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 :)