Handmade Birthday gift - Memory Game

When you have small children, your house eventually becomes overrun with toys. Toys they use, and toys they've outgrown. There are the toys you purchased, thinking they'd be interested, and they aren't. And there are the toys that were gifted to you that you don't have the heart to "re-home".

For Payton's birthday, we decided she really, really didn't need any toys. Morgan did get her a baby My Little Pony nursery, etc., which is super, super cute, so I didn't want to add too much more to that.

I've had a homespun obsession lately so have been spending time searching around for homemade decorations, etc. I recently came across this little gem:



It just came out and has a lot of great little craft ideas for gifts and heirlooms. An idea that I saw and completely fell in love with was the Memory Game.

To make my memory game, I started with the Thrift Store Chic frames from Kitschy digitals. I then resized it to 2.5 by 2.5 and used that size for all my photos. You print 18 photos for a total of 36 squares. I adjusted the color a little bit on the frames to match the fabric that I was using.

To make this game extra special for Payton, I decided to use photos of her favorite things and people for this game. It'll be fun to look back on this game in a few years as her likes and dislikes change.

You then print them on printable fabric, and layer them with felt and fabric. I used Amy Butler Lotus fabric for this project.

After everything is put together, you stitch around the edge of your photo, and then use pinking shears to trim out your squares.

I'm going to use the remaining fabric and felt to make a little pouch for the game to keep it all together, but in the meantime, I just have it in a ziploc.





This game has been so fun and was a fairly inexpensive yet really meaningful gift for my little one. Toys you can have too much of, but you can never have enough games.

Before I go I wanted to also share some of my favorite pics from Payton's birthday party. It was a mish mash of horse. I couldn't decide on what type of horse theme to go with, but ended up with a carousel theme because of her obsession with the carousel at Disneyland. That said, the cake pan didn't get here in time, and we bought a unicorn pinata, and there were actual horses at her party for the kids to ride, so I had a little bit of everything. But she still LOVEd it, which is the point, right?


I was at a bit of a loss with what to do for the cake, with so many horse themes. I had ordered this but it didn't get here in time. In the end I'm glad, because I had a few too many horse themes anyway, lol. But weather it's a cowgirl, a carousel, a pony, or a unicorn, one thing they all have in common, in my opinion, is a star somewhere. So I frosted this three layer cake purple, Payton's favorite color, and topped it with star candles. It ended up being perfect!


I bought these chocolate carousel horses from here. They arrived quickly with an ice pack, and were a huge hit. I picked the colors and everything. These treat cups were really easy too. I just punched holes in drink cups and tied some ribbon. Inside I also had some carousel horse tattoos, a chipboard star, and a party blower.


I love this photo of the kids before they wreaked havoc on that poor unicorn pinata. My kids love pinatas. I think we have them at every party.

Sweet PJ with her scrunched up nose was really excited to have a turn riding the horses. We had two here. Jock and Key. Jock was a paint, and if you know my girl and her obsession with horses, knowing what she even calls her dog, you could guess how excited she was about that.

An unexpected and fun part of the day was this little ladybug. I saw it on the back of someone's pants and started showing it to the kids, and she'd occasionally fly off only to be found a few moments later on somebody else's jacket. The kids really enjoyed letter her crawl all over them and watching her fly away.


This last photo just cracks me up. Payton does this thing with her first and second finger where she makes the letter P. We were showing off her skills to Grandma when her cousin Raegan popped in and started doing it. I was just backing away when she dashed towards me with her fingers in the correct position. I was lucky to get this one as focused as I did. She's fast!

Anyway, a fun day was had by all. No foolin'.

Have a great day! Davinie

Studio Calico March and Pink Paislee

Happy Monday morning! Today is Payton's 3rd birthday! Last night she rung in her new year appropriately with a colossal meltdown, which is appropriate with the terrible 2's running into the horrible 3's! lol

bah.

I have birthday stuff to share, but I'll do that tomorrow so this post isn't too picture heavy. Today I want to share my Studio Calico April layouts and cards. As of this post the main kit and two of the add-ons are still available. Get them fast, especially if you love Pink Paislee and Studio Calico exclusives! The SC papers in this kit are my favorite to date, and there is a new alpha called Carter available as well.

