Project Life March 2019

Hey ya'll,

Feels good to commit a couple of hours each day in my craft room. Although it doesn't happen every day, the days that it does..YAY!

This week I've been working on March Project Life. Even though I'm not caught up with 2019 AT ALL, I knew I had a lot of photos because of the baby shower, and I wanted to capture it while fresh in my mind.

I used Becky Higgins Project Life App for the journaling cards and that was easy since they printed directly from my phone to my printer. I also used the Collect App for the photos that turn out like Polaroids..also print directly from my phone. I used Design A, Design F (cut down in half) and a 6x8 page protector for the invitation.

As always, thanks for stopping by. 

Hello!

I was going to title this post Hello June, but I've got some cool things to say about May also.  I mentioned to Jenn and Dan that my friend knows of a girl starting high school and her name is Elliott but they call her Lottie. So, they love it and we're now calling her Lottie. Or sometimes Ellie and other times Elliott. Funny coincidence is Paul's great grandma is Lottie.

After Elliott was home for about a week and a half, Dan had to go back to work so I went and stayed with them for a week and then Paul did. It was a lot of fun!!

Willow was used to having her dad at home (since he took off two weeks) and she would go outside in the morning and sit by the shed and bask in the sun. I always thought she looked like she was waiting for dad to come home.

She's such a sweetheart.

Funny story about another one of Jenn and Dan's pets. You remember the feather mobile I made for Elliott's room? Well, Mojo LOVED it! Of course he did, he's a cat and what cat doesn't love feathers!

There are a few chewed and missing feathers. Adds a bit of Mojo character.

We had a duck in the front yard, under the blue spruce tree, lay eggs. Paul counted 17 at one point. Another duck must have laid their eggs there too. Paul had been watching everyday for the chicks to hatch. He couldn't wait and was a bit nervous that he'd get up one morning and they'd all be gone. Which actually did happen. All but one! So, this little chick was all by itself. I was at Jenn's and Paul was out of town when Debra called me and said there was one little chick all by itself and was shaking, and trying to follow her. She didn't want to "interfere" with Paul's eggs so to speak but she wanted to rescue the little duckling. We were thankful!! She landed up taking him home and put him in a box with a heating pad. The next day she took him to the nature center in Bay Village.

Not all the eggs were viable. Deb and family looked and they were empty. So, at lease this little guy will grow up.

Bev, Joanie and I went downtown to the theater in Playhouse Square to see "A Bronx Tale". First we stopped and had a light dinner and I introduced Joanie to Bubble Tea. She's never heard of it or tried it. She did like it!

I have lots of pictures of little Lottie.

I put out some oranges and jelly in the oriole feeder. Sure enough I saw a couple of them. It's hard to get good pictures though.

I started running again! I feel good about it as the whole reason I quit smoking all those years ago was because I wanted to become a runner. I absolutely HATE running in my neighborhood. The traffic is awful as everyone uses my street as a cut through to the main road. And outside of my development there aren't any walking paths or bike lanes etc. So I drive over to Avon Lake and run in the trail behind the library. After one of my runs I thought I'd check to see if there was a cache around. Sure enough!!

If you've never geocached before, I encourage you to do so! It is soooooo fun!

My Game of Thrones shawl is coming along. I absolutely love the yarn "White Walker" and decided to add some beads.

Paul took me to a fiber arts show a couple of weeks ago. I found this darling hat topper with yarn that I'll knit up for Lottie! I can't wait!

Paul and I went and helped Jenn with a garage sale last weekend. Wendy came into town so she came over and got to meet Elliott.

Guess what? I'm famous!! LOL!! Not really but someone in our neighborhood was looking for a picture of Maria's Flower Garden with the sunflowers, for a newspaper article in the Sandusky Register . They even gave me credit for the photo!

I know this is turning into a much longer post than I had planned...

Anyway, moving right along. My brother had given me a couple of stamp collecting albums that he got on his birthday when he was 14. I was thrilled actually since I used to help him put the stamps in.  But with my kids being so little etc. I never really got the chance to do anything with them. I ran across them a week or so ago.They were in such bad shape. I've probably had them for 25 or more years.

They were moldy and smelled bad. Not only that, they were literally falling apart! I looked online and found I could buy the covers separately from the pages!! Since Chris and I had filled some of the pages I certainly didn't want to separate them. So I bought 2 covers to replace the ones I have. And, they're an inch or inch and half larger so I can add pages if I want. These only go up until 1985.

It's a shame this page is torn but I do know what my mum wrote..what she always writes, "With best wishes Chris dear on your 14th birthday  1966 Mum & Dad

Putting the old pages in the new binder. 

brand spanking new!

I did buy some stamps and hinges. I only found 4 so far that go into the albums. These are so old I'm hoping I can find some more recent pages to add.

Paul's peonies are blooming and look beautiful!!

More pics of little Ellie..

