Siri and I made a caterpillar from our button jar yesterday and I thought I’d share it. It’s a fairly easy project although it tends to break in little hands (we had a “re-glue” situation a couple of times). Basically, you just need to make 5 sections of 7 buttons each. THe 5 buttons need to be 1 big, 2 semi-big, 2 medium, and 2 small. We used hot glue to put the buttons together. We also alternated colors (3 pink sections and 2 blue sections). We added a pearl button for the nose and 2 pink pins for antenna. All and all an easy project! Siri loved putting it together. Warning: you WILL have buttons all over the floor once you are done!
Category: Stuff I Love
Just things that I think are beautiful!
My New ACMoore Paper Pads! Bella Bella and Paris and Co.
My new AC Moore paper pads have arrived! They are exclusively at ACMoore (I don’t think they have hit the stores yet). There are two pads: Bella Bella (which includes many of the original Bella Bella line papers) and Paris and Co. (also found digitally at 2peas). Here’s a card I made this afternoon using the papers (alpha rubons from the Laundry Line and Crochet flower from Bohemia).
I’m always amazed at the mess one grown woman can make to create a simple card like this (granted, both of my girls helped with the mess, but most of it was mine). It’s positively amazing!
Hair Clips
Siri, Flissa, and I got in a craft mood this afternoon and made a bucnh of new hairclips. It’s easy and makes the girls look so cute. We are espeically into silk flower clips right now because we ALL end up wearing them:). We also made a bunch of button clips. Here is Siri posing with them:
You’ll also notice Siri’s little bird that we decorated. We were at the craft store and I found a couple of little birds for 69 cents. The girls each got one and with the glue gun out, Siri HAD to decorate hers. I love the glue gun!
We Believe in Art
Saturday afternoon, I was working on my digikits and Siri decided to do an art project. Josh was suppose to be watching her, but managed to fall asleep on the couch. When I went to check on her (and realized that Josh was asleep), I found her in COMPLETE artistic mode:
The entire white table was painted red, blue, and green. Not on purpose, of course. She’s just, ummm, able to make that paint go far. (Honestly, this picture does NOT do it justice!) My favorite part was that she had taken several of her paintings and made them into this ball of paper (think PeeWee Herman tin foil ball). It was actually very inventive, and I see sculpture in her future:).
In other news, there is one more day of the giveaway (see the post below!) so add your comment to be entered in!
Memorial Day and Madsen Cycles
We had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. The highlight for the kids was the Memorial Day breakfast we attend in the neighborhood at the church. There’s a 5K (we didn’t participate), pancake breakfast, and one of the neighbors drove the kids around in this…
The best part for me; however, was that I got a chance to try out Jared’s Madsen Cycle. I am SO in love this this thing and will be buying one in the next couple of weeks because it is so fantastic! I was sort of worried that it was going to be too heavy or hard to ride, but I was completely surprised at how light it is and easy to balance. There’s also a cool feature were the kick stand is UNDER the bucket to hold the bike up when you aren’t riding it. Then, when you kick off to go, it rotates up. Love the design!! One of the best parts is that the kids LOVE it. I mean, really, really love it. For us, we live near the library, both grandma’s houses, the grocery store, etc and having a bike like this would save us on gas and help me and Josh get in a little exercise. So I was SO happy to test ride this one.
I also found out that there is a giveaway going on over at MadsenCycles. They are giving one of these away for FREE! I’m not sure how you enter, but you should visit here to check it out: http://www.madsencycles.com/contest/. Jared (the owner and inventor of the Madsen Bike) 
lives in our neighborhood, and he told me about it. If you have little kids, you should seriously think about entering this giveaway! Wait, did I already mention I love this bike? lol
Crocheting and Preschool Graduations
I’ve picked up the crochet needle this week. I usually start to crochet again out of sheer necessity: I can’t live without a crocheted wash cloth. Seriously, they are the BEST for washing dishes and our other one is seeing it’s final days (something that happens often since we don’t own a dishwasher). I’ve never even tried crocheting anything else. One of my graphic design students a couple of years ago made Siri a crochet octopus (known at our house as “Purpie” because of his lovely purple hue). It really is one of the most adorable stuffed animals (is that what you call a crocheted animal?). Maybe one day I’ll get away from the crochet washcloth and move on to grander and nobler projects. lol.
In other news, this week Siri graduated from preschool and even had a class program in lovely red gowns and hats.