With this one, I didn't want to just put the brown cardstock on top of the SC tree paper so I cut it up into squares, stitched around them all, and then layered them on my page. It added a lot of texture and made it all a bit more interesting.




These photos were taken in September. I can't believe how different we look already! Both of the girls have changed so much!

With this next one, I decided I wanted to use a die cut paper, so I made my own by turning the Pink Paislee stripe just a bit so it would be horizontal, and then tracing and trimming a scallop on cardstock.

These photos of all the Cooper grandkids cracks me up. Especially Morgan. And isn't Kael, the token boy, such a cutie! He drives the girls nuts but they'll appreciate him when they are older. He's a moose! He'll keep the bad boys away! He's a few months younger than PJ.



I took my title from SC for the next layout. Farm Fresh was the name of their first kit. With this one I was obsessed with the Scallop sentiment punch from Fiskars. I'm also quite obsessed with that little strip of paper you get when you punch through 12 inches of paper, so I had to use it on this layout as well.


My girls are so funny with these chicks. And I do believe my sister is right, and that Princess and Henny Penny are roosters. They are just plain onery. At least the yellow one, Flowerbelle, doesn't mind being held, lol.

This last one was the most meaningful to me this month. A few weeks ago Morgan wanted to take family photos, so we sat together on the couch and posed for a few minutes. Payton eventually got tired of it, but Morgan kept snapping away. I was struck by the photos, especially this one. You can barely see her dad and her sister, who framed the corner of the photo beautifully, by the way, lol, but I thought it was very interesting that you could see all of me, and I was looking right at her. It's par with our relationship. For the longest time, since she was first born, she needed me for everything. She's 5 now and becoming quite independent and opinionated, but I'm touched that despite all the ups and downs, she can still see me. That's good to know. Raising kids is tough!

When I went to stitch on my border sticker, I was waffling about what stitch to use. Hand stitch? No, I did that last month with the Slicker Sister layout. Straight stitch? Zig zag? And then it's like the clouds parted, the sun started shining and the birds began to sing. Is that seriously, a SCALLOP stitch function on my sewing machine? Hallelujah! It worked wonderfully. I'll have to experiment, though. The stitches are very tight together and I wonder if I was just using paper and not the cardstock sticker, would it have perforated my paper? Either way, I LOVE it on this layout. It goes with all the scallops I've been obsessed with lately.

I also made a couple of cards this month.





If you don't normally subscribe to Studio Calico but are in love with this kit, or if you love this kit so much you want two of them, or if you want to get one for a friend, etc., etc., etc., head over to the Pink Paislee blog! This kit was stuffed full of many of the new products from Pink Paislee, so they are giving away the main kit! Comment by the end of the month!

Go here.

Have a great day! Davinie

Studio Calico Reveal is tonight!

Tonight's the night if you want in on the action for the April kit and add-ons at Studio Calico. Here's a glimpse at the whole kit:



And here's one last peek at what I did with it this month:




Check out the Studio Calico blog here for a chance at the Reveal Night giveaway, a Boundary Waters border punch.

After you post there, check out Kelli Crowe's blog post and what she did with that punch. Wowee!

Then go back to the Studio Calico blog and check out the blog post I made yesterday. Nic and I are hosting the blog this week, and it was all about kids and birthday parties. My post yesterday was about Morgan's 5 birthday parties, and cake.

And if you haven't blog hopped enough, lastly, head over to the Scrapbook and Cards blog and download the Spring 2009 issue. It went live today! I have my first layout in this magazine in this issue. I got a real copy a few months ago, and I am more than impressed with this publication. I also can't believe it's FREE.

Have a great Friday! Tomorrow is Payton's third birthday party. We have friends bringing their horses, and she is SO excited.

Davinie

Project 12 winner - and another sneak

I apologize for the delay in the drawing for the February Project 12 winner! I forgot and have been really busy! I asked Random, and this is what he told me:

Denise said...

Here's mine: http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/8653

Hurray, that's Denise! An Upper Crest punch is on it's way! Thank you so much for playing along.

