Simplicity by Sabrina

Here are our Christmas cards this year! I decided to try to make it budget-friendly by using a lot of the materials we already had: namely, white cardstock and leftover scrapbooking paper.


I found this design blog that had wreaths that I loved! I used them to make the cards. I decided to color them in by hand because I wanted to give it more of an individual touch. Here is the link to get your own Merry Christmas Wreaths in black and white. 

I like how simple they turned out, but they are still cute.



If you want to see the rest of our Christmas newsletter this year, go to this post.

What are you doing for your Christmas cards this year?

Christmas cards has been a tradition in my family for as long as I can remember.
When I got married, I knew that I wanted to keep the tradition going.
Our first year we started off really simple and I have gotten more creative over the years and put in more time depending on the year.
It is fun to look back on when we started Christmas cards our first year married.


Our Christmas card in 2014 with Walmart print of the pictures and bullet point list on parchment paper. It was simple and cheap, which is what we were going for. Also, free envelopes came with our printout order. Score!



Moving on to 2015, I really wanted a folding card with a newsletter inside. I scoured the internet for a good price on a photo card that wasn't a postcard, but an actual card. They can be pretty expensive, but I found some at Vistaprints that I really liked, were good quality, and relatively cheap. So, we sprung for them! I designed the newsletter in Microsoft Word using their Winter Newsletter template and changing things to fit with what we wanted to say. I love using KG Fonts, which are adorable and free for personal use! This year we decided to go with a blue and red theme to make it flow together.



For 2016, I decided to put more time into it by making our own cards and designing the newsletter. See this post for how I made the cards, including a free printout of the cute wreaths!
For the newsletter, we decided we wanted to do a timeline setup because we had so many things happen in different months of the year. I again used KG Fonts, which I think makes it look great and gives it an extra cuteness factor. In this year we did a green and red theme. We also included a picture to some of our relatives where we dressed up in green and red during the fall season:


I love Christmas cards and am excited to keep adding to this post over the years! Merry Christmas!

Have you ever had a really good idea because of something that you happened to find in the store? Did you think, "That would make the best craft and would be such a great keepsake!"?

Well, I did that day I was 8 months pregnant and we were taking a walk in WalMart (again) to get away from the heat of the summer outside. We were in the craft and painting section of the store and I found these adorable, small canvases. I thought they would be perfect to print our coming baby's hands and feet. I loved the idea of decorating the nursery with something so sweet and personal.

I am also not one to accumulate junk or be very sentimental, however, I thought that I would keep those canvases and give to our baby girl when she grew up because they would be adorable.

So, we bought 4 and anxiously awaited our bundle of joy. She came and we were so excited!
Since we received so much help, I thought that making thank you cards should take priority. So, I roped my husband into helping me get cute handprint thank you cards made.

After I had made about two dozen of those, I thought that I could finally handle the canvas project. I had done the thank you card handprints using an ink pad. I thought that paint would look better on canvas than ink pad, so I got some washable black paint (and good thing!)

I also thought that I could handle this little craft project by myself. I was VERY wrong!

Here are the results:

Need I explain how terribly wrong everything went?

I'll give you the Reader's Digest version: Baby was awake (bad idea), although recently fed (better idea), noncooperative, screaming in no time, and refusing to open her hands or even let me press her feet in the right way! Also, there was paint everywhere!

So I made a lot of mistakes on this one.

Here is what I would change if I did it again (who knows if I ever will...):

1. Have baby be asleep.
2. Have a partner help you. (Seriously, I underestimated how helpful that would be!)
3. Possibly use an ink pad. I don't know about this one. Maybe it was the paint I got, but it was too thick. The right footprint turned out the best and that was because I had her place her foot on a paper towel before the canvas. I am still not thrilled with it because I wanted to see creases on her hands and feet.
4. Have some back up canvases. I should have learned from making handprints before that it will probably take more than one try to get it right. Unfortunately, I only had one shot and I blew it!

So if you want to make baby prints on small canvases and have success, let me know your secrets!

What has been your worst craft fail?

Since I recently had a baby, I have received so much help and assistance in so many ways! We are so blessed to have family and friends who have helped us with meals, gifts, visits, advice, and support. In order to show a little of my gratitude, I decided to make some thank you cards. I initially wanted to put baby's handprint on each card but I soon figured out that it was hard to get a newborn to open their hand long enough to place it on an ink pad let alone spread their fingers for a perfect, authentic print on every single thank you card that I wanted to make (and I wanted to make a couple dozen...)

So, I instead decided to scan the best print that I got. Although it is not perfect, I think it turned out cute.



Here are some tips for getting the best handprint from a newborn:

• Have a partner--it is much easier with two people!

• One person holds baby's hand while the other holds the ink pad and paper.

• Guide baby's hand onto ink pad vertically so that the whole hand fits at once and smooth out fingers to get ink on all fingers. You may have to press firmly (which made our baby scream), but hopefully you won't have to do too many tries!

