Andrea's blog

Inspired by this:

and this:

I put up these in our not-quite-finished-yet den/playroom:

As you can see, these nine 12 x 12 frames are located above the play area section of the room.  So, now we're trying to decide what to put IN them.  That's where you come in.  I'm looking for suggestions!   Got any brilliant ideas for me?

Here's what we've come up with so far:

• family pictures (rather predictable)
• family pictures of us enjoying sports/recreation/play activities (running, sandbox, disc golf, volleyball, bike riding, football, playground, hiking, etc.)
• board game boards (Sorry, Monopoly, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, etc)
• photos of iconic places we love (old houses we lived in, city skylines, parks, etc.)
• a favorite line of scrapbook papers (I like that idea...but I doubt Ben will be interested in that...)

The trick is...I need nine!  It doesn't *have* to be kid-themed or play-themed, or even themed really.  It doesn't have to be photographs, it can be artwork or newspaper or wrapping paper, or anything.  We just want some great ideas!

So there you go...you've been commissioned to help brainstorm.  Let's hear what you've got!

A few weeks ago I got to work on a very cool sign project.  My customer wanted something unique to use as a backsplash for an outdoor kitchen he was building.  They tried the store-bought vinyl letters with the quote "may all who enter as guests, leave as friends", but weren't happy with the quality, so they commissioned me to paint it for them.  It was a tricky project, with several layers of color and different fonts, but it was so fun to see the finished project come together:

I spent this past weekend at our MOPS Weekend Crop fundraiser.  Even though I spent plenty of my time setting up tables, collecting money, answering questions, and cleaning up, I still managed to get a full vacation album completed!  That's only possible when you schedule a full 15 hours of uninterupped cropping time.  Since my scrapbooking time is limited more now than ever, it was very nice to surround myself with papers, stickers, photos and glue and not have to keep up and away from little hands.  I decided to concentrate on my cruise album instead of individual layouts. I figured since I was enjoying an "away" weekend, I could relive our cruise vacation.  It *almost* worked...but the gym lights and crop meals weren't quite the same as sunshine and cruise food!

notes:

• The album is made from chipboard, cut with the AccuCut machine (a mix-n-match album set), and held together with silver rings (which I need to replace with larger ones). 
• The front cover has a transparency overlay with the title. 
• I added paper strips with holes punched to the itinerary from each day, so that they could be included and unfolded to see what all the activities were for each day.
• One page is missing...but since it includes a photo of me in a bikini, I decided to spare the internet as a whole...

Using this as my guide, I just completed orders for four baby albums - three girls and one boy.  I had to improvise a little with a new album style, but I actually like the results even better! 

I used a color scheme inspired by the Fancy Pants Dancing Girl paper line to alter my templates to make a more girly album, and instead of using circle punches for milestone & holiday labels, I used 6" x 1/2" strips that can lay right over a photograph, since the albums I used didn't have a margin for journaling.  I love the albums, which have a faux leather cover and black inner pages. 

I also bought a circle tab punch so that I could create monthly tabs for the album and use coordinating fonts and colors on the labels:

The inside of each album starts with a title card, with the baby's initials, name and birthdate:

Then, it jumps right into monthly stats, slots for photos and journaling cards, starting with birth and finishing up at 12 months.  Each month features a different patterned paper embellishment in the same color scheme.

Each month has photo sleeves for at least ten 4" x 6" photos, and ends with a journaling card.  It also includes "milestone" labels that are 6" x 1/2" strips that slide right over the bottom of a photograph.

The last section of the album includes photo sleeves for baby's first holidays: New Year's, Valentine's Day, Easter, 4th of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, ending with the First Birthday celebration and plenty of room for party pictures and first year portraits.

The boy version is very similar, with a brighter color scheme:

I love how these turned out and hope the girls who ordered them love them too!  It's such an easy fill-it-in album that any new mom can keep up with (or fill in later!)

On recommendation from Jenny, a friend of Jake's on Facebook we went to Firehouse Grill & Diner in Carbondale tonight - 5 adults with 3 kids.  There were all of 2 other people in the restaurant at dinnertime on Saturday night.  Sorry, but I recommend NOT going there:

PROS:

• we were seated right away, plenty of open tables & high chairs
• after selling out every piece of furniture and kitchenware in Mom's house this weekend, we were happy to have a table, chairs & silverware for all of us!
• all of our meal orders were correct
• hungry babies screaming for food didn't bother anyone -- no one was there
• we had lots to talk about during dinner (and after) as we joked about the (lack of) service
• the food was good - not thrilling, but good.

