Welcome Baby Laila!

It has occurred to me that I posted all of these craft projects related to my granddaughter's baby shower but have not shared with you the outcome.  My son Kyle and daughter-in-law Dana and big brother Nick welcomed Laila Olivia Vivian Elizabeth to the family on May 12.  She proudly shares two of her great-grandmother's names.  She is a beautiful little girl who we are anxious to meet in just a few short weeks.  The burlap wreath shown here holds a proud place on the wall of her bedroom.

She has also been seen sporting many of the headbands that guests made at the baby shower held for her.  I know we all really enjoyed making them for her and they certainly match many of her outfits.

Thanks for sharing our excitement!  Until next time, Imagine, Create, and Enjoy!

Headbands

My daughter-in-law Dana found here an idea on Pinterest for an elastic headbands station to have at her shower.  She liked this idea because it allowed the guests to personalize something for baby Laila during the shower.  I set about figuring out how to get it done! After visits to JoAnn's, Michaels, and Hobby Lobby I found all the requisite supplies mostly on sale.  Luckily the main part, the stretchy headband materials was sold by the spool at Hobby Lobby and I caught it on a sale day.  I was able to pick up about six different colored spools and ended up getting about six headbands per roll.  I cut them in about 12-14" lengths and sewed the ends together.

In addition to the headbands I picked up matching colors of felt, fabric flowers, pre-made bows, jewels, small butterflies, and small button shapes. The flowers were different colors and patterns (polka dots), different styles (zebra print), mostly daisies, and some other flowers.  I took and pulled off or cut off the flowers from the stems and then hot glued them on the bottom to make sure the centers and the flower layers stayed together.  When I looked at putting them on to the headbands though I felt they weren't going to lay flat on the headbands and would be too heavy for the headbands.  I looked at the original idea and saw some felt circles in the example so went back and picked up some matching felt.  I took my Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die and cut the felt using the largest flower on the die.  I cut about 6-8 of each color so they could be used to glue the flowers on and then glue on to the headbands.

So we set up a separate area at the shower with hot glue guns and all of the different components laid out on the table and told everyone at the beginning of the shower where everything was located and invited them to make their way into the dining room to create their own special gift for baby Laila.

To make sure Dana and Kyle knew who had created each of the headbands, I cut tags with my Cricut and cut 12" lengths of thin ribbon (1/8" wide).  On each of the tags I stamped the word From: on one side and then asked each Guest Headband Designer to sign their creation and tie the tag to the headband they made. The guests were eager participants and enjoyed creating some really pretty headbands for Laila.  We can't wait to see her wearing each and everyone of the gifts.

Here is a group shot of all of the completed headbands.  They really turned out nicely. She will be quite the styling little girl!  Keep on Imagining, Creating, and Enjoying every day!

Mesh Wreath

Mesh wreaths have become all the rage as of late.  I decide my first try would be to make one for Laila's baby shower.  I spent a couple of different trips to Michael's, JoAnn's, and Hobby Lobby to check out the supplies, costs, ideas, and colors of mesh.  I spent some time reading through one of the books while standing in the aisle at the store.  After looking at the picture directions in the book I figured I could do this without spending the $10 on the book.  I'd rather spend the money on the supplies for the wreath.

Since I had already started the diaper cake with the bright pink colors, I followed through here.  I chose burlap looking mesh and then a hot pink mesh to coordinate with it choosing to alternate the burlap and pink mesh (I used the smaller 6" rolls versus the large 12" rolls). Once I had finished fixing the mesh to the wreath base (by using pipe cleaners in hot pink), I started adding flowers.  I took pretty Gerber daisy flowers in various shades of pink and white and glued them around the wreath with some pearl accents behind them. The pearl accents were a strand picked up from the floral section at the craft store.  I separated the different strands to maximize them as I wanted some behind all of the flowers. Additionally, I added some pretty butterflies from the floral section of the hobby store and the word Love across the bottom of the wreath. It was in the wood letters section at the craft store and already painted white, so I left it exactly as it came. The letters spell out Laila's full name: Laila Olivia Vivian Elizabeth. She will share names with two of her great grandmother's.  A beautiful tribute to both sides of the family!

