Confessions Of A Scrapaholic

Our Family Tree

 
Our family tree is the focal point of the girls' playroom. Originally I painted it purely for decoration but it has become so much more than that. Take a closer look...

We have pictures of all the girls' aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and great-grandparents (and us, of course.) One of Eden's favorite things to do is point to family members and have me tell her their names. She can already say, "Nana, Tay-Tay (Tera), Sy-Sy (Sylas), Nano, Papa, Me (Grammie) and Ry-Ry (Ryan). She also says family ("Famee!") when she points to the tree. <3 <3 <3 

The trunk of the tree is also the girls' growth chart. This is actually a version 2.0 tree. I painted a tree for Zoë years ago in our townhouse. Before we moved I made sure to copy down all the measurements and dates so that I could transfer them to this new tree. Just the other day I made a new mark for Eden after her 18-month check up. It is astonishing how much she has grown in six months!

This is a simple, fun and inexpensive project that you can do in your home. I painted the tree using acrylic paint found at any craft store. To add a little bit of sparkle I painted on a bit of glitter glue on the wings of the butterflies once the paint was dry. 

To create the circles, I opened each person's photo in Photoshop, used a clipping mask to clip it to this template, then (making sure to hold down shift) re-sized the photo (Edit > Transform > Scale). I then saved the cropped photo as a .PNG file. After I had created all of my circles I opened a new 5x7 Photoshop document, drug all the circles on to the document, and saved it as a .JPG. Then I had them printed at Costco. 

Next up, assembly. I used a circle punch to punch out all of my photos. You could cut them all out by hand, but this was much faster. I then glued them to metal rim tags. Finally, I placed them on the tree. Voila!

TIVO Premiere

Kelly and I have owned a TIVO ever since they first came on the market, since before everyone and their mother (even my mother) owned a DVR. I didn't think they could do anything to make me love my TIVO any more, but they did. 

Enter, TIVO Premiere.

TIVO Premiere turns the TIVO into much more of a media center computer. My new favorite feature? It connects directly to your cable provider and eliminates the need for a cable box. THANK YOU! Unlike my husband, who thinks that audio-video equipment is all the "art" we need in our home, I loathe having cable boxes and media centers and amplifiers and whatever else we have in the cabinet. Give me one box and one remote and I am a happy lady. It has full HD support, is more energy efficient, can record two shows while you are watching a third. You can transfer your recorded shows to your iPhone, access four different On-Demand providers, schedule recordings remotely and access your photos and music remotely.

This should come as no surprise to you, but I actually made a layout about our TIVO. You can find it in the "Everyday Life" album of our family Library of Memories. 

I need to make it a point to document more of today's technology so that in twenty years (or so) my girls can tell their children about how they had to watch BluRay discs and OnDemand in 2-D when they were growing up. LOL! 

A few weeks ago I asked Zoë to pause her cartoon and come have lunch, then proceeded to tell her how lucky she was because when I was little I had to walk five miles in the snow to school, up hill, both ways..... wait, that's not right. I told her that cartoons were only on at certain times of the day and you had to watch whatever happened to be on at the time. She looked at me like I had my head on wrong and asked me why I didn't just record my cartoons on the media center computer. That's my girl.

Dr. Seuss Baby Shower Album

As I mentioned in my previous post, my gift to Marie was pictures. Lots of them. My friend Emily and I gave Marie a newborn photo session with one of our favorite photographers, Angela Parris of Stillpoint Photography. However, the little guy needs to make his appearance before that is useful, so I took it upon myself to document the baby shower. 

I also happen to know that once baby "Thing" makes his appearance, Marie is going to have almost no time to scrapbook. To make things easier on the momma-to-be, I printed all of the photos that I took during the shower and created an album documenting the event. I found the perfect 4-up album at Target and away I went!

I present to you, Marie's Baby Shower Album...

The layout of the album was very simple. Title page + photo of Marie's tummy. We couldn't have a baby shower without documenting the reason for the party!

Next up, the "photo booth" photos of each guest + their personal note and/or advice to Marie. (Photos have been blurred to protect the innocent. LOL!)

Now for the details. The mommy-to-be is a very detail-oriented person, so I wanted to document all the little touches that made her shower special. I began each section with a 4x6 title card. (There is also an "Outtakes" section, but I'm not posting that because I would have had to blur all the faces anyway.)

  




Finally, some group photos. I tried cropping a group photo into four 4x6 photos to fill an entire 4-up page but it looked strange. Ultimately I ended up with two smaller group shots. And lets not forget the little note on the back cover which coordinates with the cover. Coordination makes me happy. :)

Dr. Seuss Baby Shower

I had the privilege of co-hosting a baby shower for my dear friend, Marie, last weekend. She and her husband John are keeping the baby's name a secret (much to my annoyance) and have instead been calling him "Thing." I don't know about you, but when I hear "Thing" I think of Dr. Seuss, thus the shower theme was born. I went searching for some online inspiration and found some amazing Dr. Seuss themed showers.

I have never co-hosted a shower before, but it worked out really well. I was able to focus on what I do best (design) and they took care of the rest (food, games, guest list). Would you like to see the invitation? I am so pleased with how it turned out.

I scanned and extracted graphics from a few different Dr. Seuss books, tweaked a frame by Heather Ann, and added some of my own Photoshop magic to create the invitation.

The color scheme for the shower was red and teal so I got to work on collecting all sorts of goodies to decorate. I found a rainbow of paper lanterns, feather boas, flowers, ribbon, you name it. I even found "Thing 1" onesies and a "Cat in the Hat" hat!

