Link Love: Giveaway at Oops, I Craft My Pants Blog

So Kira over at Oops, I Craft My Pants is hosting an awesome giveaway of a Simple Crocheting book.  (BTW, how awesome is that blog name?).  She makes the original Wizard of Oz bookmarks and came up with this awesome idea for free chip-clips that you've probably seen on Pinterest.  She also makes a lot of really neat altered art from recycled materials and scraps from other projects.  I love all the inking she does with her projects, it really makes me want to get out my alcohol inks and create some awesomeness.  You should most definitely check out her blog.

Anyway, back to the giveaway... Crocheting is probably the last crafting type thing that I have yet to try.  I see all these great pins on Pinterest which makes me really want to try it, but then in real life, I never get the motivation to actually do it because it looks too hard and I have a million other great crafty things I really want to make too, and know how to do. 

Maybe I'll win it and make this awesome bracelet.  Maybe I won't but will still try it out...one day.  I really want to crochet Aria some awesome food for her kitchen, but don't have a lot of motivation to do it because my older sister is making her tons of awesome crocheted food already.  Hmm, crafting decisions...

Anyway, head on over here to enter her giveaway before September 10!  There are three ways to enter!

A Very Ladybug Girl First Birthday Party

So it has obviously been a while since I was last able to write a post.  There were a lot of house and birthday party preparations going on in my blogging absence.  Aria's party could not have turned out better. We all had so much fun and got some great pictures of all the memories thanks to Heather at HMD Photography (she also did my labor and delivery pics too - I love when things come full cirlce!)!

I pretty much made all her decorations and tried to make and do things that could be reused.  The only think I ended up not reusing (but recycling) were the streamers.  I was going to make some out of fabric or something, but time was not on my side.  Plus, it doesn't really feel like a party without streamers.

I also made most of the food, where I could.  It was all "real food" that was local or organic with the exception of the meat (but it was the non-junky kind) and the cake mix for the dip (but it was so tasty I'll look the other way on this one)

Also, I'm pretty excited to say I stayed within budget, even before I returned some extra things that we didn't end up using at the party!

I could very well make like 10 more posts on the details of the decorations, so I'll try to keep it brief in this post.  There isn't a picture of it here, but I used empty boxes and covered them in pretty wrapping paper to create levels for the food dishes on the table, I thought I was pretty slick with that idea.

Here is a sampling of the party decorations and of the birthday girl!

A chalkboard picture for every month of her life.  Plus a baby to belly to toddler picture up at the top and a chalkboard for the first three weeks of her life too.  So proud of myself for keeping up with this.
The ladybug pins on the lines are from a dear friend who is living in Japan right now, they worked out perfectly.

Amazing cake dip recipe I got off Pinterest.
I didn't want to overwhelm with too much red so I used a black tablecloth with red dots as an accent.

Homemade plain hummus and roasted red pepper hummus.

The bunting I made with the Pin the Dot on the Ladybug game I made, in the background.

Aria let us try the cake first.

Then she went right for the ladybug and chowed down.

We created a cake monster.

When I took the tray away, she got upset and started to shovel it in with both hands.

Keeping some cake reserves for later in her hand.

All cleaned up!  (notice my earrings from my previous post?)

All in all it was an awesome day and we want to thank everyone who was able to come out and celebrate with us!

Fabulously Free Earrings!

When I was in Girl Scouts, we each had a bead box full of embroidery floss.  When we got to a meeting early or went camping, we got out our boxes and made friendship bracelets.  It was so much fun to go to the store and pick out new colors and make bracelets for my friends.  Fast forward almost 20 years (what, the what?!) and in true Cathy fashion, I still have all the leftover floss.

My floss stash - so many memories! (It is in a pipette tip container that I saved from the trash at work, talk about upcycling!)

Late one night I saw found this blog, probably through Pinterest, but once you start clicking links, it is hard to keep track.  I really wanted a new project that wasn't painting and was easy (so I knew I would actually do it) and this fit the bill.

I made these to match my outfit for Aria's first birthday party.  I love that they use the floss that I had as a kid.  It makes it have more meaning to me than just a pair of earrings.  Plus I had the paperclips, gold hook part (I have sensitive ears), and two findings on hand.  Free = Awesome.  I also used scrapbook metal finding glue which dried clear.  I'll let the pictures speak to how easy it was to make.

Behold!  The awesomeness that is 15 minute earrings:

Step 1: Open paperclip and glue ends together.  Step 2: Wrap with string, gluing the ends with clear glue.

Step 3:  Wrap a pattern around the earring.  I added glue in a few key places to make sure the strings stayed put when a 1-year-old terrorizes them later.

Step 4:  Add earring hooks.  I attached mine with findings since they didn't open by themselves at the bottom.

My inspiration piece from Evie S.

I can totally see stringing a few beads here and there, two-toned with a different "nest" string and an outer string or different designs.  Maybe a black/grey web for Halloween and put a little button spider on it or make a solid pattern to make it look like a candy corn?  Or a green one to look like a Christmas tree with some "ornaments" for December?  The possibilities are endless!

What do you think?  What type will you create?

Shutterfly Custom Path

***I am in no way affiliated with Shutterfly, nor have they compensated me for this post.  I just really love it that much.

I received a credit for a free photo book recently and am super excited about creating it.  Shutterfly has this new thing called Custom Path that basically lets you create a themed scrapbook.  You can edit the pages completely too.  I have been waiting what seems like eons to make Aria's chalkboard book.  Then again, it also seems like just yesterday.  In case you don't know, I have been taking pictures of my daughter with a chalkboard with some of her milestones each month of her life.  I can't decide if I want to keep doing each month after she turns one or just do it each year or maybe just each six months.  Decisions.  Right now everything is growing and she is learning new things every day, so it is kind of easy to do one each month and have new and exciting skills to report to the world via her chalkboard. But I digress...

Anyway, there is a chalkboard background theme that is just PERFECT.  I could not have made it better myself.  The other great thing is that I get a 20-page book for free (plus cost of shipping) with my special code offer which means I have leftover pages for her birthday party as well.  I hired a friend to take pictures at the party since I don't want to miss out on anything and I'm sure I will be a crazy-lady that afternoon and won't be able to take pictures myself.

So here is a preview:  

Weeks 1-3 of Aria's Shutterfly chalkboard book.

Pretty excited to finish this and order it!  Though it will be bittersweet since that will mean my little baby will be One!

Birthday Preview (AKA Cathy can be awesomely creative sometimes)

I've been busy making decorations for Aria's birthday.  Not that she will really remember any of it, but I want it to be nice for pictures (and inexpensive).  I'm also too cheap awesomely creative to buy things that I can make (better) myself.  I have a TON of crafty-type supplies.  I only just now am running low (not out) of black cardstock.  My crafting supply collection is, well, ridiculous so I'm basically making everything for free, except the time it takes me to do it.  As an added bonus, making these decorations is one of the things keeping me from not going nuts in the productive mind-set at the moment.  I don't think I can look at anymore on Pinterest pins without feeling guilty without actually making like 20 projects to make up for all the time I've already spent on the site. (Though for the project picture below, I thought and designed of myself after seeing a cheap plastic one on OTC's site).
 Anyway - Our friend Emily has graciously offered to have it at her house since she has a rockin' grill and a place to put a pool and our house is in the middle of the transition of moving (aka Box Party Central). 
For now, this is a preview of one of the decorations for her Ladybug Girl themed party!