Halloween 2012

I LOVE Halloween! And I cant wait to share my love with Sawyer this year. You can be assured there will be a million and one pictures from that special night. But for now I just wanted to share a couple from last night at a Halloween party we went to.

Brandon was Terrance from South Park’s duo Terrance and Philip. It took me about 20 minutes start to finish to make his costume. I had some left over foam board and cut an oval out of it. Used black card stock to make his hair, eyes and mouth. And then we sliced his mouth open so Brandon could animate him while talking. Brilliant since my husband can mimic Terrance’s voice perfectly. Then we attached it to his sweatband with tape. We bought a red shirt that afternoon and I made a giant ‘T’ with black tape. And voila, instant costume.

Mine took a bit more prep. I made the wind up key with a plumbing pipe. (the lightest I could find) Foam core board cut into the traditional key shape. ( I almost lost my fingers doing this,) and gold spray paint to cover the entire accessory. I glued it all together with my hot glue gun. I made a base to anchor it to, which I slid under my outfit to attach it to my outfit. I bought some 5$ tights at target. The shoes, lace skirt I wore under the dress, the dress, and the headband, I already owned. I bought a cheap white wig and trashed it, and put it in pigtails. The makeup took the longest. I covered my face in cover-up. Added some pale pink blush to my cheeks. I used black eye liner to make some painted freckles. And liquid eyeliner and red lipstick to make some creepy miniature lips, the rest of my lips were covered in cover-up. I lined my upper eyelid with liquid eyeliner and applied thick glossy eyelashes. And for the most dramatic effect, I made my doll like eyes appear bigger by placing another set of false eyelashes upside down under my eye. Then I connected them with more liquid eye liner. Lastly coloring the effect in with white eye liner. Put it all together and you have a creepy wind up doll.

It got a great response but didn’t last the night, as I bumped into anything and everything. But that’s ok because I still had the whole creepy doll thing going. And everyone else had great costumes too. The host was Dr. Alan Grant from Jurassic Park and his two {massive} Dogs were dinosaurs. Sophia Grace and her hype girl Rosie made an appearance. Honey Boo Boo arrived with a doping Lance Armstrong! Katy Perry made her own costume! Barney Stinson and Robin Sparkles, Batman and Robin, Some Robbers, Humpty Dumpty, the most interesting man in the world, a peacock, jack in the box, And of course I am forgetting a whole bunch more. The point is, I love the creativity this holiday brings out in people.

O and I already have a second costume lined up  for Wednesday night. A little less creepy for trick or treating with a one year old. Stay tuned for all the festive fun coming up this week!!

Tell Your Story: Mini Album

For the longest time I have had a creative block when it comes to scrapbooking. Even kits are blah to put together. But since attending Inspiration unlimited 2012 I have been dying to get back into it. The problem was, that there was so many other big projects calling my name. But a couple week’s ago I saw a mini album on Teresa Collins design fb page that I knew I had to make. I even ordered some paper for it! {ps. I almost exclusively shop for scrapbooking supplies at scrapbook.com, and the scrapyard when I get the chance to shop it Calgary!} The paper came about a week ago, and yesterday between naps, I finally sat down and made a new favorite accordion style mini album.

One of my biggest problems in scrapbooking is over thinking. I constantly wonder how my projects could be better. Which results in me never finishing my projects. {I have about 3 half finished TC album kits upstairs still waiting to be glued down instead of half taped together.} But as I sat and looked at Teresa’s inspired project, I realized I simply liked it. I didn’t pick it apart and think “if she added a photo mat here, or an embellishment here.” Which is what I do to my own idea’s but never to anyone else. I recently watched one of her video’s on mycraftchannel.com and she mentioned that for a lot of scrapbookers we feel the need to perfect it, and for her she likes to get it done and down. I really liked that thought, and it was what made me go for it on this mini album.

This is the perfect project for a beginner wanting to get into scrapbooking. I used 4 items total. Scissors, glue, one sheet of paper, and one sheet of embellishment stickers. And it did finish it during Sawyer’s two naps that day. I started with the one sheet of Teresa Collins -Tell Your Story Collection 12×12 double sided- cards. I cut the three sectioned rows horizontally. Then folded each card down in an accordion style. I overlapped two of the cards to connect the three sections.

After that I grabbed 10 of my favorite pictures through out this year {I had enough laying around after all the photo banner’s at Sawyers Party!} Sized them down, and started adding them to each card with sticker embellishments. I highlighted the stickers with a black permanent marker pen. The second card has a picture on a flap, so I can lift it to see some journaling under the photo. (10. things I love about you.) Everything else is glued down flat, not my usual style but since this all fold back down accordion style I needed it as flat as possible.