Once I hot glued everything together I added a small butterfly on the corner of Love.  Kyle really liked the wreath...enough so he wants to put it in Laila's nursery.  Now I've gotta figure out how to ship it to them in Indiana!

Until next time...Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

More Butterflies!

My son Kyle's baby shower was held at his in-laws home out in Courtland on a Saturday afternoon.  The weather in March in Northern California (similar to most areas of the country) can range from cold, wet, rainy and 30 degrees to warm, sunny, dry and 75 degrees.  Lucky for us we got the warm, sunny, dry, close to 75 degree weather!  We were thrilled as we had decided to have the shower outside.  The in-laws home in Courtland sits on a large piece of property and there is a long driveway with shade trees and ample space in front of the garage area so we decided to utilize that area.  We rented round tables, tablecloths and even a EZ-Up cover.

Since the other decorations were leaning in more of a pink/brown theme, we carried that through to the rest of the decorations.  Chocolate brown table cloths, pink burlap chevron runners on the tables with strips of pink mesh in differing shades running down the middle.  Since we have tons of calla lilies in our yard, I volunteered to bring vases full of the lilies for table centerpieces.  Dana's sister Taylor worked some magic with bows on the vases and adding accents to the tables.  I followed through with the butterfly theme by cutting some more of the butterflies I had previously cut for the wands but in a  pearl pink instead of a glittery pink.  I cut them out of an old file folder and then covered with the pearl looking paper.  I had some leftover paper from my large rosette's on the other project as well and used my Tim Holtz rosette die to make some smaller rosettes.  I picked up some floral wire stems and attached them to the back of the butterfly with hot glue and a small round paper circle to cover up the end of the wire.

Back to the front of the butterfly.  I took the small rosette and hot glued it to the front of the butterfly.  Then I used some more of the pretty pink jeweled brads from the last project and added that on top of the rosette. When I cut the calla lilies for the centerpieces, I popped a couple of those butterflies in each of the vases to carry the theme through.

Imagine, Create, and Enjoy!

Chalkboard Hearts

It's A Girl! We were very excited when we found out that we were having a new granddaughter!  We found out back before Christmas and have been eagerly anticipating the coming of little Laila Olivia.

When we knew we were having a baby shower here, I went looking for some unconventional ways to display the news in the decorations. Everyone of course knew it was a girl, and I wanted a unique way to display that.  While in Michael's I found these cute little chalkboard hearts.

The hearts were plain chalkboard hearts with no embellishment.  I painted the dowels with the white frosty paint used on the butterfly wands.
I decided to use some pink glittery letters I had in my stash to spell out the sentiment.  I then added some hot pink glitter all around the edges of the heart and let them dry.  Finally I sealed them with a high gloss sealer and then to finish them up I decided to wrap the sticks attached to the hearts with some pretty pink flowery ribbon from my stash.  I glued it all the way down the sticks wrapping with a nice even spacing.

I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to use them at the shower but when we decided to put the diaper cake on the gift table, it was natural to just pop them into the top of the diaper cake!  See you soon!  Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Butterfly Fairy Wands!

My late friend Jayne was a wonderfully creative person who was inspired by the most unusual things and made some really beautiful and unique paper pieces. One of the things she had made was a decorative item for her niece's baby shower, shown here.  It is a butterfly fairy wand!  She had a butterfly die she used to create the base for the wand using some chipboard which she then covered in scrapbook paper on both sides.  Once she did that she cut some rosettes with the Tim Holtz rosette die. This die has two sizes of rosettes, pre-scored so all you do is cut with your Sizzix or Vagabond and then crease and glue together.  The die even has a circle to cover your glued spot in the middle of the rosette.  She put one rosette on each side of the butterfly.  Before she affixed the larger of the rosettes, she painted the stick a silver color and then wrapped it in some ribbon we found in the dollar bin on one of our craft shopping lunches.  She also backed the larger rosette with some of the ribbon and added some ribbon tendrils.

