Memory Box

One thing that I wanted to make sure of was to keep special memories from Hazelnut's childhood.  Not every memory, but certain ones that stick out.  I also know my limits, and that creating scrapbook pages by hand every month is just not going to happen. So once a year I make a family photo book (more about that on a future date) in a coffee table style book.  I also keep another photo album with 4x6 prints.  Why?  Because when she's in kindergarten & needs to bring a picture of her as a baby, I don't want to be pulling out external hard drives looking for the pictures, then running to Wal-Mart at midnight to pick up the prints.

I digress.

But some things just can't be stored in a flat album or fit into a 4x6 sleeve.  For those, I have this box.

 

Someone gave it to us for a baby shower gift, and it's been very useful!

I've majorly slacked off on things to put in there after her first birthday.  So many big things happen in that first year-- hospital bracelets, birth announcements, first visit to Santa, birthday cards, cake smash session... the list goes on & on!  I also saved handwritten notes, and the little foam letters you see on the left- H F.  Those were in a gift bag from a breastfeeding group I went to.  They're not really useful, except that they are a vivid reminder of what life was like during those first 10 months of working so hard to nurse.  Looking at those letters brings it all back like a tidal wave.

But one problem--- nothing else fits!  Luckily, one of her birthday gifts this year gave in this cute box.  It's very sturdy & perfect for the job!  

How do you keep track of memories?  Do you put too much pressure on yourself for not doing it enough?  I seriously love the memory box because it's so low pressure.  Just toss the memory in & you're done!

I also have one full of love notes & cards from when Josh & I were dating.  We should have kept it up through marriage but life got a bit busy.  I love looking back on those notes!

Bathtub Finger Paints with a Toddler

I found a recipe for homemade finger paints here, but didn't have cornstarch on hand, so I used flour instead.  It worked great!

Here's the recipe I used:

2-3 teaspoons of flour

4 pumps of baby shampoo (ours is a foaming shampoo- if you have liquid, just use a small drop)

2-4 drops of food coloring

3 teaspoons of warm water

Mix all ingredients together & stir with a toothpick until it's the right consistency.  Repeat for each color.

I have trays that held baby food when she was younger.  An ice cube tray would be the next best thing, but I would probably half the recipe so that it will fit in the smaller cubes.

Hazelnut is only one, so we helped her get in to it a little bit.  We spread it around, painted her, and then put our own fingerprints on the wall of the bath tub.  Her little handprint is hard to see, but it's on the left.  I had to remember to put down the camera & just have fun!  Once I did, she saw how much fun it was & joined in.  Her little smiles & giggles make everything so much more fun!

Thrifty Nursery.

We are likely going to be moving into a new apartment before Hazel is born, but I'd already worked on this nursery, so I'm going to share it anyway!  I know I'm a photographer & all, but cell phone pictures are what you're getting.  :)  We got a lot of really great deals on our larger items, so I wanted to share our finds!

We started with this idea:

And here's what we've got so far.  There's a lot less color in it right now because we don't have all the decorations up, but you get the idea.

Crib, mattress, white dresser: $150 from a consignment shop.  We got the info off of the crib & researched it to make sure it had good reviews & wasn't recalled or anything.  We also got a bedding set with it that's adorable, but just didn't fit in our color scheme, so we're selling it for $20.
Mobile: $15 (or was it $10?) at the same consignment shop.  It plays about 10 different songs & spins around.  I love that it has the black & white swirls as well, since that's what they suggest for mobiles.
Rug: $5 at a different consignment shop
Canvas with lyrics: $60 We bought the canvas at Michaels' for $40 (was 60% off) & the paints & paintbrushes (what I didn't already have) was about $20.  We had the idea & painted it ourselves.  It's not quite done yet, but more on that later.

Guitar Lamp: $30 at Burke's Outlet.  You can't see it in the first picture because it's beaming a bright light, but it's on the white dresser.
Music = Love small canvas: $5 at Burke's Outlet

Dry Erase Wall Dots: $5 for a 2 pack  I run a photography business out of my home, and it takes a lot of space to set everything up!  I quarantined most of it to the closet with some careful organization, but I still needed some space for the printer & such, so I used this little corner, which you can't really see from the door.  The two blue wall dots are removable dry-erase wall decals.  I keep a list of to-do's on one, and other notes about clients on the other.  Super helpful!

Large bookcase: This used to be in our living room with China & books on it.  I love the cubby organization systems and almost bought a cubby shelf just for this room.  But space is an issue in this apartment, so I took the bookshelf that was already in the nursery & moved it to the living room, and brought the large one from the living room into the nursery!  There wasn't enough room for all the books, even after giving many to Goodwill, so I double layered them-- there is another complete row of books behind each row you see!  The bottom right hand cubby of books is all our baby/kids books.

Canvas Bins: $9 each  This was not a cheap purchase, but thankfully, I had enough in Wal-Mart gift cards to more than cover the cost!  I can decorate them if I like, and they hide a lot of junk that I know won't always be organized once the baby is here.  They will also make moving much easier, and even collapse down to a flat square if needed.

