Fallish Mini Album

Got envelopes?  Make a mini scrapbook album. 



See that tab?  (above)  It opens the envelope and forms a pocket.  I love that, because I like to keep tickets and receipts, but they are often ugly, and I don't want them on the page.  But, I think in thirty years it might be fun to see what things cost.

Document all of your Thanksgiving traditions with one.  Put favorite recipes in the pockets.  I think this would be a cute format for your December Daily album.  Or a smash book.  Go make one!

Vintage Circus Shower

                        The vintage circus shower for my sister was inspired by an Anthropologie catalog.

This was one of my favorite parties ever.  I love this theme.

Jordan and my dad made the sandwich board sign.  She and I both painted the letters.  (That was a lot of painting, but I love how it turned out.)

An easy decoration for any party is to display the invitation. Especially if the invitation is handmade and really, really cute. I found this frame at Goodwill with the intention of painting the dark bronzish colored frame and purple flower "painting."  I forgot a before pic, but you can imagine.  I spraypainted it red and covered a piece of cardboard with fabric to frame the invitation.  The invitations were a collaboration by all the sisters and my mom.  The tiny banner said "It's a Boy!" (It better be.)

Aunt Mandy made the cake.  Awesome!  (And it tasted good, too.  It really did.  Like I ate four pieces good.  And they were three layers each.)

Jordan found these buckets at the dollar store.  Wish I had a before pic.  She painted them to look like the thingy the seal stands on at the circus.  So cute!

Jordan cut the circus tent shape with the good ole Cricut machine.  (That thing came in handy for this party, especially, because we found a circus-themed cartridge.)  We made scratch-off tickets according to a recipe using paint and liquid dish soap that we found on Pinterest.  We made one mistake, though.  If you try it, make sure you write on the ticket BEFORE you laminate it.  Then paint.  I laminated first and the permanent marker scratched right off with the paint.  Which meant we did not know who won the prize.  Not good.

We did manage to give away some prizes with the Bebe bingo game.  All the gifts were given a number sticker.  As the expectant mom opened gifts, the number was called out for guests to mark on their cards.

Aunt Sandy made these cards for guests to record wishes for the baby.  These are made with thick cardstock scrapbook paper which can be made into a mini album later.

Can't have a circus without candied apples, right?  Jordan cut the leaves out with the Cricut and stamped "Thank You" on them.  How cute is that?  These would be precious teacher gifts.  My mom and sis-in-law said they were not hard to make using the box of mix from the grocery store.  You will need a candy thermometer, though.  The apples tasted really good, too.  They were a huge hit. (I didn't even get one cause they were all gone.Still mad about that.)

Jena made the diaper "cake".  Yep, there's diapers in there.  Jordan made the "Congrats" banner with the Cricut and she made the tissue balls.

My sister's friend, Heather, made the cake pops.  German Chocolate and Red Velvet.  Can you believe this was her first time ever to make cake pops??  She got the idea from www.bakerella.com. I love how they were displayed in the porcelain popcorn bucket.

I made the tiny banner and added it to this thing I thought looked like a popcorn cart.  I think maybe it is made to hold potted plants.  My mom found these tiny popcorn cartons that we filled with caramel popcorn for guests to take.

OK, so maybe we shouldn't have called attention to the ugly ceiling of the building where we hosted the shower, but the pennant banner sure was festive.  Everyone had their hands on this one, because there was so darn much of it. We all helped make it.

Hope you enjoy this as much as we did!

One Last Boo-Rah!

This is my mantel these days.

I know it is kinda plain, but I haven't been much into Halloween decorations until this year.  Still haven't actually bought any, though.

I actually made this banner for the lounge at work.  Someone took the time to completely redecorate this year in a vintage style. 

I thought this sign went with the look pretty well.  It was inspired by the burlap banners by Miss Mustard Seed, only this is not burlap.  It is a light taupe colored cardstock printed with a LARGE ornamental font that I downloaded for free on www.houseoflime.com.  I just distressed the edges slightly with Tim Holtz distress ink (which was half off at Hobby Lobby.)

