Scrapbooking: Snow Day

I went to a layout class at my local scrapbook store last night. It was nice to get out the house for a couple of hours and concentrate on something crafty :-)
We used a snowman and snowflake stamp which we stamped and embossed straight onto the page. This made a change as I don't usually stamp directly onto a layout let alone emboss!
We stamped another snowman and cut him out to make a 3D effect and also re-embossed some parts of the decorative snowflake stamp to highlight some parts in silver.
Here's the close-up...

And here's the full page...

I added the title and journalling tag when I got home but the rest was done at the class :-)
It's great to get the snow pictures in my album too.

Sharing on Sunday - 28th August

Wow, I can't believe we are at Sunday again already. The weeks are flying at the moment. I've not had much time to pin things this week but I still have a couple of cute things to share with you :-)

First up is a genius idea! Remember the friendship bracelets I was making a while back? I never thought to use a clip board to keep them in place! Such an awesome idea. I might make up some clipboard and friendship bracelet making kits up for Christmas presents for my nieces.

pin and original source

These kind cards could be an awesome thing for RAK day. I've printed some out to cut up and keep in my purse. They'd also make great sentiments on cards I think.

pin and original source

And next is this lovely printable which could be great for teachers and parents alike. I especially love the rainbow colours. 

pin and original source

Wishing you all a wonderful week :-)

You can see all my sharing on Sunday posts here.

RAK (Random Acts of Kindness) Day is coming up...

Did you know that New Zealand has a National RAK (Random Acts of Kindness) Day?

It's coming up in a few days time on the 1st September (which is Thursday).

You can learn more about it at the website here.

I thought it would be good to let lots of people know about it - I've posted about it on Facebook and Twitter and I'm mentioning it here on the blog too.

I'm thinking of a few ideas for how I can do some of my own RAKing on Thursday and would love it if I can convince some other people to join in too :-)

Here's what I have planned so far...

• I have made up a set of cute notelets to giveaway to a blog reader on Thursday and might arrange a couple more items too
• I'm also going to do some baking for my husband and my workmates
• I might take my boss some flowers
• I'm thinking about leaving some lollies or biscuits in the neighbours mailboxes

So does anyone else fancy playing along? Either on their blog or 'in real life'?

Leave me a comment if you'd like to join in and maybe I could set up a linky on Thursday for people that have RAK'd if there's enough interest.

Also - there are little cards you can print off and hand out with your RAKs encouraging others to pass it on.

I figure that there's always a lot of sad and horrible things happening in the world to lots of different people so this is a way to make a few extra people smile and hopefully feel a little better :-)

My Creative Space: Lion birthday cake

I thought I'd share a picture of baby's birthday cake that I made a couple of weeks ago for his 1st birthday. 

He seems to like lions and 'rawr' noises so I did a bit of a hunt around online for some lion cake inspiration. 

I found this and this which I thought were pretty cute. And then I finally settled on my own attempt at this version.

Here's how my one came out...

I used a basic sponge recipe and made one sponge (rather than 2 for a Victoria Sponge type cake). I thought a 'shorter' cake would be best for baby to eat!

It's decorated with butter icing coloured with yellow colouring and chocolate butter icing. I then used some fudge writing icing for the mouth. The ears are a shortbread biscuit cut in half and covered in buttercream icing.

It's not exactly a professional looking cake but I wasn't aiming for that. I was aiming for something fun plus it seemed to go down rather well...

Linking up with Our Creative Spaces.

Scrapbooking: Document 2011: July

I finally got my July pages completed for Document 2011 over the weekend. I had the photos sat on my desk ready to go but I focused on getting my Week in the Life album done before I did these pages.

I ended up working on them around baby's naps. They are pretty simple in design and there's a lot of blanked out faces as baby was so sociable this month!

My pocket pages feature some making, some crafts and other mini stories from the month...

And the main page for the month is about the joint 1st birthday party we had with coffee group. We got lots of great photos so I decided to print 7 of them (4 to a 4x6 print) and get them all on a page. I used Shimelle's Grid It Up challenge as inspiration for making this page :-)

You can see all of my Document 2011 pages here.

Sharing on Sunday - 21st August

It's been an up and down couple of days...
Yesterday morning a former colleague of mine lost her battle with cancer. She's left behind a husband and 2 boys. She is an inspiration because she really was a fighter and I know she will be missed by a lot of people.
And yesterday evening I heard that some friends of mine got engaged. I am so very happy for them and I know that my lovely friend K has been wishing and hoping for this to happen for a wee while now so it's fantastic news.
So this weekend has been quite a thoughtful one. And I think I might have a lot to ponder for a while now. Big life changes for those people around me always make me think more about the direction of my life and where my journey is taking me.
Anyway, I still have a few links to share this week. Things I've stumbled upon over the last week that I think are fab and think some other people might like too...

I adore these crochet boots and think I may have to think about making something similar to keep my toes warm next winter...

I also came across this poncho which I have fallen in love with and wonder how long it would take me to make...

 The week isn't complete without some lovely freebie printables. These ones would make great journalling cards on a scrapbook layout or minibook.

I've seen lots of lovely sock monkey's across the blogosphere recently (which reminded me I want to make one!) and then spotted this tutorial for making a sock owl...

And finally, given I've had a few positive comments about my thank you cards this week, I'm sure a lot of people will agree with this...

