Thursday, June 14, 2012

A Crafty Soiree #94

It's been awhile since I've indulged my love of papercrafts here on A Crafty Soiree, this is my main creative "drug" of choice and it's hard not to pick something from this area of crafts to feature every week.  But since I do try to showcase a variety of projects I resist...most of the time :)
So many fun things on this page from Heather Leopard...A Day in the Life of My Party of Five. Misting is uber trendy and something I've got to try.  Plus I just can't get enough of the stitching added to the waves.  Can you believe she used five different colors?  I'm so lazy, that whenever I bother to drag out the machine, I usually use whatever color is already threaded!
Next up is this awesome 4th of July Magnetic frame from Heather at Crafting the Night Away.  It is just gorgeous and I love the layering of embellishments. 
Jody from Meaningful Mama made these lovely pinwheels and has a well done tutorial so you can too.  A bunch displayed together would make a cute centerpiece.  Her daughter helped her and it's a fun craft with me project...I'm thinking this is one project that should be added to all our Summer Buckets lists!
Printable parties make papercrafting easier while still allowing you to put your personal touches into your celebration.   Steph from Pocket Full of Buttons went all out on this fantastic Sweet Shoppe birthday party.  She made everything cute from the wrapped juice boxes to the jelly jar drinks with striped straws.  Even her daughter's dress is themed up!
Here's the wild card in the mix, a Garden Gazing Ball from Etcetorize, made from a light fixture and mod podged on butterflies.  Now that's what I call thinking outside of the box!
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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, June 12, 2012

Project Life Week 22

Can't believe we're onto June already and how much easier it's been to keep up with Project Life, on this my third try.  I think having a baby really motivates me, those little faces change so quickly and if I didn't have PL I think a lot of little details would've already been forgotten. 
Having a built in support group through Jessica's weekly linky has helped a lot too.  It's so fun to see what you're all to and to have a constant source of inspiration.  Thank you so much to everyone came by last week and gave me their two cents about my dilemma.  I really appreciate your help and opinions!  Filling in the backside of Design B wasn't nearly so tough this week. I kind of kept the way the slots are orientated while taking pictures this week, mentally placing them as I took them.   
On Memorial Day we had a fun Make Your Own Hot Dog Bar and I used some great free printables from The Hostess With the Mostess.  I incorporated extra bits into my PL spread through the week title card and two journaling cards.  The "Thirst Quencher" is actually part of an extra water bottle wrap.

The first picture is of LB looking adorable in the awesome hooded towel my friend Sharon made at my request.  She looked long and hard for the perfect fabric and I just love it.  It's so big and plush, and makes it a lot easier to carry him from the bath tub to bedroom.  When he's older he can use it as a bath cape. You can tell it's one really made towel by an experienced sewer.  I'm a long way off from I could never make one this nice.  It's all in the details, like the blue edging.  She sells them at her etsy store Happy Hapa and I can't recommend her enough. 
The rest of Design B features the Memorial Day dinner my friend Margaret and I put together and the cool push and ride on Mickey airplane they brought LB.  It's really fancy with twirling spinner, lights, music, and shape sorter.  He just loves it but was hesistant about actually getting on it.  His sister convinced him to give it a try and then pushed him around the family room the next day.  I took a photo to email Margaret so I had proof he did eventually get on.  It was too cute to not end up in the PL week too.

I put in a 6X6 insert to show the detail pictures of the Make Your Own Hot Dog Bar and on the reverse are pictures from the Make Your Own Sundae Bar we had for dessert.  (Use the links to see the posts I did on each and for more photos.)
The second part of the week's spread has my MIL's birthday on haf and then a family picnic, weather changes, and a cute moment between father and son.
When we saw Grandma Norma for her birthday on Wednesday, she gave ER a special holiday Barbie for ER to try and keep in nice condition.   This way she's can prove she take care of her things and is mature enough for an American Girl doll for her 6th birthday in July.  Grandma Norma picked it up, still in the box, at a garage sale and on a fun note, ER round the Barbie in her Barbie collector's book.  She thought that was pretty neat.

On the bottom is a photo series of LB crawling up the step between Grandma's family room and kitchen.  He wants to tackle our stairs but the baby gates prevent him.  I swear he had a little glimmer in his eye when he turned around to smile at me after he went up.

I used a fold up card to make a pull out so I could include more of event's story.  The little birdy card is an edited version from Oh Happy Day, a free kit I got for signing up for the newsletter from Digital Design Essentials. The quote on the original wasn't quite right for this purpose, so I cloned it out and added a different birthday quote in PS Elements. 
I finally cracked and joined the washi tape craze, after finding some rolls at Target in the office supply section for a good price.  Four rolls for four dollars equals a dollar a piece, couldn't pass that up!   Here is a post from the WIP Blog that shows you how they are displayed, in case you are wandering around looking for them.

The Smashbook stuff happened to be on sale and I picked up some list pads at the same time.  While the cards are four inches tall they are a bit short on the width for the slots.  I used my handy dandy tape to decorate and fill in the space.  For being so anti-washi tape for so long, I have to admit I love how it turned out.  I used a white gel pen to add the date and my mother's family's name on the blue tape.
The last thing I wanted to point out is this free printable from Naptime Delights that I found via her link up on my weekly creative themed linky party A Crafty Soiree, #159 on this one to be exact.  She has lots of great printables, perfect for PL!  This one is sized 8X10 so not quite right for a 3X4 space but easily added to a 4X6 canvas in PS Elements.  I resized and then added my photo to the remaining empty space and got developed as a regular 4X6 print.  So cute and minimal work for me!

I'd like to personally invite all my PL friends to join me some time on Thursday for A Crafty Soiree!  We'd love to have you link up all your crafty endeavors.  Papercrafts and scrapbooking, including PL, are always welcome :)

Linking up to The Mom Creative :)

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Monday, June 11, 2012

Dance Recital Luncheon Decorations: A Twinkle Toes Party

I had so much fun putting together the Hot Dog Bar that I was motivated to work on some hybrid digi goodness for ER's dance recital on Saturday.  I already had the perfect digital scrapbooking kit in my stash, Twinkle Toes by Kristen Aagard, to use and I think they made our little performer's day even more special.
Each pendant of this banner is rather large, from top to bottom tip 10 inches tall and about 8 inches wide.  I only made three, which cut down on the time needed to create it.  After printing onto brochure paper I mounted on chipboard for durability.
Here is a closer look at the digital version so you can see all the details better.
I also made some lunch buffet cards to label the dishes.  They'd also be cute as place cards.
Next I made some digital frames for pictures I took of ER before the dress rehearsal.  I just popped them into the some double sided Tolsby frames for a quick centerpiece.  On the otherside of the photos, I added some filler cards with dance quotes.
I forgot to take a picture of the frames on the table, but I'll try to get one and add it to the post so you can see how great they looked assembled.  This was ER's first time in more than one dance for the recital and it was a big deal.  She was in three different dances and we're so proud of her and all the hard work she's put into practicing.

Updated: Here are the pictures of the photos and inserts in the frames.  My daughter likes them so much I may have to go get more frames because she wants to keep these as is on her desk :)


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