Friday, March 30, 2012

A Princess Jotter for Abby

I needed to send something to my blogging friend Jenny but I couldn't just send something for her.  There had to be something for her sweet daughter included too, don't you think?  I've been making these little jotters for ER to put her drawings in for quite some time and thought Abby might like one too.  ER picked out the papers and rub-ons; we hope Abby likes princesses!  They each measure about 5X7 and are quite easy to make. 
Start with a piece of heavy weight paper, ours is also embossed.   Cut paper to 5X10 and fold in half for the cover.  Cut several sheets of copy paper to 4.5X9.5 and fold in half.  Slide papers inside of cover to check for placement.  Holding stack firmly in place, open papers and cover.  Place on top of the foam part of an old mouse pad.  The stacked blank papers should be on the bottom against the mouse pad and the patterned side of your cover on top. 

Open a stapler and line up on top of folded crease.  Staple down through cover and papers, at the crease three times to make the spine.  Gently pull up, taking care that the staples remain embedded in the papers.  The staple prongs will be open into the center of your jotter.  Gently press the prongs down and close the staple, binding your jotter.

Use your jotter for drawings, stories, poems, or whatever you fancy.  The pink one will soon be heading to Abby and the purple one is for ER to take on a short trip we'll be taking soon.  The size is a nice one for little hands. 

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Thursday, March 29, 2012

A Crafty Soiree #83

Apologies for being a little late getting this up!  I was all set to post when the power went out and I had to retype parts of the post lost.  I was running behind anyway, because I waited too long to get started and then got repeatedly sidetracked by all the awesome ideas shared last week.  You never fail to amaze! 
I just love the Easter Mantle at Laughter and Grace.  It's such a nice combination of live flowers, natural elements, and the iconic symbols of the season, bunnies and egss.  The moss letter is my favorite part.  She made it too, just head on over to see the how-to. 
Aren't plates by Jutta at Creative Chaos just delightful?  She provides the instructions and they seem pretty easy to make too.  I think the silhouetted little girl is just so sweet.
The nursery art project Libby shared at PSA Stamp Camp is really full of detail.  The picture doesn't do all the little things she painted and stamped onto the canvas justice.  There are letters spelling out a message on the elephant and more little elephants stamped on it that you can barely see.  You've gotta go see the close ups to appreciate just how special this is!
Isn't this birthday cupcake the cutest little smash cake?  What's a smash cake?  Well in my family, babies turning one get their own little cake, like the birthday girl at Destination Craft,  that they usually take a bite or two of and then smash and get all over themselves.  Making for the best and cutest photo ops.
Back to The Sweet Bakery {1st} Birthday Party mom Kathryn hosted, the daintiest little cake is just one of the precious little details that went into the shindig.  I love the banners she did, the photo month by month is a great idea!
I am so impressed by all the thought and planning that went into Michelle Paige's Nerf Gun Party, she even had the forethought to pick up the Nerf guns for each guest way back in November!  It was great to see a party suitable for boys once they get a little older, her son is ten, the activities sound super fun!
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Party Guidelines
1.  Link up to four of your creative projects (No Etsy stores or other linky parties pretty please).  
2.  Add your link to the specific posts not the main URL.
3.  Add a "Crafty Soiree" button to your blog or posts.
4.  Please comment on the post linked up in front of you.  All partygoers love meeting new friends... don't just stop there...if you see something that catches your fancy-- stop by and say hi!
5.  Your hostesses would love it if you'd follow us. You can find Malia here.
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Let's Party!

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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Project Life Week #9

At the end of February we went on our much anticipated trip to Walt Disney World followed by a three night cruise to the Bahamas on the beautiful Disney Dream!  I took a ton of photos, and I've spent a lot of time sorting, editing, and uploading them since getting back.  A large number will eventually be scrapped and put into photo albums for ER to look through.  So it was easier than I thought it would be to pick just a few to show the highlights of the trip for my Project Life pages.   I used a lot of the Paisey Press photo templates, just love those, I think I've used them every single week so far! 
For the title card, I cut a phrase sticker so I could place it along the curve in the swirls of the pattern printed on the card.  This week was the perfect time to use up some various travel themed rub on icons and words, love how they look layered on my journaling cards.