Yikes... I never said the nursery was finished!  Here is the closet & changing table/baby armoir (which needs to be refinished & get new knobs).  Cloth diapers are in the baby armoir... for now.

Bassinet: Free!  It's our friend's bassinet.  We knew storage was an issue, but also knew a bassinet would be super helpful that first month or so.  So a friend offered to let us borrow theirs they aren't currently using (& they needed the extra space!).  Works perfectly-- we don't have to waste money on buying one that we'll just turn around & sell, and they don't have to look at it for a few months.  :)

And we've come full circle!  Like I said, the decorations are definitely not all up yet (nor will they be until we move).  A friend bought us a wall decal with Hazel's name on it, too, and I can't wait to decide where to put it in our new place!

Inspiration & blog love.

About a year ago I was searching through blogs and found this one.  It's called Aura joon.

It instantly intrigued me because her first name is Aura.  I have a niece named Sunaura and I thought it was cool.

I kept on reading because everything about her is so darn interesting!  I love her style, her photography, her zest for life.

But along the way I forgot to check back & eventually forgot altogether until I saw her link again on another blog.  Then I spent 30 minutes blog stalking!  Last time I read she was a carefree young married woman and now she's about to have a baby!

Joon, by the way, is not her middle or last name.  It means "sweetheart" or "dear" in Farsi.  Bonus points because I actually know what Farsi is-- I used to hire linguist who could translate Pashto, Dari (Farsi) & English.

At any rate, go on over, check it out, and enjoy her style!  She talks about gardening, clothes, and has tons of neat DIY items.

source

Oh, and after admiring her style so much, I was overjoyed to find that I have the same skirt as her!

source

Now I just need to go buy the rest of the wardrobe!

Lessons Learned, plus a little ditty to help remember those lessons

One day, you will die.

One day, you will have to get a different car.  Before then, you'll have to get a new set of tires.  As much as it would be awesome for them to last forever, they just won't.  You'll have to replace them.

And one day... one day... you'll have to get a new computer.  Most likely, it won't be because you found a new shiny one that you liked better.  It's usually because the one you have has completely died a horrible death.

You with me?

That's what happened to me on Monday.  I was leaving to pick Josh up from work and my screen froze. After it didn't correct itself, I restarted it.  It never came back on fully.

Long story short, there are some experts currently working on retrieving everything on my computer.

In the meantime, I went and bought a new one.  I need it for my business, and if the other one is salvageable, I'll just sell it.

Everyone's first question: Did you lose everything?!

Answer: No!

 I had almost everything on a back-up hard drive.  For my photo sessions, I have most of them on CD as a second back-up.  Aside from some personal photos and documents, I lost one client session (and yes, that client already knows-- so if I haven't told you, no worries-- you're covered!).  It stinks, and I learned my lesson to do a back-up more often.

With my business?  Everyday.

The back-up hard drive we chose cost less than $100 and save me a lot of grief.  When I turned the computer on, it asked me if I wanted to transfer information from another hard drive.  I plugged it in, clicked the button, and...

Voila!  Everything immediately transferred.  I didn't have to download all my programs again, I didn't have to worry about losing precious files.

So whether you use your computer for business or for fun, if there are things you don't want to lose, then I highly suggest getting a back-up hard drive.

And if you have a Mac, it's so easy to do that you really have no excuse!

Here's a little ditty to help remind you to back up your computer!  You're welcome. :)

DIY Heart Fun

Happy Valentine's Day!!

I originally took this photo for 'hearts' week over at I Heart Faces.  However, I had completely finished editing the image when I realized that it was supposed to have a face in it (I Heart Faces... duh).  So I saved it for today, and decided to do a little DIY for y'all.

This is a really simple image to set up.  So simple, that you probably already see exactly how to do it.  But just in case, here's the skinny:

Find a book (or in my case, a photo album) with wide pages.  They can be thicker than the average book, but you don't want anything too thick that will be hard to bend.

Then find two pages about in the middle and fold the edges in towards the spine to create the heart effect.  Make sure everything is nice and tidy, and then fix the book to where your heart is standing up.

I love to get on the same level as subjects because of the perspective it brings.  Here, I had the book laying on the floor and I was on the floor as well.

Once I was done I popped the image into Lightroom and added the 'Roses Dreamly' present and then altered the tint to more of a pink color.  After all, it is a heart!

Now go, spend Valentine's day with those you love!

Chaaarrrrrrlie Brown!

It happens at just about every wedding.  They play the Cha-Cha Slide and everyone is going strong.  It's great, it's fun, it's fabulous...

...and then they say, "Chaaaarrlie Brown!"

Everyone kind of laughs, looks around, and make up some funny dance move because, well, we don't really know what the Charlie Brown dance move is.

I'm here to change that!  You no longer have to fear weddings for this one reason.  No more awkward looking around... now you can jam!

Just for y'all, I found this uh-may-zing tutorial for all those people with two left feet out there!

If you can't do the Charlie Brown after this, I suggest you run and hide when the Cha-Cha Slide comes on.