This is it. The beginning of the end for me. My baby is going to kindergarten next year. It’s cliche but I know I’m going to cry that day. She looked so old at her little preschool graduation. The great part is that summer has officially begun, which means…vacation! And I’ve already begun calendaring the camping trips and vacations I hope we have time to go on. Last summer was vacationless with Felicity being so young and Josh taking the bar. Not that vacations won’t be hard this year: Josh is taking another state’s bar this summer (we’re marathon bar taking) so that he can be licensed in two states. Good stuff.
Creative Juice Photography
There is always a little bit of discomfort when I post pictures of myself on this blog or on the website. For the most part, it’s been hard because as the principle photographer in my home, there really aren’t many pictures of me (moms, you know what I am talking about!). So I had Creative Juice Photography come over to do a few headshots with me and my products so I could put them up on the about page, etc. They did a FANTASTIC job! I was really happy with their work! Jess was so professional, we took the photos at my house (this one was taken on my front porch). Go over and check them out when you get a chance and also take a look at my new pics on the about page.
The paper shown here is from my Bella Bella line from My Minds Eye. You can also see the entire line here.
Jen’s Wedding & Kelly Nicole Photography
As promised, I am posting Jen’s wedding photographer’s info, Kelly Nicole. Her work is SO beautiful, and I was really impressed with the variety of photos she had for this wedding. One of the things that Jen and I both agree on is that you can NEVER scrimp on your wedding photos. I mean, if you pay a mint for dresses, flowers, and reception hall to make everything beautiful, but scrimp on the photographer then how can you remember any of it? I think I’ve already posted a little bit on the bachelorette party and wedding, but here’s a bit more on the day.
First of all, I think one of the most fabulous things you can do is be the matron of honor for a designer bride and designer groom! These two had it all together…the colors were amazing, the reception was amazing, the dresses were amazing….
Okay, down to the dirty details. Jen’s wedding was at the Salt Lake Temple and reception was held at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building’s Empire Room. One of the things I loved was that they had an entire program. It was a flexible program, but it provided
structure to the whole event which was REALLY nice. When I wasn’t chasing the flower girls (my Siri and Felicity and Jen’s niece Emma), I was chowing down on the filet mignon, giving the nerve-racking toast, and dancing with my girls. Jen’s didn’t have specific “colors,” I guess you could name them: plum, pink, ivory, green. What she REALLY had was a theme, which was antique. So everything went together without being matchy-matchy. The tablecloths and linens were an antique pink/champaign in silk and the flowers were plum and pink peonies, antique pink and ivory roses, and ivory hydrangea, and baby ranunculus. And by the way, how fantastic are those shoes with the plum dresses (and the yummy salmon peony silk flower?)? The dresses were a great find from Shabby Apple (one of my favorite places to shop for modest dresses)
. The 5-year old flower girl dresses were pink and Flissa’s was ivory. Oh, and I’m sending you to Kelly Nicoles blog to see her most recent photographs. I just hopped over there for a second to grab this link for you to view more pictures of Jen’s wedding.
One last comment…the picture of Felicity and me in the top photo really strikes me. Sometimes I am completely amazed that this is my child because our coloring is so different! Some seriously strong recessive genes…
All of the photos in this post are copyright of Kelly Nicole Photography.
Excuse The Mess
If you’ve come to the site today, you can see the state everything is in! Thanks for being patient as the new look of the blog along with the website is being transitioned today!
New Website
If you’ve noticed an absence of blogging it is because I have been trying to get together a new website that hopefully will be up and running at the end of this week! It will be a great resource for my design news, projects with products, new paper crafting products, digital scrapbooking products, and where to buy them. The blog will get a new makeover as a result as well! There will be new flickr groups and more:). So excuse my absence a bit for this coming week and I’ll have this new website up and running! I’m pretty excited about it! You’ll even get sneak peeks of my new products coming out WAY before they actually hit CHA and stores!
Happy Sunday!
[ad]
Crate and Barrel Placecard Holders
The UPS truck showed up at our door today and dropped off a Crate and Barrel package. I asked Josh (jokingly) what he bought from Crate and Barrel (he laughed…I don’t think he’s ever ordered anything from there…me on the other hand, well, that’s a different story). So I open the little box and on the top is a card from my darling friend Jen and her new husband Spencer! The card was SO sweet (the gift was a thank you for helping with her wedding), and I couldn’t believe it when I saw THESE:
If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I’ve been searching for these little darlings since this Favorite Friday post! They are even MORE beautiful in person! What a FANTASTIC bride!!!! Thank you, thank you Jen and Spencer!!!! I can’t wait to use them!!! What a great surprise!
If you are looking for these same place card holders, you can pick them at Crate and Barrel here.
