Tracking Baby's Travels

This is another fun page that I created to show our daughter all the places she went in her first two years.  I was originally only going to do the first year, but I thought I'd keep going. Probably will stop after two years since I'm running out of space to write things!  I got the idea when listening to a teenager tell her Mom all the places she's never been and the Mom was saying - we did that when you were younger!  You just don't remember it!

Now I have proof!  I had big plans for cutting out a super cool map of the United States, but then I found this sticker.  It was actually a bit of a pain because all the states are separate, but it was faster and easier than all the other plans I had.  I marked with a sticky jewel where she had been and then wrote where and the date.  Plus, a lot of the photos are in the scrapbook as well.

On a side note, remember those little Calico Critters?  When I was growing up and playing with them they were called Sylvanian Families.  I loved these little things so much.  I had a ton of them.  My favorites were a little mouse I named Bartholomew and a beaver who I named Misty.  Or maybe that was her given name, I can't remember.  I'm hoping they're all at my Dad's house and I can get them up here soon since we just got a doll house for our daughter.  I bring it up because Zulily has them on their site and it is taking all my self control to not buy them.  We're trying to budget right now.  :(

Hand Print Memory Page

I don't think I blogged about this one, but awhile ago, before my daughter turned one, I traced her hand on a piece of paper because she was figuring out this pen and ink thing and I thought that it would be interesting.  Well, soon it became pen and skin and clothes, oh well, she's washable right?  But it gave me another idea, what about cutting out that little hand we had traced?  Originally I had different plans, but I saw the things on pinterest with the Mom and Baby hands.  Rather than doing paint, I also traced my hand and my husband hand, cut them out, and added to scrapbook paper!

Goodness, look at that tiny litte hand, where does the time go?  I like the paper version better because paint is a little messy and I think you would have to use a lot to get it to be a really good print.

The darkest purple is my husband.  Which leads me to defend my hand in the middle - I have long fingers!  I don't have man hands!  At least, no one has ever told me if I do.  And I've always heard I have long fingers.  Hmm...now to stare at my hands and wonder why they are almost the same size as my husband's......

Like Mother, Like Father

I'm finally starting to wrap up my daughter's scrapbook (yes, she's almost two and yes it was for her first year), I want to post some of the pages I love.

I'm not a huge fan of how this page turned out, but I love the idea.  What I did was find photos of me and photos of my husband when we were close to her age and put them next to photos of her.  Strangely she doesn't look like either of us, but more like my sister-in-law.  Go figure.  :)

Sorry for the terrible quality of these photos!  Ignore out nasty carpet we can't afford to replace yet.  We're working on it!

On a side note, I rented a cartridge called Sweethearts from the library for a friend of mine's wedding album and I love that cartridge.  Here's hoping to find it cheap on Ebay or Zulily will feature it on their next Cricut shop.  I highly recommend it for weddings and bridal showers, it's better than the other ones I've tried.

Memory Game

I'm struggling with blog posts because I have a ton of half done projects.  Ug.  I hate that.  Everywhere I look are things not quite finished.  But I'm trying to remain positive because I'm slowly working on a few of them now and hopefully will have them done soon!  Of course I have a ticking time bomb- I'm pregnant due end of August, so whatever isn't accomplished by then, probably will wait 10 years.

But hopefully now that it's Spring (even though the weather is still very winter), I'll be motivated to get moving.  Winter always makes me sluggish and depressed.  Though you think I'd take all the time trapped indoors to get projects done.  But no.

So anyways.  A friend of mine was telling me that she wanted to find a memory game for her daughter, a premade one, but not one with characters such as sponge bob or Disney.  I get it, I don't like inundating my daughter with characters either.  Even though I think everyone else does.  I want her to make up her own mind, or as close as possible, to what she likes rather than commercial.  Oh geez, am I one of those Moms?

I was motivated to get my cricut out and cut some little animals out from my Create a Critter cartridge to make a cute memory game.  Check it out below.

i think they turned out pretty cute.  I was also excited to play with my daughter since we can always use new winter time activities.  All she wanted to do was pull the animals off the cares, so that game ended quickly.  they were pretty fast to make, did them in probably an hour or two one evening while my husband entertained our toddler.

the projects I'm motivated most on are to finish a Noah's Ark Baby blanket I've been working on FOREVER (so close to being done too!!!), My daughter's scrapbook (two pages left!!!), and the dining room.  Basically everything about the dining room.  Repainting, decluttering (hahahaha, why do I always set that goal when I know it won't happen??), changing up the mantel, and a new rug.  Just need some money now so I can get one of these fancy rugs on One Kings Lane.

