Cute Wasted Time

Ella's 5th birthday

2009-06-17T15:44:00.010-06:00

My baby turned 5 this month. Makes me happy and sad at the same time

We decided this year to celebrate with family, so that meant traveling to Washington state. We've always lived so far away from grandparents, that this was the first time that any of them could be at one of Ella's birthdays.

Poubelle (Ella's nickname) decided that she wanted a halloween birthday party. I swear I didn't influence her decicion all that much, really. She's just that cool. I had a BLAST making all the "stuff " that went with the birthday theme.

The invites were fun. I made 4 or 5 different kinds and Ell picked this one. Black glitter gets EVERYWHERE, but I think it made them perfect.

Then i decided to make some "party hat"type doohickies. Think....flapper headbands.

She's going to hate that I put a pic of her up.

These are the party favors. I stole the idea from a Martha Halloween craft, and then I filled them with spooky stuff and candy. Spooky stuff is kinda hard to find in May.

I had a bunch of games for the kids. This one was making Slime out of glue and Borax. I was really surprised how well the kids waited and took turns. I fully expected to have them run off and play and that the parents would have to mix it all for them. They all stayed at the table the whole time and LOVED it. I made little stamped cellophane bags to put the slime in, but iI think I forgot to take any pics of them.

Notice Derek wearing a party hat too!

All the kids seemed to really like the apple bobbing. I thought it'd be a bust, but a lot of them had done it before and really got into it. I should've taken off the stems.

We did some other funs stuff too. We had a pin the tail on the spooky cat, Wrap your Mommy Like a Mummy (tp) and i had some test tubes with juices in them so they could play Mad Scientist with their drinks.

This is the pumpkin cake she wanted so bad. There were supposed to be ghosts fllying out of the top, but i just made white chocolate dipped cookie ghosts around the edge instead. I was getting pretty "done" by the time i made the cake. My mom had a round cake pan that has an insert for an ice cream filling. It made the whole round cake making so much easier than trying to do it in bowls. Heather took this pic. I always get so busy and forget to take pics, but thankfully Heather is happiest behind a camera.

I was on the ball for once and made thank you's, AND i actually got them in the mail. I rock. Ella "helped" me make themwith her cool stamp set that she got for her birthday. THey're all little paper doll type body parts to make up people.

We had a great time. It was a lot of work to do it all and then drive up there (I live in San Jose now), but it was worth it and everyone seemed to be happy to make the effort. My mom hosted it in her backyard. Our freinds Heather and dave drove twice as long as i did to get there and be with us. They haven't missed any of Ella's bday partys since they met her. John had been on business trips back to back for a while, so he took vacation days to be there for a week, and flew out from Washington to go on even more business trips. It was actually a really nice vacation. Happy Birthday Poubelle!

Sharing a Spark!

2009-01-09T16:35:00.004-07:00

But it's not mine!! My mom has decided to try to spark, but she doesn't have a blog to post on. So she sent me her cute creation. I don't think that she did it so i'd post it, but she didn't tell me not to.

I wanted to do the challenge, but i just never sat down in my crafty room. Next week all make myself. Here's a pic of a christmasy wreath i made though.

I think that i need to buy a bigger wreath form. I had planned on being able to see the red ribbon wrapped wreath (tongue twister, whew. Even hard to type) through the paper numbers. I do like that it looks messy though. Ah well, a work in progress.

Fa la la la la....

2008-12-17T11:10:00.005-07:00

I feel like i've been doing tons of Cristmas-y stuff, but i don't have a lot to show for it. I made my christmas cards in time and sent out half. (wtf?? I don't know!!) I've shopped and mailed almost all the gifts i need to get for people. I even stamped some of the shipping boxes. We went and cut down a tree, in 70 degree weather with sungleasses on. I'm even making my hubby a stocking.

But, i don't feel that most of this is blog worthy. I DID however make the cutest darn snowflakes i have EVER seen. My christmas tree was looking bland. It was in the corner against two blank white walls. So I thought I'd hang some snowflakes. Oh no, I won't be able to see white snow flakes on white walls. But wait. I had saved all the cute catalogs from Crate and Barrel and Pier One and such. I just knew I could do something with those adoreable christmas colored pages of Stuff.

Sharing my Spark

2008-11-17T16:05:00.004-07:00

So, after many guilt ridden months, i've finnally succeeded in doing the project from my freind Heather's "Share you Spark".....thingy. O.K., so i had already made some tags, but still, i feel very accomplished to have gotten it done and to her. Yay me. (Embrace the small things in your life)...The first one is made with my favorite tab shaped punch. I use it a ton, love it.