Before I go I wanted to share a week peek from the April kit at Studio Calico.



Have a great day! Davinie

Looks like Spring and some Studio Calico sneaks

Look what we picked up on Saturday!



The yellow one is Payton's. FlowerBelle. The little black one burying it's head is Morgan's. Princess. And MINE is the cute multi-colored one. That's Henny Penny.

We have a couple of acres and we are now officially a little farm. We've been wanting to try our hand at growing our own eggs since we moved here, but it wasn't until Steve and his fire buddies decided to all do it together and do a traveling Coop building party that we decided to take the plunge. The chicks have to be inside for several weeks in a box under a heat lamp, so in the next few weeks the guys will get their coops built. We have raccoons trying to steal Cooper's food all the time, so we need to make sure to have a quality, CUTE coop built for these little ones.

Let's just all hope they are girls! We have no idea! And my sister said that our luck, Princess will turn out to be a rooster. That's totally us. This has happened to us before, with Princess Goldie, our male Beta fish.

I'm sure the girls will have a lot of fun with them. Payton's baby blanket has already been pooped on after an attempt at swaddling. good grief. I'm excited for when they go. Outside.

We are also getting 5 steers this week. Yes, we raise them yearly. Yes, they go into the freezer. We usually get two but this year we are bouncing them between a couple of properties, so we decided to go with five. I think they are all Angus. So anyway... it is a country life for us.

To satisfy your cravings for all things Studio Calico, I have a couple of sneaks to share with the April kit. I'm sure you'll have a hard time guessing what the subject was of my first sneak. And you'll also notice that I took inspiration from the very first Studio Calico kit for my title on this one.

Did you see that new alpha stamp set? Yep. That's an SC exclusive.



Have a great day!

P.S. I'll post the winner of that delicious Upper Crest punch for my February Project 12 challenge here in a sec.

Davinie

It's the 20th!

Holy Pete it's the 20th! I can't believe it!

Today is the last day for my Project 12 challenge but I'm going to give you through the weekend and do a drawing on Monday. I must. I was so late doing my own layout and I'm still in denial that it's almost April.

I'm also doing it in honor of Steve's birthday, lol. Today is his 33rd and not only did he have to work today, he is on the ambulance today, which means he'll be busy. He should have taken a vacation day!

Let's reminisce again. Let me tell you why in some ways it is NOT good to be older than your man. I am older by a month. Let's go back to my 21st birthday, shall we? He took me to Black Butte Ranch for the weekend, and at dinner that night, he declared that I simply must order a drink because I could. I had no idea what to get so I ordered an Amaretto Sour because that's what my dad always got. And what, might you wonder, did my sweet younger man order with his meal that night? Did he go with a Roy Rogers, lol? A soda? Nope. My man ordered a MILK. Talk about robbing the cradle! Then, after dinner, he made me go buy him some beer! (I know, I should be hand slapped and tossed behind bars for supplying to a minor, lol).

So anyway... younger man. Good. Grief.

Go get you scrap on this weekend and upload your month layout recap to this thread. If you are still working on January, that's fine. It doesn't *have* to be February. Any month will do. Don't forget... you could win that Upper Crest punch I've been having so much fun with!

Have a great weekend! Davinie

How to make a Magnetic Canvas (picture heavy)

After posting this post on the Studio Calico blog about the Footnotes add-on from the Bibliography kit, I got a lot of requests for info on making magnetic canvases. When I told my husband about it, Steve demanded a chance to do a pictorial so that he could share a couple of tips on making one. And since he made the first one for me, I figured I'd better let him. haha.

I'm renovating. And when I say I'm renovating, what I really mean is that I'm taking a house that we should have shoveled aside and trying to make it my dream house. The key to this renovation is this sweet boy right here:

I swear to pete this man can do anything! His dad was a contractor back in the day, but I don't know how he could have taught Steve all of the skill that he has. Basically, if you give him a project, he can do it. That's why we bought this stinkin' ugly house. lol. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION...... house. Someday I'll love it. I'm not sharing a photo of it anywhere until it's done though. It's just so dang ugly. And I can't work on the outside until we are finished with the inside.