Marie and I both love taking pictures and one of my gifts to her was pictures of her shower. Lots and lots of pictures. I set up a little "photo booth" area at the shower that I stocked with boas, flowers, a hat and a teal frame. 

Fun, right?! After I took each guests photo, I had them write down some advice and/or tips for the Mommy-To-Be on 4x6 cards that I designed and printed ahead of time. 

I paired the photo of each guest with their advice and creating a baby shower album for Marie. Click HERE to see the album in detail and read about how I put it all together.

In addition to the invitation and advice cards, I also created all sorts of Dr. Seuss-y goodness for the shower. I bought "The Cat in the Hat" for each guest to write a message to the baby in (and made a sign). I also counted and made a sign for the "Guess How Many Jelly Bean" game. (There were 593 in case you were wondering.)

Let's not forget about the food. Marie's mom and Angela made a ton of delicious food, and I made..... the signs! (Shocking, I know.)

 
Now for desserts! Lizz and Shannon really outdid themselves. Lizz made the most darling (and yummy) "Thing 1" cupcakes, complete with cotton candy hair, and Shannon made the Seuss-y parfaits and designed a gorgeous dessert table. It really was the perfect touch to the shower. Everyone was raving about it. Good job ladies!

Over the last few months I have found some fabulous and inspiring websites/blogs focused on hosting chic parties and showers. If that sort of thing interests you, make sure and take a peek in the "Link Love" section of my blog. I am constantly updating it with my latest finds.

A Weekend Getaway

There is one problem with having a husband who is constantly out of town on business trips: The last thing he wants to do during his down time is travel. Why is this a problem? I do! Don't get me wrong, I like hanging out at home with the family, but once in a while it is nice to getaway for a few days. Kelly took pity on me and agreed to a spontaneous trip to Great Wolf Lodge for Valentine's Day. We let the girls open their gifts on Saturday night (matching swimsuits and cover-ups) and at the bottom of Zoë's box was a sign that said, "We Are Going To Great Wolf Lodge" with their logo. She sounded each word out slowly, then repeated it more quickly, then jumped up and down squealing, "We are going to Great Wolf Lodge!!!!!" That is just the kind of response I was hoping for. 

Kelly and I exchanged gifts as well and I was completely floored when I opened up a waterproof camera. I had no idea. For me, photos are the perfect souvenir. I don't like knick-knacks or cheesy logo t-shirts and I don't need any more coffee mugs. I am very content with a few good shots of my family. Last time we were at Great Wolf Lodge I bought a disposable waterproof camera and not a single photo from the water park turned out. I was so disappointed. My sweet husband remembered that and made sure it wouldn't happen again. I love that man.

Would you like to see some of the photos from my cool new camera? Yes? OK!

Zoë and Eden playing on the jet ski in the kiddie area

Eden's favorite thing about the entire water park? The balls. Give the girl a ball and she is a happy camper. She bobbed around until her lips were blue, happy as a clam.

 

Kelly and Zoë were pretty much inseparable the entire time. They played in the "big kid" area while I stayed with Eden in the "toddler friendly" area.

You remember the matching swimming suits? How cute are they?! We all had bright pink pedicures to match our suits, which you can't see in the picture. Disclaimer: By we, I mean the girls and I. Kelly did not get a pedicure. I thought I should probably mention that. LOL!

 

This may be my favorite photo of the trip. Check out that underwater picture! I barely touched it up in Photoshop. I told Zoë that she could bring the camera with her to swimming lessons one of these days. 

We stayed in the Wolf Den suite, which was darling. The girls had their own little "room" that had baby wolves painted all over the place. 

I have to say, I was much more impressed with Great Wolf Lodge during this trip. Granted the first time we went they had just opened and hadn't had time to work out the bugs, but still. There is a Starbucks inside the hotel now! Sweet! The food is actually good now and they have added healthy food choices to their offerings. The coolest addition? MagiQuest. I fully realize that makes me sound like a big nerd, but I really don't care. We bought wands for both the girls (and princess dresses, of course) and Zoë and I set off on a quest around the hotel. 

The MagiQuest store actually programs your wand with your information and stores information in the wand as your continue on your quest. You get a quest book with clues that take you to almost every floor of the hotel, which is filled with enchanted items that do something magical when you wave your wand at them. Did I mention it was cool?

I would stay at the hotel for another day just so that I could complete all the quests. Like I said, big nerd.

Eden's favorite part of the water park was the ball. Zoë's was the lily pads. I took a video of her crossing them (from in the pool!) She was so proud of herself. (Click on the photo to start the video.)

Our combined least favorite part of the trip? She and I going down Alberta Falls (in a two-person tube). Zoë had already gone down twice with Kelly and had a great time. We settled in for our run down the slide. I got in first to stretch across both holes of the tube since she was so tiny that she would slip through. We began zooming down the slide fast enough to give me butterflies then all of a sudden Zoë went flying off the tube and smacked her head on the tunnel! I moved faster than I think I have in my entire life, and grabbed the back of her life jacket before the tube slid over the top of her, and jerked her back on to the tube and into my lap. We finished the run and she was crying and I was shaking uncontrollably. I calmed her down enough to find out what had happened. She let go of the tube so that she could put her goggles on. She let go of the dang tube. Ugh. And I thought Eden was going to give me grey hair.

All in all, it was a fantastic little vacation. One we will probably be repeating at least every few winters.