Graphic Design Love

To say that I like to create printables, invitations, art, etc. would be an understatement. My love of graphic design has me constantly thinking in terms of layers and fonts and how I could turn an idea into something I can print and love. These past few months I have been busy designing for myself and for friends and family. There have been lots of baby showers, activities, and projects that have been keeping me busy- busy doing something I love. Here is a little sampling of a few of the things I've created.

This last one I created to give to women in an eating disorder center, but I thought that it is also true of all of us, in our different struggles and situations in life. It is important to remember our own individual worth and that we are important!

So I am offering the print above as a free download. It is sized to 5x7 and you can download it as a JPEG file or a PDF. Please remember that this printable is for personal use only, and is not to be resold in any format. If you are interested in using this for wide spread or commercial use, please contact me, as I would love to assist you!

Click HERE for the JPEG file.

Click HERE for the PDF file.

If you are interested in custom digital creations, feel free to contact me!

Easy Minky Baby Blanket

I posted about a minky baby blanket that I made for a friend's baby, and here is the quick tutorial to go with it. These blankets are fairly easy to make, and can be completed in less than an hour. They are super cuddly and so cute.

Materials needed:

1 yard minky

1 yard cotton, satin, or flannel fabric

1-2 packages satin binding (at least 4 yards length total)

coordinating thread

Instructions:

1. Lay out your front side fabric and make sure that the edges are straight and square. Round out the corners by tracing around the edge of a plate or can with a pencil and trimming off excess (I didn't do this then, but did it later. Either way works.

2. Baste satin binding trim around the front side fabric using a 3/8" seam allowance, onto the right side of the fabric. Overlap edges of binding where they join.

3. Lay out your minky, right side up, smoothing out any wrinkles. Place front side fabric on top of minky, right side down. Trim off excess minky (or trim after sewing like I did, because I was too lazy...) and pin through all layers.

4. Using a 1/2" seam allowance, sew through all layers, making sure to leave an opening.

Here's the seam opening:

I left about 4 inches open.

5. If you haven't already done so, trim off excess minky now, clip corners but don't snip through the seam.

6. Now flip the blanket right side out through your opening.

7. Now you can hand sew up the opening (which is what I did) or top stitch around the entire blanket, catching the opening in your top stitch seam.

Done!

Baby Girl Showers

Here are a few of the fun girly things I've made for some of my dear friends. My kids each have their own special blanket, (which they have recently started calling "nonnies" because that's what the youngest calls his...) all of which have super soft minky on them. So when making a blanket for a sweet baby girl, I knew it had to have this cuddly fabric too. I put minky on one side, cotton print on the other and a silky trim around the edges. And I'm happy to say that this blanket is getting lots of good use from the most adorable baby girl!

Click HERE for a link to the blanket tutorial.

I used some of the scrap fabric to embellish a burp cloth, and crocheted a little beanie for her too. I love that pink little flower.

Another one of my friends is expecting twin girls! I made her two coordinating carseat canopies. They have the same pink fabric on the back side and coordinating fabric for the front side. I added some cute little bows to make them even more girly. Sorry no tutorial, but there are tons of great tutorials across the internet. Now I just can't wait to meet the two cuties in a month or so.

It seems like the rest of us pregnant ladies are all expecting boys! So on to boy crafting we go!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies

These days, a chocolate craving isn't just a craving. It's a non-stop need for something rich and chocolatey. We don't keep many treats around the house, so one day when the NEED came, I decided to figure out something yummy with the ingredients I had on hand. 

I found a recipe for Chewy Chocolate Cookies, but decided I was going to alter it to use to make sandwich cookies with a peanut butter filling. I followed the recipe except I omitted the chocolate chips. When they were cooled I made some peanut butter filling by simply mixing creamy peanut butter and powdered sugar until it was a frosting consistency. Spread it on and put another cookie on top and your ready to devour.

We immediately sat down to enjoy some. A cold glass of milk are these cookies' perfect dunking companion. YUM!

Our Entry & Playroom

I have started the dreaded packing process and the first things to get packed up are those little touches that have made this house into our home. The pictures, the accents, and the cheery words. Kind of like the one you find when you first walk in our home- a cheery HELLO that always welcomed you. See the HELLO post here. I decided to finally post pictures of the other areas of our home so that I could reminisce from time to time on our first home. To onto the Entry & Playroom mini tour.