This is my mud room floor. Steve did the tile. Of course. Isn't it pretty? I will say that I love my mud room floor. We're slowly working on it.... this mud room used to be a single car garage. Now it has a pretty floor and a really pretty front load washer and dryer. lol.

I interrupted a day of interior trim to photograph him making me another canvas. We have a wood shop set up and he's been busy trimming pine for door and floor trim that will be replacing everything that's inside. That's 2200 square feet of trim, so I have a busy boy.

Okay, on to the canvas.

Steve has a couple of initial tips when making these canvases.

First. I bought the canvases in a two-pack on sale at Michaels. So any canvas will work.

Second. Metal sheeting. This is what you need to make your canvas magnetic. When you go to your local home improvement store, please don't go to the section where they sell the craft stuff. You will pay far too much money if you buy your metal sheeting in that section. Instead, go back to the heat ducting section, and buy flat sheets back there. This is the sticker on the back of the sheet we used:

The other things you need are:
gloves
tin snips
ruler
marking pencil

Steve suggests you insert your magnetic sheeting before you create your project on your canvas. The cutting and fitting process makes the sheeting very sharp which can tear the canvas. He'd hate for you to make a beautiful project and then to ruin it with a great big gash from a piece of metal sheeting. So I think this is a good tip. lol

The first thing you need to do when you are ready to go is to measure your canvas. In this case, my canvas was 16x20.

We wanted it to be magnetic as close to the edge as possible, so he trimmed it just short of 20 inches in the width.



Steve used tin snips here. When you are trimming be sure to wear your gloves. The cutting process curls the edge of the sheeting a wee bit which makes it very sharp.

For the height of the first sheet, he trimmed it just short of the opening in the back of the canvas.

After you have trimmed your piece, insert one side in the opening.

To fit the rest of the sheet inside the canvas, you will need to bow out the sheeting to fit it in the opening. Be sure to do so carefully so that you don't tear the fabric.

After you have fit the sheet in, slowly maneuver the sheet until you have slid it as far up as you can so that the magnet reaches as much of the top and side edges as it can.

After it's set, measure the size you'll need for the second piece.


After you have fit it in just as you did the first sheet, do the same and slide it carefully to the outside edges.

When you are finished, take packing tape to cover those sharp edges and keep the two pieces of sheeting in place.

Voila! A magnetic canvas.

For my canvas, I made Morgan a place to display her artwork. She's been using all of my scotch tape, hanging her latest drawing in her room or on the walls above her art table. I have plans for more canvases, but this first one is in her room next to her bed.

(Out for publication in Simply Handmade. Be back soon!)

I used Cosmo Cricket blackboard and the coordinating stickers for my magnets. It doesn't get any easier than that!

Let me know if you have any questions! Also, please share if you make a canvas. I have 2 more blank canvases finished and waiting for their final place. My current plan is to turn Prima Pebbles into magnets and use them at Morgan's art table, or in my kitchen area for school calendars and the grocery list, etc.

Have a great day! Davinie

My February Project 12 layout and a Successful Crop!!!!

Woot! The crop was a success! And it was also a lot of fun! The seats were filled, the music was on, and the tables were talkin'. Nadine did an awesome job with the food, the goodie bags were used, the hourly prizes were a hit, and people were there from beginning to end.

I had more fun than I thought I would have. I even got a layout done! It was a beautiful, relaxing atmosphere with beautiful home decor and water features all over the store which offered some pretty white noise in between the music.

My sister came down from Seattle and she had fun too. It was nice to get to spend some time with her.

Here's a pic of some of the peeps and the setting:

We were at a flooring store that also sells fun home decor. It was a really nice setting. There's a flat screen TV high on the wall back there, and we think next time we may even take time to pop in a chick flick. That might be fun! My LSS is right next door and she stayed open, so it was really easy to get some extra supplies and do some shopping in between the scrap marathon.

For dinner we had chicken salads, yummy lemonade, and for dessert we had these:




These cupcakes were delicious and adorable too! They were baked with the paper folded up almost like flower petals. Such cute presentation.

It was a nice night out for mama's, and fun was had by all. We even had a teenage scrapper and a newborn baby come scrap with us. That baby made me want just one more, lol. She was so darn cute.