Linked up at lollyjane.com.

Cat Pumpkin

(Scene:  Pumpkin Decorating)

Me:  What are we going to use for whiskers?

Her:  Maybe we could use some of those long fuzzy things we used last year for the antennas on the Lil' Pet Shop Pumpkin.  What are they called?  Toilet plungers?

Me:  (Thinking.)  You mean pipe cleaners.

Her:  Oh yeah.  Let's use those.

Pumpkin Light Night is fast approaching and we needed to decorate a pumpkin or two quickly. 

This year, the theme was book characters.  We chose the book by Laura Numeroff, "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake."  We had to have some sort of sign or poster to display as well, so we made ours look like the book cover (complete with real sprinkles.)  We already had red letters from a Christmas scrapbook kit (thanks Aunt Sandy!)

The pumpkin we chose for the cupcake was a little too big, but I thought tiny pom-poms (thanks Mom!) were cute as sprinkles.

Note to self:  Next year, buy black foam sheets MUCH earlier than the week before Halloween, cause they run out in stores and buying a huge multi-colored pack when you only need two small ears is not my idea of cost effective, plus now I will have to store it probably for years, cause I cannot throw something out that I MIGHT use.

(We never found anything to use as whiskers.  No black wire.  No clear fishing line.  Just not gonna use toilet plungers.)

Halloween Treat

Here is another easy Halloween teacher gift.  Or BOO treat for your neighbors.

I always keep clear cellophane treat bags for things like this.  (Found these at Michael's.)  The labels were from Target.  Inside?  Cocoa Roast Almonds.  Dark Chocolate Flavor.  If you haven't tried these, you are definitely missing out and I am not getting paid to say that.  They are in a green plastic canister by the peanuts at Target.  I like them because they are a healthier snack and I never know when someone is watching their diet.  Six grams of protein with one gram of sugar per serving.

Plus, they look kinda like crow's feet or something crowish, don't they?

BOO your neighbors!

At the school where I work, its sort of a tradition to "BOO" each other.  I know lots of people who do this in their neighborhood during the Halloween season.

You sneak and secretly put a treat on someone's door.

The treat doesn't have to be in a cone, of course.  But I saw these

here and thought they were cute.  She's even got a cute free printable on her website.

So I decided to make my own to put treats inside.  I tried to find things that were Halloween themed or at least Halloween colors.  Since I work in a school, I put colored pens and post-its in there along with the candy corn scented car freshener from Yankee Candle (got that at Cracker Barrel-one of my favorite places for gifts.)

You also put a BOO! sign on their door, so that others know that they have already gotten treats and don't BOO! them again.  I used my Cricut machine to cut the letters out of guess what?  Shelf liner!  I found it at Michael's for $1 a roll (maybe even 50 cents).  I thought the lime green was cute on spider web scrapbook paper (that I snatched from my daughter's stash.)

There is a piece of polka-dot paper rolled up in there and tied with baker's twine.  That is the poem that tells your recipient about this tradition and directions for what to do next.  (Like choose two people to BOO! within 24 hours.)

Get to know your neighbors (or coworkers) with this fun Halloween tradition!

sWITCHeroo

This was an easy Halloween scrapbook page to make.  (I glued down the orange paper before looking at the brand name on the back.  OOPS!)  I don't often buy expensive paper, but this one was too cute to pass up. I think those are Christmas letters, but I don't care.  It works for me.

First pic:  The "I am only sort of smiling cause my mom is forcing me" face.

Second pic: The "ha-ha I got my way" face.

I wrote right on the page for the journaling on this one.  Makes it easier.  You should show your handwriting anyway.  People will want to see that in forty years.  I like to see my grandmother's handwriting on her old recipe cards.  Back when people actually practiced cursive writing.  Do kids even learn that in school anymore??  What are we gonna have-millions of old text message saved on some sim card somewhere that we have no way to access?  Too weird for words.  Literally.