Love Story Save the Dates

For our save the dates, I wanted to do something more personalized than just a postcard with a date or a photo. I had seen examples on Etsy of Love Story Save the Dates. I took the inspiration and ran with it. The end result was fun and different. It gave guests, who may not have known, insight into our love story.

I'm sure there are many amazing programs that are better suited for a project like this. But I'm a girl that likes to stick with Word. It's simple and user-friendly, at least to me. 

I knew I wanted a long skinny look. So I started by picking out the envelopes at Michael's. Each pack of envelopes was originally $5. They were 40% off, and after my teacher discount of 15%, I got them for $2.54 each. 

The dimensions of the envelope dictated my margins in Word. You want to make sure that guests don't have to wrestle with the cardstock to get it out. I adjusted my margins so my usable area was 4" wide and used regular 8.5 x 11" cardstock that I had laying around the house. 

Baby Birthday Banner {Tutorial}

It was my nephew's first birthday last week! And we threw him a mustache bash. I'll be sharing all of the stashy details soon enough. First up, this super cute baby face birthday banner. I got the idea from Stephanie over at Simply Radiant. 

I made two banners celebrating my nephew's adorably expressive face throughout his first year. And I absolutely love how they turned out. Some party goers thought they were really cute, some thought they  were a wee bit "creepy", but one thing's for sure they made everyone smile. My aunt even kept one of the banners to hang in her cubicle at work.

Be my bridesmaid? {Free Printable}

I'm engaged y'all! Which means...there will be lots of wedding projects coming your way. We're planning this wedding on a very tight budget. It's going to be a very merry DIY wedding. We plan on recruiting help from all those we love around us. First up, the bridesmaids.

I put together these cards to ask my girls to be my bridesmaids. Of course, I had to let them know what they'd be signing up for. So I came up with this list of duties. It just so happens to rhyme. Don't judge.

I tried to give the list an ombre effect. So despite what some may think, my printer was not running out of ink. To download the free printable, click here.

A Very Polished Thank You {Free Printable}

I know I've been a little M.I.A. from the blog for the last week or so. Reason: I've been moving. Was it planned? No. Was it fun? No. Do I have 500 ugly bruises scattered all over my legs? Yes! Was I reminded of how much crap I have that I don't need, that tends to weigh a ton? Yes!

So through some enormous miscommunication, our property management company thought that we were moving out and we...thought that we were renewing our lease for another year.

They called us on a Friday, wondering why we had dropped off a rent check, since we were supposed to be out of the house the following Tuesday. The house had been rented to someone else. WHAT?! That was news to us.

After the initial anxiety and shock factor, and visions of us living out of storage unit, we decided to roll with it. I mean, we weren't really in love with the location of our house anyway.

The property management, being very apologetic, was willing to show us a new house immediately. We ended up signing a lease for a new place that night. The house is a little bit smaller, but in a much better location. It also has a huge fenced in backyard for our puppy, complete with kiddy pool, which Stella loves.

You just never know what life is going to hand you. One thing I do know - I have amazing friends. Family and friends, who I know had much better things to do, rallied together to help us move on such short notice. I will be cooking many thank-you dinners in the near future.

Road Trip Kit {Tutorial}

My parents are currently on a very long road trip and my house was the first stop. Knowing my mom's tendency to crave snacks and my step-dad's affinity for pop-rock mixed CDs, I wanted to make them a road trip kit, to take with them the rest of the way.

This six-pack case had been hanging out in my craft room for awhile, waiting for the perfect occasion to be used. This was it. And just like the robot baby shower favors, this kit uses Starbucks Frappaccino bottles. They're piling up in my garage, so the more crafty ways to reuse them the better.  

This kit is cute, portable, full of tasty snacks and road trip tunes - it's the perfect road trip companion. Best of all it's cheap. This easy gift was made from things I had laying around the house. The only thing I went out and bought specifically were the snacks (tailored to my parents tastes, of course).

Brag Books from Paper Lunch Sacks

My mom saw a little brag book in a local store made out of brown paper bags. She asked if I could make her one. Well...I love a challenge. After tinkering around in my craft room for awhile, I came up with these little brag books, using brown lunch sacks from my pantry.

These brag books are just what you'd think. They're mini scrapbooks to show off the little ones in your life.  They can easily fit in your purse and they're a definite upgrade from wallet photos.

The open ends of the lunch sacks become pockets for extra photos. So as time goes by you can always tuck more recent photos inside.

{Free} Mustache Bookmark Printables

I recently got Photoshop and I've been trying to learn how to work its magic. Inspired by these Valentines from Plum Adorable, I decided to make mustache bookmarks for my little sister's birthday. I started with photos of my baby nephew in Photoshop and then ran with it. It was worth it for the sheer amusement; I laughed out loud so many times (Ryan gave me the "you're weird" eyebrow lift). My nephew is just too cute, especially with a Mario Brothers' mustache.

I made the bookmarks to accompany the first two books of The Hunger Games trilogy in her birthday package. If you haven't yet, you should must read these books! They're pretty addicting.

To start, I used my sister's instagram photos of the baby, but any photo cropped down to a square will work. Then I googled "free mustache clip art." Here's a 'stache that I used. I used Photoshop to add the mustaches to the photos. If you don't have Photoshop, I'm pretty sure you can do the same thing with Pixlr for free!

I then came up with mustache-related sayings. Only one is actually related to reading...oh well! After printing the bookmarks off, I cut 'em out and glued 'em to cardstock in a contrasting color.

