From Tragedy to Triumph

Today is my neighbours 3rd birthday! She is such a sweet little thing and so excited about her party today.Pinata, face-painting and decorating cupcakes!At club this week we made a cute little baby card ('so worth the wait' sentiment). It was mainly yellow with green.Well, her favourite colour is yellow so I changed the sentiment to 'wish big' and made it into a birthday card.

She LOVED it! And I love it too! It is so cute with the SU xmas stocking punch turned upside down and used as a hobby horse. My favourite thing about it though is the hair, or should I say 'mane'. It's grosgrain ribbon with one side cut off and frayed - perfect!For her gift she wanted 'letters'. So, I decided to make her a little 4X4 chipboard album using each of the letters to spell her name, SOFIA. The last page was a banner with her named spelled out. It was done in her favourite colours of pink and yellow. (oops, sorry no pic - I was so excited to give it to her!)The book was supposed to fit into a chipboard box which I also decorated to match.Of course I got carried away with embellishments to the book - adding flowers, buttons, brads, bows, etc. - so it was pretty thick when finished.It wouldn't fit into the box - oh no! This is where the TRAGEDY comes in.Well, she would just have to use the box for something else I thought. Then it dawned on me - it would make the perfect crayon box! So I bought some crayola's and filled it. Perfect fit and perfect present for a 3 yo. Yay - TRIUMPH!

Disaster averted - again! That's what I love about this hobby. There is no right or wrongs and everything turns out great in the end. Now if life could only be that way!

A Star is Born

I haven't been feeling up to par lately but have managed to get a few projects done.I have been working on a Tim Holtz Configuration Tray for my little grandson for Christmas. Have you ever tried one of them? They're the same idea as the 7Gypsies one but all the little 'boxes' can be moved around to whatever 'configuration' you want. Rather than wood, it is made of a heavy chipboard that you can paint, ink, paper, mist, whatever. So, after taping the boxes where I wanted (I used binding tape)I sanded then painted then sanded again, giving all the little boxes an old, worn look. To add to it I dry brushed paint over bits to really give it the vintage look that I was going for. I used 'vintagey' baby papers from 'Simple Stories' and 'Webster's Pages'. I love how it turned out but sorry you'll have to wait to see it - it's for Christmas - sshhh.I've also been working on some mini albums too. Again, a do not peek until Dec. 25th kind of thing.
BUT, I can share with you a layout I just finished. We bought our little grandson this cute little onesie  - it looks like a tux! I saw it in a store and laughed then put it down when I saw the price - 3 times the cost of a regular onesie! Hubby loved it but we left it there and went for lunch. During lunch, hubby confessed that he couldn't get it out of his mind and was going back to buy it. I'm so glad we did!
He actually wore it to a wedding when he was only 6 weeks old - haha! I'm sure he was the most admired person there - next to the bride of course.
So, I made a LO of him and his mommy.

 I covered chipboard stars with pp from Theresa Collins new "Christmas Home' line. Who says you need to use christmas paper for a christmas layout though. This paper line is awesome - sure to become a classic!  I inked the edges, added some SU seambinding ribbon and pop dotted them (is that a word??) to add dimension. The red sparklystar was done the same way. I added a black ‘bowtie’ and cute cameo stickpin from Webster's Pages. I added a rub-on timepiece from Imaginisce to add balance and faux cross stitches just because.
After dealing with terrible leg pains it was nice to sit and work on this - it helped me get my scrapbook groove back again. Hopefully it''s back to stay!!