Wednesday, September 21, 2011

A Successful End to our Owl Birthday! :)

A couple weeks ago I had posted photos of my daughter's birthday invites along with some cookies I was going to try and make. Well, mine weren't nearly as perfect (these of course are my best ones), but here are the owl cookies I made for her birthday. I'm not much of a cook or a baker so they took me forever to make, but I was pleased with the results. The plate they are on is one that I made at her 9th birthday party a couple years ago where I took them all to a Ceramics place to paint something special. I wasn't going to make anything, but I after about 20 minutes of watching them I wanted to play too (note to self: remember to go back with girlfriends as it was so much fun).

Anyway, for her birthday activity this year (my daughter has grown to expect some sort of entertainment) I took mega inspiration from Nichol Magouirk's Owl Canvas project that she posted on her blog last year. If memory serves me correctly she made this as a guest designer for My Little Shoebox. Isn't it adorable? Love her work!

I couldn't find a 6x12 canvas, but I wanted to make use of this 12x12 paper I found on clearance so we used 9x12 canvases and painted the edges with pale aqua blue paint to match the letters. I ended up using the same Silhouette Owl that Nichol had used so that I could cut out 10 at a time from each paper making the process a little quicker. I made a sample for them to copy, but I learned from a few of my mistakes like skipping the idea of Mod Podge since I got several wrinkles that never came out of mine. I thought it would be fun to make them personalized artwork for their bedroom walls so I cut each of their names out and put all their pieces in little ziploc bags as individual kits.

One of the girls that we invited couldn't make it at the last minute so I ended up assembling hers so my daughter could it bring it to school to give her...

My daughter had a slumber party birthday and some didn't stay the night, but here are a few of the girls posing with their finished pieces the next morning. :)
It was stressful at times trying to help them all at once, but I think they had fun doing it and were proud of the finish piece. :)

Thanks for stopping by. :)

Supplies Used:
Patterned paper:
Making Memories (floral & embossed dot)
American Crafts (pink woodgrain)
Cosmo Cricket (Green Dot)
Cardstock: American Crafts
Tree Branch and Owl Shape: Silhouette America
Ribbon: Fancy Pants
Buttons: Craft Supply

Monday, September 19, 2011

Creating Keepsakes Published My Layout!!! :)

This month I had the pleasure of having one of my layouts featured in Creating Keepsake's October issue!!! This was my first time being published in this particular magazine so I was pretty excited when they contacted me. It actually completely took me by surprise as I had submitted this layout to them back in May 2010--I must have just missed the deadline for Halloween submissions so they held onto my layout for 11 months and contacted me this April to see if they could still publish my layout. I honestly couldn't remember what layout it was anymore. Anyway, very exciting all around (I only wish they had spelled my name correctly... They're sadly not even close... Oh well).



Thanks for peeking! :)

Sunday, September 4, 2011

An Owl Themed Birthday...

I'm finally getting around to sharing the birthday invites I made for my oldest daughter's 11th birthday coming up. She made a very specific request for owl themed invites (and since I am forcing her use a mish-mesh of party themed plates and napkins so we can use stuff up before we move) I was only too happy to oblige.

I got my inspiration for the patchwork style owl from Pottery Barn style bedding and some adorable owl pillows I found here

Anyway, I had a ton of this Pebbles, Inc. paper (as much as I love it, Pebbles in My Pocket required that I buy them in multiples of 2) so I was super happy to find a way use up some of my extras. :) I also used my Silhouette to try to speed up the cutting process although with so many little pieces they still took quite a bit of time, but I think they were worth it. Here's the finished card:

My daughter doesn't really care for cake and chocolate and has requested a giant cookie from Walmart as her "cake". To suppliment that, I'm going to try my hand at making these adorable owl cookies I found here.

Aren't those too cute? Hopefully I can do them justice. We're celebrating her birthday slumber party style and these cute little things are titled "Night Owl" cookies so I thought it was quite suiting.

Thanks for stopping by. :)