Card keeper.

Our friend's son turned one, and we were invited to his Halloween inspired birthday party.  I always want to try and give a thoughtful gift - and it's hard shopping for a boy turning one - who has many cousins, family, and friends who know what he needs, and knows what is appropriate.  Tom and I wanted to get something for the parents, because we both felt like surviving the first year of parenting is a way bigger deal then turning one.  Let's face it, your kid isn't going to remember turning one - but you will.  So, I decided to make something (surprise!) for the parents, something they could keep and cherish, and actually USE!  I chose to make birthday card holders for his first five birthdays (and I'll refer to them as booklets)!  I'm hoping to be able to give him the next five (ages 6-10) at his fifth birthday party....

Birthday cards are always something I want to keep - but it gets to a point when I'm kinda like, what the hell am I keeping these for, they are all un-organized, and end up throwing them out.  I imagine if I had a child, I would want to keep every card they get, every year - not only to make writing thank you notes to people easier, but to remember who was there to help celebrate each year.
I started out by buying the most kick-ass paper at Michael's and picking out some stickers, and other items from their scrap booking section to decorate.  I could have spent a hundred dollars on stuff in the scrap booking aisle, by the way. 
I had a really hard time finding the clasps for the holders, but they were in the jewelry section.  I wish I could have gotten a gauge smaller, but these were the only ones they had.
I found some card board boxes we had and dissembled it so it lay flat.  I found a card that I had, and traced it over a piece of cardboard (I used cereal boxes, and beer boxes...hey, it's all we had).  The weight of this cardboard is just right for this sort of project.  You need to card board to provide support for the birthday cards that will be put between, and it's something to glue the paper too.  I imagine if you used a heavier weight card board, it would be too much.  But, it's up to you.

Then I used that one piece as the template to trace out the rest of the card board pieces that I needed (which was 10, front and back for the first five years) on the rest of the card board.  Then I took those pieces of cardboard, placed them on the paper and cut out two pieces of paper (front and back).  I decided to use two kinds of paper for each booklet.  I had each kind of paper on the "inside" and "outside" of the card board pieces. 

card board as paper template

The picture below is how I decided to use the paper.  I cut out the two pieces of each kind of paper, and glued one print on the "inside" of the booklet, and the other print on the "outside" of the booklet.  I found this more visually pleasing then having the "inside" be the same print, and the "outside" be the same print.  You can mix and match paper how ever you want, there is no right way to do something like this.  It's going to look great any way you glue it.

My scrap booking aisle selections

Above are the glued paper card board piece.  Starting at the top of the picture, every two pieces are for one booklet.

Here's the deal with punching the holes.  Please heed my advice:  Punch only the "front" of the booklet's holes BEFORE you decorate.  And only do the front one at first.
Then decide if you want two or three holes - two would work just fine for this sort of thing.  If you do something bigger (maybe you want to cards to sit inside the card board, so you cut the card board bigger and not to size of the card for example) go with three, and punch the middle hole out first. 
Okay, then punch ONE hole in ONE of the paper covered cardboard pieces.  Then get something straight, preferably a ruler - and put the ruler through the middle of your first punched hole - so it's parallel to the top of the card - then with a pencil make a little dot where you want to second hole.  Mine were about three inches apart.  By running the ruler through the middle of the first hole and marking it with you pencil, then you can use that as the center mark for your hole for the second punch.  Also, don't punch out the back until you are all done decorating.  I didn't do this, and had to re punch the backs because I just eyed it....oops.....Then you just lay the front on top of the back and punch right through the holes you already made - so they are all lined up, and straight, and neat for the clasps.

Then I just went to town decorating!  I labeled each booklet with a number to represent his birthday, in letters - 'one', 'two', 'three', etc.  You could do something like this how ever you wanted.  I almost went with "first birthday", "second birthday", etc....but didn't have enough letters!!

Here are some close-ups of each year....

I also personalized a decorative photo box to keep these booklets in.

The letters I used were also in the scrap booking section and were self- adhesive.  They are WAY cool.  They almost have little zen-tangles inside.   And of course, I had to throw in some Dr. Seuss!  by the way, I misspelled zen-tangles at first and my auto correct picked it up!  Awesome.

I wrote our friends a little note on what these were, it's not too obvious to the untrained eye.  But, a verbal explanation in front of the party will certainly make you sound much more crafty!

They loved it.  I hope they actually use it!  I think I might have to make a few of these for myself!!

Happy crafting

You've got it simple with this list...

Thank you to community online sharing...

Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.

Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold.

Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating. Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking. 

Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat.

To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.

For a cool brownie treat, make brownies as directed. Melt Andes mints in double broiler and pour over warm brownies. Let set for a minty frosting.

Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic, and at the end of the recipe if you want a stronger taste of garlic.

Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert. Simply chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples. Place them in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream.

Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy.

Easy Deviled Eggs: Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.

Expanding Frosting: When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also eat less sugar and calories per serving.

Reheating refrigerated bread: To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.

Newspaper weeds away: Plant your plants in the ground, work the nutrients in your soil. Then wet newspapers, put layers around the plants overlapping as you go, cover with mulch, and forget about weeds.

Broken Glass: Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can't see easily.

No More Mosquitoes: Place a dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away.

To keep squirrels from eating your plants, sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper. The cayenne pepper doesn't hurt the plant and the squirrels won't come near it.

Flexible vacuum: To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.

Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip to eliminate static cling. It works; you will not have a clingy skirt or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose. Place pin in seam of slacks.

Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry cup. Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.

De-fog your windshield: Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of your car When the windows fog, rub with the eraser.

Re-opening envelopes: If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside, just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. It unseals easily.

Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It's cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth. It's also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn't like when you tried it in your hair.

Goodbye Fruit Flies: To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2' with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix well. flies are drawn to the cup and gone forever.

Wash your dryer filter: dryer sheets cause a film over filter that will burn out the heating unit. You can't SEE the film, but it's there. It builds up on your clothes and on your lint screen. The best way to keep your dryer working for a long time (and to keep your electric bill lower) is to take the filter out and wash it with hot soapy water and an old toothbrush at least every six months.

Hand made halloween

Below are some of the Halloween card I made yesterday to send to friends and family.  The one with the flower is a recreation of something I saw on Pinterest, and found it fitting for a friend of mine.  I hope these can provide some inspiration to help make a spooky day for your friends and family!  I used Martha Stewart paper, and stickers to create each card.

Paper and pumpkins.

 I accomplished the pumpkin paper decorating.  It was certainly not as easy as eluded to in the magazine!  I should have guessed that it sounded too good to be true, but there was no way to find out until I actually started cutting the paper up and gluing it to the pumpkin!  I had that awesome Martha Stewart paper that I picked up from Michael's, it was the largest paper in size because I wasn't sure how big the pumpkins were going to be until I bought them.  I found these little pie pumpkins for 30 cents a pound on my way to a dog walk.  It was this little farm with an honor system in place for purchases.  I couldn't resist the baskets and baskets of those little weird, bumpy gourds they had, or the beautiful butternut squash (even though I froze about four pounds of my own)...so, I stuffed $6 into the soap box and went on my merry way with five weird gourds, four pie pumpkins, and two butternut squash!  What a deal.

I started by cutting the paper into one inch strips and putting Mod Podge on the back with a paint brush and pressing it on the the pumpkin.  I kept doing this until I realized that it wasn't going to work all the way around because the length of the strips don't account for the roundness of the pumpkin, and the gaps that the straight cuts make when trying to round it all out.  The pumpkin above was very tricky to make.  I started with my favorite paper out of the pack, the spider webs - and quickly found it to be very challenging to line the webs lines up on the curvature of the pumpkin.  So, I had to make due and piece it together the best I could.  I ended up doing one web and leaving a space between the next one, then puzzle piecing a different patterned paper in-between the webs.  It looks great now that it's done.  But I almost threw in the towel.  My suggestion for you is to find a pattern that can be overlapped a bit on the "turns" of the paper application.  The lines will be less noticeable.  Or, start with the strips and going around the pumpkin leaving a space between each paper, so you can see the pumpkin - then go around a second or third time until it's covered.  And don't give up, finish the pumpkin!  Its going to look great when you're finished even if it's not going in for submission to Martha.

 The next one I did was with fabric.  MUCH more forgiving.  I would highly recommend doing it this way for all pumpkins.  It was so much easier because I could saturate the fabric and it just molded to the shape of the pumpkin.  It's very cute.  And it only took about twenty minutes.

This little beauty is probably my favorite.  The paper pattern was very forging and I could over lap it and it's hardly noticeable. 

 I did this one with skull and cross bones ribbon.  I was originally going to wrap the whole thing, but the orange is so beautiful on this pumpkin - that spreading the ribbon out had a cool effect.  I thought about covering the orange spaces with silver glitter, but I held back.  This one is in my kitchen.  I also coated the pumpkin with mod podge to help preserve it.  Which you can do with any gourd or pumpkin you have to make it last. 



I finished off each pumpkin with a thin coat of the Mod Podge.  And put them around the house.  Every one that has come over has complimented them!
I was also thinking that if there was a picture you like, or you had a few small Halloween images on paper - the pumpkin could get painted the same color as the paper background and then the images could get glued to the pumpkin.
I'm thinking of finding some spiders on paper and gluing just a few on the bottom of the pumpkin - as if they were marching on it.  The possibilities are endless. 

Happy papering!