[ad]
Felicity’s Birthday and Paradise Collection Party Kit
Felicity’s birthday was on Thursday, but we celebrated yesterday with Josh’s family. It was a really fun time with an easy dinner of soup, salad, and breadsticks, chocolate cupcakes with pink icing and sprinkles for the kids, and coconut cake for the adults. My extra treat was the white chocolate suckers (see the post before this one). Everything looked beautiful! I used my new Paradise Collection to make all the accessories for this party. The new collection is happy and bright with vibrant colors. It hits two peas on May 5th! I will be sure to give you a few sneak peeks in the coming days. You can also buy all the party stuff I put together in a new digikit that is also part of the collection (also coming May 5th). Here’s a peak at the printable digikit:
Here are some photos of the fun night celebrating Flissa’s second birthday! Here’s the birthday girl wearing her pink party dress and wrapped in her blanky.
These are my cute sisters-in-law:
Party food always makes everything better!
I cheated on the cake—just white box cake (Duncan Hines), but I didn’t skimp on the frosting. I used the Barefoot Contessa’s coconut cream cheese frosting.
I love these four little cousins!
The hats looked so adorable on the kids!
Living Room decorations
and party-goers (it’s girly enough at our house that even grandpa is holding a wand).
More on the new collection soon!
[ad]
White Chocolate Lollipops
My friend Carolyn sent me a picture of white chocolate lollipops she made from molds and I had to try it myself for Flissa’s family birthday party. (Carolyn says that she has a blog but hasn’t updated it for a while. I’m trying to convince her to put her gorgeous little girl bows up…if she does I will be sure to post it here!) So I borrowed Carolyn’s daisy molds and made the suckers. They were SO fast and easy to make. All you do is get white chocolate chips, melt them, add a little food coloring (I used two drops of red in one package of white chocolate chips to get this light pink), and let them cool in the fridge. I was sort of surprised at how fast the entire process was.
That’s my short post for the day! I have to get together the rest of Flissa’s b-day party and I am working on a new line for Two Peas which should hit in two weeks! Not only that but I found out this week that My Minds’s Eye has picked up a Halloween line from me for the July release (CHA). Lots of exciting things happening and so little time! Will post on the party and new line soon!
[ad]
Bachelorette Party and Wedding
This weekend was filled with parties and events for Jen’s wedding. But don’t plan on her posting about it anytime soon since she is on her honeymoon. I just thought I would post a couple of tidbits although I don’t know that this will be a very exciting post as I promised to not show any of the riske photos from the bachelorette party. I tried to make the food for the party as easy as possible. One of the ladies offered her house so we nixed going to a restaurant for a more comfortable atmosphere. I ordered sushi (from Happy Sumo) and soup (the Zuppa is my favorite from the Olive Garden). I’ll be using the Olive Garden for easy parties in the future…the soup was only $20 for a gallon and $4 for 12 breadsticks.
This is my favorite picture of Aimee and Cynthia (sisters) laughing at one of the stories being told.
As I said, I wasn’t allowed to post any of the ridiculous pictures, so that basically eliminated everything else:).
Okay, a little about the wedding. As the matron of honor (wow, that sounds old, huh?) and with two little flower girls to boot, there wasn’t much time for pictures. I will just say that it was a BEAUTIFUL day—the bride looked beautiful and the groom handsome, and well, it was all a fantastic success. When Jen posts pictures, I will DEFIANTLY send you over to her site because they will be fabulous. I will also get the link to her photographer, Kelly Nicole. Here are a few of my candid pics:
The bride and groom
I think this little flower girl is pretty adorable.
This next little flower girl ripped the hem of her dress,refused to wear her wreath, and managed to have a blow out in her dress during my toast (Josh missed the toast and a few other things). She looks so innocent…
Our fabulous cupcakes from cupcakechicutah were AMAZING! I would highly recommend her! We had the red velvet for the wedding favors and we had the chocolate coconut and chocolate mint at our bachelorette party.
This cake wasn’t just beautiful, it was YUMMY! Raspberry filled and swirled on the bottom, carrot cake for the middle, and lemon with lemon curd for the top…
Felicity and me…I loved our bridesmaids dresses and those huge peony’s we wore in side buns in our hair. We also had fabulous green shoes! That’s the fantastic combo you get when two designers get married!
[ad]
The Business Card Revisited
After posting that business card video below (seriously, you need to watch it because you will completely enjoy it!), my brother-in-law Nate posted this American Psyho Business card scene.
The business card taken to a whole new level…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoIvd3zzu4Y
Just when you’d had enough on the business card…