Making Polka Dot Papers, Baby Shower Ideas, and a Freebie

I had a lot of fun at my neice's baby shower. I'd like to share with you!

First, I made some polka dot papers in Photoshop Elements and printed them out on thin inexpensive photo papers with my borderless printer. I was so impressed with out they turned out! I may just have to do this again in the future on other crafts.

Next, I had taken a photo of her with her hands in a heart on her belly. I filled the heart area with polka dots and cut the photo into a heart shape. I saved it as a .png file and printed it out on multiples per page.

I cut the paper into strips and glued them, along with the hearts, so that they slipped over water bottles as labels. It was fun to do girlie crafts for a change since I have all these boys in my house.

I took the "baby" word art that I had made for the invitations and used an Atomic Cupcake action on it to make stickers. I cut them out and glued them to a circle which was then glued to a party stick and stuck into cupcakes. I made white cupcakes with strawberry icing and then simple brownie cupcakes.

I took the leftover cuttings and prints to make a calendar for the guests to write down their guesses on when the baby would be born.

My party planning partner made this scrumptious no sugar angel food cake. The filling is whipped cream with no sugar pudding mix fluffed into it.

She also brought these cute napkins. How simple is that to make something so "wow." She also brought other foods and decorated the gift table, but I think I've shared too many photos already. We all had a great time!

I made a video tutorial to share how I made these polka dot papers in Photoshop Elements. You can find it in the Subscriber Area (which has over 125 videos currently available for only $5.50 a month).

This freebie is also in the Subscriber Area. However, I am offering it here on the blog for a limited time, just as always! I included the sticker as well as a paper made with the sticker. I found it to be cute as a background as well as to cut out for cupcake decorations.

Click here.

Baby Shower Invitation

I am planning a baby shower for my niece and working on the invitations. I am happy with the way they are turning out.

I did get inspiration from two cards online, taking ideas from both of them to come up with this card.

Credit for the flowers goes to Amanda Rockwell.

I want to make some matching decorations for the party itself. I just need to think of what next.



Here is a freebie for you. The word art is rather small as it is sized for a 5 x 7 card, so it might not be big enough for a layout or you would have to keep it small on a layout.

I hope you are having a great weekend!

Name Tags on Birdhouses

This is a hybrid project I did as a gift.

I made the names with digital scrapbooking, printed them out, cut them out, and decoupaged them to small pieces of wood to hang from the birdhouses.

I used ModgePodge decoupage and it should keep the wood protected in weather/wet. I applied it to all sides of the wood.I made the chain (uck, tweezers) and it is pushed into the back of the wood with a tack.

I used a spot of glue-gun glue at the top of the chain to hold it in place against the wind.

Christmas Blessings Mix

I can see this being really cute with a digital scrapbooking tag using photos of the items extracted from the photos and placed on the tag.

CHRISTMAS BLESSING MIX
BUGLES---The trumpet that sounded at his birth.
PRETZELS---Mary' s arms wrapped around her baby
FRUITS AND NUTS-----The gifts the wise men brought.
CANDY CANE(S)---Shepherds staffs.
CHOCOLATE STARS-- The star of Bethlehem.
HERSHEY KISSES--The love he has for you.
RAFFIA---The hay in the manger that ties it all together.

Use dried fruit mix and two different nuts.
Put in treat bags tied with raffia.
You can then put it in a mug, or any suitable container that recipient may need, or just leave in treat bag.

Toothpick and Christmas Card Ornament

At one time I had a home daycare and each year came up with a new ornament for the children to give their parents.

This was one of the easiest ornmanets to do!

This ornmanet is merely toothpicks glued to each other (gluing around circular) with a cut out of a Christmas card in the middle. I had saved previous year's Christmas cards and allowed the children to choose whatever photo they wanted. Of course, I thought the nativity scene looked most appropriate.

I suppose you could be creative and find other things or make other things to glue in the center.

Halloween Through the Years (Costume Ideas)

I get so easily distracted! I started out the evening making a freebie, which lead to finding more layer styles, but then my digibuddy conversations got me started on looking for old photos of Halloween costumes.