Baby Boy Shower

A friend of ours was having a second baby, a boy this time!  A small group of us got together to throw her a little shower, a sprinkle.  What I love most about everything here, is the cake.  I asked Sorella's Baked Goods in Livonia to make a cake with light blue and dark blue dots (that's all the direction I gave them), and this is what they came up with.  This is why I like working with professionals.  I go to  this bakery all the time because they can take my basic instructions and turn it into something amazing.

Felt Food Craziness

I went a little overboard with making felt food this year.  My daughter is at the age where she likes pretend play and has a little kitchen set downstairs.  She doesn't have a lot of food, and I didn't feel like spending a lot of money on nice food - not the cheap plastic kind.  Weirds me out.

I had pinned a ton of felt foods on Pinterest, so I decided to start making some!  At first the plan was to make them for her friends, which I did.  And it was kind of therapeutic.  Much nicer than watching tv or messing around online all the time like I normally do.  And when we did watch movies, I could create a few of these at the same time.  Pretty nice.

I'll post photos as well as the websites where I got the information from.

The cookies are the easiest by far!  And so cute!  Felt is so cheap at craft stores and I had most of the thread and needles, had to buy a couple colors, but you can get spools of thread for just a few dollars.  The first few cupcakes and cookies I made weren't that good.  I followed the blog Sew Hip Mama for the cupcakes.  I found though that it worked out better for me when I didn't cut the bottom out until after I had sewed the round part of the cupcake first.  I would sew it, then draw a circle around it and cut that out of the felt.  Notice the cupcake on the right?  I found that felt at Joann's and it's so cute with some texture to it.  It costs a little more, but still less than a dollar.  Not as fancy as the cupcakes at Pottery Barn kids, but shoot, a whole lot cheaper than $24.

The cookies I followed PamelaSusan.com.  The one issue I had with both the cookies and the cupcakes when I did circles was that it looked like nipples so I would suggest not doing that.  I used a cookie cutter to trace the heart shape on felt.  I thought it was cuter than the circle cookie.

I can't remember which blog I looked at first for the felt eggs, which are also really really easy.  But you can get an idea of step by step instructions at WhileWearingHeels.

The tea bags I stole from a shop on etsy.  Sorry.  Not personal, but I already had all the materials and not paying for something I can make.  Not nearly as good as the ones sold on etsy, but eh, I'm working on it.

Hopefully my daughter will like mine and not think they're crazy.  So far the cupcakes are her favorite.  Pretty much hasn't touched the others.  Plus, I'll still hold out for when some nice wooden food is featured on Zulily.

Felt Merry Christmas

I was inspired by a felt Merry Christmas pendant I saw on pinterest similar to this one.

We were doing our Christmas card photos and of course I found it just a few days before and spent a few long night sewing some felt letters, stuffing them, and getting them on string and ribbon so we could use them in our Christmas pictures.

Sadly, it was really rainy and cold that day, so none of the photos of our banner turned out really well, but I will share this one!  This photo of courtesy of Lovella Photography, I've worked with her multiple times and she does a great job.  If you live in the Detroit area, I highly recommend them.

Even better about this photo, I wasn't fat.  :)  Thankfully this was right before I started eating everything in site.  Need to get back to eating a plant based diet and no white flour and white sugar again.  But easier said than done.

Off that tangent, I think the banner is cute, too bad it was just so windy.

I spent so much time on that banner, I couldn't bring myself to toss it or just store it.  I thought it would make a great addition to my mantel!

I like it so much that I'd really like to make some for each holiday, but then I remembered how much work it took to do in the first place.  I'll just tuck that idea away for the time I'm not already working on two quilts, three scrapbooks, and house improvements.

How did I make it?  I can't find the item I pinned on pinterest, but I printed out a font ( can't remember which) on paper in a really big size, it only fit two letters per page on a landscape layout.  then I cut out the paper, pinned to the felt and cut out the felt.  Took a needle and thread, sewed it, stuffed it, put it on a ribbon.  Pretty awesome if I say so myself!  Hopefully you think so too!

Now just to hit up the Christmas sale at One Kings Lane so I can get more goodies for the house next year!