The one layout I finished was the much anticipated February layout for my Project 12 challenge, lol. I had more than one photo from Valentines Day and the Superbowl that I wanted to use, and they were all horizontal, so I printed two of each and incorporated them both into the design I established with my January layout:




Rather than tracing my Making Memories calendar, I used my new Fiskars Upper Crest punch for the top. It matches the Jenni Bowlin cards perfectly! Don't forget.... if you did a monthly layout, please share a link to it on this thread, and you could win that Upper Crest punch for your own stash. The deadline is the 20th, and I'll draw a name on the 21st. That's this week!
Before I go I wanted to reminisce after receiving an email from Anthropologie.... This morning I got an email advertising Harem Pants and I was immediately having flashbacks to 1990 when I was a freshman in high school. There was this Senior couple, the popular couple that were completely adorable, the beautiful people of the school. Jared and Stephanie. And one day, Stephanie's mama made them matching baggy Hammer pants that were black and purple, and they both wore them on the same day to school. They had the halllllls buzzing. People thought they were oh so cool. I remember thinking how amazing it was that she was able to get him to wear those pants, especially on the same day as she, but that's what people did when Stephanie snapped her fingers.

This memory is the first thing I thought of when I saw these new Harem Pants from Anthropologie. Yes, they are much more flattering than MC Hammer's version, but are these baggy parachute pants really coming back in style? Seriously? That just cracks me up!

Anyway.... I hope you have a great week! I am very far behind and have a lot of projects to do before the week ends, but I have no doubt that AI will pull me through the next couple of days, lol.

:) Davinie

Some Pink Paislee and a local crop

I am ready, sweet friends, for bird and the bees talks for a girl, age 5. I have been getting a lot of questions lately about babies and how they are born and how they get in your belly, etc. Right now she thinks that babies start from seeds and when they are done growing, the mamas go to the hospital where the doctor gives her medicine and cuts open her belly.

gah!

I'm not sure how long this one will last! I don't know where the baby talk comes from, except that Morgan has this Eyewitness book about Skeletons that she looks at alllll the time, and there is a photo in there of a baby inside a skeletal womb, which has her quite concerned because the baby is laying in there upside down, lol.

Anyway, while I commend her inquisitive brain, I also want to make sure I answer all of her questions appropriately! Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, lol.

Other than that, life is moving along. I'm the registrar for Morgan's preschool, so we are in the middle of preregistration, etc. Morgan is off to Kindergarten next year and Payton will be starting preschool, so I will now be shuffling kids around between schools and activities. Perhaps it's really time for the minivan! I drive a Durango which works fine, but not if a friend wants to tag along with a carseat.

I've been wanting to be more involved with ladies in my community, so in an effort to help out my local scrapbook store, a friend and I are organizing a crop next door at a flooring store. It's a really pretty setting and I"m sure we'll have a lot of fun.

One of the things I was in charge of was the flier, so I thought I'd take a chance on Jenni Bowlin and purchase one of her new digital kits. I'm a hybrid scrapper sometimes, which means I can print stuff out and cut it up, so digital scrapbooking is NOT my forte. After about 2.5 hours I came up with this:


It took me forever! Seriously!

I really like the digital elements so will probably print them out and play with them soon. I do like how this turned out though.

Speaking of which, I think there still might be a spot or two left, so if you are in the Bend area this weekend and want to scrapbook, you should check us out!

Suzie has a lot of stuff to give away; I think we are giving something away every hour. I also have a goodie bag for each person, with NEW stuff from Pink Paislee! I'm also including a sketch and an example layout in the goodie bag. These bags have all the product you need to recreate the layout, plus a few extras. One of the things it will include is a brand spankin' new sticker book. woot!

Before I go I wanted to share a couple of Pink Paislee projects with you.






I really love the orange die cut paper from the Captivating line. I have used it a few times since this layout.... including the April kit from Studio Calico.



This home frame was on the Pink Paislee blog on my March 4th post. The 4th is always my date, so if you are ever looking for me on the blog, that's when you'll see me.



Have a great day!

Davinie