Happy 7th Birthday Marley!

Well, it's all over.

And I survived! LOL!

Here are some pictures of the fun!

First things first, here is the Birthday Girl opening her presents this morning. Not sure what was the favourite. The iPod (Greg's old one) or the Zhu Zhu Pet! Sigh!

Then we set the stage ...

Goody bags?

Check.

Pre-painted guitar picture frames craft? 

Check.

Dancing stage? 

Check, check!

After Ammee and Poppa arrived (Poppa was "Official Photographer" so isn't in any pics ... but I am! Thanks Poppa!) it was time to get costumed up.

Katy Perry (a.k.a. Marley)

Hannah Montana (at least that's what Paige said she was)

Rockin' out with Dad.

The family who rocks together stays together!!

After we had our fun, it was time for the hordes to descend upon us.

Actually, they were all very well behaved and had a good time!!

Greg was still channelling his inner Rock Star. Awesome! 

The craft that I thought would occupy the girls for 30 minutes or more was a huge success but over in 15 minutes. Note to self, don't pre-paint them next time!! 

While they painted and glued, I printed off portraits of Marley with each girl to put into the frames. 

While they waited for all their friends to finish their guitars,  they danced. And danced.

And danced. 

There was cake. 

And presents. LOTS of presents! 

And then they left.

All in all I think it was a rip roaring success. Something that Marley hopefully won't forget! She and Greg should be home soon from the Canucks game (part 2 of her birthday celebration.) The quiet has been nice and has allowed me to post this.

Thanks for tuning in!

Five on Friday - Feb 25

This is going to be as quick as I can make it. I've still got piles to do for the party tomorrow!

1. Loot Bags - check

2. Party Craft - Guitar Picture Frames - check

This is only about half of them!

3. Katy Perry Costume - still in progress

We found a blue wig and I will (hopefully) be able to finish her costume today ... sometime!

4. "Stage Area" - still in progress

I bought some sheets at the thrift store and attempted to dye them black - they are more purply-brown than black but ... oh well. I have about a billion glittery stars in silver, gold and white to finish cutting out and attach then I've got to figure out how best to hang them in the living room.

Oh, and I got all the stars cut out on my new ... wait for it ... Cricut!!

Michael's has a clearance sale on the Cricut VI $99 regularly $269!! I really couldn't pass it up!

5. Cake - to be decorated
It's chocolate. It's baked. It still has to be decorated - with a guitar or a star, whichever is easier and I have time for!!

Yikes!
Better run and tackle some of these things. T- 27 hours and counting!!!

If I survive I'll post party and birthday girl pics late Saturday or sometime on Sunday!!

Pony tail cuteness!

I just remembered that I'd promised pictures of LC's ponytail. Sorry about the delay - this birthday party has me fairly preoccupied!

Isn't it darling?!

I was brushing her hair after a bath and wanted to see if it would go into a ponytail or not ... guess it does! Now she wants one all the time! Marley and Paige both had short hair at this age because I found it more frustrating to try to pin it back since they inevitably just pulled out the clips or pigtails within minutes. Paige's hair has always been so fine and doesn't grow very fast either so it's prettiest in a short bob.

This past September when Marley started ballet she asked if she could grow her hair long (and her bangs!) which I agreed to simply for ease in getting it into something that resembles a bun!! Paige started growing out her hair too. Marley's hair is well down her back now. Paige's hair is barely longer than it was in September. Sigh. At this rate her hair might be long enough to put into a bun by next spring!!

Anyway, LC loves her new hairdo options. I love how it makes her look like such a big girl all of a sudden. Well, love and hate that part of it. Where did my baby go?!

Embrace Imperfection - A Mini

Our Week 2 assignment for the Embrace Imperfection class over at Big Picture Classes is to create a mini album using the given quotations on Perfection, our own stash and keeping in mind the 8 stumbling blocks that keep us from completing projects (Photography, Journal Content, Hand-Journalling, Element Placement, Alignment, Colour Matching, Getting Messy and Unchartered Territory.)

Without further ado, here is mine:

I didn't have any pre-made album pages lying around like Karen had when she made hers. In my search through my stash to see what I could use, I came across a set of pocket folders I'd purchased during my December Daily set up process. I thought if I glued all 3 together it'd be a perfect base.

Here's a picture of the mini under construction. I've glued them all together with my Sookwang tape (LOVE that stuff!) and also glued the cover paper on but the insides are still blank. 

Here is the front cover again.