I loved the idea and have used it as inspiration to create my own set of fairy wands for Laila Olivia's baby shower.  The butterfly die I have is a little different in that it is more solid with only a couple of cut outs on each wing.  I decided to go with a (what else) heavy, pink glitter card stock for my butterflies. Liking Jayne's original idea of rosettes I did a reverse to her design and made the rosettes larger than the butterfly by using my Cricut and the Ribbons and Rosettes cartridge and cut these large rosettes with a small heart border. I then cut the smaller rosettes with the Tim Holtz die and used the smaller one on the front of the butterfly.

For the wand portion I used pre-cut dowels in 12 inch lengths you can purchase at any craft store.  I then painted them in a pearly white paint I had leftover from my "Grandkids" project.  I then grabbed a number of different rolls of ribbon from my stash...mostly pinks and browns, some I had also picked up to match the polka dot theme we had going on the cake ribbon and started cutting different lengths.  I hot glued 5 of these differing lengths to a small 3" strip of ribbon and set aside.  Once the paint on the wands was dry I wrapped each wand from top to bottom in a variety of ribbon allowing some of the pearly paint to show through.  


Next I hot glued the ribbon band to the back of the butterfly and then hot glued the wand on the back as well.  Once dry, I hot glued this piece to the large rosette and let them set.  I had picked up some brads, a variety pack of approximately 3/4" size in two shades of pink.  I took the brads and snipped off the prongs on the back with my wire cutters and then hot glued the brad to the top of the small finished rosette.  The brad became the center of each rosette.  Finally I hot glued the rosettes on to the front of the butterflies.


Here is a close up of my finished "Fairy Wands."  I made enough to use as part of the decorations at the shower and once the shower was over my daughter-in-law kept some for Laila's nursery and the rest were given to their nieces who attended the shower.  I'm very proud of my little creation!  They were fun to make and share at the shower.

Go on, Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Diaper Cake -- Round Two!

When I made my first diaper cake last year, an order was placed for the future from my then daughter-in-law to be, for a diaper cake whenever they decided to have a baby!  In fact she asked how I was going to be able to ship it out to them in Indiana!  Well, we didn't have to ship one out to them because they came to California to visit us before little Laila Olivia is born.  Dana, like many of us, loves to peruse Pinterest for ideas.  She had found this idea for a diaper cake and I set about trying my best to recreate it.

Here is a shot of the finished cake.  I changed the idea shown above in the following ways.  I chose to use some hot pink sparkly mesh ribbon as the base on each of the layers and then added the corresponding leopard print or brown and white polka dots ribbons.  I hot glued them on to the mesh and then wrapped that around each layer hot gluing it in the back to give it a finished look.  For the layers I used different sizes of diapers. For the top layer I used newborn diapers, for the middle layer I used size 2 diapers and for the bottom layer I used size 4.  I used the leftover newborn diapers in the center of the bottom layer to finish it out.  I took cake boards and cut circles out of some butterfly scrapbook papers from Susan Winget and KandCompany and covered the boards with that.

The little leopard print slippers I had found at Wal-Mart before I'd seen the cake idea, so they matched perfectly with the ribbon I was able to find at Hobby Lobby. I set those on the sides of the bottom layer.  In addition to the leopard slippers I also found a pair of pink sparkly shoes to set on top along with the pink butterfly headband shown here.  The original idea had a big bow on the top but I liked the idea of the shoes instead.  Can never have to much bling as far as I'm concerned.


I picked the scroll alphabet letter L for the front and thought briefly of painting it a different color but stuck with the white.  I tied it on to the second layer ribbon with a matching piece of thin ribbon threaded through the mesh.  Additionally, I found some soft baby spoons, some baby washcloths, some hair barrettes, some little girls socks, and a couple of pacifiers with little flowers on the buttons. All in different hues of pink!


It turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.  I thoroughly enjoyed all of the things I made for the shower, but I do think this cake turned out even better than what I had anticipated.  Of course any chance to buy pink girly things I'm totally on board with cuz there need to be more girls in my family!  Current count is 6 grand kids, 5 boys and 1 girl, so the upcoming birth of Laila is greatly anticipated!  Grandma and Grandpa need some more girls to spoil!

More fun projects to come, including how I dressed up the little hearts on top of the diaper cake shown here in this last picture.  Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Another grandbaby!

We are expecting our seventh grandchild.  Yes, you read that right seventh!  Our oldest son and daughter-in-law are expecting their first child.

She is due in early May...I'm personally holding out for my birthday...other family and friends want her born on their birthday's, so we'll see if she accommodates any of us or just comes on her own terms!!! I'm inclined to think that is what will happen (smile)!  The kids decided they wanted to come home before their little bundle of joy arrives and so while they were home we (both families) hosted a baby shower for them.

In anticipation of the birth of our newest granddaughter, I wanted to make some pretty girly decorations for the shower.  Additionally, my daughter-in-law peruses Pinterest just like many of us and had found some cute ideas for different baby shower games and activities. I was able to gather the materials from the local craft stores and we were able to have a little hair band creation activity at the shower as well as the rest of the games and fun.

The day for the shower turned out to be a beautiful Northern California spring day with sunshine and warm weather, so the outdoor festivities went off without a hitch.  I'll be posting a few of the projects I did for the shower over the next few days.  Little Laila was well loved in advance of her upcoming birth.  Come back and check out some of the special things I made for her!

See you soon!  Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Baby Gift Shadow Box

When my children were born, I saved some of those things of importance that reminded me of their birth, their hospital wrist bands, their hospital pictures, their hospital crib cards, etc.  Recently I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought what a great way to display your child's collectibles.  Well my babies are grown men now and one of them is expecting his first child, a son.  I figured this would be a great gift for him at the baby shower.  I had my hubby find the storage tub with baby memorabilia in it and found my boy's things.  For this project I used his hospital going home outfit, the ankle ID band he wore, his first picture at the hospital, his crib card, the measuring tape that measured his length, and a ceramic plate my best friend from high school made when my boys were born.  It had their vital statistics on it and a cute little poem about boys.

I happened into Jo Ann's during one of their Moonlight Madness sales and got a 16 x 20 shadow box frame in basic black.  I took off the back and covered the insert paper with blue scrapbook paper for the background of the shadowbox. It also complemented the outfit he wore home.  I attached the outfit on the right side of the background and I used fasteners to hold them in place on the board so it wouldn't slip down board.  Along the top the case I put the measuring tape and with his length circled on the tape.  In the upper left I put his going home from the hospital picture here.  I cropped it an oval and added a blue and white set of mats under the picture to make it more visible.  Below his picture I put his crib card from his hospital bassinet. I also mounted it on coordinating mats as well.  Between the picture and the outfit I put his hospital ID band.  Finally, in the lower left corner of the box I set the ceramic plate my best friend made.

After getting it all mounted in the frame, I didn't have any room for his first shoes, so I had to come up with a different idea for those.  I was describing to my friend Judith what I'd made and about my dilemma about the shoes.  She gave me the solution which you see here.  I tied the shoe strings of the baby shoes in bows and then ran a 3/8" blue grosgrain ribbon with brown edging through the lace.  One for each shoe and one longer than the other so they would hang at different lengths.  I knotted the ends of the ribbons for each shoe and knotted those two together.  The back of the frame had two eyelets.  I picked up another role of blue ribbon like the one I used on the diaper cake.  I cut two pieces of ribbon the same length.  I knotted one end around the eyelet on the back of each side of the frame and brought them together at the top of the frame tying the first part of the bow and then looping the ribbons with the shoes through the knot and draped them in the middle and tied the bow.


And here is the finished project.  I hope my son likes it, maybe he will hang it in his son's room.  What a special treat it was to make for him.  I'm sure he will be a great Daddy!


