Halloween Paper Bag Scrapbook

This is the original Halloween scrapbook that I made (getting it done early). After this I discovered chipboard etc and was kind of sad that I had already put it together. How would I manage to salvage my hard work? Read on...

Paper Bag Album, my first attempt

A little more than a month ago I learned about paper bag albums. My first searches only showed me to fold the paper bags in half and bind them together using an accordion style binding. Tutorial for the binding is HERE. Her tutorial is really easy to understand. No reason to make my own. NOTE: I glued my pages into the accordion instead of using brads/eyelets.

Flower was off a gift given to me a while back. Used the leaves as page tabs attaching them with brads.

Reveal Party Invite

::Card Making:: Finding Interesting Items

Birthdays/Holidays/Thank You's .... it never seems to slow down. There is always an occasion worthy of a quick card through snail mail and everyone loves pulling out an envelope that doesn't have a bill in it. I know I sure do.

Shopping at an antique store I found a bag of old family photos. It had around 30 pictures of everything from christmas to the zoo and the backyard. Spanned over quite a bit of time as well. It was a good find for $5 and I have gotten to use them to make my homemade cards just that much more interesting. 

Hawkeye Season is HERE!!

Get out the pom poms and black and gold, cause the hawks have hit the field. Last weeks game was amazing, coming back from 27-10 against Pittsburgh for the WIN. A complete relief after the Ia vs Ia State game the previous week. Lost in double overtime.... nooooo. These games have kept me on my feet and given our family something to look forward to each Saturday. Though dad doesn't really have the Hawks Fever that I do, he is a good sport and only teases me occasionally. I've been putting together outfits for Lily to wear each weekend (hawk themed of course), found some great buys at the Goodwill and other thrift stores around DM. (we've moved back to our home state <3) Its really expensive for kids sports gear. Even the ones I find that are overpriced are made so junky that I can't justify the price tag. SOOOO though my little nieces birthday was yesterday and I feel terrible for being late on her present, its for good reason. I found a lovely little sweatsuit for cheap that was all black and again at the thrift store I was able to find old Hawkeyes gear in whatever size was available. Cut out the logos and TADA!..

Halloween Cont. & More

As promised I have returned with updates on Lily's Little Mermaid costume. Again, I am so glad I started this project early. I've had so much  fun finding cheap and interesting ways to make this a one of a kind instead of another patterned blah piece. I wasn't too fond of using a pattern in the first place, but I couldn't see myself successfully creating my own without it turning into an extremely expensive ordeal. Someday my financial supplies will allow for more creativity/trial and error/etc. Anyways.... off of that tangent. So at my visit to the Goodwill I discovered a 5 cent bag of seashells, what luck! I used these to glue to her dress and the crown I picked up on clearance at Target.

Happy Halloween in September

Ahhhhh fall is definitely setting in. Now that I'm home (not working) for the most part I'm able to plan ahead instead of procrastinating. Its amazing what you can get done only working 2 days a week!! Yesterday I finished Lily's halloween costume. Although I was keen on her being either an owl or bird (only because I found the cutest costume tutorials online and I'm a bit selfish lol), she had other ideas and said she would like to be the little mermaid. I sucked up my mom authority and let her choose her own costume, though I do miss the days when I had full discretion over these decisions. Another benefit of finishing her costume more than a month before halloween is that I am able to foresee any issues that might come up: after trying it on she slipped onto her bottom... apparently the measurements for the fins/skirt are a bit big .... I spent a while brainstorming the ways to fix this without tearing apart my work and I think I will have success with some sort of metal wire at the bottom to help keep the fin from her feet. That has yet to go in but I'll add another photo once its done. It should also help with the complete look! Also chose to take in the sides of the bottom a bit, as you can see in the photo its a little big... she's just a skinny little lady!