And just for fun, here is the funniest Charlie Brown move I could find!  13 seconds in, this dude puts everyone else to shame.

Now go, practice Chaaaaaarrrrrrrrlie Brown!

Step By Step... ooooh baby!

Okay, this has nothing to do with NKOTB... I just needed a title.

For my birthday, my mom gave me this album kit.  That was June and my life was busy.  One thing led to another and I'm embarrassed to say that I just now got it out and made it!  It's been nice living life in the slow lane for awhile and getting to do the things 'I'd do if I had more time.'

And let me tell you... this kit is awesome!  It has each page planned out for you so that you can just find everything that says 'Page 1' on the back, and put it on the page according to the picture they show you.

For those of us that love to be creative, but get stuck and spend hours agonizing over every detail, this is perfect!  Of course, if you're not like that, then you can make it however you want!

Ellie prefers to play with the packaging.  It took me 3 tried to get this picture because every time I tried to snap one, she looked away.  She is good about not getting caught in the act.

The package said that it was a one hour project, to which I thought, 'yeah right.'  But honestly, it took less than an hour!  That's not including putting the pictures in there-- I'll do that over the course of the year.

Overall, this is such a cute idea!  Low pressure on the creative side, and makes a great gift.  My mom has a similar one that is pre-made for monthly photos of my niece, Rylie.  She just picks one picture a month and puts it in the album.  Super easy and a great way to look back at her first year!

Laundry and art

Raise your hand if your laundry room/closet/area is as beautiful as the magazines.

Bueller?  Bueller?

That's what I thought.  And if you have a pristine laundry room/closet/area, then what the heck are you doing reading my blog?

Anywho, I say all that so that my mom doesn't kill me.  She has no idea I took these pictures.

Hi, mom!

She has a normal laundry area.  There is a washing machine, a dryer, detergent, plugs for the washer and dryer, dust, and cabinets (hey, all of us don't have cabinets-- I do have shelves, though, which is helpful).

My mom is also a school teacher and she's out of school for the summer, which means she's doing lesson plans, babysitting, doing lesson plans, reorganizing, and doing lesson plans.  She does a lot of lesson plans.  She's a great teacher.

She also loves to redecorate the house.  That's a gene that I did not inherit from her.  But this is the newest addition to her laundry area, which I just adore and love with all my heart: artwork from us kids.

My oldest brother's:

2nd oldest brother (he now has several intricate tattoos that he's drawn out himself):

3rd oldest brother (please notice how he originally wrote "wouldn't" but then marked out the "n't" -- as in... he decided halfway through the project that the 1800's would be pretty fun after all):

Moi (can we tell who the perfectionist is in the family?):

And my baby sister (to be fair, I think this was kindergarten-- it says "If I were a spider... I'd eat a butterfly") :

Pretty cool, eh?

DIY wedding programs.

It's wedding season, and as I was looking through our wedding memory box, I was reminded of how much heart and soul I put into nearly every detail.  Here are the programs that I my family handmade.  300 of them.

I made the layout in a simple word processor, using half pages.

We didn't have chicken pox... it's paper with flower petals in it or something like that.

These were two of my favorite pictures at the time.  Truthfully, I love photos, and I wanted to share them.

See the 'We love you?'  That was a formatting mistake on my part.

This wasn't necessary (nothing in this program was), but it was a way to share parts of our love story with our friends and family.

Yup.  There were a lot of them.  And Josh had one more groomsman than I had bridesmaid.  Although I love even numbers, this worked out perfectly.

A good way to remember those special to us that have already passed on.  At the bottom of this page is where it was supposed to say, "We love you."

We love our families and were excited to have them as a part of our special day, so we wanted to mention them in the program.

Of course we had a lot of musicians at our wedding... I married Josh!

This is a picture from one of our first dates.

A thank you to our family a friends.

The chorus from a song Josh wrote for me.  He had sung it to me many times while we were dating, and then sang it and played it on the piano right before proposing!

Directions to the reception, and our new address.

Wedding memories continued.

More fun going through the wedding box.  It seems that I saved a little of everything!  It all fits in the box, though, so it's not taking up tons of space.

Here is the newspaper clipping from our engagement. 

And the invitation.  Sorry for the poor photo quality.  I didn't make these-- I ordered them from Rexcraft.  Great price and I was happy with the quality and turn around time.

And we saved two guestbooks (from showers and the wedding).

And we tucked these in with the invites-- Directions, as well as RSVP postcards.

Yikes... I just couldn't get the color right on these napkins.  In real life, it's a bold pink color.  I got these off of ebay-- super happy with them!

And the infamous Life Advice cards.  These were on the tables at our reception.  I wasn't thinking and had them make on glossy paper.  For future reference, it's nearly impossible to write with a ballpoint pen (or even a marker) on glossy paper.  Most ended up writing on the back, which was plain paper.

Not sure why or how this got in there, but I've had this forever.  Thought I'd include it for fun!

I'll add some of the "Life Advice" cards on here later-- some are sweet, some are hilarious-- we've enjoyed looking back on them!