SUPER T's

The Super T's were a huge success and I've been officially renamed "Martha" by my friends. Here are some pics of the finished products. I need to get some pics of the shirts in action...

SUPER PARTY!!

My middle beastie is turning 4 in a few days (sniff) and for her birthday we're going to Monkey Joe's with a few of her besties. It's a HUGE room with a bunch of inflatables that the kiddos can run and bounce around in. They leave sweaty and staticy and hopefully exhausted! We actually won the party while we were at another party a few months back so that was a major score. Because B2s party is relatively inexpensive (being free and all) I thought I'd have fun with the favors. I always try and avoid giving favors that will make parents curse me out and I like to be practical. For B1s 5th birthday party, she wanted a Pinkalicious party so everything was PINK and girly. She was having several of her little girlfriends over so this was the favor. The girls LOVED them! Anyway- back to B2s favors. I figured she's 4, full of energy, and loves to dress up so why not something they can wear that's fun and sort of dress-upy. Enter the Super-T. It's essentially a t-shirt ($2.99 at The Hob Lob) that I'll applique something on (not quite sure yet...and the party is in 2 days!!) and then for the fun part- I'm going to make capes out of shimmery material (no fray bathing-suit type material- I scored 2 yards- enough to make 8 capes- for about $8 at The Hob Lob with my 40% off coupon...) and I'm going to attach the capes to the shirts using snaps. I got this handy dandy contraption that is supposed to attach the snaps easily to the shirts and capes which I'm pretty excited about using. We'll see how well it works...
Stay tuned- I'll post pics!

Cataloging Heaven

Pinterest. It's so wonderful, my explanation just won't do it justice.

Basically, Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board community.  Anything you see online (images) can be "Pinned" to one of your boards.  There are no limits to boards either. Trying to keep track of flowers I want to plant outside? There's a board for that. Gathering ideas for the kitchen remodel? There's a board for that. Want a new hair style and need visual inspiration? There's a board for that too.

First reason I love Pinterest: because it takes my visual organization to a whole new level.  In the past, my way for keeping track of ideas is:

1. Find cool idea on website or blog

2. Copy link for cool idea into email

3. Note in email specifically what I liked about cool idea so I'll remember next week

4. Send email to myself

5. 'Label' email under "Favorite Websites" label so I can find it later, since I have 2330 emails, some of which are probably expired free offers from Vistaprint.

While I had to make it work for me, this method is only so useful.  It 100% depends on my ability to recall something in my memory that I saw, and using the correct search to find it in my email. This often doesn't work. Sometimes I'll forget I even found something, until I stumble across it in my email 18 months after the fact. Sometimes I'll go looking, but when I typed my email to myself, I forgot to include an intelligent subject line or notes within the email for the search feature to find. That makes me REALLY mad.

Now I have Pinterest, I've entered a new world of serene, enjoyable organization. Here's how that looks:

1. Find cool idea on blog or website, or even something that inspires me

2. Click "Pin It" button on my favorites bar

3. Choose board I want image pinned to

4. Write my random thoughts or specific ideas for the pin

5. Click "Pin It"

Now this wonderful - craft idea, knitting pattern, gift idea, cake to bake, recipe to cook - is forever memorialized on my "Board."

Second reason I love Pinterest: The community. Now I'm not social media obsessed. Yes, I check my facebook once a day or every other day, but I don't comment on everything, read everything, or spend at least four hours a day on it.  Facebook usage for me is to do a 2 minute scroll through the news feed to make sure there isn't any Wonderful/Horrible news that I'm missing.

So when I say I love Pinterest for the community, it's for different reasons. I don't expect to develop a relationship with these people, but it's almost like having creative, like-minded people around me again. In college (as an interior designer & in art classes), I was surrounded by super creative, inspired and inspiring people. My days and classmates oozed creativity.

This is not the case anymore. Now, I spend time with my husband. He has many, many, many wonderful qualities, but I don't think I could say he oozed creativity. Actually, he would probably be offended if I told him he oozed creativity. He has an office job, very technical, nothing creative, and he likes it like that.

But people on Pinterest, they ooze creativity. So I now have a little (or big) creative community. I've seen some great things on Pinterest that other people have pinned to their boards. As much as I like it for pulling my own ideas and inspiration off the web, I could spend hours browsing other people's pins in the DIY section. Who needs facebook when you can watch Pinterest?

So, try it. It's wonderful. My Pinterest Boards

Fun Baby Book Idea

I got this great idea from one of my favorite sites- younghouselove.com. I wanted to make a fun baby book for Eli marking his first year (Derek and I are really trying to do this for each year for all of our children- we're a few years behind with the girls!) Anyway- on YHL, they take a picture of their daughter, Clara, every on a piece of fun material dressed only in a onesie. Then, John (the dad), uses photoshop to put the week on the onesie so it looks like it was silkscreened on there. Check it out his handiwork here. I loved the idea but didn't think I'd be able to do it weekly (having 3 kiddos and all) so I opted to do it monthly. A few weeks ago, Kaitlin and I set up our first photoshoot with the boy while our boys were off doing manly stuff (they may of actually been at the store buying stuff for supper...can't really remember...but they came back with beer so that makes it manly, right??) Anyway- check out some of the great shots we got that day. Eli was being super cute (as always) so it was easy! The plan is to do a iPhoto book and have 16 shots on the left page from that month then the monthly picture taking up the entire right page. I'm really excited about it!

Happy Boy!