creative & unique baby gift

Many of my friends are having their 2nd or 3rd (or 4th!!) child. (Hello, baby fever!!) Sometimes it's tricky for me to come up with a unique gift for those who might already have all of the clothes or baby accessories they need. Diapers are always a necessity, but let's face it sometimes it's a lot more fun to give something that is a little more creative than that! And I love giving gifts so the wheels are always turning! Creative gift giving has always been a passion of mine.

A few weeks ago, I attended a baby shower for a friend of mine who had just had her first baby girl, but second child. The invitation said that she had already been blessed with lots and lots of girly baby clothes, so I knew my fun shopping trip for the perfect baby girl outfit was out! So, instead of going towards the practical side in the form of a gift card or diapers (which, don't get me wrong, are ALWAYS great to receive!), I decided to use my creativity and created an 8x10 picture art of her new baby girl that could be used as wall decor for her nursery. I swiped some of the pictures off her blog and thankfully she had also posted some pictures of the nursery, so I knew there were going to be butterflies. And, lucky me, she even included the meaning of her baby girl's name that I decided to include.

Here is the finished piece...


For those of you who don't know, I dabble a little bit in creating photo cards in my "spare time". Since starting my Stampin' Up! business, I haven't done as much with this as in the past, but I still create when I can or when others want me to. In fact, for a very good friend of mine who just had her third, I will be making her new little guy's birth announcements as my gift to her. And, soon, I hope to design our family's Christmas card.

It's always fun to give a gift that comes straight from the creativity of your mind. I figure if I've been given a talent, then I should use it to bless others and not just keep it for myself! This works for me!!

For more Works for Me Wednesday, visit We Are That Family.

****************************************

Don't forget...tomorrow is the LAST day to link up your photo project to this month's craft challenge. Now, that I think about it, this post actually fits the challenge! A new challenge will be posted on Friday, so come on back!

spot on!

Our play room is always in some sort of transition and I'm not sure if it will ever be exactly the way I had envisioned, but...

it's getting closer!

So, what started as this (a blank wall):

Turned into this:

By adding some of these (wall vinyls):

All for only $8.99!!

(FYI: I've already added an extra dot to the right after seeing this picture
and realizing it looked uneven...and I need to move the frame up a little
higher after moving some furniture around. See? Always a transition!!)

I still have some of these wall vinyls left,
so who knows where else I might get a little spot crazy in the room!

A cheap way to spruce up a wall definitely works for me!

works for me wednesday - organize it!

Welcome to this little place of mine where I am proud to admit that organization is an obsession!!

Today's Works For Me Wednesday is a themed edition...
can you guess what it is?

Yep...

ORGANIZATION!!

So, I thought it might be fun for you to choose your own adventure by clicking on any of the posts below to find exactly what you might be looking for. Some of you are new to my blog, but some of you faithful followers may have seen all of this before.
Either way...have fun browsing!

Organize your camping stuff

Organize your car

Organize with baskets!

Organize your gift wrap

Organize your dessert recipes

Organize little girl hair accessories

Organize your scrap paper

Organize all those toys!

Organize your holiday decor

See?
I told you it was an obsession!

works for me wednesday - creative gift wrapping

Another week of Works for Me Wednesday is here!

I don't like to buy gift wrapping supplies if I already have them (and, trust me I'm always stocked up...check out my gift wrapping storage here), but sometimes I don't have the right size of gift bag to hold those larger sized, oddly shaped presents.

Here are a few ways to get creative with what you already have!

Idea #1

Don't you love those packages that have the open part in the front? If you wrap them in wrapping paper all that happens is a big hole in the front with one little slip of the hand.


Find a piece of cardboard and tape it over the front of the gift...


And voila! Wrap it up easily without any holes!

*********************************************

Idea #2

Wrap your gift in a basket and tuck in random bits of tissue paper to "hide" the goodies inside.

*********************************************

Idea #3

Use something other than wrapping paper to wrap an oddly shaped gift. For this particular toy, I couldn't find any cardboard to cover the front (like idea #1), and I didn't have a gift bag big enough to fit.


I found this GIANT gift bag in my stash, but then realized that it was way too big for this toy. So I got a little creative with it!


And cut it into two pieces...


It was more flexible and durable to work with without the fear of poking a hole in it.

*********************************************

Idea #4

Match the birthday card with the wrapping paper. Why use an envelope? Show off the card by taping it on top of the gift.

*********************************************

Idea #5

Wrap it up with cellophane. This little toy wagon given to a friend's daughter was so awkward to wrap, so I decided to just wrap it with some polka dotted cellophane. It didn't fit at first, so I just cut out the bottom and slipped it through leaving the wheel and handles without cellophane around it.


Check out more Works for Me Wednesday tips and tricks at We Are That Family.