• Have partner quickly remove ink pad and replace with paper. Press hand flat for a few seconds.

It took us about 5 tries to get a print that I liked. Then we gave up because of all of the screaming.
If you don't want to endure it, you are welcome to use my baby handprint.

Beyond that, you can have fun with it by using colored paper, scrapbooking paper, fun markers, etc. I kept it simple, but you can do what you like!

One of my good friends is having a baby in January and I wanted to throw her a shower, so I decided to just do it! Sometimes I doubt myself as a hostess because I am not as funny/interesting as I would like to be, but I had so much fun prepping for this that I thought I should do this more often!

In keeping with simplicity, I decided to go with the theme of Fall because who doesn't love Fall?!? Also, my house is decorated in fall colors right now, because of my Christmas tree all year round. Also, I LOVE fall treats and I had fun making all of them (with the help of dear hubby of course!)

So, here are the details:

Decorations:

I decided to try to combine some ideas I found on Pinterest, but to put a twist that would work for me and my budget.
I have always thought that decorating with colored paper to be budget-friendly, but also cute. I made the sign using this template. I printed on fall colored paper and used these letters.
Then it was simple cut and paste and use some string to display it.






For this little string ensemble, I simply bought fall colored onesies from WalMart to match my color scheme and used this pumpkin pattern. I used this pumpkin pattern throughout on the little pumpkin sign, the food signs, this clothing set, and I made a pumpkin strand too.
And here is my Christmas tree decorated for Fall! I loved how it turned out. It is one of my favorites yet. Coming soon is a blog post of my Christmas tree all year round!




Food:

I loved thinking of fall treats to have to go along with the theme. I ended up making:

• Pumpkin Cookies
• Applesauce Raisin Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies (a favorite family recipe!)
• Snickerdoodle Bread
• Zucchini Bread (my husband's amazing recipe!)

I had a friend bring some fruit and we had apple juice and water. The thing I loved about it is that it was simple, but all very sweet and good!




Gifts:
I have always seen diaper cakes, but never knew how the magic of making them worked, so I did some research on Pinterest and came up with my own way after reading others' ideas.
Here is how I did it:
Materials:
Diapers (I used newborn and size 1. I had a pack of 40 newborn and some leftover size 1 diapers from an already open package, so it came out to being about 24-28 of that size.)
Rubber bands
Toilet paper rolls (One for each diaper cake)
Ribbon (I used two rolls of 9 ft. ribbon for the three diaper cakes shown below)
Toppers (I got the cute pumpkin toppers from the dollar store).

Directions:
1. Start rolling diapers and once you have about 5 rolled, secure a rubber band around all of them. Continue to roll diapers and slide them into the rubber band. For the top layer I used about 7 diapers.
After all 7 diapers are in place, use another rubber band around all of the diapers for that "layer" to make sure they are secure.
Repeat for as many diaper cakes as you want.
2. Arrange the diapers so that the ends are tucked towards the middle and the whitest part is showing on the outside.
3. For the bottom layer, I started with about 5 diapers and secured a rubber band around all of them.  Continue rolling diapers and adding them into the rubber band. I used about 12-15 diapers for the bottom layer. Use additional rubber bands to secure the whole layer.
Repeat for as many diaper cakes as you want. Arrange diapers like the top layers so the ends are tucked towards the middle.
4. Use toilet paper roll to slide halfway over one diaper in the middle of the bottom layer. Then take a top layer and slide the remaining poking out toilet paper roll over a middle diaper. This connects the two layers without having to use tape or glue on the diapers.
It may need a little maneuvering to make the top layer sit just right on the bottom layer.
This was important for me because I didn't want it it to be hard or taxing to take apart.
If you would like to do additional layers, simply use a paper towel roll that is taller to connect more layers or you can use multiple toilet paper rolls between layers.
I wanted to have short diaper cakes and multiple ones to use for decorations all around the party.
5. Now that each cake has the top and bottom layer connected, use ribbon to cover the rubber bands. This is the fun part because you can be creative! You can use thin or thick ribbon and do different combinations!
6. Attach your toppers (if you have them). I attached the pumpkins with one piece of packaging tape. (That was the cheap option), however you can avoid using tape on the diapers by hot gluing your topper to a small dowel and sliding it down into the diaper cake.

And this is what you get! I am happy with how they turned out.


I also got the mother-to-be some thank you cards so that she had something ready to use to write to people.




Games:

We played a version of charades with baby and pregnancy terms.
Round 1: Everyone picks a word or phrase from the bowl and they can describe it. Once everyone has gone, put the words back into the bowl and use the same words for the next round.
Round 2: Only actions! However, players already know the words from round 1, so it is not quite so hard as charades.
Round 3: Use the same words again and have players only say ONE word to describe it.

We only did the first two rounds, but it is fun to do all three as well!
You can come up with your own pregnancy terms or you can use my list.