I will probably do some much overdue posts on the actual trip so I'll just summarize what we did here.  Some highlights from the first half of the week were:

The whole day of travel itself went very well, a great beginning to the trip.    The flight was very smooth, ER kept busy with Angry Birds on my Nook and LB slept.  We took the buses from the airport to the Polynesian, our luggage all made it safely, and we had time for a quick visit to the Magic Kingdom all in one day.

First Day at Walt Disney World:  We started out at Epcot with The Seas with Nemo & Friends.  We saw lots of characters throughout the World Showcase, and ER finally got a much wanted autograph from Mulan.  Then it was back to the Magic Kingdom for the Electrical Parade.  Despite a short downpour and drizzling rain it did eventually go on and waiting on the curb for over and hour was worth it, to see ER's face light up and hear her giggles of joy as she danced along to the music.

On Tuesday we got up early for our breakfast with the princesses at Cinderella's Royal Table.  We also saw Rapunzel and Princess Tiana before heading to Disney's Hollywood Studios for the afternoon, mainly so Brad could go on Star Tours.  Dinner was at 1900 Park Fare inside of The Grand Floridian, which for many reasons I would not recommend to anyone.  
Our last day at Walt Disney World was spent at The Animal Kingdom, which we love.  The dinosaur themed play area and rides were a big hit, just like last time.  We got to see Pooh and the gang when there was almost no one else in line.  Plus there are little activity centers around the park, and a stamp booklet you can fill up each time you do one.  ER was very into collecting all of them.  Dinner at the fabulous Ohana, it was also my favorite meal of the trip.

The bus to the Disney Dream had us up early, and we got to the ship with plenty of time to explore the ship. It's just beautiful.  We had a large Delux Family Oceanview Stateroom, with huge porthole window, that ER loved sitting in.  We spent our first full day on the ship playing in the pools and I got a massage, a belated Valentine gift from Brad. ER went to the Oceaneer's Club and was in a talent contest with Tinkerbell.  She also went on the AquaDuck, and came off yelling, "That was SO FUN!"  The last day we were at Castaway Cay, and took LB to the beach for the first time...as you can see from the pictures, his dip in the ocean wasn't a big hit.  It was my first time on a cruise, and I'm already ready to go back!
I had two pages of inserts, both put in protectors that are ways I try to save a little money on Project Life.  This one and all of my 8.5X11 inserts, has been put inside of an Avery Reference Sheet Protector designed for inside of binders.  These are much cheaper per page than the ones designed for scrapbook pages and are acid free and archival safe. 

In the first insert is of my favorite picture of the five of us, taken by a Disney Photo Pass Photographer with my camera.  I made the word art title and journaled directly onto the photo.  The ticket is from a retired Scrap Orchard collab Mega called It's a Journey and the blue glitter splatter from the retired kit The Happiest Place by Wild Dandelion Designs.  On the other side I will put a copy of the picture of all of us in front of the Disney Dream.
The second insert is of ER with the various characters she met at Walt Disney World trimmed down to fit in a 9 pocket trading card sheet.  These come in packs of 65 for around $10, even less if you use a coupon at a large craft retailer.  ER has a lot of Pokemon cards so we have lots of ways to use up the package.

The mouse ears die cut is a punch out from the Deluxe Scrapbook Kit I got at Walt Disney World.  It was a lot less than the one listed in the link, around $25 I think, and I'm so glad I picked it up.  It has a lot of unique papers, stickers, and die cuts I haven't seen anywhere else.

Thanks for your visit, leave me a comment so I know you've been by and so I can be sure to come see your pages.  See you next Tuesday for another week of PL.  I hope to catch up on blogging the weeks I'm behind on sharing Project Life then.  I just didn't want to have photo overload this week.  This post is linked up to The Mom Creative and One Happy Mama.

Before you go, I'd like to invite you all to enter the $50 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway I've got going on.  It's on last week's A Crafty Soiree Linky Party and you can link up your Project Life Pages for a chance to win.  Think of all the Project Life goodies you could order with $50!

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Monday, March 26, 2012

Easter 2009 Scrapbook Pages

I got these pages done awhile ago during one of Maryanne's Online Crops and have been waiting until it was seasonally appropriate to share them.  They are both pretty simple and the Easter Treats layout above has really fun details.  I used the cutest stickers from Doodlebug Design Inc. to make a layered border across the page.  Below is how I scrapped several family pictures on one page.  The sticker borders made this one come together really quickly. 

