Creating the Baby Album

Now that Thanksgiving and Christmas are finally over, I have some time to work on baby projects. One of the many projects are finding and putting together a photo album/scrapbook for our baby girl, scheduled to arrive sometime around Valentine's Day.
Now I've been looking for a baby album for a few months now..and never really found any that I liked. It seems all of the baby books out there are all the same and pretty generic; baby animals all over the cover, big 'baby boy' or 'baby girl' splattered across it.. Nothing that was really my taste.


Finally I found a leather journal at Barnes & Noble that I fell in love with. And it's great because it fastens shut, has a place for a pen/pencil on the inside, and is totally my taste. And one of the best parts was that it cost less than $20.

Now I'm not going for 'cutesy' so this might not fancy everyone's tastes as baby albums go, but this suits mine just fine.

It's not a secret that I'm a huge fan of Alphonse Mucha's artwork, so of course I had to incorporate his artwork in to the album, even if it's just on the inside cover. Our baby girl will love Alphonse Mucha too.. I just know it. The decals on the right are Jolee's brand scrapbook decals. I am in love with everything Jolee's.. I want it all!!!


Instead of going overboard on stickers and scrap booking decals, I bought a paper punch to punch out my own little decorations. I love punches because you can use them for all sorts of things other than scrapbooking, and are WAY cheaper than buying stickers and confetti over and over..

Here is a butterfly punch I bought for only $3.99 at Joann Crafts. Cute!

I cut some scrapbook paper a little smaller than the size of each page using Fiskars paper edgers..then glued some on a few pages. I didn't want to get too ahead of myself because the only photos I have of baby girl are ultrasounds, and I'm not sure which paper I will want for photos of her once she arrives.

Here are some of the pages:

I really loved the look of the black and white ultrasounds against the black and white star paper. It just 'popped', and I wish I would have had an assortment of other black and white paper to do the other pages of ultrasound pictures..but oh well.

Now I am in no way a professional scrap book person, nor are my supplies very organized at all.. so I'm sure this looks very amateurish but it was fun to do, so I don't care!

It'll be nice to have those other pages pre-cut once the baby arrives so I don't have to mess around with that part, because once she comes I know I'll really have little to no time to dedicate myself to this book.

My poor boys' baby albums are no way near half done..and my oldest is 7yrs old! Oh well it's the thought that counts!!!

Homemade Tea Soap

My good pal Katrina had a great idea to make homemade tea soap to give out as Christmas gifts to her daughters' teachers at school. Having never done this ourselves, we went ahead and dove right in. What could go wrong.. right?!

We used both Goats Milk Soap base and Shea Butter Soap base for our soaps.
They set up pretty much the same and had the same final result.

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Our teas included Celestial Seasonings Chai Tea, Lipton Cranberry Pomegranate Green Tea, and a Vanilla Caramel Truffle tea.. Mmm.. it was hard not to drink up all that tea.. especially the Chai!
I'm thinking any tea would work well, whatever your preference.

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We searched around for soap molds, but couldn't find any we really liked, so Katrina picked up a cheap 8x8 cake pan to use..our plan being once the pan was filled with soap, we'd let it cool and harden, then cut into soap bricks.

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For our soap, we used half of a 32 oz package of soap base for our first layer, then after that layer had hardened, we melted the remaining soap base, added different tea, and poured it on top. If you are not making layers of different scents/colors of soaps, I'd melt the entire 32 ounces of soap. This amount with the 8x8 pan will have you end up with a good size soap brick.

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What you will need:

Soap base- 32 oz package or however much you prefer.

Soap molds or 8x8 pan

Microwave safe bowl

Spatula

Butter knife

Tea

Step One:
Heat desired amount of soap base in the microwave for 40 seconds on high, then 10 second intervals until melted. Or if you prefer you may melt your soap in a double boiler.

Step Two:
Once completely melted, add desired amount of tea. We used one type of tea for each batch. We used quite a lot of bags.. I want to say maybe 10? It's your preference. If you prefer to add any oils, now would be the time. Stir.

Step Three:
Pour your soap into your pan or mold. Use a spatula to scrape along the edges of your bowl to get all of that tea goodness in your soap. Let it cool for about 30 minutes or longer.

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As I stated above, we made a 2nd batch, using different tea, and poured it on top of the hardened soap for a layered effect. This is the time to do that step if you want.. 
One note- the green tea will turn out a green color, so if you want a single colored soap, do one entire batch (using the 32 ounces) with just green tea.

Can you see the two-toned colors of the teas in this picture? The bottom layer is the green tea.

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Step Four:
If using a mold, tip upside down and apply gentle pressure to release.


For the pan, we scored the soap to the desired size using a butter knife. We then set the pan on an oven burner that was on low for a minute or so to get the bottom a little melty so we could pop it out.

Scoring the soap.. Enjoying some tea ☺

Wrapped it up in some tissue paper.. ready for delivery!