Then I finished it all up by tying it three times in some left over twine/yarn? Not sure what exactly it is, I used it all over the birthday for the banner’s. But it really completed the feel I love in this album. I think my favorite part is the way the layers come together when it is closed. I love this album, and I am definitely inspired to keep working on my scrapbooking projects now! I cant wait to share more with you soon!

Canvas Nursery Print.

You may remember a while back I did a nursery print for a friend. I am loving doing custom prints for friends and family. I need to get some help on making them available for free downloads on the blog. Would anyone be interested in that? I will include the couple I’ve done this year as a preview of what would be available!

(My sister’s baby shower invite, clipped at the bottom for privacy)

(Birth Announcement for my sister)

(a print for all my friends having babies!)

Now most of mine have been printed in color and framed. But this new mom mod pog’d her print onto canvas and added some bling. It really customized it perfectly for her nursery. I absolutely love it! I am always amazed at everyone’s creativity.

Contact me at lissables@gmail.com for your own prints or leave a comment, and if there is enough interest I will work on hosting free printables!

Loving it!

So recently an old post of mine went a little crazy on pinterest. The Mummy Onesie I made for Sawyer last year took off and I love seeing all the comments about it. Recently I even had some pictures shared from an inspired project. With each person it gets tweaked a little more and they all become their own unique pieces. (I adore the bow added to make it girly, everyone is so creative!)

So thank you everyone who continues to read the blog, new and old! Always leave a comment, they make my day!

I’m looking forward to some down time, it’s been a crazy couple months, which mean’s I’m behind on blogging and have some awesome stuff to share with you in the coming days! Check back soon!

Happy First Birthday Sawyer!

Where did 12 months go, for that matter where did 22 months go. I feel like January 2011 was yesterday when we first found out we were expecting. Sometimes the day’s seem to drag on, and then in an instant they are gone and its a year later. It’s been an amazing first year. Every day brings something new, rolling over, sitting up, crawling, walking. He’s learned so much in such a short time. He amazes me all the time.

And of course almost half of his first year has been revolving around craniosynostosis. I remember feeling so overwhelmed when we first found out, and now I wouldn’t change it. It has made our family stronger and closer because of it. We can take anything on after going through this. So to honor this huge part of his first life we decided to include a card in his invitations that asked in lieu of presents for donations to our favorite cranio foundation. I am still speechless at the generosity of everyone. We raised just over $500.00 for Craniocarebears.org!!!!! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! We are so excited to send them this wonderful donation. You have touched our hearts and also the hearts of many families going through an extremely hard time in their lives. Thank you to everyone who donated.

While I’m on thank you’s let me add a few more. To my mom and dad who helped with all the little things are last minute running around. To my sister in law and mother in law who ran around that morning and made the wonderful chocolate chip cookies. To my friend who lent me all the party plates and drove them across the city to me. To everyone who donated. To even more people who let me take a million pictures with this past year, so I could hang them through my house everywhere. To everyone who I am forgetting to thank! {Because I’m terrible at remembering anything.} Thank you to all our friends and family who celebrated with us near or far. I was so touched at all the birthday messages I received for Sawyer. Thank you.

I loved planning his birthday. From his invitations to the food and all the little details. His theme was “a year in a flash” Like the flash of a camera. Perfect for this little boy. I have taken well over 1000 pictures this year and I used all my favorite to create photo banner’s through the whole house! I love displaying pictures and this was a great way to get over 200 into a small space. I also made one of all his “firsts of his 1st year.” So first picture, first smile, first Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New years eve. First girlfriend! First mustache! First Valentines, St Patrick’s, Easter, 4th of July, First steps and finally first Birthday!

And I also had taken a photo every month with a monthly sticker to chart his growth. And unusually I didn’t share these photo’s with anyone. So I made a banner with coordinating colors and stickers and hung it with a Happy birthday banner I also made. It completed the dessert table. I love the way it turned out!