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Friday, March 23, 2012

New Weight Watchers Ice Cream

I think I've already shared that since having LB seven months ago, I've lost about 45lbs!  Okay, okay, so most of it was the actual baby and other pregnancy related weight.  But I know at least 15lbs was excess weight, because I'm now 15lbs below my prepregnancy weight.  So yay me!  I've got 10-15 more to go to make my endcrinologist happy.  At least that's what she says, I have a feeling that even if I lose that much more she'll then say, "How about five more?"  It seems that loosing excess weight is the cure all for most doctors!
Anyway, the reason I'm going on about this is that even with my healthier living plan, there was no way I could pass up trying free ice cream.  Good thing it's from Weight Watchers and yes it's delish!  No really, it is really good!  The Weight Watchers Snack Size Cherry Cheesecake Ice Cream Sandwiches are my absolute favorite.  The honey graham crackers are perfect with the cherry swirled in ice cream.   They are smaller than most ice cream bars, but take several bites to eat so you get your ice cream fix without blowing your daily calorie count.  I like how the portion control is built in for me. 
We also got two flavors of ice cream cones.  The Weight Watchers Double Caramel Swirl were the first box I broke into when the goodies arrived.  I mean look at them, how could any resist?
Caramel and chocolate are a classic combination and go perfect with ice cream. The crunchy chocolate curls are the perfect topping for the cones.  These are decadent tasting but only 2 points! 
While the packaging isn't necessarily part of a review, I do have to give Weight Watchers a shout out for how the ice cream cones are wrapped.  For me, eating is very visual, and as you can see this Weight Watchers Snack Size Vanilla Fudge Swirl Ice Cream Cone looks as beautiful as on the box.
See how nice and intact the chocolate curls are?  A pretty looking treat just adds to the enjoyment, don't you think?  The tasty chocolate fudge swirl and rich low fat ice cream is soooo good and the cones have a very satisfying crunch.
Weight Watchers Divine Triple Chocolate Dessert Bar are really rich tasting and out of all the ice cream sent me, I thought these would pass anyone's "Is it diet food?" challenge.  They taste like smoothy creamy soft serve ice cream.  They remind me of the cones can get at a place in our downtown, that are also dipped in chocolate.  We've been having an unseasonably hot month, and eating one of these really hit the spot! It takes care of chocolate cravings and keeps my hands out of the leftover Valentine candy! 
Weight Watchers ice cream fits perfectly into my new lifestyle because besides almost daily walks I've also cut way back on mindless snacking.  I think that was really my downfall, just eating out of boredom.  Now I pick smarter snacks and am really conscious of enjoying my treats!  I can indulge in a snack sized ice cream bar and enjoy a really sinful tasting treat, that's still a smart choice.  I love it! 

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Disclosure: Complimentary samples & free product coupons were provided.  No other compensation was received.  The experiences and opinions related are personal and unbiased.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

A Crafty Soiree #82 + $50 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway

This week's A Crafty Soiree is sponsored by Appliances Online and the Bosch Washing Machines.  Appliances Online is the UK’s largest online white goods retailer, selling practically everything in the major appliance market, with over 30 brands and over 4,000 products.
I am very pleased to be partnering with them.  So why is this all very good news for all of you?  Well, because someone will win a $50 Amazon Gift Card!   

To Enter:

You Must Complete ALL THREE STEPS for your entry to count.

1. Link up one of your fabulous creative projects like usual

2. Add this text below the picture of your project:

My entry into A Crafty Soiree sponsored by Appliances Online and the Bosch Washing Machines.

To make it easy for you, here is the html to add to your post.  You can copy and paste it. 

My entry into <a href="http://www.katiesnestingspot.com/search/label/A%20Crafty%20Soiree" target="_blank">A Crafty Soiree</a> sponsored by Appliances Online and the <a href="http://www.appliancesonline.co.uk/l/washing_machines/1/1#!/washing_machines-bosch/1-6/1/itemsperpagesize=12">Bosch Washing Machines</a>.

3. Then come back and leave me a comment on THIS post that you added the link.  It would be great if you'd include the link up number of the post you've added the link in.

****You are welcome to link up as many projects as you'd like, but EACH one MUST include the link in each of the posts you'd like as an entry.  You must also leave a comment for each entry.**** 

You have until 5 pm EST Wednesday the 28th to enter!

