Digital scrap

 

I know I've mentioned this before, but it just got easier...

 

Close to my heart has this great ONLINE software you can use to make digital scrapbook pages.  You have a lot of artistic freedom like you always did, but now they've got what they call "express layouts". 

So if you don't want to think, you don't have to!  They've made layouts for you that are adorable!

 



There are a bunch to choose from, you just pick the one you want, and slide your pictures over onto it. 



And when you slide in your photo, you'll see this window pop up with more options for editing your photo.  You can change it to sepia or black and white. You can zoom in or out.  You can crop, rotate, and matt it!



And the prints come out beautiful.  I've made books on snapfish, shutterfly, walgreens, cvs, blurb, and Studio J.  And I've loved every one of them.  But the biggest difference I noticed between the photo sites and Studio J is the quality of the photos.  The pages in my photo books seemed to have faded over time and my Studio J prints are still as bright as when I first got them.  They are 12 x 12 high quality prints. Perfect to just slide into your favorite scrapbook.  Also a nice idea to make one here and there and add it into your project life books.

So check it out, play around!  I know you'll love it if you have very little time and want to make something special!

STUDIO J

CLOSETOMYHEART

 

TADA!!!

YAY FALL!

It's almost my favorite holiday so I am determined to get a head start on costumes this year. 

And I probably would've been done with Roo's last month had my sewing machine not crapped out on me.  So I'm kinda depressed because after the dishwasher, fridge, and computer died...  having my sewing machine follow suit was just the cherry on top of my sundae of despair...

But I have to say despite all that material needless woe, I've been pretty chipper lately.  I've packed even more activites into my schedule and somehow feel like I've gotten more done because of it. It's like the Jar of stones theory...  Between all those stones you can fit a whole lot of sand!

So this year my daughter is helping me a little with her costume.  She's being Rapunzel.  No questions... she's been telling herself and everyone else since April that this is what her Halloween costume will be and the decision has not even been tempted to waver.  Though a part of me is disappointed that my control over her Halloween attire is over already, I'm still going to make sure she'll be her own little Rapunzel and not wear the same dress all the other little Rapunzel's will be donning. May not turn out to be the best, but it'll be something we'll do together and have fun doing! 

SO my darling friend Suzanne agreed to let me borrow her sewing machine for the time being, until I can find another, or find some money to buy one. It can probably be fixed, but it may cost more than it would be to buy.  Still have to look into that... but this way, I'm not spending any extra dough at the moment... 

I'm also bummed because my mom and I signed up for a sewing class monday nights and it got canceled due to not enough enrollment.   I was finally gonna have someone show me all the things I'm doing wrong because I never bothered to actually take lessons...  I wanted to.  But time, money, and availability relatively close to home were always an issue.  And again, I was so excited to fine one I didn't have to travel an hour to... and it's cancelled!  Maybe that was God saying it would've been a waste of time.

 

Anyway...  so I think I'm just happy because it's my favorite time of year, and it makes me feel extra giddy and inspired. I have a lot of projects lined up...  but again, hard to share as much with little media progs to work with...  my iphone turned itouch has been my main source of sharing as long as I'm in range of a good source of wi's and fi's... 

Any ideas on what to make with that awesome red balloon material?  I'm thinking something for ROo of course... maybe a jumper...  maybe a bag?  I guess it'll have to wait till after Halloween anyway...

My advice...

Thanks Ernie.

We had a blasty blast!

Just collaging some memories in my smash book of my bad parenting. Heh. Ok. I don't think it was bad...
I'm sure everyone takes two year olds to concerts. Actually... She was weeks away from 3 so even better!

Yay! Thursday night!
Cha cha cha!

Tracking TADAs!

 

Well here's my take on a scratch for the activity tracking itch you may have for your kid(s) or maybe even yourself. I know a lot of you are addicted to spreadsheets and lists. I start many only to find they need adjusting and I never quite make it to something that always works for me. I have a toddler, just turned 3 a couple days ago. I feel like she's smart. Who knows... maybe she's not... but I do know that she's into everything. She loves to sing, she loves to dance, she loves to read, she loves to eat, she loves to paint, she loves to glue buttons to my dogs. So I feel as her parent, I should encourage her to do all those things among others that may catch her attention. And also as a parent and a person, I feel some kind of need to track progress. And I'm sure this probably isn't important, but it's ... it's just fun! Just like you use the word spreadsheet and fun in the same sentence! See, we're exactly the SAME! 

On a weekly basis, I thought it would be fun to just set aside time for certain activities including music, art, sports...etc.  So I was thinking for a bit about how to really go about it in a way where she could see what we were doing and sort of get excited about it. I know someone wants to punch me right now...  and probably because life is busy.. and who has time to come home from work and teach their kids which guitar string is G.  But hear me out when I say if you spend 20 minutes a night watching tv, you can split that and spend 10 teaching your kid something. By the end of the week, you'd have 70 minutes! But honestly, It's more about introducing them to new things, not necessarily strictly teaching. 

So I turned this cork board into a "Tada Tracker" for Roo. And I didn't really invent new things for us... most of them are things we do on a fairly regular basis anyway so it was almost like I just started to keep track of them.  Like we usually go to the library on saturday mornings, and then we bake something...  etc.  so I added those.  And just having a piano in the house means your kids are gonna wanna play it, so you might as well show them something while they're playing.  

Yes, those are nails. There are so many ways you could do this, but I decided I needed tags that could be moved so that I had a pile at the end of one week. And maybe some weeks it's not quite a pile, but each activity gets a certain amount of points and we tally it up at the end and write down a number in our points column. 

I mostly used scrapbooking materials to make this.  There is some washy tape bordering the calendar... and I used the inspiration to cut out the words and tags.  You can cut circles easily without a cutting machine... or squares... any shape works. 

You may want to start yours on Sunday, but I kinda just felt like Monday was a good starting point to get down to business. Sundays are a sort of family fun day so I didn't want to start an activity tracker on a day like that. 

So I'll let you know how it's going! I think if anything, she likes seeing what she's accomplished during the week. And if your older child is into a lot of extra-curriculars, tweaked a bit, this could be fun for them too. I might make one for myself.. or hop onto Roo's... anyone can benefit from seeing a pile of accomplishments at the end of a busy week!

Well, goodnight and enjoy the rest of your week!

xo, Fittypants

Smash book update

Though I've been ooogling Project Life online, I decided to add that to my wish list and just smash stuff into my smash books for now.  I've said it before but my biggest problem with scrapbooking or capturing memories in general is my ability to have some sort of order to them.  I hate the usual holiday pages or big events....  I just want to say "Hey, this day we dug a hole and threw some cheese graters in it. We had a blast and here's a photo of it." That's it.

Not that I don't scrapbook  holidays, I do... but only the photos I really like. Actually...  that's what scrapbooking is for me... a way to capture the things you forget over the years about a really great photo. I mean, there's no point to putting your kids 4th grade school photo in a scrapbook. There's no story there... they sat on a stool, and the photographer said, "say cheese".



So my smash book has solved the problem of wanting to put everything down without having to pull an elaborate page out of my brain every time.  There's no order or template to it.  You just glue it in, jot it down, and it's trapped!  Unless of course you lose your book. So I encourage you to take pictures as much as you possibly can everywhere you go. Even if you have a $9.99 phone, it probably takes pictures so use it! Even if you have no photo editing programs, there are some online but scissors crop just as well! So HAPPY SEPTEMBER everyone!  I'm soooo excited for the fall!  LOVE IT!  Time to start of the Halloween costumes!

P.s. And if you are going to ask me to make a costume for your child (mo) speak now before I get involved in too many other projects!