After saying "Hello" you will see my craft room (you can see a sliver of it in this picture.)

There is a long wall in the entryway. A wall so long that it was hard to find something to fit the space.

 I considered a super long bench for a while, but determined that a table would give me more decorating surfaces, and that idea won. Finding a long entry table in the style that I wanted, was proving to be expensive, so I built my own using salvaged balusters, and some wood from the home improvement store. See the full post here. The window is also salvaged, and was originally a window on SMU's campus. I did a post about the lamp here. The heart state prints are ones I made that show where we were all born.

Just beyond the craft room entry way and across from that long wall, is our playroom.

I made the curtains using Premier Prints Suzani print in the Titan Birch color. I was looking for a fabric that helped tie in the hand-me-down chairs that we inherited from my husbands grandmother. It's a heavy weight nubby fabric, and I love it in there.

I had wanted a piano to fill in that big nook, and found this one on craigslist. I wanted one in a dark non-glossy wood, that I wouldn't mind the kids banging around on. This one fit the bill and I love tinkering around on it (and wish I had kept up with lessons in my youth...)

This is the cleanest you'll see the playroom. We live in that room and books, cars, and games are always spread across the floor. The Ikea Expedit bookcase does a great job at wrangling in the toys. I bought the canvas bins at The Container Store, and designed labels for each one. Even my 18 month old helps put the toys away in their proper bins thanks to the pictures on each label. 

The pendant light is from Crate & Barrel and came as a surprise from my husband- I guess he does pay attention when I browse through their catalogs.

Being open to the entry and house, I didn't want the room to be decorated too kid-like. I stuck to a fun print for the curtains, and neutral colors all around to balance our the overload of toys. It's simple and I love the way it turned out.

DIY Salvage Entry Table

In our home, we have a long entry wall. One so long that it dwarfed most entry tables. I found this one on Pottery Barn that I loved, but I would have to be crazy to pay that much for it. The main reason I browse most furniture catalogs is to merely get inspiration, and this table was the inspiration for the table I was to make.

One Saturday, we ventured to downtown Fort Worth to see if the architectural salvage warehouse, Discount Home Warehouse, had some balusters. I found some nice bulky ones and got four. They sat in my garage for a long time until I finally figured out what I wanted the top to look like, and how to make it. 

I made a little digital rendition of how I was going to attach the legs to the table. Since these weren't made to be table legs, they have a round top instead a a squared out one. So I adapted and it worked out great. I was going to have aprons that completely surrounded the table with the legs set behind the aprons. I mitered the corners and screwed them to the table top from the bottom side of each apron board with long wood screws. 

I used 1x6 whitewood boards to make the top. I pieced three boards together, wood gluing the first two, and then glued the third on. I then used a few metal brackets (called mending plates) and short wood screws on the underside to secure the three boards together even more. 

I had to sand down each leg to get rid of their glossy poly finish. Each leg had holes and notches from where they were attached- I decided to leave the holes to add character and remember that they were salvaged not store bought. Then, I painted primed them, let dry, then painted them. 

After the table top's glue dried, I cut and mitered the aprons and attached them to the table top. Then, following what I did in my digital sketch above, I cut some corner braces and screwed them into the aprons and then into each leg twice.  Once it was all together, I painted the top and aprons. I did a few coats and when they were thoroughly dry, I distressed the edges of everything. I let it all cure and then moved it inside.

Here's where it sits today:

I think it's fitting that a salvaged window from SMU hangs above it- salvaged friends. The table fits the space great and I have fun re-decorating it as each holiday comes along.

Valentines 2013

Last year my daughter exchanged Valentines with her little preschool group friends. There were 4 little girls in the group, and the Valentines were girly and fun. 

