Friday 29 March 2013

It is a Good Friday!

My own little Easter Bunny!


Birthday flowers all ready.


I'm married to a poster-boy!! Check out this picture of my hubby. This is actually a life size display. Yowza. He is really, really ridiculously good-looking ;)


And the other model in the family. Check out this Diva:


Thursday 28 March 2013

What's New at Our House

Easter treats:


A visit from my cousins and their kids. Here's Evelyn and Emma, 2nd cousins born three weeks apart! 


Gracie modelling a new spring outfit:


Yummy caramel, pecan monkey bread:


Making Easter crafts:


This girl is so strong! Hanging out with dad:


Gracie's Barbies doing push-ups.... they didn't get that figure by laying around!


;)

Monday 25 March 2013

Treasured Memories Projects - March

Some more layouts I've done for Treasured Memories

This month, I got a kit full of My Little Shoebox products. Very girly and pink and an interesting mix of old-fashioned and modern designs. I liked it. 

Luckily, I just happen to have oodles of cute, baby girl pictures to use with it. 

Unfortunately, without really thinking about it, I made four layouts about a sleeping baby.... I usually try and mix it up a bit more than that, but oh well, the designs are quite different.


These first two utilize song lyrics. Both of these songs are kind of our go to lullabies in this house. Emma really likes Twinkle, Twinkle at the moment. It's amazing how a certain song can calm a baby down. 

I used my Cricut to cut out the title and the laser-cut roses (kraft) on the layout above and to cut the stars and circles out of the white cardstock on the layout below. I'm really loving it at the moment. Design Studio made it alot more useable, and it's free!!


I splattered a bit of paint on the layout above, because the background looked a little boring... I think it works. I also added some Kaisercraft pearls to the star and circle cut outs to make them 'twinkle'. I also popped the three clouds around the photo mat to make them stand out a little and add some dimension.


Since I have a ton of sleeping pictures, I wanted to make a layout to use up a bunch of them, and grids are the best way to make a multi-photo layout look clean and uncluttered. The line border was a simple freehand, messy one that I drew with a pen, making about 7 passes to make it a little thicker.

These flower die-cuts in the first layout and the one above (see them by the 'True Love' sticker?) are from My Little Shoebox as well. I like the roll-up flowers. They add a little dimension and look cute.


This layout uses the roll-up flowers, too, but I chose not to roll them. I just left them as they were and tucked them behind some other elements. I like them either way. 

I used another song on this one (I actually forgot). You can see it on the journaling card. I think it's so cute and fitting. What sleep I'm getting is usually still spent worrying/dreaming/thinking about my girls. If you'd like to use this, too, it's a free printable that you can find here.

I sewed on this layout a little bit. If you look close, I freehand sewed three circles behind the photos, and it just peeks out around the title. I used a wide zig zag, a narrow one, and a straight stitch to make it.

In case I haven't sold you on a Cricut or made you want to add Design Studio to your current Cricut projects, check out the arrows and feathers on this layout. They're from a free cartridge on the Design Studio. I love both of them.

Saturday 23 March 2013

Travels Documented

When we got home from Europe, I decided to document our travels so we can see where we've been. I bought a huge map for our wall, mounted it on corkboard (so our wall doesn't get tacked up) and bought colourful pins. 
It's colour coordinated to show where we've each been or where we've been together. 


A few close ups:





It's fun. I like it, but it just goes to show how many places in this world there are to explore. We've travelled quite a bit, but there's plenty of room for more tacs!

Wednesday 20 March 2013

Last Look

One last post about my pregnancy journal. 


It doesn't show up in this picture, unless you click on it, but there's a title, under the journaling spot. This is the welcome gift that Gracie picked out for Emma.


These are the pages with the money shots, the actual baby! Welcome Emma!



See Emma in the hospital bassinet in the foreground of this photo? My artistic husband took this one. Cute.



Cutie.


And, a little decoration for the back cover, so often neglected... 
Hope you liked this. I think my pregnancy journals will be two of my most special keepsakes.

Tuesday 19 March 2013

More Pregnancy Journal

Here are a few more pages from my pregnancy journal. 


Quick and simple glimpse at what these important nine months were like.



Thanks to our trip, I had lots of pictures of my belly this time. I only had a few when I was pregnant with Gracie. 
 See the doily on the page below?? They were a gift from a good friend, and I love them. If you look, they're all over all of my projects. 

Dad's thoughts.


My thoughts.


And Gracie's.


Some of my favourite Gracie quotes from the pregnancy. For such a confusing concept, she just accepted it and rolled with all of the new information she was getting, but there were a few funny questions along the way.

Sunday 17 March 2013

Pregnancy Journal

This is my favourite project I've done lately. It has nothing to do with the product or the design, but the subject (although I do love these subdued colours...) 


This is the pregnancy journal I made to capture my months of pregnancy with Emma.


 I've been using my Cricut Design Studio to cut out titles and shapes lately and I really enjoy it. It makes your Cricut more useable and you can almost achieve the look of a Silhouette without buying another machine. I cut out 'love' on the above page.


I love 3-D ultrasound pictures. It's amazing and almost scary to me, to see such a 'real' picture of your baby like this.



 I wrote down a lot of things in here, that I wished I'd written in Gracie's. Things that you think you'll never forget, but sometimes, the details get a little fuzzy.


 I used some old lines of paper, one from We R Memory Keepers, and one from American Crafts for this album, and lots of embellishments from all over, Bo Bunny, My Little Shoebox, Fancy Pants, Kaisercraft, Simple Stories, Basic Grey, etc.  All odds and ends that I collected to keep the colour scheme simple and unified.


I love how it turned out and I love the memories stored in here. I'll share more pictures soon. As usual, my mini albums are actually quite big ;)

Saturday 16 March 2013

Special People

We're so lucky to have so many special people in our lives. The other weekend, we got to visit my Great Uncle Charlie, who recently received the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal for service to country. 
Here's a link to a write up about him receiving this honour.



How lucky are my girls to have such an amazing Great, Great Uncle??

Wednesday 13 March 2013

Enjoying the Beautiful Weather

What nice weather we've been having lately!

I got my new infant seat for my stroller, so I've been taking the girls out to enjoy the fresh air as much as possible. 


Emma has learned to fall asleep as soon as I set her in there. This time, she fell asleep on the floor, because I had to set her down to get Gracie different mitts....


My running companions.


Still snoozing when we got home over an hour later.


And still sleeping when we went inside...


And sleeping in her crib for another hour after. Loving the fresh air!