The first pages:

Tucked into the pocket is this:

I opened up the pocket of the second folder so this is the top flap ...

... and the inside all opened up.

I originally thought I'd just fill this double page with quotes but when I came across this journalling sticker (BTW all my products are from various Bella Blvd lines) I came up with the idea of featuring the 8 pitfalls to perfection that Karen talked about in Week 1. 

Here's a close up.

This is right hand side of the fold out page. Love the bird! 

The last pages. 

And finally, the back cover. Marley saw the panda on one of the sheets and really wanted me to use it but it didn't seem to fit anywhere until I came to the back page. Isn't she cute? 

This was a totally fun little exercise! I started it yesterday morning and finished it this morning so it was also a quick exercise! Granted, I am a bit behind on my party prep but ... I'm sure I can make up the time later. Right? Ha!!

Oh, just before I go I wanted to share a picture of where this little book is going to live.

This is a floating display shelf in my office/scrap room that I have my girls Birth Day shadow boxes displayed plus some other bits and bobs. See the mini down at the far end? That's closest to my drafting/scrapping table.

So I can see it whenever I'm working and remember to focus less on making it perfect and more on getting the memories down!

Thanks for visiting! Have a great Sunday.

I have a few cute shots of LC to share but I have to get some real "work" done first.

Project 12 - January 2011

Okay, I conquered my "perfectionitis" and finished the layout. Here it is ...

A couple of notes on my process (if I may!) ...

Last year I used a Martha Stewart album with coordinating papers for the entire year. By the time December came along, I was sick of the papers and wishing I hadn't restricted myself so much.This year I decided NOT to buy anything specifically for this project and instead to start using up my massive stash! I have a TON of Basic Grey papers that I can't seem to resist buying but then rarely use in layouts (not sure why -  they are gorgeous!) so my goal is to use mainly BG papers for 2011.

For January I dug into my Wisteria stash as well as some of the Basics (in vanilla I think). I have fallen victim to the love of the craft cardstock and since it works well with BG papers it seemed like a natural fit here. Now, all these decisions were made over a month ago in a moment of "eager beaver-ness", along with the choice of dark blue/purple cardstock. When I pulled my Project 12 box out last week to tackle this layout I was pleasantly surprised by these choices and quickly laid out the base.

Then the trouble started!

The sketch shows the pictures mounted on dark cardstock so I originally planned on using the purple for that but once I placed my chosen pictures on it, I didn't like it. Then I saw the light blue in the patterned papers and knew it would also work with the colour of LC's sweater (her favourite sweater at the moment) and voila! A colour palate was chosen!!

Okay, so far so good ... now to choose my title letters and my embellishments ...

oh yeah, and that journalling box ...

I will spare you all the details of the 1st and 2nd attempts at making something that more closely resembled the sketch. Suffice it to say, I am really happy with what I (eventually) came up with. 

Journalling reads: "January. A new month. A new year. A new project 12! This month saw Marley lose tooth #4. She really thought #5 & #6 would quickly follow but nothing so far! Paige & Marley started skating - something which Paige has discovered she loves very much! And LC? She just is." 

The large embellishment shown in the sketch was causing me much heartache until I found a jar of Making Memories flowers and buttons. The purple under flowers were originally light beige until I got the brilliant idea (after much hair pulling and second guessing and stash searching) to stamp them with purple ink. Now they stand out against the paper and with the addition of a brown flower, a button and a couple pieces of ribbon, it feels like a complete embellishment.

It was then a pretty easy thing to add more pieces of the brown ricrac and more buttons to complete the layout.

Oh, the title ... very quickly, I searched my alpha stash and found these letters that work with the light blue then I used my Cuttlebug to cut out the 2011 from the same purple cardstock as the journalling block.

On the Embracing Imperfection front, my papers aren't glued down straight, I got messy with stamping, I used a crappy picture of the snowshoeing (hmmm ... I actually just realized that I forgot to add a note about that on my layout ...), my journalling is mostly ledgible but not the neatest and I could have written more, and lastly my colours do not match perfectly but they all "go".

And now I get to start thinking about starting the process all over again ... :)

Thanks. Enjoy your weekend everyone. I am about to tackle Marley's birthday party costume (the latest - and hopefully final - iteration is Katy Perry!), the base coat of paint on the craft they'll be doing next week and dye some sheets for the "stage". Boy oh boy! I was happy to just have a few friends over to play Barbies with and then eat cake!!!