That adorable little head of hair!! 💓

Paul started organizing the garage. He recently got a Flow-wall system. Only a small part of it came in the mail. It will be nice when it's done..

Temporarily hung some stuff up. Waiting for rest of it to come.

So Jenn and Dan had a wedding to go to this weekend, and Paul and I got to BABYSIT!! While they were here, Debra and Emily, Bev and Dawn came over to meet Elliott. It was definitely fun showing her off.



Next time for sure I'll get pics of Debra and Emily. I was too easily sidetracked 😄

Then yesterday we headed over to see visit Paul's dad, Kathy and Amy.

And while babysitting I managed to get Elliott to smile...I am so in love 💓💓

Looking forward to this coming weekend because Eric, Jessie and the kids are coming for Father's Day weekend. 

As always, thanks for stopping by. 

Miss Elliott and Project Life

So little Miss Elliott is now 9 days old. We stayed until they came home on Wednesday and I miss her so much already! But! I'm going out to spend some time with them on Sunday.

I wanted to do a Project Life page of Elliott and the day she was born, but I was trying to figure out how to incorporate it into an old 8.5" x 11" scrapbook I had made for Jennifer. Years ago I had made a scrapbook for each of the kids which were about 5-6 pages in 3 ring binders. All my PL pages and albums are 12" x 12". So, when I took the few pages I had made from her old album, and tried them in the new album, I was so surprised and pleased as punch that they fit.

So here's the completed 2 page spread. I'll also add a couple of recent pictures of Elliott.

Willow fell in love with Elliott too! Here she is keeping a watchful eye over her. 💓

So, that's it for now. As always, thanks for stopping by. 

Nursery Feather Mobile

Hello!

It's been a very, very long time. Last September to be exact and I've missed writing. I do have LOTS to catch up on but I'm going to start with the fact that my baby girl, Jennifer is having a baby girl!! She's due on May 5th!!

To say we're excited over here is an understatement! I gave her a baby shower recently and I'll post about that soon, but today I'm posting about a nursery crib mobile I made for them.

It started one day when Jenn sent me a pic from Pinterest saying she wanted to purchase one. I looked at the price and thought, ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME?!? So, I thought "how hard can this be?". I told her not to buy it that I will make one. Problem was, as much as I searched and searched online for some kind of directions to make one, they were either non existent or so very vague that they were no help at all! So, I figured it out on my own and in hopes to help ANYONE out there wanting to make one, I'm posting here my step by step process. Of course you don't have to make yours exactly like mine, but I'm going to give you the basics anyway so you aren't totally in the dark like I was. Please excuse my close up pics of my nails and wrinkly hands 😬

What you'll need:

• A base (embroidery hoop etc.)
• Scissors
• Needle
• Hot glue gun (or glue)
• Crimp beads
• Crimper or Needle-nose pliers
• Filament or fishing line
• Beads
• Feathers

We went to Hobby Lobby for a base. The round part that all the feathers will dangle from. It can be an embroidery hoop or you can design one yourself with string/yarn and something round. We found a metal medallion that was the perfect color to match the nursery.

I didn't care for the burlap flower so I changed it. This is approximately 12" in diameter.

 We picked out some feathers and beads. 

Also bought some beading filament

And some crimp beads. I bought a crimper but you can use some needle-nose pliers.

Find a needle that you can thread the filament into. I also hanged the base on a light in the breakfast room so I can work on it and see just how long it will be etc. 

Cut a piece of the line about 1.5 to 2 feet. Thread one end with the needle (this will be the bottom) and place a bead on it. I'm using small beads with a larger crystal bead in the middle. Thread the bead(s) on it and then take the end of the line up through the second bead. Like so..

Next you'll add a little glue (I used a hot-glue gun) to the very bottom of the bead. 

Next I'll add a feather. If it's a large feather you can thread your needle through the quill. First you'll want to maybe cut some of it off...

For some of the smaller feathers, you can have two together and hot glue them instead of using the needle. Sometimes they're just too small..

Like this one. There is a set of beads underneath as well as on top.

After putting the feather over the beads, string another set of beads over the feather.

Now you'll decide if you want 2 or 3 more feathers spaced out over about 12". Some I did with one, two or three. Jenn did not want them all even on each line but feel free to that if you like. You can have just one feather if you like. It's your mobile so it will look awesome how ever you decide. 

Next, you're going to cut it about 5 inches from the actual length you want. Then you'll place a crimping bead on the line. Bring the line around the base where you'd like to place it and thread the end through the crimp bead, then push it up as close to the base as you can and then crimp it. 

Sorry this is blurry

Then cut the remainder of the line close to the crimp bead. 

And...viola!! Originally we were just going to use the crystal beads but I found some rose gold tiny beads and thought they would just make the crystal ones stand out a bit more. 

I'm really happy with how it turned out and I hope I helped someone with their plans to make one. 

Please let me know if you have any questions and as always...