Congrats to Nathan and Tiffany!

Until the next time, Imagine, Create, Enjoy.

Diaper Cakes!

I am becoming a grandma again...my middle son is expecting his first child at the end of January 2013.  We are excited and for the baby shower I decided to make a diaper cake.  I've seen various types and shapes of diaper cakes on Pinterest, but decided I would start with one of the easier designs in a traditional cake style. So after checking out a couple of You Tube videos on the basics, I gathered my supplies and got started.

This particular idea used diapers rolled up into sausages and rubber banded in the middle.  Since I was going to build a three tier cake I found three round pans/bowls in graduated sizes in my kitchen to use to help me hold the banded diapers in place until I could put the final large rubber band around the entire group of diapers.  For the first two layers I used newborn sized diapers.  The first layer is 7" in diameter the second layer is 9" in diameter.  I used about 1 1/2 packages of newborn diapers for the first two layers.

Once I completed a layer I added ribbon around the perimeter of the cake and covered over the rubber band with the ribbon.  I chose blues and browns using some ribbons from my stash...they are expecting a boy!  For the third layer of the cake I used the next larger size of baby diapers, and again finished it off with a ribbon around the center.  The diameter of the third layer is 12" inches and I used the entire package of diapers and supplemented in the middle of this layer with some of the newborn sized diapers.

Once I had all three layers completed and tied with ribbon I added some accents to complete it.  After a quick trip to Wal-Mart I found some small blue clothespins and small colored plastic baby rattles.  With the layers stacked on top of each other I distributed the baby rattles around all three tiers of the cake.  On the top of the cake I added a circle cut from scrapbook paper and mounted on the top a pair of baby shoes with monkey's on them.  Monkeys seem to be the theme for the layette and shower!  Around the second layer of the cake I took two sets of baby socks and pinned them with the clothespins around the top of the ribbon on that layer.  For the final layer I added some baby spoons tucked in behind the ribbon and a couple of pacifier's.  The cake will be set on a cake board like an actual cake.

This was a fun project to make, made even more special because it is my grandchild!  My future daughter-in-law was wondering if I've figured out how to mail one yet!  Hmmmmm...I'll have to work on that!

Until next time...Imagine, Create, and Enjoy!

Green Bay Packers

Last month I shared some baby shower cards I'd made and also made reference to the different ideas that could result from these patterns.  Today I'm sharing those cards.  Close friends of ours became grandparents for the 2nd time recently and were blessed with a baby girl.  While I myself have three boys and a stepdaughter, three grandsons and a granddaughter, I love making my projects in more girly colors!! I'm surrounded by too much testosterone in my house, so I welcome any chance to make things with girly colors.  However, in this instance I gave up that idea for some sports oriented colors even though it's a girl! 

Gene our friend and his daughter Jasmin, the new mommy, are huge Green Bay Packers fans! I mean huge fans! When I was making these cards last month it dawned on me that they would be cute done in the Green Bay colors, so I researched the colors for the Packers (really, I knew they were green and gold) as I wanted them to be as accurate as possible.  So here is the baby carriage in what I believe to be the correct color match.  I used a dark green Gemstones card stock I found at Stamper's Corner and a pretty gold that was a great match.  I used Colorbox Evergreen to stamp the sentiment on the yellow oval and added some green gems to make it girly and then used pop dots to lift it off the front of the card.  Inside I mounted a white card stock inside on the bottom half of the carriage.  I found some Jolee's football helmets and I picked up some small letter stickers in the style I figured most closely matched the Green Bay "G" on their sports stuff.  I put green pearls in the middle of the wheels to carry through my green and gold theme.  I think it turned out pretty darn cute if I do say so myself.

My friend Cathy over here at Scrappin Cat's Creative Endeavors had done a baby onesie a couple of years ago and had sent me her cut file.  I had not yet used it...what can I say...it takes me awhile to try out some projects!  I thought this would be a cool way to showcase the Green Bay colors a different way.  I used basic white for the onesie cut and the same Gemstones dark green for the front of the onesie and utilized the gold for the ruffles on the onesie.  I added the football helmet again with a small "G" below it and then added a football on the left side of the onesie.  I also added some small gemstones on the bottom of the onesie to simulate the snaps on real ones.  The sentiment stamped on the inside of the onesie was stamped in the same Colorbox Evergreen.