I'm excited to offer this opportunity to all of you, but if you'd prefer not participate, just link up as usual :)  Here are my features for last week:
Isn't this Easy Plaid Cuff super cute and the funnest spring accessory?  Crafting Rebellion shares her tips on how to embellish a precovered cuff to personalize it for your wardrobe.
Isn't this Modern Folded Star by A Girl in Paradise, just beautiful?  I love pretty blues and greens of the fabrics she choose and the detail of the pattern.  Go download a PDF and get started on one for yourself!
Pick up this cute set of Doodle Frames & Brush set at Digiart Cafe.  They will add a touch of whimsical to your projects.
Inspired by Family Magazine has a yummy sounding and even yummier looking South of the Border Breakfast Casserole
And because this is a craft par-tay, I couldn't resist sharing the darling little Crafty Treat Bag shared at Craft Whatever.  Love the little poem included! 
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Party Guidelines
1.  Link up to four of your creative projects (No Etsy stores or other linky parties pretty please).  
2.  Add your link to the specific posts not the main URL.
3.  Add a "Crafty Soiree" button to your blog or posts.
4.  Please comment on the post linked up in front of you.  All partygoers love meeting new friends... don't just stop there...if you see something that catches your fancy-- stop by and say hi!
5.  Your hostesses would love it if you'd follow us. You can find Malia here.
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Let's Party!
 
Don't forget to the giveaway, see the top of this post for the directions on how to enter.
 


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Disclaimer: Giveaway is sponsored as noted and I was compensated with a gift card for hosting.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Candy Easter Baskets

My friend Margaret gave ER the cutest little edible Easter basket over the weekend.  It's based on an idea she pinned.  She just hot glued the candies together and made it right before they had to leave to meet us for lunch.  How neat that it's a mini basket and a treat in one!  Looks like a mini Lalaloopsy also stowed away inside.
This clever idea originated with Beth-A-Palooza.

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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Project Life: Week 8

I can't believe how long it's been since I shared a Project Life update!  Online I may be three weeks behind but I've actually done a pretty good job keeping up with filling in my album.  There were just various reasons why I couldn't post, happy ones like being away on a family trip to Walt Disney World and taking my very first cruise on the Disney Dream to the Bahamas.  My birthday also fell into the break, leaving me less time to update.  There's a little birthday giveaway still going on for that, go enter :) 
I forgot to take a double page view of the week.  The first half is about keeping out of Daddy's way as he works on finishing the basement, a visit from the Grandparents, and Fat Tuesday.  Do you have paczkies where you live?  It's a Polish tradition to eat these sweet filled donut like baked goods as a last splurge before the fasting of Lent.  It's very big in the Detroit area and something we really missed when we lived out of state.  The little bakery downtown makes especially sinful tasting ones, the lemon were my favorite.
The second half of the week had us saying good-bye to well loved neighbors, trying to finish up blogging deadlines like the review for Seventh Generation's diapers, getting snow, and bouncing in the jumperoo for the first time.  I kept things pretty basic using some rub ons, journaling on a tag, adding details digitally before I printed them, and using days of the week stickers from the kit. 

Credits:
Circle Outline: Date Seals: Make Your Own by Scrapping with Liz
Love You Buddy Stamp: Stamp Sheet {Boy} by Karla Dudley
Tuesday Frame: To Date by Gennifer Bursett

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Linked up at The Mom Creative and One Happy Mama.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Colorful Stripes Birthday Card

Remember the Bright Colors Gift Album I made?  I had a lot of little scraps from cutting down the 8.5X11 cardstock to 8X8 for the page bases.  Normally I'd throw 0.5X8 scraps away but as I looked at them, they reminded me of a rainbow.  I decided to use them to make another quick card out of scraps and to make birthday cards for the two birthday parties ER recently went to. 

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Friday, March 16, 2012

Livy Lou Designs: A Birthday Present from Margaret

My friend Margaret gave me this beautiful 6X9 inch fabric magnetic board from Livy Lou Designs.  It's so colorful, just what I'd pick out for myself.  Margaret knows me so well!
The beautiful big ribbon hanger is super fun and I just love magnets made out of buttons.  Aren't they gorgeous choices, pieces of artwork in and of themselves.  The magnets are super strong too, as Livy Lou Designs promises their magnet boards and magnets are fun and functional.
A variety of magnet board sizes are available, with lots of great fabric choices, many very sophisticated and classic looks.  I love the Bicycle design and ER has already informed me wants the Flourish in Fuchia for her bedroom.   Having been the recipient of one myself, I can vouch that they make great gifts, beautiful and unique.
Livy Lou Designs

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