Or for more creative gift giving ideas, check out more of what I've shared here.

get organized...camping style

A couple weeks ago, our little family of four went camping at the Oregon Coast (a mere 2 hours from where we live!). This was our first camping trip since Austin was born. He'll be 2 years old in September. Obviously, we don't go camping much. Which means TENTS. A thin piece of plastic between us and the rest of the campground. I knew our neighbors were going to love us! We decided to split up and Austin and Ryan were in the large tent and Mikayla and I were in the {teeny tiny} small tent. We figured this way the kids wouldn't wake each other up. The bad thing was I got stuck with the early riser who wanted to be up and riding her bike at 7:00 in the morning! I love that girl.

Onto my point...

I haven't participated in Works for Me Wednesday in quite some time, and I couldn't help but share this little tip that helped shred hours of packing for our camping trip. Since we don't have a trailer, we depend on Rubbermaid tubs to hold our camping gear. We have two large tubs that stay on the shelves in the garage for 361 days out of the year. So, after brushing off the dust, we opened up the tub and lo and behold there was a typed out list right on top of everything that was inside the tub...including a small list of things we needed. Hello, organization! It's so good to see you! I was so thankful that I had taken the time 2 summers ago to do this. I didn't have to take the extra time during the chaos of packing to dig through the tubs to see what we had or needed.

tub #1 holds misc. camping supplies
tub #2 holds camping cookware

And, while I'm chatting about organization, I thought I'd share my handy little organizers I use for camping. You know those plastic bags that infant onesies, curtains, sheets, etc. come in? Save them! They make great little organization tools for lots of things. (I even made a ribbon holder out of one.) These two tubs are filled with these plastic thing-a-ma-jigs.


You better believe that I took the time to take inventory again after we got home from camping (even if it took a week to get to it). So, everything's ready to go for camping in 2011! *wink*

**FYI: I learned these storage tips from my mom when we would go camping when we were younger. She had the exact same organization method: tubs and plastic thing-a-ma-jigs. Thanks, mom, for passing along your wisdom and knowledge for camping organization (and a whole lot of other things, too!)

Check out We Are That Family for more Works for Me Wednesday.

your basic black suitcase

Just a quick tip for today's Works for Me Wednesday!

I've been brainstorming some ribbon projects for tomorrow's Monthly Craft Challenge party. And somehow I got to thinking how you could use ribbon as a luggage identifier. When my husband and I got married we, of course, registered for the basic black luggage set which everyone else also owns! So, when we would go on vacation (which really isn't that often) we had a hard time trying to figure out which luggage was ours in the mass amount of black luggage.

To solve that problem I decided to tie on a few ribbons, so that now when the luggage is passing through the carousel we can instantly spot ours! I know this isn't quite a genius idea. My mom actually uses a fabric scrap for hers, so I kind of copied the idea from her, but I thought I would share it anyway because I know it will work for me (maybe we should plan a vacation just to test it out!) I wanted to be all cute and tie on lots of colors of ribbon, but then I got to thinking...every now and then my husband goes on solo business trips and I'm sure he doesn't want to be lugging around a "frilly" looking suitcase. In fact, this might be pushing it a bit. (Good thing I did it on just the large suitcase, huh, babe?)


Come to find out...today's WFMW is the Frugal Edition. This would definitely be considered frugal...just head to your ribbon scraps and with just a few pieces of ribbon you're good to go. Go check out more frugal tips at We Are That Family.

*********************************************

Don't forget to come back tomorrow so we can all share our ribbon craft projects. If you want to come back to join us, please do! We're linking up new or old posts that showcase ribbon projects so that we can be inspired to keep creating!! Want more information, go HERE. If you don't have something to share, that's OK...just come on back anyway to see what others have been up to!

my themed party obsession

Updated on 5/29/09: This party was featured on Creative Parties & Showers & One Pretty Thing.

****************************************

For Works for me Wednesday, I want to share something that definitely works for me...themed parties! I love themes! Birthday parties, baby showers, you name it and most likely I'll create a theme for it. I even enjoy giving themed presents for birthdays and baby gifts. It gives me a chance to get my creative juices flowing and I have so much fun in the process. One very important thing to know, however, is that I often put more TIME than money into creating themes. I like simple, but with some extra special touches. My sister would say I'm an overachiever! I just call it crazy.

TODAY is my daughter's 3rd birthday and last Sunday we had family over for a fun celebration! So, what was the theme you might ask?

~ Lollipop Sweetness ~

The invitation (pictured below) was shaped in the form of a lollipop. I also made a birthday collage of pictures of Mikayla from this past year and I sent one to each of the family members with their invitations. At the party, each of the cousins received their own lollipop with their initial on it.


At the end of the party, I took out the "lollipops" and had little baggies for the guests to put some of the candy in and take home with them. It was great to use this not only as decoration, but also for a little treat for the guests at the party!