The shower was yesterday...I hope that Mom and Grandpa Gene enjoy the salute to their favorite pro sports team!

Until next time, Imagine, Create, and Enjoy!

Baby Shower Cards

As I mentioned in a previous post, busy month for us with celebrations, including a baby shower and a couple of other babies being born to people we know.  I was surfing some blogs recently and saw this cute idea for a baby carriage card at MaggieMadeCards.  (I've tried the website, but it says it's currently not available, sorry.)  I'm trying to utilize my Cricut so I can learn all the wonderful things it is capable of doing.  When I saw this card I figured it would be a good project to hone my Cricut Design Studio skills. When all done, I had created my own little cut file!   

The first card I did was for my son's boss whose wife had delivered a baby boy.  I chose to make it with bright primary colors, blue and red since it was a boy.  I didn't get pictures of it before he gave it to the boss, but I had made a second one so he had a couple of options to pick from.  For this one I chose a burgundy colored paper for the carriage and a gold colored card stock to accent it.  I wanted something a little different than the traditional boy/girl blue/pink options.  I embossed the bottom piece of the carriage insert with a bubbles or circle embossing folder and used a texture plate with squares on it for the smaller piece on the top of the carriage.  I chose three small brown buttons and laced them with some brown and tan bakers twine I had and threaded it through the buttons.  I chose an ivory oval and stamped special delivery on it and used pop dots to give it some dimension.  For the inside I used another half circle of the gold card stock and stamped a lovely baby sentiment on it.

This next one is for a girl...now I've flipped back and forth on the color scheme idea and decided to go with a lavender baby carriage and pink accents.  I've embossed the lower half of the carriage front insert with a small flowers and the carriage cover with Swiss dots.  I added a matching lavender oval to the front with the word baby in blocks stamped on it.  I added white pearls to the inside of the carriage wheels and used my Stampin Up! butterfly sizzlet to punch out some little butterflies for accents.  I dropped two on the carriage cover and one on the carriage handle.  On the inside I stamped my sentiment in a pretty purple ink to stand out on the lavender card stock.

This idea can be done is so many different colors (think pro sports teams) and even some patterned paper for the inserts which would make a wonderful option! 

Go on...Imagine, Create, and Enjoy!

A Different Paperbag Book

I was surfing and saw this video at the Following the Paper Trail blog.  Laura does a wonderful tutorial on a different type of paper bag book.  I was surfing because I was looking for some gift ideas for Christmas and her how to video gave me the idea for the mini book I made for the best friend.  Becky and I have been best friends since high school.  When the idea came to me I wanted to be able to document our lives at different points over the last 35 years.  They would be events of significance and obviously ones of both of us for which I had pictures that I could use for the book.  This is the front of the book.  Becky loves sunflowers so I chose papers from a pad of K&Company papers I had.  Susan Winget is the designer and the paper pack was Spring Blossom.   One of the pages had a bike on it with a basket of flowers where the predominant flowers were sunflowers, just what Becky likes.  By the time I cut down the paper you mostly can just see the basket in the lower left corner and the flowers that cover the front and spine.  I used a matching green leaf patterned paper for the back that coordinated with the background behind the flowers.  I used some Tim Holtz distressed inks to ink up the edges of the pages and give them that shabby chic look.  In the spine I put a grommet to thread through the chain and charms that I added.