This year in Kindergarten, she gets to have a fun Valentines Day party and exchange Valentines with her classmates. If you go to the store, there are the prepackaged cards or candy Valentines. If you know me, completely store bought, just ain't my thing. Then, you go to Pinterest and there are TONS of cute ideas, but still a majority involve candy. Once again, too much candy just ain't my thing. (Side note: We have a "treat basket" at our house. We go through candy slowly around here, and still have Halloween and Christmas candy in our treat basket. So I had no desire to add to the candy intake. Cheesecake, ice cream and brownies are more than welcome though, and don't last long.) I figured a majority of the Valentines the kids will get will have candy, so they wouldn't be sad if ours didn't. Instead we came up with this:

And, of course, I had to design a little printable to go with it. Click on the image below to download it for yourself. Then, simply print at home, cut out, punch a hole at the top and bottom, have your child sign it, and slip a silly straw through the holes.

We couldn't forget about her teacher! Her teacher's favorite snack is goldfish. So I had to copy the popular "FISH" themed Valentines out there, and designed this one:

Click on the image below to download your free printable. I made it print 4 to a page in case your child has more than one teacher to share their love with.

What are you doing for Valentines Day?

Taste the Rainbow - Personal Progress Blitz

I am the Personal Progress Leader for the Young Women in our ward. If none of those terms make sense, find out more about the youth program HERE. I weekly try to remind and motivate the girls to pass off value experience and to be making effort and progress on their Personal Progress. Whenever there is a fifth weekly activity night for the month, I hold special Personal Progress activities. This month I did a Taste the Rainbow themed Personal Progress Blitz. The goal was the get the girls to pass off as many experiences as they could during the activity.

The Sunday before the activity, I gave the girls invites to remind them of what we were doing and what they needed to bring. If you note at the bottom of the invite, we had a little competition motivator- the girls were to dress colorfully, and the girl that was the most RAINBOWRIFIC would win a prize.

The prize was a little pack of rainbow colored nail polish. The second pack would go to the girl who passed off the most experiences during the evening.

At the activity we had 8 tables, one for each value. On each table was a card that listed the experiences they could complete or begin that evening. (Click on images to download the free printable.)

 

You will want to go through and make sure you have everything for the girls to be able to pass off the experiences. They will need their Personal Progress booklets and journals, a For the Strength of Youth pamphlet, and scriptures, as most experiences require use of those. Some of the experiences require additional resources. I've included the printables that I made to help:

Integrity experience #4 requires the girls to look up Integrity in the dictionary, so I went ahead and printed this out so I wouldn't have to carry a heavy dictionary. (Click on image to download. Two sheets are included so cut in half.)

Individual Worth experience #2 requires the girls to read in General Conference talks about Patriarchal Blessings, so I found these excerpts. (Click on image to download.)

Faith experience #6 requires the girls to draw out and label a Plan of Salvation chart. I created this little chart for them to fill out complete with scripture references for help. (Click image to download.) I printed two of these per page to save on paper.

For some of the experiences you may want to bring Conference issue Ensign magazines, True to the Faith pamphlet, etc. so make sure to look through the experiences to be sure you have everything. For Knowledge experience #6 the girls need to conduct a hymn during a meeting, so I had a calendar available for them to sign up for when and what song they were going to lead in Young Women's opening exercises. 

On each of the 8 value tables I had a jar of candy. When the girls completed an experience, they could take a candy- thus they were Tasting the Rainbow. Here are the little jar labels I created. I just printed them out and laminated them, then hole punched and tied them on the jars with jute string. (Click image to download.)

These jars serve dual purposes. Each month we focus on a value. On Sunday we have that value jar out and if a girl has passed off a value experience or completed a value project they get to take a candy from the jar. Additionally, if they wear that value's color, they can take a candy as well. So now I'm prepared with candy for the next several months!

At the end of the activity the girls counted off how many experiences they completed. Most finished four, one girl finished five, and two girls finished SIX experiences. They had fun working together through the experiences, and were very excited to have passed off so many in one night.

I gave the girls a little treat reminder at the end. It just reminds them to taste the rainbow of values every day of their lives as they work on Personal Progress continually, and if they do they can reach the pot of gold at the end. (Click on image to download.)

I attached the tags to pretzel bags I filled with Rolo's and Skittles- the pot of gold under the rainbow. They thought this was really cute.

It was a very successful evening. Not only was it fun, but it was very effective in helping the girls make a lot of progress. I hope that some of this can help you and your young women. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment or email me!