Page One...

I always said I wanted to scrapbook each year of my children's lives so that they would have a beautiful chronicle of their childhood experiences one day to share with their own families.... that said, in the first 14 months of my daughter's life, I've now officially managed to complete one page, putting me on pace to maybe finish her first year in time for her high school graduation.

The photo was taken on a cell phone camera days after Ayami was born so the quality isn't the best but it's still a beautiful photo from her first days of life and one of my favourites. I hope that eventually this will be the first page in a whole book of her first year.

I am going to try to use the Artisan Embellishment kits and More Amore DSP for her whole first year, I love the colours, they are perfect for a baby girl. I Cased a template I found on Pinterest for the layout so I can't take credit for that, but I input my own embellishments, papers details to make it my own.

The glittery A is made with a retired die set and Silver Glass Glitter, very sharp! The pink lace trim makes a super cute little bow and I sponge daubed the edges of two Bitty Butterflies punched from First Edition Specialty DSP.

Cheers!

A Special Project

I had a super busy, super productive week last week while my husband and daughter took themselves to visit Grandpa on the mainland! Have no fear, I have lots of Stampin' Up! projects to share, but at the request of customers and friends, I want to share a completely different project that ate most of my week: refinishing a kids' table and chairs set for my daughter.

My grandpa built this set for my brother and I almost 23 years ago and has since been used by friends and other family members for their children. It has always been bright yellow with a wood stain on the table edge and a melamine top. Everything my grandpa built was incredibly high quality and has stood the test of time as shown by furniture pieces in many of our family's homes. Despite everything this table set has seen in it's life it was actually in very sturdy shape, it just needed some esthetic love.

I had to give it a very good washing after sitting on our patio for over two years, checked all the screws and prepped for painting. You can buy fabulous spray paint and primer in one these days, I used a colour called Key Lime which is available from many different brands. My husband and I love lime green so it was the first colour that came to mind when we decided to paint. It took 3 coats to get a nice even finish. I didn't clear coat it, it wasn't done the first time it was painted and it took a long time for the paint to show wear. I took my chances to the top and tested a patch to see what the adherance was like for the chalkboard spray paint on the melamine and it seemed to grab on great so I went ahead and painted 3 coats on the top as well after using masking tape to cover the table edges and help me achieve a nice straight line.

I joined my family in Vancouver the morning after I finished painting it so it had the weekend to dry. As soon as we got home Ayami found it and gave the chalkboard top its first test run and she LOVED it! We couldn't get her away from it for the rest of the afternoon :) Let's be honest, what kid, (or parent) wouldn't just love to colour all over furniture some days? It's hard surface will be great for all kinds of art and craft projects, it doubles as a kiddie table when we have others over for dinner and birthday parties, or to eat breakfast and lunch on and so much more (I'm pretty sure we used it for high jump competitions growing up and definitely built many a fort with it and some blankets....).

I hope this awesome little table set sees many many more years of memories from our daughter, it certainly doesn't owe my brother or I a thing!

Cheers!

More Easter Decor

I have absolutely no idea where this is going but I thought it was pretty cute:

You might have seen the blog post at Stampinup.com last week where they shared a similar nest filled with eggs covered in champagne glass glitter. For my own version I have made raffia out of thin cut pieces of First Edition Specialty DSP, coated 3 plastic dollar-store eggs in spray adhesive and then using the same technique as on the Stampin' Up! blog I put them into ziploc bags filled with glitter (I used retired glitters) and shook them until coated. They were left to dry overnight before I tied the hemp twine (retired) around each one. The banner is Very Vanilla cardstock and I have used the Easter Blessings wooden stamp from the Spring Catalogue with my Basic Black Stampin' Write Marker to create the banner. I crumpled it and sponge daubed it all over the creases and edges with soft suede to give it a softer, vintage appearance.

Besides waiting for the glitter to dry, this was a super quick project! Great if you need something beautiful and simple for your Easter dinner table.

Cheers!

Happy 60th Birthday

There have been a lot of birthday parties lately which have kept me from regularly posting here but I wanted to share this little beauty I made for a recent milestone of my mom's:

I Cased this from a few different projects I have found on Pinterest lately. This is the 4th time I have used Crystal Effects to make shiny 3D numbers and I really love it with the brushed gold paper. I have blended many textures to create a subtle layering without a ton of actual depth (except from the paper flowers). I really like this colour combination, I will be so sad to see Calypso Coral and Lucky Limeaid go in a couple of months, they are gorgeous together!

Cheers!

Easter Centerpiece Class

Coming up, Saturday March 23rd, 1pm I will have an Easter Centerpiece Class! Come on our and make a beautiful display for your table or anywhere in your home, cost $30. Included with your class fee is a pack of Tea for Two Designer Series Paper which we will use to make the arrangements (you get to keep the leftovers and there will be lots), everything else you need is provided in the class fee including the raffia which we will be making fee. The only thing not included is the vessel, bring your own of any colour or style, or you can purchase one from me like the one I have used for an extra $16 on top of the class fee.

You will need to RSVP for this class by Tuesday March 12th with a $15 deposit to ensure there will be enough supplies for you. The rest of the class fee is due at the class. I will try to get a better photo up when it's less dark in here, you can't see the placard on the front very well in this light or the detail or glitter.

Hope to see you at the class!

Cheers!

MDS Poster

Last night I was playing around with MDS after seeing some cool modern typography baby posters on Etsy, so I decided to try to make my own. This is what I came up with and I love how personal it is :)

I don't mean to complain but there's not a lot out there in this kind of product for adoptive families, I mean trying to find a baby book that isn't full of sonogram and maternity pages etc has been a ridiculous undertaking, let alone anything else so I'm super happy to have something that fits our story! That's what is so awesome about MDS, is the ability to personalize ANYTHING! I'll share a photo when I actually get it up on her wall, I've got a simple black frame with white mat that looks perfect with the simple type.

If you haven't used MDS before you can download a FREE trial anytime from Stampin' Up!'s website, that's how I got started. Feel free to ask me any questions you have about the software, I'm looking forward to an upcoming MDS class I've just planned, details to come :)

Cheers!

Anpanman!

I don't expect anyone who follows me to actually have a clue who this super cute little superhero is lol, I had no idea before we went to Japan and he was EVERYWHERE! But when one of Ayami's little baby friends who was also born in Japan was having a first birthday I had to try to make a super awesome Anpanman birthday card :)

I actually think the Anpanman show is hilarious (although she won't be watching it until she's like 12 or 13 because the English translation is less than appropriate sometimes), and we brought back lots of Anpanman toys for Ayami, there's something about his simple face and contrasting colours that she has just loved since she was a newborn.

I used the retired Kanji stamp set to create the yellow flag and embossed with Black Embossing Powder. Anpanman was created like Hello Kitty a few weeks ago, a few punches and lots of hand-drawn and cut pieces. You could talk any image of Anpanman and quite easily do the same. Since I couldn't get ahold of any Blush Blossom paper, I had to use a piece of Whisper White and colour it with the marker to create the head.

I hope you think he's as cute as I do!

Cheers!