For the cover of the book I used the inside of a file folder.  If you have worked in an office you might be familiar with them.  They are red press board file folders with brown cardboard dividers in the middle, typically two or three dividers and are bound with really strong fabric across the spine to endure much handling and many papers in the file.  We were tossing some at work because they were starting to look pretty shabby on the outside, but the inside was still in relatively good shape.  Besides, I was going to cover it all with patterned papers.  I chose to cut the edges of the cardboard insert about 1/4 to 1/2 inch larger than the edges of the paper bags.  This provided about a 1/2 inch or so wide spine to affix the paper bags to.  The pages of the book are paper lunch bags.  I had a number of embellishments, but needed to pick up some others to make the book in its final form. For the front here I used a beautiful yellow butterfly, a metal plate in the upper right corner that says Best Friends and a remember when sticker in the lower left corner.  On the four corners of the book I used some Tim Holtz metal picture corners.  They worked perfectly and will help preserve the corners of the book and keep it from wearing out too quickly.  On the front I added a pretty glass looking button and on the back a grommet through which I tied some thin matching ribbon and affixed a small brass key to the end.  I then wrapped it around the end of the book and looped it around the button to be used as the book closure.

If you visit  Following the Paper Trail you will get the exact directions for how Laura puts together the paper lunch sacks.  I found it to be a very easy tutorial to follow and I made quick work of taping down the bottoms of the bags and attaching them together.  Then I had to choose coordinating papers from the paper pack.  I tried to coordinate colors as it was mostly floral papers that I was using. 

Once I got that done I started pulling pictures.  They start with our high school graduation pictures and proceed through our weddings, baby's, class reunions, trips back and forth, Christmas family photos, and pics of us with our families.  On the inside of the cover is a small envelope with a sentiment on vellum paper.  Our class song...Friends by Elton John was printed on vellum also and mounted to the left of our senior pictures.  The next pages mirror each other with a few pics of our weddings. I tried to mirror the photos, so one of her and her attendants, one of me and my attendants...you get the idea.  You also see ribbons sticking out of the bag pockets.  I put additional pictures on card stock and then put a grommet in the end of each card and looped an organza ribbon through it.

I also found some Jolee's embellishments for graduations, weddings, babies, etc. and added those to the pages as well.  I found that the paper bag bottoms that proved to be the short pages in between the regular sized pages were great for the embellishments or sentiments.  It allowed me to use more photos on the larger pages too.  I also used lots of different stickers and sentiments as well as stamping up and inking other sayings about friends and time and fixing those on the pages.  Additionally I stuck in some bling and more butterflies, because what flower garden is complete without butterflies.  The final two pages and the last pocket were mostly pics of Becky and me through the years.  Talk about a walk down memory lane...and boy the hairstyle and clothing changes in 35 years!  Good for lots of laughs for sure.  Great memories as well!  I hope she enjoyed receiving it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

Until next time...Imagine, Create, Enjoy!   



New Baby Card

I recently attended a baby shower for a friend and former co-worker.  She is expecting her first child, and she knows it is going to be a boy.  I wanted to make the card for the gift but struggled with what/how to make it.  I was flipping through my Cricut books looking for an idea and came across this idea.  It uses the Graphically Speaking Cricut cartridge and actually turned out quite nicely.  Sometimes it's hard to know how to pull some of the different elements together into a nice card, at least I struggle with this.  The idea was in the front of the book, the sample they give in every book and I just went with it.  I had recently purchased some "boy" papers for a project, K&Company's Hopscotch Boy 12 x 12 pad, and pulled one of them for the background paper, a mixture of blues, ivory, and greens. The plain card stock I pulled from my stash, a pretty sky blue, a light olive green and an ivory color. I used an olive ribbon I had on hand as well.  I then followed the directions from the cartridge booklet almost to the letter.  I used my Xyron to add adhesive to the frame and to the baby stroller and the word precious.  Love that Xyron!

The only difference in my design was my selection of the word for the front of the card.  The example showed the jumbled word innocent and I chose the word precious.  It turned out really precious!  I then added an appropriate stamped sentiment inside.  Since it was for a boy, I resisted the urge to add some bling.  Here it is.  It is definitely a card design I would repeat.  In fact I can see some very dainty girl cards in pinks, purples, maybe some yellows!  Until next time!

Imagine, Create, Enjoy.