These little ones i made for my nephews. I color coded their gifts, so i made color coded tags. They were easy and simple, but they do the job, and i think they whimsical.

The reason i had some tags done already is because i am going to wrap christmas gifts AS I GO this year. I love wrapping gifts, and i hate that it's a chore all at once every year. It may be helping that i have a craft room now. Yay! I don't have any guests for a while, so i finally got to put my new desk in the guest room, and i love having a dedicated workspace. It's so inviting. I'm finding myself doing a lot more projects that've been hard to get to before. Happy sigh. I'm in a good crafty rut.

itinerary

2008-10-08T17:04:00.004-06:00

We are going to WDW. (Walt Disney World for those of you who don't know the approved abbreviation). My daughter is 4, the perfect age to go right? I wanted to make her something that would help her out and be a little interactive. I made her an itinerary.

It's a little book that shows her in Pics what we are doing each day. We're going with Heather and Dave who are Disney experts, so everything is planned and organized. They made a scedule that i printed out that has every morning , afternoon, evening activity plus meals, resturaunts and reservation numbers. This helped a lot. I went to Flickr and chose a good pic of everything we were going to do. So now Ella will be able to have fun trying to find how the picture ties into what we're doing each day. Hopefully.

I left space on each day so that she can tuck souvenirs in, and there are pages in the back too. If I REALLY need to, i can take the book apart and add pages between days. I think it'll work out really well. I'll let you know.

2008-10-08T13:33:00.003-06:00

So, my freind Heather, whose super powers include stamping and uber organization, has done a gorgeous days of october book. This was supposed to be something that we both did, together, on lazy afternoons in her crafty room, but alas, i was yanked from one armpit geographic area to an armpit financial area. So no Heathery goodness. But i have attempted to do (and photo) something fun and halloweeny everyday, in the hopes that i'll do a book in retrospect.

Fun Halloween Purchases

2008-08-25T15:54:00.006-06:00

SO, i moved to San Jose. See? I have a good reason why ii haven't posted in a long time.

I'm a little bit settled now, have my computer and printer and stuff set up at least. I unpacked my crafty stuff yesterday, but it's nowhere NEAR as organized as Heather's space yet. I'm working on getting everything around here pretty so i can show you my house. It was built in the 50's. I feel very much like a 50's housewife here because the neighbors are SO nice. Seriously, i've met more of my neighbors here than i have everywhere else combined.

I found a little scrappy store just around the corner and went shopping today. It's all so pretty together.

Halloweeny Goodness.

2008-05-08T16:28:00.009-06:00

So, Heather has been at me to photo some of the little books and such that i've made over the last few years, so here goes.
This one is an album of Strausbourg that i made in an altoid box. I painted the box first, then did some stamping on it, and finally Mod Podged it. Not sure that I laquered it the best way. There were air bubbles, and it ended up soaking into the little tag on the front. Live and Learn. I love the numbered pages with the corresponding list of captions on the inside cover. I mounted the photos on a

ribbon and used that to do the accordion thing. I really like the "tab" type function of the end of the ribbon so you can easily pull out the photos. There is a little red rivet on the end of the folded ribbon. It makes me happy.

Birthday cards and bad photos

2008-05-07T20:22:00.004-06:00

So i appparently need to work on photographing cards and such. This is BAD bad bad. But hopefully it's enough to get an idea accross.

I always make my baby's birthday cards, and this year we're going to do a pool party. I stole the basic idea from a Martha Magazine. I do like mine better though. In the one pic, you can see the whole card, but the second pic has better color representation. It was hard to not get a glare from the transparency film that I printed the text on.

Heather had a new circle cutter that made this very easy. I think that the hardest part was printing on the transparency. You DO have to buy the ones that are FOR ink jet printers, or else it really won't dry. OOoooh ooooooh, a great tip today. There is a setting when printing that is for faster drying ink. I had no idea. A random remark fromt the nice ladies at Archivers led me to it. I am the least patient person in the universe, so even if it's not a time crunch i am always going to use it. It was in the print properties. A little slider bar. Dry faster, or dry slower. (why would we want it to take longer?) I'm gonna try it and see if it works for printing photos too.

Aloha

2008-05-02T20:03:00.000-06:00

Went to Hawaii this last weekend. The first trip there for my little girl Ella. I used to think that taking kids on vacation was pointless. "Will they even remember it? I can't do anything by myself." But, I did enjoy myself with her, and i think it was a great experience for her. She loved it. She wasn't excited by things that i thought she would be. Hula lessons? Nah . Finding every tiki on the island? Why not.

I went to Archivers today and did a little page layout that they were highlighting. It'll be perfect for some pics of Ella and John on the beach. I'll post pics when it's finnished.