This soap smells SOO good! Let it rest over night before you wrap it up.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Wonderful Cinnamon Scented Ornaments

Who doesn't love a house filled with the aroma of cinnamon and gingerbread? Mmm..

Jake and I created some wonderful cinnamon scented ornaments that were super easy, and made the house smell amazing.

What you'll need:

1 cup of ground cinnamon

1 tbsp of ground cloves

1 tbsp of nutmeg

3/4 cup of applesauce

2 tbsp of white glue

Stir together the cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Then mix the applesauce and glue.

Work the mixture with your hands to form a ball. If the mixture is too wet, add more cinnamon. If the mixture is too dry, add more applesauce.

Use additional cinnamon like flour and dust your surface and roller with it to prevent sticking.

Roll out to a 1/4 inch thickness.

Use your super hero muscles to cut shapes with cookie cutters. Looks hard doesn't it?

Place a hole at the top of each shape so a ribbon can be added to hang the ornament later. We used a straw, but you could use a toothpick, etc. Bake in the oven at 200 degrees F for 2 hours.. or if you don't want to involve the oven, you can let these babies sit out for 4 to 5 days.. I am impatient however and chose the latter.

The shapes were still pretty fragile after I removed them from the oven, so I let them sit for about 20 minutes.

Then we decorated them with metallic markers and ribbon.

And voila! Our finished ornaments. Super easy and our house smells sooo good too!

Kid Fabulous Snow Globes

So I saw this idea on Pinterest- which I am completely addicted to, and decided to make some.
They are water-free snow globe ornaments made from Solo cups, card stock, pom-poms, glitter, ribbon, you name it.
You will also need ribbon/yarn/string (or I used hemp) to string through the bottom of the cup (the top of the globe) to hang it from the tree.
More items needed: scissors, Elmers glue and I highly recommend a glue gun.

First we gathered our supplies. I really need to invest in another craft type box for all of my pom-poms and misc. items, but have yet to do so, so they are organized in super flattering baggies. I also found some super cool metallic reflective type card stock scrapbooking paper for the bottom of the globes at Hobby Lobby. Ooooh shiny!

Before you begin, punch two holes opposite each other on the bottom of your cup for the ribbon/yarn/string to thread through (the hanging element) for your ornament.

Take your cup, turn it upside down onto the card stock (or any other material you prefer) and trace around the base with a pen. This outline will help you and your kiddo(s) stay within the circumference of the cup when decorating.

Cut out the circle. Leave a little space around the circle to allow room for the glue when finishing your craft.

Decorate away!

Made a cute present using card stock and ribbon. I left a little more space around the diameter of the traced cups when cutting, so if we wanted to later, we could add embellishments (as Jake did to his ornament on the left).

Here are a few of the ones we finished..

Jake with his snow man globe.

I would love to see finished globes from others, and to see the different techniques and craftiness used! Thanks and stay warm out there!☺

Wrap It Up!

Okay, so being a recycling fanatic I never understood the idea of buying wrapping paper- I mean, does the landfill need more junk? I admit this year I bought some at the store (I had to! It was only $1.99 buy one get one free!!)..but this stuff I will use to wrap bigger gifts and/or if I run out of what I'm about to show you.

So a super economic way of wrapping gifts is using stuff you already have! I save paper bags from the grocery store- I have a stockpile under the sink (please tell me I am not the only one). I used to throw them directly in the recycling bin but then I read that a doing so isn't really saving the earth all that much. The proper way to recycle those paper bags is to first use them at least 6-7 times, THEN recycle them. Okay, so that made my 'getting rid of these bags' all that more unproductive.

So why not cut these suckers, turn them inside out and wrap gifts with them? I mean c'mon, most of these gifts are going to children anyways.. my kids, my friends' kids, nieces, nephews..my sister..lol. They will more than likely not remember what wrapping paper wrapped their gift. I searched my brain and I couldn't remember a single time I was doing headstands over a wrapped gift because of the bodacious paper.

These are the gifts wrapped in paper bags. Not so bad, eh? I have to tell you this as well- the Dollar Tree sells this 'craft paper' looking wrapping paper as well with regular wrapping paper (and it's only $1) that you can use if you still want the rustic recycled look but don't have any paper bags.

This is Jake stamping a tree pattern cut out of a potato onto the paper. My idea was to stamp all of the gifts, then add a little embellishment using glue and sequins. For stamping we used a potato stamp as stated before, cookie cutters, lids off of various items around the house, paper towel rolls, etc.

Pretty cute, eh? Remember, we are not Picasso's! We are just having fun!

Here we added the sequins and paper punched dots.

Then finally tied a bow with hemp. :)

Another great thing about this (other than recycling/reusing which is awesome) is that it's fun! It's fun for you and fun for any kid! And how kids are so proud of their art!
Have fun!