At every birthday party, instead of cake, I make cupcakes (see here for more). This time I wanted to do something simple and bright, so I used lots of sprinkles and made some fun cake toppers with Mikayla's initial on them. So easy, so cute!




I've seen this idea floating around in many different places, so I just had to try it! These are strawberry marshmallows dipped in chocolate and covered with sprinkles. I then put a lollipop stick in them...they were a hit with the kids!


You know you can't get enough sweetness and I thought it might be fun to throw in some fruit roll ups just for fun and to add even more color to the table.


This idea was originally done by my friend Andrea when we co-hosted a baby shower together, and I just had to recreate it for Mikayla's party. Of course the matching paper is on purpose!


The completed table. If you look closely I have candy necklaces hanging from the light fixture. The rest of that idea was to have pictures hanging from the necklaces, but I ran out of time! For lunch we had a sandwich bar, chips, veggies, and fruit salad.

For some simple decoration, I found these bubble wands at The Dollar Tree and turned them into lollipops with some cellophane and ribbon. I loved how they turned out and it gave just the right amount of decor that was needed.

Near the end of the party, I took them all down and I had Mikayla give them to her cousins as party favors. Again, I loved being able to use these for two things...decorations and favors.

We then broke out the bubbles and the kids played with their wands in the backyard. It was a hit! Cheap entertainment works for me!

At one point during the party we also had a lollipop hunt. I had purchased some small lollipops and stuck them all over the yard and the kids ran around looking for them. It was so fun to watch them find them and put them in their bags. This was pretty much the only "organized activity". The rest of the time was spent eating and playing outside in the sun. Ryan had found some oversized blow up sports equipment on clearance last fall, so we got those out and the kids enjoyed having something to play with.

Not surprisingly if you know me, there are still lots of pictures to share of the party, especially of opening presents, blowing out candles and such. But, I'll save that for another post! On Friday, we're having 3 of Mikayla's girlfriends over for a tea party/dress up party, so I'll be sharing some more fun pictures if you want to come back to see!

And...if you want to see some of my other "themed obsession", check out the following:

Monkey Birthday Party
Flowers & Favorites Birthday Party
Pink & Green Icecream Sundae Baby Shower (aka Pickles & Icecream)
Themed Baby Shower Gifts

Head on over to We Are That Family for more Works for Me Wednesday!

quick card assembly tip

Tonight is my first card swap as a Stampin' Up! demonstrator. I kind of feel like it's my first day as a teacher in a new school. I get to meet all the new teachers {stampers} and see their fun classrooms {creations}. I'm a little nervous, but I'm glad to be embarking on this new journey with a new friend of mine, Andrea. She is the gal I am signed up under and I couldn't be more happy with that. She is so much like me in every way when it comes to being creative. Andrea and I had the pleasure of co-hosting a baby shower awhile back for a mutual friend of ours. And now it will be fun to actually be working together in our jobs! Thanks, Andrea, for your encouragement in getting me started with this fun company!

Anyhoo...where was I? Oh! Today is Works for Me Wednesday at We Are That Family and I thought I would share with you a quick tip that I have often used when making cards.

When I make cards, I spend a good portion of my time designing something that I really like and am proud of. So, instead of moving on to the next card right away, I take the extra hour or so and decide to make 7-10 of that same card to have on hand. So, my tip for all those card makers out there is after coming up with a design that you are happy and proud of, gather together all of the pieces that you will need to whip a bunch of those cards out in no time by making an assembly line of sorts!

I interrupt this post for a little bit of randomness and a quick flashback: This kind of reminds me of when I made my wedding invitations 5 1/2 years ago. I cut all the pieces to the invite and then invited over my bridesmaids and we had a wedding invitation party and we put them all together. These girls helped me crank those babies out!


OK, back to March 2009....

The picture below shows you all of the pieces ready to go for me to create 8 of the completed card shown. (If you want to see more detail on the card, just click on the picture.) I'm waiting on one color (Green Galore) to finish up the assembly that I hope to borrow from my dear friend, Kim at Caldwell Cuties, who would lend me her kitchen sink if she could. She already loaned me Real Red and some ribbon so I could make this last minute card for the swap (I'm waiting for my demonstrator package in the mail!) Kim is a former Stampin' Up! demonstrator and awesome "card-whipper outer" (I just made that up). I think she will be a lifesaver when it comes to "needing something real quick"! Thanks, Kim!


So, dust off those card making supplies and get to work, why don't you!? And, if you're feeling particularly crafty and want to join us in this month's BUTTON CRAFT CHALLENGE, be sure to get your project ready to share for next Thursday, April 2nd. We'll be having a Mr. Linky party! I can't wait to see what you all have come up with! I've shared some button inspiration HERE if you need a little extra push in the right direction! Oh, and did you see all the fun things that were created for last month's circle scalloped punch challenge? Run on over and check it out!