September Sneaks

Summer vacation wrapped itself up with a hurricane here in the northeast.  We were fortunate to not have more than some high winds and driving rains.  Others were not as lucky and my thoughts and prayers go out to the families who suffered damage during Irene.

I took advantage of the weather and got myself back into the stUdio for some much needed creative time.  There's just something about the summer that sucks up all my time.  Could it possibly be having three boys home with me all day long, every day?  Can't get much done with them during the day, and so exhausted at night that bed is way more tempting than the craft table.  This weekend was a much needed creative therapy for me.

Here are some sneak peeks of the projects I created with the September Petite Kit from Scrapbook Heaven:

I'm adding tissue paper to my current list of favorite things to create with.

The full reveal will go up on the first.  And I have a slew of crochet grannies to share, and some paper projects I managed to get done this month.  I'm hopeful that the boys' return to school will free up some time for me to get them posted here.

A Cuff and a Cozy {and a giveaway}

 I am so grateful for the boundless array of crochet patterns that people so readily share on their blogs and on sites such as Ravelry.  When I sit down to crochet, I feel like I am channeling a bit of my ancestral heritage, that maybe my grandmother and her grandmother before her sat in much the same way, rocking in a chair sipping tea in between rounds of crochet.  And then I think how fortunate I am to be living in the age of Google and Pinterest and to have access to the huge assortment of designs and tutorials, most of which are free. So to all of you who share your patterns with the world, I thank you from the bottom of my little  crocheting heart.

A Cuff

I used this pattern to make a cute cuff bracelet, just the perfect little accessory to some jeans and a t-shirt.  And now I think I've got the hang of foundation single crochet without having to watch the video a hundred times!  Thanks, Alice!

A Cozy

Not that my iPod needed another cozy--this thing almost has more cases than I have outfits--but I just loved the shell stripes of this adorable pattern from Shweta.

And a Giveaway

Yesterday kicked off Day #1 of Big Picture Scrapbooking's 2011 Big Idea Festival: 

You can still sign up to play along.  

So what does this have to do with anything?  Well, yesterday's word was "Share" and today, since I'm feeling grateful to those who share their talents online, I would like to share a bit of my "talent" (using this term loosely here) and give away a cuff bracelet like the one pictured above.  

To enter, leave a comment with a note about what you are feeling grateful for these days.  I'll pick one at random and stitch you up a little cuff to fit your wrist.

Lego Party!

This past weekend we celebrated our youngest's 6th birthday with a Lego Party!

Here's a break-down of what we did and at the end of the post, I list all the deets:

Invite:

created on Shutterfly

Each child received an activities card:

Lego actvities

and pencil when they arrived.  They guessed how many Legos were in the jar while they munched a quick snack.

colorful cupcake wrappers filled with snack mix and served on a giant lego

Then we headed outside for a Lego Hunt:

the goober birthday boy after he found all 5 colors

We headed back inside and the kiddos grabbed a cool drink

before we got into the much more strenuous games: the Tower Race, the Lego Pick-Up, the Lego Toss and Balloon Pop. (and right about here is where I forgot to take photos).

We wrapped up the day with pizza, cupcakes, 

Lego head clipart found here

a pull-string pinata and goodie bags:

made from mini cereal boxes covered with colored paper and small Lego dots {font here; sheet here}

 I followed Delia's tutorial to make the pinata, just substituting paper towel rolls for tin cans and omitting the crepe paper.  I recommend cutting a good sized door.  Mine was about 4x5" and the candy didn't pour out like I had hoped.

Games:

Lego Guess--fill a jar with Legos (also makes a nice decoration for the table).  Children write their name and guess (always funny to see the little ones' guesses--either really low {21} or sky high {1 million}!) on a slip of paper and put it in a box wrapped to look like a Lego.  To count: children make stacks of 10 blocks, then count by tens.  The birthday child opens the guess box (a little practice run for the gift opening).

Lego Hunt--hide large Duplo blocks around yard.  Children find one of each color.

