The Best Card Ever

Expectations will be high with a title like that, don't you think?

I'm not worried, I know you're going to love these cards. My baby sis gets married in less then two months. It really is hard to believe that my baby sister is old enough to be dating let alone to get married! When I left for college she was in 3rd grade and while that age gap seems huge, I promise you it has gotten smaller and smaller as the years have gone by (and not because I stopped aging at 29).

There are nine years and one sister in between us but it hasn't stopped us from developing a sisterly bond. Two years ago when she called to tell me she was engaged, I was thrilled, but only half as much as the day she asked me to help her with her wedding invites! Yeeeeaaaahhhhh, homemade wedding invites...oh yeah, your fiancé is great too, you'll be married and in love forever, blah, blah, blah.

So here they are. The best card I (I'm using "I" here to make writing simplier but in full fairness my sister gets equal credit for these) have ever designed. It was a huge team effort, her and I, oh yeah and the fiancé had a tiny little say in these as well.

A little bit of bling, a little bit of chevron, a little bit of whimsy, oh my. So when you slide off the little outside sleeve with the groom's initial, you'll find a bit more chevron and get a full look at the cute couple. We wanted these to feel similar to her STD's (oh yes, my sister's STD's, who could forget those) in color and style.

 

When you open it up all the way, you find a cute little pocket holding all the details to their wedding. Don't readjust your screen, I did blur out some details to their wedding (I didn't think they wanted my million readers to show up on their big day!).

The ribbon is symbolizing "tying the knot", a theme we are trying to work with for all her wedding details, of course using cute bakers twine. Most of the invitation is printed on the computer but the saying, "love is patient, love is kind", is a custom stamp she bought on etsy (not cheap!). It was important to get that stamp on her invite, they both love that saying so much, they each have half the saying tattooed on their bodies....love is FOREVER too.

Here are a few shots of the inserts. We stamped the red heart on the inserts.

Making 150 invitations is a process! A LONG process. Especially when she was finishing her last semester in nursing school and I was you know, having a baby. These took us a TON of time, lots of designing and redesigning, and a couple trips to the post office to see if these suckers were legal to mail without having to take out a second mortgage on our homes.

Designing your own wedding invites is not for the faint at heart. It also isn't a project for a newbie! These were stressful and kind of pricey but the benefit and satisfaction of having and making the wedding card of your dreams is priceless (sort of like meeting and marrying the man of your dreams, sort of).

I'm looking forward to crafting with her for the rest of her big day and of course I'll share all the details right here on my blog.

 

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Papertrey April Blog Hop Challenge

I have started my son's scrapbook. Here is the very first finished page. Papertrey Ink's Blog hop challenge came just in time and helped push my page from boring to PERFECT and all it took was a tilt of the word "HELLO". You see, I was going to put the word "HELLO" on this page straight, how boring, right? Just before I started gluing things down, I remembered PTI's challenge for this month, "Tilted". You can find the details to the challenge on Nicole's blog. It was just the technique this page needed.

I don't consider myself a scrapbooker (cards are so much easier) so I find these baby books for my children to be extra challenging on my creativity but always rewarding when they are finished. Of course it helps to have such cute kids to work with.

I can't wait to see all the other fun projects everyone else had come up with for this challenge!

 

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Dirty Girl No More

My house is a mess.  I have a newborn, cut me some slack.  Most of the mess is not mine.  Everytime I turn around it seems I'm brushing up somebody's sandwich crumbs, picking up somebody's dirty socks, cleaning somebody's toothpaste out of the sick, or hanging somebody's coat up.  That's my life with three stinky boys in the house (my son's words, not mine...but I won't disagree).

In all this mess, there is one room that is all mine and unfortunately the mess inside of it is all mine too.  Our office.  Really, I don't know why I say "our".  As my husband likes to point out, I have taken over it.  This paper crafting hobby of mine that started when I purchased a single set of stamps on clearance at Barnes & Noble has taken over our "office".  I don't even know why we bother calling it an "office".  Really, it is a craft room, MY craft room.  I'm a crafter and apparently a very messy one at that!

When I'm crafting, I don't like to put stuff away and obviously when I'm done crafting I don't like to put stuff away either but this week I discovered my "carrot".  Buy a really nice new craft toy and tell yourself you can't play with it until all your other toys are picked up.  It works on my five year old son and it turns out it works on me too!

So in a house where there is a newborn and there are days I can't find the time to shower, change out of my PJ's, or brush my hair, I managed to find three whole hours to clean up this mess.  I REALLY wanted to play with my new toy.

Meet Mr. Bond.  Vega Bond.  Mr. Bond is the sexiest, coolest, and most dreamy thing to walk into this house in a long time...well... since last night when my hubby walked through the door (of course).  All the girls want him and he.is.all.mine.  I'm not sharing him.  Don't even dare touch him.  This beauty is worth every penny.  My husband says a good divorce lawyer is too, but that's beside the point.    But seriously, this is the coolest die cutting machine on the market and I'm going to care for him like I care for my own children, "boys, you both ok in there?". I should pause and go check on them, the seven week old didn't answer.

I'm back.  Here is my nice clean craft room:  

I even got out the labeler to label my drawers.  Fabric organizers are on my Christmas wish list.  

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I can see my desk!  

And my stamps!

EVEN THE FLOOR!  I haven't seen the floor in years!

Anyway, the point of this story was to show you what a dirty girl I am, how easily I can be manipulated (even by myself), give my sister photo proof that my office can be clean (even if only for one day), and introduce you to Mr. Bond.  Vega Bond.

Here is a peak at the first project Mr. Bond is helping me create:

I have a feeling we're all going to become really great friends.

