Making A Healthy Snack Mat

Back on the healthy eating bandwagon?  I eagerly climb on each new year, right after I vow to never eat another cookie and to exercise every day.  Yep, I'm full of good intentions! 

To help us stay on the right path, ER and I spent one of our school vacation days pouring over old cooking magazines, talking about what are good things to eat, and pulling out sheets of yummy looking food.

Sort through the pages, find your favorites, and cut out.  To make it easier, I drew cutting guides for ER.

Add a small dot of glue to each corner of your cut outs, flip over, and press down.  Here is a tip for when arranging your pictures, start with the largest first and fill in the gaps with smaller ones.

Let every thing dry over night.  Cover both sides with clear contact paper.  Now you have your very own snack mat, covered with healthy eating choices to help you stay on track!

I made one too, using my scalloped circle punch to make it quicker and some paper scraps for some added cuteness.  Now we can eat our after school snack off our cute mother daughter healthy snack mats together!  ER thought it was really fun to see how different our mats turned out.



Linked Up at Show & Tell on ABC & 123: A Learning Cooperative - the blog I helped co-found.

You Make Me Smile Card

One thing I hope to do this year is send more cards to my family and friends, because it's a more tangible way to let someone know I'm thinking of them than an email.  Plus it's always fun to get something that's not a bill in the mail, and you know me...I'm always about being part of the fun!  For my first version of a little sunshine sent via the postal service, I designed a card with a clean graphic look and a multipurpose sentiment that I can easily produce multiple copies of.

It's been sized to fit inside of standard style #10 business sized envelopes (4-1/8" x 9-1/2"), which we usually keep on hand, and is printed out, double-sided onto one sheet of 8-1/2" x 11"white cardstock.  Since there's not much to the design other than the text, it had to really stand out.  I knew the bold colors from Playful, one of my favorite digital scrapbooking kits by Louise Franks Designs were perfect.  I loved the funky letters of the alphabet that's included but wanted them have the bright colors of the digital papers.  So I used Photoshop Elements to clip the papers to the letters I needed and got just the look I wanted.

I also wanted to add a fun peek-a-boo element to the card.  I used a circle cutter on the front, but a large punch would make this step a lot easier.  Then all I had to do was cut and attach a photo behind the opening.  As I mentioned at the start of the post, I've saved the design so it will be really quick to print out more when I need them.  It's a simple look, but sometimes that's all you need to get your message across.

By the way, you can see more pictures of the digital kit I used and the past projects I did as a design team member in my Playful release post. 



Linked Up at: Today's Creative Blog,

A Crafty Soiree #71

It's my first post of 2012 and I'm so glad it's for our weekly A Crafty Soiree!  Normally, I'd have been back online after the holidays before now, but I've been dealing with the sickies.  At least the flu bug seems to have left the house.  Now we've just got some cold sniffles lingering.  It's the first time LB has gotten sick and it's so hard to watch your baby cough and cry in discomfort!  Not exactly how I wanted to start off the new year!  I hope the year is off to a much better and healthier start for all of you!

Chrissy from Hoot Designs made this calendar journal for a friend.  It sounds a little labor intensive with it's 365 hand stamped journal cards and is really a very special gift.  I know her friend will think of her and their friendship whenever she jots down a memory. 

Minna from Feeling Inspired Today made these elegant printables for ringing in 2012.  While it's a bit late to use it while watching the ball drop, I think they'd make great journaling cards for all your memory keeping projects.  I can already see one on my scrapbook page layout!  Plus I really like the positive and optimistic outlook Minna's given all the cheers.

Now this one I had to share because, my great room is currently littered with the pieces to make a Millennium Falcon and assorted other Star Wars Legos.  The Star Wars Room shared on The Blackberry Vine has given me lots of ideas for setting up our Lego area in what I hope is our soon to be finished basement.  We SO need a mini figure board!

<a href="http://www.katiesnestingspot.com/" target="_blank"><img width="150" border="0" alt="A Crafty Soiree" src="http://i679.photobucket.com/albums/vv157/KTnestingspot/Blog%20Buttons/FeaturedOnBlueButtoncopy.jpg" /></a>For being our features this week, here is a lovely Crafty Soiree ribbon, yours to proudly display! <a href="http://www.katiesnestingspot.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img width="150" border="0" alt="Katie's Nesting Spot" src="http://i679.photobucket.com/albums/vv157/KTnestingspot/Blog%20Buttons/KatiesNestingSpotButtoncopy.jpg" /></a>

Let's Party!

• Link up to four of your creative projects (No Etsy stores or other linky parties pretty please).
• Add your link to the specific posts not the main URL
• Add a "Crafty Soiree" button to your blog or posts.
• Please comment on the post linked up in front of you. All party goers love meeting new friends... don't just stop there...if you see something that catches your fancy-- stop by and say hi!
• Your hostesses would love it if you'd follow us. You can find Malia here.

Don't forget, A Crafty Soiree is hosted on two blogs, so when you link up on one your link will automatically show up on the other one too! Please note, by linking up to A Crafty Soiree, you're giving permission to feature your project and photos in the future, with proper credit of course☺