We made mac n cheese, hot dogs, meatballs with BBQ sauce, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, wafer sprinkle cookies, chocolate chip cookies, watermelon, veggies and dip and of course cupcakes and a sprinkle cake. I always use my own events to try cakes I’ve been dying to make. The sprinkle one has been on my list forever, and it was perfect for his birthday! But wow was it messy! I will definitely make it again but be warned you will find sprinkles everywhere for days! I colored the inside layers for an added surprise. I am just so thrilled with the way this cake turned out. I also made a banner to hang from it for an added touch of birthday flair! I picked up this “wish” from the 1$ section of targets scrapbooking supplies. They have a whole bunch of words. And I threw it together in less than 5 minutes on the morning of the party. I’m so glad I did because I think it makes the cake!

We had a bounce house for the kids, and I borrowed some games from my sister in law,a crafts table, {also credited to my sister in law!} and of course the million and one toys Sawyer already had. I also did a photo booth area, with props and a poloraid cut out and title with “Sawyers 1st Birthday 10/13/2012” I had a disposable camera on the table so I can’t wait to get it developed and see all the funny pictures! Of course we got a couple with the good camera too!

I made Birthday cake popcorn as the favors for the party. I found the recipe on pinterest. I also made the little paper tops to seal the bags of popcorn. I love how homemade item’s add a personal touch to each favor. I wrote thank you on each one so I felt like I was individually thinking of each person as I did so. I hope everyone liked them, Brandon gave it the seal of approval the night before, devouring the left overs!

We had so much going on and I felt like I missed the whole party! {That always happen’s on the big days} So I am sorry if I never got to talk to you, or if you saw me running around like a crazy woman! I loved seeing everyone together and all the kids playing. It was just what I wanted. Here are the rest of the pictures from our special big day!

Happy First Birthday Sawyer! Can’t wait to celebrate so many more with you. You are the greatest gift a parent could get and I treasure every memory we are making with you.

4 Months Later.

I have been so touched by everyone who has reached out over this past year to us. It was something I never saw coming but I believe it has made me a better person. Going through something like this makes you completely selfless. All my thoughts, feelings, and energy were put into that one little boy. I am so grateful for those unbelievably hard days. I thought they would never come, then never end, and now I feel that it never happened. Recently I have had a lot of people {most of whom are stranger’s still finding Sawyer’s story and benefiting from his journey,} asking for some updates on Sawyer.

What can I say? It truly does feel like it never happened. His hair grew like crazy and he has a full head of hair again. I recently looked for his scar because you cannot see it. I looked, knowing exactly where I traced it for so many nights. And though I can see it, it’s so faint that I know no one else will see it again. It is only a memory of the past.

We have another post op check up coming up next week. It is the last time we will see the Neurosurgeon till next June. Which will be the last time we see her ever. And we do not see the Pediatric Plastic surgeon until June as well. All of which are just to keep on top of his recovery. There is only a 3% chance that he doesn’t have a full recovery. In which case the muscle around his temple would thin out more than expected and they would appear extremely hallow. And it is only a cosmetic issue, meaning we are 100% back to a healthy happy baby! And is he ever happy. He continued crawling the minute we got him home, and he was so determined to walk that he took his first steps at 10 months old, and is running around the house like crazy at 11 months. And he is hitting 12 months on Saturday.

12 Months, 365 days, 1 year. And Cranio took up 5 months of Sawyers first year. So for his birthday Saturday we included a little note in the invitations. We asked that in lieu of gifts we will be doing a donation to Craniocarebears.org in his name, and everyone attending is welcome to add to this donation. This is a non-profit organization, started by 2 mom’s who each had a son with craniosynostosis. It was one of the first sites I came across after our diagnosis. They offer a community with success stories but also provide a care package before every surgery. Each one is unique as it is based off of donations. So ours contained: Tylenol, a hat for sawyer, a mini fleece blanket, snacks, Kleenex and lots of other little things you can forget about. I’ve begun decorating and getting things ready for the party and there is a cute little corner all about the donation and his story! I can’t wait to share all the special pictures this weekend!  I’m so glad that we are celebrating his cranio on his birthday.

To all the parent’s that are still somehow finding Sawyers story. I am honored that you all keep reading my words. I am so happy his journey is helping others. Reading other families stories helped me the most so I am just trying to do the same. Please feel free to contact me at lissables@gmail.com if you ever want to talk one on one!

Smash Cake | Jacks First Birthday

You may remember a couple weeks ago my post of Sawyers First Birthday Smash Cake Session. Well it got a great response and it lead to another session only 2 weeks later. This is Jack, one of Sawyers first friends. They are born only a day apart, And I used to watch his older brothers! So I love this family for so many reasons! Ps this is also the friends who sent Sawyer that surgeon bear from all those iconic photo’s I shared this spring. So I was so excited to be doing a smash cake session for his first birthday as well. Also nervous as crazy! I still get crazy nerves before taking photo’s of others. Hopefully that will end soon! Onto this boy’s beautiful one year photo’s!

