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What I’ve been up to (creatively)

I’m working on our family photo book and I realised I’ve actually been feeling very creative the last few months … I’m so darn tootin’ proud I’ve decided I’d show it off!  So go away if you like or just sit back and let me bask in the glory of me.

1.  Thanksgiving table

I made up “I am grateful for” tags for each guest and, mutilating a paperclip to be a placeholder, stuck it in a pumpkin.  I also printed up “THANKS”  letters and wrapped them around old spaghetti jars and put tea lights in each one.  (If you want to duplicate, make sure you put a T on the other side of the S and a K on the other side of the H and so on, that way the people on the other side of the table aren’t reading “SKNAHT”

thanksgiving-diptic

 

2.  Vanilla extract labels

We made vanilla extract this year and I hunted down some old-looking medicine bottles and made up apothecary-style labels to adorn them.

vanilla-finished

3. We’d love to stay and chat but we really [moustache]

For some of our friends that we thought would enjoy it, we made up little party photo kits.  Each kit had about 5 or 6 moustache styles, a couple pairs of glasses, a hat, a pirate patch and a few word art sticks.  They were all put in a glass filled with Hershey Kisses and we added a little card.

moustache

4.  Thanks a Latte

To come once I find the photos!

5.  Pirate Party

I think this will need it’s own post.  I’ll link here when it’s done.

6.  Vi’s birthday

It was Vi’s 70th birthday and Julie’s 40th birthday a couple weeks ago.  Julie didn’t want a party (I totally get it!) but as expected there was a big blow-out for Vi.  For her party I made a big collage of photos of her in the shape of a “70”  (thank you Pinterest!) The photos were from her as a baby to present day and I think each number was about 3 feet tall.  If you want to do this, here are my tips.  (a) allocate a lot of time!!  I thought it would be a relatively quick job but it took me about 6 or more hours in all  (b) invest in loads of tape.  You can’t tape it enough.  When you think you’re done, tape more.  (c) Make sure you have many different sized photos.  It made it easier to fill gaps, etc.

70-full

family

P.S.  Fashion faux pas alert: Andrew and Mark are wearing the same shirts completely be accident!

7.  Baby shower invite

As you may or may not know my sister-in-law is going to have a baby in October.  YAY!!!  While her mother is throwing the main baby shower my mom wants to throw one for my mom’s friends.  As a result she asked me to create the invites.  She had bought some pre-cut vellum invites and I designed something to go with that, but she had some major difficulties printing so I just designed something else and had it sent to Staples where my mom could pick it up, already printed and cut.

shower-invite-for-web

 

aaaaaand, I think that’s it.  Apart from scrapbooking … I’ve been doing a boat load of that too.

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4 responses to “What I’ve been up to (creatively)”

  1. Angel Avatar
    Angel

    Hi there! I have reached your web looking for a Flylady list… and I have to say you have a great work done in your web. I like both the design and the content and you seem to be a very creative person.

    We (my wife and I) have just had a babygirl and I am on the way to find a balance in this wonderful new adventure. One of our projects is to make photo albums to get a little bit of order in the incredible amount of photos we are making since our babygirl appeared in January. I have seen your photoalbum and I would like to know which software are you using…

    Thank you in advance for your attention.

    Best regards from Spain.

    Ángel.

  2. Lisa Avatar
    Lisa

    Hi Ángel,

    Congratulations on your new arrival! I hope you are all settling in well – it’s quite an adjustment!

    I currently use Photoshop Creative Suite 5 (CS5) and I really love it. If you’re just starting out I would recommend Photoshop Elements… it’s cheaper and a bit less powerful (therefore, more user-friendly). Adobe has a 30-day trial on their software so you can always check it out.

    If you want to keep your memories the super-easy way you can go with one of the pre-designed photobook templates on sites like Shutterfly. These were made by top-notch digital scrapbookers so the designs are really lovely.

    However, if you want a more custom result or just love the creativity of it you can do it yourself using something like Photoshop. I would highly recommend checking out this free pdf from The Daily Digi. Also, there is a podcast all about digital scrapbooking called The Digi Show. They just did an episode all about the questions they get asked most frequently when someone is just starting out.

    I hope that’s helpful!

    Have fun with your new baby. Take 10x more pictures than you think you should and definitely do something with them, even if it’s just organising them well on your computer.

    OH! One more tip! My husband set up an email address for both of our kids on our domain. When things happen we just email them… we can tell them a story, add pics, whatever. When they’re old enough we’ll give them access to it and it will act as a journal of their childhood. We like it in addition to the photobooks because the items are smaller and much less polished – just “us”, you know?

    Thanks again and good luck!
    Lisa

  3. Erica Avatar
    Erica

    I JUST RE-FOUND YOUR FAMILY SITE!!! Thank goodness I’m a packrat and keep crap everywhere because sometimes old bookmark sites that are getting deleted have treasure inside. Today was just such a case and I am so excited to stalk you again! What a good day!
    But that means you have to start putting up content again because now you have a stalker. A re-stalker, I guess.
    So let’s go!
    Hooray!

  4. The Collington Family Avatar
    The Collington Family

    Ok – took your advice and I’m posting again! Also trying to revive http://365.collington.us but not putting the pressure on myself as much. Although I thought I’d try to do just self-portraits as I’m never in the photos. (At least this way I have full control over my neck fat!)

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