CONS:

• open since June 10th, and already they were out of regular tea, shrimp, MGD and bleu cheese dressing -- on a Saturday night.
• it's attached to one of the sketchiest hotels in Carbondale - was once called the Knights Inn
• the waitress was obviously VERY new to waitressing - like since June 10th.
• she only brought out one plate at a time, and forgot whose meal was for which person.  There were 10 people in the restaurant - 8 were at our table -- and she was carrying one plate at a time -- couldn't she check at the counter?
• our meals came slowly, and we had to ask for kids meals early when Paxton was screaming and throwing his head down on the table crying for food
• Mom's margarita sat on the counter for at least 5 minutes before she started to get up to pick it up herself & the waitress finally brought it over - warm.
• the rib-eye steak was super-thin and was the same price as a HUGE t-bone steak
• Jake was served expired Miller Lite beer (and they JUST opened the restaurant June 10th)
• had to ask for a spoon for screaming hungry baby's applesauce
• ordered a loaded potato, which came with no butter or sour cream
• had to ask for sour cream, butter & steak sauce
• there was no changing table in the bathroom
• and to top it all off...when the waitress delivered the check, she stood directly behind Grandpa, watching over his shoulder while he calculated her tip!

We would have had better service if we walked into an ACTUAL firehouse and ate with the firemen.

Thanks Grandpa, for an entertaining dinner -- glad your steak was the biggest.

And, thanks Jenny. What other restaurants do you recommend that I can avoid? :)

When a little girl requests a butterfly birthday party, I'm happy to oblige.  I went the VERY simple route for this one, even though I could have gone crazy with the decorations and crafty projects.  There just wasn't time or money for anything too complicated!  So here's what we ended up with:

• butterfly birthday plates & napkins from Big Lots
• white tablecloth with patterned paper butterfly cutouts sprinkled around it
• three scrapbook pages featuring newborn Ayla and pictures from this past year
• a borrowed cupcake stand
• butterfly and flower cupcakes from Sam's Club (we added gummy worms for caterpillars)
• strawberry & grape butterflies (just add toothpicks)
• fruit
• apple juice & lemonade
• Party Favors: butterfly nets, wings & glasses from the Dollar Tree
• butterflies made with fabric strips tied in knots (so the kids could throw & catch butterflies in their nets)

Easy!  And it all fit into a rubbermaid tub and cooler to bring over to the park.  Too bad the butterfly birthday balloon I bought flew away as soon as I opened the car door...guess I didn't have it tied down as well as I thought!

This morning I got to do a family photo shoot for some friends of ours.  It was a good exercise for me: working with multiple subjects, figuring out what aperture to use so that everyone is in focus, and doing some post-processing practice.  Here are some of my favorites:

Plus, I found a pretty good spot near my backyard to do shaded pictures! 

That's what learning photography is all about...making little improvements all the time...

Since I made Paxton a birthday shirt this year, I didn't want Ayla to feel left out.  She picked "butterflies" as her party theme, so we took a good old Garanimals t-shirt and turned it into a butterfly party shirt with a reverse applique design and some scrap fabric (actually, I think they were hankerchiefs)!

Glad I could get this smiley picture of her.  She was in a silly face mood yesterday:

I finished up this 3-6-9-12 month framed collage this afternoon, displaying Paxton's first year portraits.  Rather than matching Ayla's framed collage, I ended up going with a completely different frame style and photo opening layout.  I figure...different kid, different project.  Separate and unique, but equal.  Paxton's pictures were all horizontal anyhow, so it was kind of necessary to do something different. :)

Initially my intent for doing this was to show how much each kid changed over their first year, wearing the same white onsie with a black background (and I tried to include a prop - flower for Ayla and stuffed monkey for Paxton...but that didn't go over well after 3 months!).  It's funny how in the end, these portraits actually ended up showing how much they looked the SAME all year! Though Paxton does get a little rounder in each photo! Perhaps if I had to do it over again, I'd choose to dress them differently each time...nah, probably not.  I still think it was a good idea even if it didn't turn out quite like I planned. :)

Here's Ayla's, which I did several years ago - the openings are wallet sized w/one 5x7:

And Paxton's - which has four 3 1/2 x 5" openings:

So there we go.  Two kids, two frames, two first year collages -- done, and hung. 

With all the pictures I take, it's about time I framed a few. :) 

I've had this collage frame sitting in my "to do" projects forever, and finally decided that a bathtime baby bathroom collage would be the perfect use for it.  So, I printed several bathtime baby photos of both of our kids in black and white, added some patterned paper & Imaginisce "Splash Dance" rub-ons and stickers and viola!  A cute little bathroom collage.

While I was working on this project, I flipped the Splash Dance packaging over and was surprised to see a familiar face looking back at me! 

Cool, huh? :)