My Sister's STD's

After you are done drooling over my cute baby (I needed a teaser photo), let's talk about my sister's STD's. I wouldn't possibly blog about my own sister's STD's would I?  Of course I would. She won't mind.  In fact, her STD's have become somewhat of a joke around here.  Of course I'm talking about her SAVE THE DATES for her upcoming summer wedding.

When her and I started planning her save the dates through email, it just became easier to shorten them to STD's for typing purposes.  Each time one of us would get an email references STD's, we would giggle....like little kids.  So of course it stuck, we have called them STD's ever since.

Funny thing, now that I am on maternity leave, I've been catching up on some television on Netflix (in my stay-at-home-mom "spare time").  After I got done watching all the episodes of The Office (for the 10th time) I decided to start watching Rules of Engagement, you know, to span my horizons (but let's be honest, I could watch Pam and Jim's relationship develop over and over again....so cute....and yes the current season is KILLING me).  But back to Rules of Engagement, I LOVE Patrick Warburton.  He's charming, cute, and funny.  I loved him in Seinfeld and love him now in this show.  In the season 4 premiere episode they make the SAME STD joke!  My sister and I should have gotten a trademark to that joke (sort of like when The Donald tried to get a trademark to the phrase, "You're Fired").

Ok, I got way off topic.  Back to my poor sister's STD's.  Boy are they awesome.  I love them.  If you are going to use a picture as the main focus of your card, it sure helps to be cute and adorable, right?  They check both those items off the requirement list!

These cards were easy peasy.  We printed the info on craft cardstock (4 on one sheet so they were economical as well) and rounded all four corners after we cut them to size.  We glued the photos on, stamped the heart image in red (from Papertrey Ink), and tied the ribbon on.  We were done with these in no time.

I love them.  I think they are charming, cute, and funny (kind of like Patrick Warburton).  Because they were fast, we had time that same weekend to start designing her wedding invitations.  JUST WAIT till you see them.  They are by far the BEST cards I (we) have EVER made.  I mean it!  I'm in LOVE with her wedding invites!  I'll be showing them here soon, we finished them this past weekend.  I'm just waiting to be officially invited :)

Another birthday

This cute fella turned one month today! It is hard to believe it has only been 4 weeks since I gave birth to this guy! The past month is such a blur. While his birth did not go at all as I had hoped, that day is turning into a foggy distant memory and is being replaced with lots of snuggle time with my little French fry. We're so in love with each other. I definitely have another momma's boy in the making.

We've got a daily routine down, at least in the mornings before we go pick up his brother from school and life is starting to return to normal. He is a great baby. Not a lot of crying. Most nights he gives me a good 5 hour sleep stretch, last night it was 6 hours! Six hours! It is amazing how good I can feel on six hours!

Here is a quick shot of his birth announcements. I'm trying to get these done and mailed this week. As you can see, we kept them simple. Just a little bling.

Keeping with the airplane theme from the thank you cards I showed you a few weeks ago, I just added a simple die cut airplane to the corner of these cards with a little dimensional foam. I don't have a lot of free time to be crafting these days so simple is key!

Now if only the envelopes could address and mail themselves!

 

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Happy 5th birthday

This handsome guy turned 5 today. It was a good day. He is growing up so fast but he is still my little baby. He hates when I say that, he always corrects me by saying, "I'm not a baby, I'm a big boy". I always reply, "I know honey but you will always be my baby".

Family came over yesterday for a small party. He requested a simple cake (thank goodness because this momma is exhausted with the new baby brother and all). He requested: chocolate cake with vanilla frosting covered in sprinkles. Simple and classic. He is a pretty simple kid, I have a feeling this cake might be requested again in the future.

I surprised him today by taking him to his first movie in the theater. We saw "The Croops". He wasn't a big fan (he said it was too scary). The movie was also too loud so he had his fingers in his ears through the whole thing. I agree, the movie was painfully loud, we had the baby along so I had to cover his ears through the whole thing as well.

He got to pick the restaurant for dinner, he picked Cici's. They sang "HB" at the table for him, he liked that! When we got home I asked him a few questions, here is our Q & A:

Q: What was your favorite part of the day? A: the movie, it was cool. Why didn't we get popcorn? [he never requested any at the theater].

Q: What's your favorite color? A: black & yellow

Q: What is your favorite food? A: Mac & Cheese.

Q: favorite snack? A: pancakes.

Q: favorite movie? A: wreck it Ralph.

Q:Who is your best friend? A: mommy [not prompted I promise].

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up? A: I want to work with you in your office and get you stuff you need like books. [also not prompted, I promise].

I hope he stays a sweet momma's boy for a bit longer (like 70 more years). I love you chicken nugget with all my heart! Hugs & kisses!

 

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Baby Break

Hi Everyone!  I'm taking a little blogging break to enjoy our newest sweetest arrival!

Robert James was born on 2/26/13

7 lbs 9 oz

21.5 inches

Robert was just a nice name that we both like.  One day he may be called Rob, Robbie, Bob, Bobbie, RJ or Bert, but for now he's Robert. James has family significance; it is my maternal grandfather's first name (who past away way too soon but would have loved his sweet great grandbaby) and it is my father's middle name.  Of course both of these men have had significant roles in my life and shaping me into who I am today and both gave up a lot when I came into this world, the least I could do is honor them with my own child's name. 

Here is the whole family, including the Big Brother (he wore this shirt which says, "I am the big bro" for 3 straight days).  So cute!

No worries, we're all adjusting to our new lives just fine as seen in this awkward family shot.

I'll be back soon with more fun crafts, I promise!