I am on the hunt for some extra chairs to paint new colors, so there is a choice. And will be offering this session as a package. It includes the chair, custom cake, balloons, 1 hr session and a disc of your edited images. Please contact me at lissables@gmail.com for interest in this or any other sessions.

I’m working on a whole bunch of posts to share this week since I know it will get hectic and I don’t want to fall so far behind again! So stay tuned, and thank you for always following me!

Inspiration Unlimited 2012.

I cannot believe it’s taken me this long to blog about Inspiration Unlimited 2012. It was our first year and it will not be out last. We have already preregistered to go back next year. And I am already counting down the days. I cannot sum this up in one post. There were too many amazing moments to describe.

– My mom visiting and getting one on one time with her, the first time in a year!

– Making lots of new friends.

– Creating some amazing albums and projects.

– Having too many laughs with Lori and Lynn!

– Of course winning the cricut imagine! (which I swear I will get to posting about playing with one day soon!)

– Feeling absolutely, Unlimitedly, Inspired.

Not only did I come away from a 2 day weekend with 3 mini albums, a jewelry project, and a layout or 2. But I also feel pumped about getting back into scrapbooking, after putting it on the back burner during Sawyer’s first year. Which is just in time to make all the projects for Sawyers First birthday next week!

{How I adore you jewelry Class with Kristen Robinson}

Now onto the albums, for all of you who actually care! I always love seeing projects from these events, so I wanted to share ours. Of course the most exciting part for me is that this is a Teresa Collins event. I love her designs and this weekend did not disappoint. Our first album started the weekend off with a bang! We all know I am {obsessed} with taking pictures. So I always LOVE a good album that you can fit as many pictures as possible into. Bonus points for it being so easily displayed as well. We used her ‘Vintage Finds’ collection. Which is a very neutral soft feminine collection. It’s great because it will look great is so many different homes. It has mini page dividers and in between simple photo protectors. So I have over 24 photo’s in this one little mini album. How perfect! I chose to use all my favorite pictures from sawyers first year. {It’s all about sawyer this month, who am I kidding, EVERY month!}

Later that afternoon we had Debby Schuh’s Pocket album. And this is where it gets hard to pick favorites. I love this clever album and cannot wait to make another! In each of these classes the paper is provided to you. I however did not love the paper. But like most scrapbooking paper, it was two sided. And by luck I did love the coordinating back sides. So mine ended up looking 100% different than most of the classes. {I’m a sucker for banner’s, so as soon as I saw that first piece I knew what direction I was taking mine instead.} Inside there is 12 mini pockets. You can fill with notes, journaling, pictures, memorabilia. Debby suggested making another for thanksgiving and having each person write what they are thankful for and each person would get their own pocket. A wonderful memory to look back on! The possibilities with this album are endless. I cannot wait to make another!

We ended the weekend with another Teresa Collins class. The ‘Tell Your Story’ Collection is a big favorite of mine right now. With teal and coral I was instantly in love. Add some white, grey, chevron, and stripes and I want to buy it all! I was really excited when I saw the sneak peek about this album. Its a 6×12 skinny mini album. With lots of prompts to ‘tell you story!’ Which I think many of us leave out in scrapbooking. It’s a beautiful, it’s clean, it’s a simple album. I love it, I can’t wait to fill it. I’ve been dying to finish it these last two weeks, but a first birthday keeps taking all my time!

We also did a class from Stephanie Hunt from Bella Blvd. It was a mini album on steroids. Which is why I have no pictures to show you yet. {I will try to go back and add pictures to this section once I have it finished, because it really is a beautiful project!} I have not gotten any of it finished. It was a big project and good for her to try and make something so ambitious. Her ‘Because of You’ album is such a great idea. It’s a place to add memories. One page for each person in your life who has made you who you are today. You journal a “because of you” for each person. It will be a very emotional album. Something I think I will even learn from after going through everyone in my life. Another one I can’t wait to get to. That’s another great thing about this event. You are thrilled to continue working on these projects long after it’s ended!

So there it is. Finally the Inspiration Unlimited 2012 post. Only took 2 weeks. I know I didn’t do it justice, so if you want to experience it yourself you will have to keep and eye on it, and get on that waiting list asap! Only 348 more days to go until Inspiration Unlimited 2013! Cant wait to do it all again!