Baby Inspiration Pin Board

I saw a friend "liked" the company Minted on Facebook and shared that they were having an inspiration board challenge.  I have always loved looking at my friends' inspiration boards but have never done one on my own.  Now, with my addiction to Pinterest, I really have not felt the need to make one.  But, with this challenge, I decided to challenge myself, too, in hopes of maybe winning a contest!

The idea was to take one of their baby announcements and make a inspiration board based on one of their designs.  Let me say that their designs are gorgeous!  This might be one of my new favorite stationery sites!  I had a hard time picking which one to ultimately work with because they were all so beautiful!  And, even though my little one is now a toddler (TEARS!), I picked one with her in mind.  I chose a vintage style that fits my personality so well.  It's traditional, colorful, pretty and has a touch of modernity to it.  Honestly, if I were to have a little girl again sometime soon, I'd probably pick this design for my announcement.  It's called "fairy tale beginnings" and it really spoke to me!  The name was the focus for my inspiration board, as I went with fairy tale & story themed images. 

Clockwise from top left:  a pastel subway art name piece with baby's birth info; princess crowns made from lace and fabric stiffener; a princess castle fort made of pvc pipe; a dress-up station; a princess parking sign; and the fairy tale beginnings announcement.

fairy tale beginnings board by Karen . See more Minted

Hope you like my first inspiration pin board!!

Valentine Project: Baby Art

I love Sophie's feet. They might be my 2nd favorite, next to her sapphire blue eyes. So, when I saw baby footprint art on Pinterest I was very excited! Since it's close to Valentine's Day, I decided I would make some art as a gift for my mom and keep one for our house. Here's how my project went!

This is a sample of what I saw on Pinterest and it's an example of what inspired me.



Here is our "butterfly." The tye-dye effect was easily done by putting one color paint on one side of her foot and another color on the other side. It blends nicely when put on the canvas. I was able to touch up any smudges with a very light purple, almost white color, and I outlined the "wings" in a medium purple so you can't really tell that there were imperfections.



I didn't want to have two butterflies on the canvas because I wanted to be able to use both her hands and feet. But I had no idea how difficult it would be to get a 5 month old to open her hands and keep them open. So, we kinda came up with this flower accidentally. It resulted from paint on the side of her fist. Her fingers curled to make a nice petal shape. :-)



For the second canvas, I wanted something a bit more colorful. I used one finger at a time and dragged it across the canvas to make each ray of the rainbow, then touched it up to make sure that they touched and looked blended. I'd like to say that Sophie helped me sponge paint the cloud, but that was just my doing.



This was key for me: a third canvas for errors. I bought a pack of 3 flat canvases not knowing what to expect and I'm so glad I did! The 3rd canvas helped me test out options for the flower and allowed me to make errors. I guess, in a way, this is art, too!



Here are my two completed canvases. Another key thing for me: the fact that I got flat canvases. This came in handy for prettying them up in frames.




Here is finished canvas #1, with a double mat and the glass is removed. I just thought that the glass wasn't necessary and they looked prettier without it.



And, here is finished canvas #2!

Pinterest Passion: Geting Organized In the Kitchen 2

Weekly Menu:
My husband is the cook in our house. It's fantastic! But he's always had the dilemma of planning what to make for dinner. My solution? A menu board inspired by something I saw on Pinterest! Mine is much simpler than the Pinterest board and is also probably one of the least expensive projects I have ever done. The frame, an 11"x14" frame, came from Dollar Tree. The paper inside was a whopping $0.25 for a sheet at Michael's. Like the calendar above, I used the transparency markers for the days of the week and we use dry erase markers for the menu items. That's very important because, as life changes, so do dinner plans!

Pinterest Passion: Geting Organized In the Kitchen

Weekly Calendar:
Here is a weekly calendar done with a collage frame from Wal-Mart and some scrapbook paper. I wrote the day of the week on the glass with a transparency marker because it doesn't wipe off without using a liquid cleaner and we use a regular dry-erase marker. We have a regular monthly calendar on our basement door, but this is great for a quick glance. Wal-Mart's website says that the 8 opening collage frame costs $12.97, but I've had this blue one around the house for a few years, so it didn't cost me anything right now. And the paper used in each opening is from scrapbooking scrap packs.

Pinterest Passion: Baby L-O-V-E

I saw a collage on Pinterest for a L-O-V-E baby shoot and thought that I would love to do that with my little Sophie. So, off to the store I went, Sophie in tow, to purchase some posterboard. The original photographer/mom used white board, but since I expected to photograph my little one on our royal blue bedspread, I liked the idea of contrasting the blue with red posterboard. I freehand sketched the letters from one piece of board- now that I've done it, if I did it again I would use one piece per letter because the bigger the better. Anyway, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out!

Here are each of the letters:


And here is an image of her with all four (I tried to arrange them like the famous Philly statue):


Here's a collage that I used for my Facebook Timeline cover photo:


And I decided to play around with them and possibly make a Valentine's card to send to our family. Not sure if I will print them out and send them yet, though, since people don't usually send Valentine's cards like they do Christmas cards.

Getting Organized: A Year Full of Birthdays!

I have wanted to send our birthday cards to all of our family members since we got married. I've got a great memory for dates and numbers and know almost all of the birthdays in my family by heart, so compiling my family wasn't too difficult. Getting my husband's family's dates was a little more tricky. So, after nearly 4 years of marriage, I'm finally doing it! I got all the dates, put them in a spreadsheet so I'll always have them, wrote them all in my planner and headed to Hallmark to buy cards! Needless to say, my stack was so gigantic that I decided to only purchase cards for the first half of the year. The woman at Hallmark thought I was crazy, but it's one thing off my plate!

Here's my wonderful, yet packed planner. Now that the cards are organized by month, I have a card box that has folders for each month that they'll go in.


Here's my month of February and the stack for February. I have them addressed, stamped and ready to go out!

Pinterest Passion: February Photo-A-Day Challenge

As a photographer, I'm always looking for new things to learn and ways to challenge myself. I'd wanted to do the Project 365 when 2012 started but I forgot. Enter trusty Pinterest with monthly photo challenges! Here's what I've got so far for February...

February 1: Your View
As you'll probably notice, most of my photos will involve my little angel, Sophie. She is my day-to-day. She's my favorite subject to photograph because, well, she's beautiful! This image was shot from my view as she was playing on my legs. When she's older and she sees this, she'll probably yell at me for publishing a picture of her "topless!" Oh well! :-P


February 2: Words


Can you tell what I was doing most of the day?


February 3: Hands


I took some pictures of my hands with Sophie's hands along with some of her holding my wedding ring, but they seemed too contrived. This just seemed perfect. Simple and sweet- just like my munchkin! :-)