Birthday stuff

So we moved. Exactly a month ago. The new house is awesome. So much bigger, so much nicer and we're really loving the neighborhood. One thing that I really don't love is that the room that's supposed to be my new craft studio is not finished! It's a big semi-finished attic and it needs a panel to be put in to cover a big hole in the wall. Something about access to the heating panel if I recall correctly. I know the workers will likely make a big mess so I have been waiting setting up the room, but now it's been a month and I am getting itchy to craft!

The other problem is that all of the boxes somehow ended up in the wrong place. I felt like like I clearly labeled everything "craft room" that I wanted up on the third floor and wrote "office" on those that I wanted in my little alcove office that I made behind the fireplace. But yet the complete opposite was done. I have slowly been getting everything into the right room, but some of the boxes are heavy! You don't realize how much 12 X 12 paper weighs until you put hundreds of sheets together in a box...

Anyway, this is my main excuse for not having posted in a month. The move. The unpacking. The general disorder. But there's also another reason -- my daughter's third birthday! She officially turned three a few days ago but her birthday party is this weekend. I feel a little badly that it's definitely going to be smaller in scale that last year's party (although with double the guests -- how did that happen?) For last year's rainbow themed soiree I designed a super cute printed invitation in Photoshop:

I did all kinds of extra projects like customized water bottles:

And sippy cups with each kid's name on them:

UPDATED 9/30/13: I just discovered that you can see all of the details from last year on my sister-in-law's blog at www.eventsthatsparkle.net!

This year we've got a Minnie's Bowtique themed birthday party and I did design the invitation, although I sent it out electronically because I was running out of time:

I'm fancying up the treat bags and making Minnie cupcakes but that's about it. I did a trial run of the cupcakes for my daughter's preschool class, but it was before the bow mold I ordered from Amazon arrived and I couldn't find mini Oreos in the store so I improvised with chocolate candy melts and bow made out of strawberry fruit roll ups. They came out super cute but the bows were pretty labor intensive (that stuff is STICKY!) so I'm hoping bow made out of candy melts is a little easier. The party is in two days and I'll keep you posted!

Three months... three years

OK, it's like a I'm a once-a-month blogger. Can that be a new thing? Well my same excuses continue regarding work on the new house, which we still haven't moved into yet. The IKEA cabinets are finally installed though! To add to my list of distractions, my daughter's daycare provider quit on me and I'm scrambling to find care for the summer until she starts preschool in September. How she's almost three years old, I have no idea! It makes me nostalgic so I'm going to share a layout I recently completed (yes, I am VERY behind) from when she was just about three months old. The journaling details how I when we first talked about naming our daughter, I didn't want people to call her "Dolly" as a nickname but it has since stuck and totally fits her.

No special techniques used here. It's a hybrid layout. I printed the journaling out directly onto white cardstock. Created the title block digitally, printed it out and glued it on over two rectangles and a strip of patterned paper. Added a sticker and a flower gem. I am proud to report that I used a WAY old piece of patterned paper from my stash. The brown piece is from one of those Paper Pizzazz 8.5 by 11 booklets. Probably some of the first scrapbooking paper I ever bought, way back in the early 90s -- before 12 by 12 paper was even available, I think! I pared it up with some "modern day" Basic Grey (hearts) and DCWV (plaid).