Alvin shirt resize

I pulled an old t shirt from my closet that I couldn't wear anymore and resized it for Leo. I lost all my pictures of the process but you can use one of the many tutorials out there to do one yourself.

diy paper matboard

our anniversary is coming up, and Matt's been mentioning old maps lately - not like antique maps, just outdated ones.. dunno why. anyway, so I found an old National Geographic map from the 70's on Etsy, a large 33x44 frame on Craigslist... and then was stuck with wondering how to mat it without spending more than the frame and map themselves.I decided to use layers of paper! just used the back of some old wrapping paper and cut it into 2" strips or so and layered them around the edges of the map, then did the top layer in brown craft paper. it still looks great in the frame and didn't cost me an arm and a leg :)

paper pens

this is a bit dated, but I came across a post about paper pens today and realized I hadn't posted anything from my baby shower! so here are the pens I did for my guests with just some printed computer paper and Bic pens.I reproduced the dots pattern from the theme my friend did with the invitations and plates and whatnot and did Leo's name and the year in the dots, printed them out, rolled them up and slid them into the pens. easy, inexpensive (I think 20 pens set me back a buck) and cute!
I didn't use glue or tape like One Pearl Button did in her tutorial - I did more what Happy Together said she did in her comment about rolling the paper around a bamboo skewer, but I just rolled it around the inner part of the pen.

my mother's day

I showed Matt the cake I wanted to make and he immediately said "no, I'll do it." he's so sweet! he cleaned the house, baked the cake, and made dinner for the family that came over that night :) any time I tried to do something he'd tell me to go sit down... which got a a little annoying because I wanted to help! he's too good to me :) it was a wonderful 1st Mother's Day!

slips 3

so my sprouts have rooted nicely and after a week (I've been busy!) I've finally put them in some dirt.as well as some others that I didn't get a chance to pull off but still grew roots while attached to the potato. they don't look as pretty as the sprouts I pulled off and put in the water, but we'll see if there's a difference in how they grow.

mixbook

for Mother's Day, I put Leo's pictures from last year in photo books from mixbook for his Mé and Grandma :)

| View Sample Photo Books | Create your own Photo Book

| View Sample Photo Books | Create your own Photo Book

mother's day jewelry

this copper and blue crystal bracelet and earrings are for my mom. I used a byzantine weave and sorta just made up the pattern as I went along. I went with making my own rings for this one, which wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I've made jump rings before, but not 100's of them at a time! I used two different sized knitting needles and just wrapped the wire around until I got what looks like a tight spring, then just clipped them apart. nothin' to it! ;)

I did silver and multi-color stones for my mother-in-law's bracelet. I did a search online for pictures to go from for her bracelet and found one I liked on Dawanda. then I found the earrings I wanted to do - so much harder than they look!

I found a cool site that's a great place to start if you want to get into chainmail, but they didn't have the byzantine weave I was looking for. this particular weave was hard for me to understand with just pictures, but I happen to find a video! I dunno what I'd do without the internet :)

mother's day cake

I decided, since I haven't done one in sooo long, I'm making a layer cake Sunday for Mother's Day, and this is the one I'm going to do!it's not totally from scratch, but I don't have time for scratch! and who can argue with something that looks this good? I can't wait :)

cluck cluck!

about 17 years ago my dad asked a co-worker what this "cinco de gallo" he was hearing about was. the co-worker looked at him puzzled and said "the fifth of chicken?" every year since then I think of the good laugh we all had :)

Leo's cards

we made some Mother's Day cards to mail out this week.
from trying paint hand prints with Leo in the past I figured
this would be a major headache, but it wasn't too bad.
as soon as I'd paint his hand he'd make a fist or grab his foot!
we had paint everywhere, but we finally got the 5 that we needed.

and I made myself a little keepsake, too :)

slips 2

I got five good long sprouts off of two potatoes - the other four just mainly have long roots on the bottoms and tiny sprouts. hopefully they all catch up. this one sweet potato grew sooo fast this week. almost every time I passed by it the leaves were a little bigger and taller. it was pretty cool to watch! :) I have no idea why this one did so well.

they all had tiny little fingers coming off the ends of the stems when I pulled them off the potato. I'm assuming that's what turns into the roots now?

I suspended all five in a jelly glass of water with some thread taped across to hold them up. here goes nothing!

s'meeps

this time last year I was laying on the couch snacking on peanuts trying to make it through the day. I'm so glad I get to enjoy some Easter goodies this year! :D I'm really wanting to have a Peep roast, but I don't know if we'll get around to that on Easter. we may cheat and do that the night before O:)

anyway, I tend to bite off too much when it comes to holidays and coming up with something totally handmade to give the family, but this year I slacked off a bit.I've been seeing Peep S'mores all over the Internet so that's what I went with this year. while I am pretty much leaving the assembly of these to the recipients - which was the main attraction! - I did alter the Peeps logo and print it on paper bags, so I don't feel too bad about not "making " anything.

feel free to use it for your own S'meeps gift :)