Baby Memory Book

Just as promised, here are some images of the present I gave with the baby boy card from yesterday's post. It was a Baby Memory Book I designed, with pages for record keeping such as; baby's arrival, birth announcement,  birth facts, etc and pages dedicated to photos to document all of the little ones special moments. In keeping with the elephant themed baby shower, I designed a cute little mommy/baby elephant design for the top border of each page and used some elephant embellishments to decorate the front cover. And to make it more personalized, there is a 3x3" window on the cover to add baby's photo. This book is about 35 pages- a great handmade keepsake for baby's first year.

xo

Baby Shower Card- Boy

Hi all! I hope everyone is doing well and enjoyed their weekend! The weather here has been ABSOLUTELY perfect! It's quite amazing because this time of year (in the northeast) is usually pretty chilly! But I'm taking it all in and thanking mother nature for gracing us with this FANTASTIC-ness! (and you gotta love my "made-up" lingo too) *wink*

Today I wanted to share a cute little baby boy card that I recently made for a cousin's baby shower last month. The elephant themed shower was super adorable, which usually comes with the territory of a baby shower. It was an intimate gathering with her closest family & friends. There was plenty of food and cute desserts which included; an adorable baby boy cake, cupcakes (decorated oh-so-adorably), cookies, candy and tons more! We played a few games, had a lot of laughs and just enjoyed good company and the relaxed atmosphere.

I made this card in about 15 minutes (literally) and most of the products used are from the Animal Crackers Collection by Making Memories (by far my favorite baby scrapbooking collection to date). The cutest part of this card are the mini clothes pins used to hang the "boy" letters, as if it were a clothes line. When I came across these clothes pins from Creative Impressions I couldn't resist- they are SO tiny and cute, they add a little charm, right?! So stay tuned, because I will be back tomorrow to post about the present (which went along with this card). Be back soon...

xo

Sweet Pea

Supplies; 5x7 Blank Greetings Card- Paperbilities; Patterned Paper- Making Memories, Chloe's Closet (orange polk-a-dot), Animal Crackers (ella giraffes); Buttons & Paper Flower- Making Memories, Animal Crackers (ella embellishments kit); Crochet Lace; Textured Velvet Ribbon; Brads- Pink Star; Textured Cardstock- DCWV; Stamp- Sweet Pea; Colored Pencils- Prismacolor; Distressing Ink; Tim Holtz (pumice stone)

Happy Monday all! It was a gorgeous day out today in NY (too bad I spent it indoors, as usual *frown*). Anyway, I hope most of you were able to get out and enjoy the day and capture some beautiful moments!

Today I would like to share the most recent card that I made. I've been in the card making mood lately. I've decided they take less time than LOs (for me anyway), depending on your style and they are quite fun to create (the best part about them is you don't have to have pictures *smile*). This card was one that I made for a friend at work who's baby shower we had on Friday! The shower was really sweet, we had lots of goodies, even a chocolate fondue fountain and mom-to-be was SUPER surprised, she had NO idea!!! It was a great time!

Here is how to create this baby card;

Step 1; Cut the Polk-a-dot cardstock and mount it to the front of a 5x7 blank greetings card.

Step 2; Cut the baby giraffe patterned paper to cover about 1/2 of the card and adhere to front of card. Ink all around the outside edges (for a distressed look).

Step 3; Use a tag stencil to create the blue tag, and a star stencil to create the ivory tag and ink the edges of both (for a distressed look). Punch a hole in the tag to insert the star brad and stamp the Sweet Pea sentiment to the star.

Step 4; Add color to the Sweet Pea stamped image using colored pencils and adhere the star to the blue tag, then mount both to the side edge of the card with foam squares to create a 3D effect.

Step 5; Thread embroidery floss through the holes in both buttons and tie them in the front (to create a homespun look). Then adhere buttons to the card using a glue gun.

Step 6; Cut crochet lace and textured velvet the full width of the card and use as a border at top. Lay the velvet ribbon ontop the lace and attached with adhesive.

Step 7; Lastly attach the flower with button center to the front top side of the card for the finishing touch!

Hope these instructions are helpful so that you too can create a sweet baby card like this one! Happy crafting!! *smile*

Handmade Gift Giving!

It's THAT time of year again...when all we think about is spending time with family, enjoying the holiday cheer and giving gifts to the ones we love! It seems like such a magical time... and everyone is usually in a great mood because the Holidays are here!


Over the past couple years gift giving has become so much more important to me, especially when it's something handmade...something that you're giving from the heart, which you probably put all your heart into making! I feel that it's so much more meaningful when you put a lot of thought and effort into ones gift...it's not just slapped together, or given with little thought. I like to cherish every moment of the gift making process and in the end the gratitude and warmth that you feel from that person makes it all worth while!


Speaking of gift giving...there's been A LOT of baby showers at my job lately. It seems like everyone's been struck by baby fever! (Hopefully I won't get hit with that anytime soon...cause we are just not ready yet!). But babies are so sweet and so cute, how can you not LOVE these celebrations?!? I recently made a personalized frame for a woman at work who's having a baby boy. She's Israeli and so I wanted to incorporate part of her culture to make it personal. This frame includes the baby's name and then the Hebrew interpretation with the meaning. It was definitely a one of a kind gift. Take a look;

I was able to creat this frame fairly quickly, in a couple hours. It was a great addition to the 2 outfits she recieved as well. I can't wait to welcome little baby Ben into the world very soon!

Then there's the gifts that take us a while to complete. There's always some. While I was living in Jersey City, my neighbors had a little baby boy, and for the wife's birthday her husband bought a sweet keepsake box to put the son's first piece of hair (from his first haircut) and his first tooth, to always remember. The gift was wonderful, but he felt like something was missing...some added interest...which it was lacking since it was just a plain white box. So he asked me to do something with it, to make it more eye catching. I took on the challenge, knowing that I could do something with it to make this keepsake one they will always cherish. Of course with all the moving I've done this year, it took a while to complete the job, but it's finally finished! All it took was some cute patterned paper (making memories), a rub-on, a few buttons (making memories) and a ribbon to tie it all together! The outcome was great! The box looked so cute and definitely stands out. It was so simple to do and has so much more meaning... Enjoy!! :-)