdryer (if you're as impatient as I am :) )

 I started by measuring the height of the vinyl letters I bought and made pencil lines across the canvas 1/2" taller than the letters. Then I lined up the top of the letters to the pencil line and started applying letters.

 So at this point is where I realize I don't have enough vinyl letters... FAIL. So back to the store I go and start over :)

All the vinyl letters are on and at this point I erased my pencil lines and started painting. 

I chose to paint this the colors of my Brother-in-law's wedding so for the background I painted the canvas silver and went over it with black. I used a wide and relatively dry brush to get the effect I wanted. (This is where the hairdryer comes in handy  because you want the dark colors completely dry before you start adding more colors in)

Next I added in some pops of color!

Once you're happy with the look of it CAREFULLY remove the vinyl letters (and touch up as needed).

BRAVO! Not nearly as difficult or time consuming as I thought it would be :)