  
Tower Race--have an assortment of Lego bricks and a board for building.  Children build a tower as tall as they can in 1 minute.  You can set this up as a race between children, or just for fun and measure their finished towers.

Lego Pick-up--have two plates a few feet apart.  Children move the Legos from one plate to the other by sucking on a straw.  This one was hard for the little ones.



Balloon-Pop Lego Build--place a few Legos in balloons and blow-up.  Children pop balloons, get the pieces and work together to assemble a Lego creation (the big kids came in handy with this one).









Lego Toss--hot glue strips of colored paper to foam board to make different sized circles.  Number the circles with points. Children toss 10 Legos into the circles and count their points.

Food:  

The food for this party was all about the color: 

Veggie Rainbow:

 These were originally going to be skewers, but we ran out of steam!

 Fruit Kabobs:

Assorted colored drinks and square cupcakes.

We also had chocolate covered Rice Krispie treats with M&M's buttons to look like Legos.  That was plan C.  I'll let you imagine how Plan A and B went.

 

This guy was a big hit!

Here's what the food table looked like all put together:

All in all it was a very fun and very exhausting party!  I may just have one more of these shindigs left in me...maybe.

August Reveal {and a winner}

Oh my word, August has been a whirlwind.  I have been spending my time getting ready for a special little someone's sixth birthday party this weekend.  We are up to our eyeballs in Legos and are just about ready.

I'll share all the deets next week.

Anyway, the new month of August (where has the summer gone??!) has brought some new kits to the Scrapbook Heaven store.

 

  And new kits mean new scrapbook pages and projects.  Here's what I created with these fabulous kits:

From the Elite:

 Our oldest is very into his music.  He has quite an extensive playlist on his ipod.  This layout documents some of his favorite tunes.

 One of my favorite journaling techniques is to highlight words using cut outs from patterned paper.

 This simple grid-style layout includes a pocket that can be used for report cards, school papers, or journaling.

 There's an entire sheet of banners in this kit--so fun!

From the  Petite:

 This page was inspired by a layout by Sasha Farina that I had saved to my inspiration folder a while back.

Awesome page by Sasha Farina

  I just loved her absolutely perfectly stitched circles filled with patterned papers.  I think she hand-stitches hers, but my hand-stitching is not that uniform so I opted for the machine (but it was a tad bit tricky to control--needs more practice)

 And another double-pager.  I'm thinking "white" is my safety color--matches everything and is an easy go to color for backgrounds.  I jazzed it up a bit with some bubble wrap stamping using acrylic paint.

I also created a simple mini-album using the Petite kit.  Absolutely love the Daily Junque line included in this kit!

the cover:

the inside front cover:

some pages:

 inside back cover:

back cover:

 This album went together in a snap: some white coin envelopes, a couple of sheets of Daily Junque, and some shipping labels all bound together with the Bind-It-All.  Slipped into each envie is a little lined index card.

And what will I do with said album?  Here's a slew of ideas I had while I was making it:

• monthly calendar to keep track of appointments
• daily goals/to do lists
• a perpetual birthday calendar by day: jot done the month and person's name on the day card
• daily quotes
• daily musings
• daily gratitudes
• remember todays (jot down a little something special to remember about each day)
• dream log
• a month in the life

I also saw an idea on Pinterest where you record something about your life each day of the year every year.  You could do the same with this: each day of the month every month for a year. (Darn, I just spent 15 minutes trying to find that project on Pinterest, and I guess I never pinned it and can't find it anywhere--uggh!)

And now for the winner of the Frog Tape!  I loved all of your ideas of ways to use this great green tape--you girls are really clever!  I'm hoping to try some of them out and I'll post them here when I do.

  

I planned to do a random draw, but since my baby is turning 6 tomorrow, I am going to choose comment number 6: 

jahree said...

I just painted my kitchen and used the "blue tape". But I have to do my living room too. I could do a comparison.....if anyone is interested!

July 13, 2011 9:28 PM

Yay, Jahree!  Please send me your addy and I will get your Frog goodies into the mail to you!