Note: I've linked to the pins of all of these items on Pinterest. If you'd like to visit the original source for these items you just need to click on the link at the top right of the image on Pinterest. I hope this makes sense :-)

My Creative Space: Thank you cards

I made some thank you cards this week for baby's birthday presents.
I added the words "thank you" to a photo (in Paint, who needs Photoshop?!), and got 2 printed to a 6x4 photo. Then cut the photos, and matted each one with a co-ordinating card/paper from my scraps box and added them to a cream card. I rounded the corners of the photo, background card and card before sticking it all down.
Pretty simple but a nice way to post a few thank yous and make a few people smile :-)

Note: I have learned from experience that simple means these things get done! I'm certain people would rather get a simple thank you note in the mail than not get anything at all while I plan some complicated thank you and never get around to finishing it :-)

Jumping on the snow bandwagon!

I'm a little bit late but I thought I'd share some of our snow pictures from Monday.

The Square in Palmerston North hasn't seen snow for decades so most Palmerston-ians were ridiculously excited to see some snow :-)

It was nothing like what we experienced in Scotland but I admit to feeling rather excited myself and couldn't resist taking lots of photos...

This last photo is from the Palmerston North City Library Facebook page of the Sqaure.

I'm kind of dreading the power bill but it was still great to see the baby so excited at the snow. He was banging on the window and shouting at it :-) He wasn't that fussed about being outside in it though!

And it's all gone from our garden now. Just big wet puddles left :-(

A Week in the Life :: the completed album

It's done. I feel great now the album for Week in the Life is completed. It was a big project but I am sure it will be well worth all the work that's gone into it.

Here's a quick look at all the pages.

Surnames and email addresses and a baby face have been blurred out for privacy purposes.

Monday : :

Tuesday : :

Wednesday : :

Thursday : :

Friday : :

Saturday : :

Sunday : :

In terms of putting it all together I tried to have a main colour for each day. I used the colour from the text on the day's photo i.e. Monday is blue, Sunday is yellow.

I used a mixture of patterned and plain papers from various different sources. This was more about showcasing the pictures and words than using new products. I did manage to sneak in some Elle's Studio tags though. I also featured at least one butterfly on each days pages and a little bling. 

I've also done a simple front and final page for the album:

The quote I chose to include at the bottom of the final page is this one : :

"Enjoy the little things for one day you may look back and realise they were the big things".

I thought it was quite a good one in terms of daily life.

I'm not sure if I will do this project again in the future but I hope so as it will be great for a comparison.

You can see all of my week in the life posts here and you can learn more about the whole project here.

Sharing on Sunday - 14th August

I got a few comments on last week's link-sharing post so thought I'd have another go :-)

Most items found via Pinterest and Kiwi Mummy Blogs.

First up, I'm always looking for more uses for the baby food jars I have stashed in the cupboard. I love the idea of turning them into snowglobes!

I'm looking forward to trying Megan at MouseHouse's Foccacia Bread recipe. It looks yummy!

Yes, I'm crazy enough to already be thinking ahead to Christmas. I love the simplicity of these pinecones as Christmas trees. Aren't they cute?

How cute are these little critters - made from toilet paper tubes. I always wonder what I can make with them and now I might just have to try this...

I really need to buy some sandpaper so I can try drawing on it with crayons and transferring the image to clothes! See the tutorial here.

Feel free to link up any other cool stuff you've found this week in the comments :-)
Have a great week everybody.

My Creative Space: some crochet and my Week in the Life album

I have a couple of WiPs to show you today. That's Works-in-Progress for those not in the know :-)

First up, I am trying to use up some wool left over from the rainbow blanket and table runner to make a granny square cushion cover. Only problem is - it's nowhere near big enough yet and I'm not going to have enough yarn so going to have to buy more! Ooops, should have started with more colours!

And on my desk is a mess! The making of my Week in the Life album. I'm over halfway now - have completed up to Thursday. Hoping to get it finished this weekend (fingers crossed!)

I'll definitely show the finished products once I'm done with them :-)

What are you making at the moment?

Linking up with Our Creative Spaces.

10 things :: on my baby boy's 1st birthday

It's hard to believe that this time last year I was craddling a newborn baby amazed with myself for bringing him into the world and awed by him in all his gorgeous-ness!

1 week old 

1 year old

I want to share 10 things about the 1st year:

1. I really thought I loved him the most I ever could on the day he was born but every day this past year I have found that love grow as he made me smile and laugh
2. It was undoubtedly the hardest year of my life. I was on the steepest learning curve ever. But it's also been the best year of my life.
3. I still can't quite believe I'm a mother and I have a son. I don't feel grown up enough for that!
4. I've never missed my family and friends more than I have this year. I feel sad that some of them haven't met my gorgeous boy yet and sad that those that have haven't spent nearly as much time with him as they'd like.
5. The level of respect I have for my Mum has been multiplied by 100 this year.
6. Ditto all mothers I know everywhere.
7. At every stage I always think "this is the best stage" and then he reaches another milestone and blows me away yet again.
8. There is nothing sweeter than newborn snuggles, the first smile, the first laugh and cuddles. I love that he's a cuddly baby :-)
9. Seeing my baby in pain is worse than any pain I could ever experience myself. I never understood that before he was in my life.
10. I can't wait to see what he gets up to next.

PS. He is so close to walking by himself. He's been taking the odd step here and there and is so fast when he's holding your hand. I can't believe I nearly have a toddler on my hands :-)

Happy Birthday gorgeous boy. Love You. xxxx

Linking up with Shimelle's 10 things.