Mother's Day

Yes, it's way past Mother's Day. Which means it's now safe to show you what I did for all the moms on our gift list. ;) These were a big hit - you better put this on your list for ideas for next year.

I ordered these great cosmetic bags with photos on them (there's a different photo on the back). They're from Artscow.com and they were surprisingly well made. They even had a little zipper pocket inside them. Then I grabbed some fun Bath and Body Works stuff to go along with it.


Then packaged it up all nice and pretty.
Final close up of the tag. I made the paper flower the same way I learned to make one of the fabric flowers variations. Sorry no tutorial.

Go ahead. Write it down. :) I guarantee they'll love it.

Dance Costumes and Teacher Appreciation

The school year is definitely winding down. How do I know? Because I've spent bits and pieces of the last 3 or 4 weeks working on dance costumes for the recital! :)

My mom is teaching 3 classes this year - one for Kaitlyn, one for Tyler, and one extra because she ended up with that many when we started to fill Ty's class. Lucky for me, one of the other moms took over the costumes for the younger class(es) and I only had to make the 5 for Kaitlyn's class. We went with a really simple design this year too - it's called Buying the Skirt lol. Seriously, the past 2 years I don't know how many hours we spent making skirts. But this year Mom stumbled across a fabulous deal on the petti-skirt type she'd had in mind anyway so we got those and dressed them up. We started with a black leotard, and the pink skirt. I grabbed some zebra print for the sash and whipped out 25 fabric flowers (3 for the top, one for the waistband, and one for the hairbow x 5 girls). The flowers still managed to take me longer than I thought they would (isn't that always the way with crafts?) but I didn't mind that since I had the time. And look how cute it all is together!

My mother-in-law was nice enough to make the vest for Ty's costume. Photos of that one later. I'm taking all the portraits on Friday.

What else goes along with the end of the school year? Teacher Appreciation. I'm not sure when it is at Katy's school, but here in blogland everyone is talking about it. I had been on the fence about if I was going to do something for it or just some kind of end of the year token. But then I found these adorable FREE printables at http://www.dimpleprints.com/ this morning and HAD to make something.
This is the result:

*those are bath fizzies I found in the dollar section during Christmas, I think and had a couple boxes left over. I love having a few things on hand when I need something quick.

Is anyone else doing something fun for Teacher Appreciation?

Week in the Life: Thurs - Sun

I did finish up my Week in the Life project and actually managed to do a better job taking photos during the second half of the week. I'm going through everything now trying to decide what photos to print so I thought I'd share a few of my favorites.

Yes they're all of my kids. Let's face it, they're most photogenic (and time consuming) part of my life. :)

Guest Posting over at My Insanity

I'm guest posting over at My Insanity today. Go check it out! (here)

Week in the Life: Mon, Tues, Wed

Ok this project is harder than it sounds! I forget to take the camera with me or forget to use it most of the time and am continually behind on taking notes. Not only that but when I do remember it, it takes up a ton of time. Sheesh! I'm not exactly frustrated with the project or how it's going, just surprised that it's so...so...all-consuming.

Some things I'm learning
-I'm still drawn to taking just cute shots of the kids instead of documenting myself/my life as I go
-need to make LOTS more use of the self-timer
-need to get other people behind the camera
-need to concentrate on getting myself in the photos
-should have put more thought into how I would go about this and exactly what I wanted to capture
-need to work time into the day at regular say 2 hour intervals to document. I'm forgetting way too much of what goes on throughout the day
-part of what makes taking photos hard is that this week feels TOO NORMAL. Too boring. Next time I should try for one with more events? Or maybe just be content with taking photos of myself sitting on the couch reading lol
-*there is a huge learning curve for this sort of thing. The first time is a huge learning experience. I think I will still be glad I did it in the end but will just plan on "next time" working out so much better.

Some of my photos from Monday, Tuesday, and part of Wednesday:
Monday morning: time to clean up and recover from the weekend
Monday = Laundry Day. I like this shot because not only does it capture Kaitlyn helping out, but the headphones, worn first thing in the morning is just so HER.
Beautiful weather and yard work
No he doesn't take naps. Unless he spontaneously falls asleep on his own.

Tuesday

Ty kept trying to use the camera at soccer. In this one he actually managed to get Katy in the frame. Most of them were photos of the ceiling or the floor lol. Not suprising since he would hold the camera up to his face but his eye was never actually looking through the view finder.
Wed morning: making breakfast. SO TYPICAL. Kaitlyn with her bed head taking over things and Ty crying because she's in the spot he wanted to be and afraid he won't get a turn to stir. I love that the kids like to help and especially that they are interested in cooking but the process is always an exercise in patience for me.

She's making a face because she's not always exactly happy that I'm taking her photo.

Card Night - April

Except we didn't make cards! With our card stashes fully stuffed right now we decided to switch gears and start branching out into other things. So this month we learned to make earrings. So fun!I did notice my perfectionism rearing it's head. Usually I can control it but I think I made at least 10 different mock ups before finally putting together the blue ones. Then I got crazy and first timer that I am, still decided to try my hand at the chandelier ones. I think they turned out well, considering. And it was fun to learn something new.

A Week in the Life

I love photos. Absolutely LOVE photos. And I take a lot of them - usually. But lately I haven't and when I sit down to work on my personal blog I notice it. And it annoys me. So I've decided to participate in Ali Edwards' A Week in the Life, starting Monday. The point is to document your life for an entire week. Every. Single. Tiny. Thing.
I'm actually getting excited about it. I've been meaning to spend some more time honing my camera skills anyway (can we say upcoming dance photo shoot? yeah. not prepared!). And when I did Project 365 (taking a photo a day) last year I really did love the fact that it made me have the camera out and capturing the everyday stuff.
So wish me luck! I'm off to try to gather up a few envelopes (one for each day) for things like receipts, a notebook where I can jot things down each day, and make a list of things I definitely want to document along the way (routines, food, making a point of taking a photo of myself each day, etc). If this idea apeals to anyone and you decide to participate in this little activity as well, be sure to let me know!