Goals for 2012

I usually don't make HUGE New Year's resolutions. I tend to make a long list of mini goals to achieve and better habits to adopt throughout the year. This year I made my list as usual. Then I came across this manifesto idea by Aileen at Creating Clever. Inspired by the manifesto, I made my own (of sorts) ...

Sorry about the somewhat blurry screenshot view. As soon as my printer decides to be my friend again, I  plan on printing this little beauty and framing it around my house (bathroom, craftroom, fridge, nightstand) to remind me to get my butt in gear.

fearless in the kitchen: I find myself thinking "that seems like a lot of work" or "I'm no chef, how do I do that?" No more of that. I'm gonna try new techniques and new ingredients. I will make more things from scratch. I will not be intimidated.

DIY Vintage Dictionary Flowers

I bought a dictionary from the '50s at the flea market for $3. I bought it with the intent to rip out the pages. Some of you might think that's a crime, and normally I would feel bad about ripping up a book, especially a really old book, but the binding was falling apart and I already have more dictionaries than I need. So I decided to show it a little love and give it new life as these beautiful origami flowers.

I found the tutorial for these flowers over at Folding Trees.

A bonus when making these flowers, you learn new words or come across definitions that are just plain funny (at least to me).

winker n. 1. one who or that which winks 2. Colloq. an eyelash or an eye
(who refers to an eyelash as a winker? "Ouch, I have a winker in my eye!")

fop n. a man who is excessively concerned about his manners and appearance
(Was this the 50's version of a man who's "metro" ?)

foppery n. the manners, actions, dress of a fop

......................................................................................................................................

Now here's my attempt at an origami photo tutorial. I'll try to explain the steps, but if you just follow the pictures you should be good. All of the steps and folds may seem daunting, but once you get the hang of it, it goes fairly quickly.

Start with a book page cut down to a 5" square. 

Bring two corners together to form a triangle. Bring the bottom right corner up to the top corner.

Now bring the left corner up to the top corner, which will leave you with a small diamond.

An Easy Way to Give Thanks

385 miles later and I am sitting in a little motel circa 1952 in Eugene, OR. I'm on my way back home to keep my very pregnant sister company until my little nephew arrives. I decided to stop halfway into the drive, because it is a loooong trip to do all at once...alone...especially if you have a tendency to get sleepy driving...even after three mochas. So here I am. I just got my laptop back after having the hard drive crash and losing all of my docs and photos. Sad times. Now I finally have a chance to share this little project I threw together a few days ago.

The Thanksgiving decorations are looking a little slim at my house this year. So I was super excited when I came across this freebie over at Sugartotdesigns that can be put together so easily. I think it took me about 10 minutes!

Remember this thrift store frame from the baby shower? This was a great new use for it.

You'll need:

- a large frame

- free printable from Sugartotdesigns

- cardstock in colors and patterns that suit your fancy

- scissors

- gluestick

- dry-erase marker

 How funny is this extreme gluestick? I like feeling extreme while crafting.

Print off the freebie in the color you like (Sugartotdesigns offers four colors to choose from). Back it with a solid-colored cardstock. Then arrange patterned papers behind and close frame. So easy!

 I hung the frame in our dining room. 

Simply use a dry-erase marker to fill in what you are grateful for. The beauty is that you can hang it up at the beginning of the month and then fill in something new every day counting down to Thanksgiving. It's a nice reminder each day of the blessings in your life. Here are a few of mine:

Harry Potter and a DIY Paper Wig

Now I am one of a rare and dying breed...those that have never read any of the Harry Potter books or seen any of the movies. Gasp, I know. And it just so happens that Ryan and I were invited to a Harry Potter-themed Halloween party. What's a girl (with no Harry Potter knowledge) to do? Google it.

We decided on Gilderoy Lockhart for Ryan. One rented 3-piece suit and a carefully styled wig later...

When it came to me the first suggestion was Madame Maxime. She's a French teacher...I'm a French teacher, she has a brunette bob...I have a brunette bob. My research revealed that she is mighty tall. Ryan's suggestion: "Just walk around on stilts." Um...I was definitely not committed enough to the character to risk a broken ankle.

Then we came across Sybill Trelawney, Professor of Divination. Big coke bottle glasses, hippy attire, and long wild hair. Now that's a costume I could put together.

Call me weird, but I refused to wear a wig from the costume rental store. The wigs I looked at had bobby pins and leaves still in them from the last customer. Scenarios ran through my mind of how someone ends up with leaves in their wig. No thank you. 

The used wig was out. Store-bought wigs were pricey. I had made a paper wig in the past while working at a summer camp for kids. Trelawney's crazy hair would be easy to make out of paper. It's really simple, let me show you...

All you need is a hot glue gun, scissors, paper of your choice, and a beanie. The first time I made a paper wig, I didn't use a beanie. I simply made a skull-cap by holding butcher paper over my head and wrapping masking tape around, then trimming it.

Since Trelawney's hair is sort of a brushed out perm, I wanted to give the paper texture. This paper crimper did just that.

After running sections of paper through the crimper, I cut them into strips. Next, I folded the strips accordion style.

Robot Baby Shower Decor

I wanted to share some of the details from the robot baby shower. 

This is another thrift store frame that I spray painted. It's an easy way to a give a pop of color, as well as label different areas of the shower. There were a lot of people that didn't know each other, so I thought that name tags would be nice. They were especially nice in keeping track of points during the games.