Before I knew it, I'd gone through and scanned 12 years of Halloween costumes last night! What a trip I took through time!

Now, suddenly, although I have many other projects started and goals to achieve (why do I do this to myself all the time), I am now headed off in a different tangent temporarily.

I think I am going to make my first Shutterfly book. Every one I have seen others share has been just fabulous. A theme of through the years would make a great collection. I am thinking another book down the road with all of the birthday cakes I backed would make a great collection too.

I am currently on the lookout for non-evil Halloween kits (no witches, ghosts, cats, and the like). Of course, with three boys, no bows either. I may end up making some freebies and sharing.

Here is one of the photos. He's so cute I could pick him up right through that photo and squeeze him!

I made most of the boys' costumes and many of them were made with sweats, because we were so poor and I could not afford the $20 to $25 (per child) plastic costumes they sold and did not like many of the others. I could pick up a pair of sweats for $6 (or on clearance for $2 in the Spring) back then.

This one is just orange sweats and I utilized the little bottles of paint and squeezed out the tiger stripes all over the sweats. The hat is a plastic visor that used to be a popular thing to give out for free at carnivals with some felt ears glued onto it. Top it all off with some face painting and you've got one cute tiger!

Would you like to see more costume ideas? I have plenty to share!

Gift Ideas

Well, I'm off to St. Louis today to my niece's 5th birthday party (so no tutorial writing today, sorry!). I would love to show you a photo of my two adorable neices, but without my sister's permission, I would not do that.

Hopefully, my sister will not be online this morning as I'm taking a risk of sharing this before the party! I'm hoping she is busy preparing for her busy day. I'm not even sure how often she reads this blog, but of course, wouldn't today be the day?

As everyone knows, I have three teenage sons! Therefore, it is sometimes hard to be creative with an idea for a gift for girls, although somewhat refreshing and fun too. I was having so much fun, I had to keep taking things out of my cart!

Anyway, I have a wonderful resource in my friend Sam who has a young girl. I go to Sam to see what is "in" now and give me ideas. She told me that her daughter just loves to write and draw. That reminded me of when my nieces were down last year and they too just had fun drawing at my kitchen table. So, this idea evolved in my conversations with Sam.

I have purchased this cute purple blank journaling book for her to scribble and draw in, as well as two more less expensive blank books, markers, glitter pens, colored pencils, and bunches of stickers, all in a cute yellow basket. Instead of a regular gift bag, I found an inexpensive bag to put the basket in that can be used in many other ways (even taking swimgear to the pool).

Now, my friend Sam has been blessed by God with this awesome talent for writing! I always enjoy reading what she writes. So I asked her if she could write something for me to stick inside the book so that my neice would understand the gift and make it more personal.

Isn't Sam awesome?!! Here is the poem she wrote. I made a 4 x 6 card with it, using brushes that came with my PSE to make the hearts and flowers (as in the poem) as well as some marker looking scribbles in the background.

I never wait until the last minute to do anything, huh? [giggle] My cousin recently adopted a baby from Guatemala and I needed to come up with a gift idea for her too.

I must confess. I'm stuck in a rut. I give this same gift to everyone who has a newborn. I just like the idea and I think it is something no one else would think of doing. I buy a bank and encourage them to collect pennies from the year they were born. This baseball bank reminded me of my high school days and sitting with my Grandpa at the Cardinals games.

So, late last night, here I am, phoning up Sam and asking for her help again! In previous gifts, I just wrote something -- I'm sure not too creative -- so that the recipient would understand what to do with the gift. I sure could use a poem!

Only a friend would come up with something for me at the last minute! Thank you so much, Sam!

Here's the poem. I made it into a card and managed to use the papers I made earlier last week that are free here on my blog. I wish I would have been able to make it more baby-ish, but it was really late and I was in a hurry. Maybe next time I will re-do the card, but this works for now.

I cannot offer you these cards for free because I must confess that I did not ask Sam for permission and these writings would be copyright. I did tell her I would be sharing them on my blog, but I cannot offer them in downloadable format. However, I did remove the words from my cards and you can download the 4 x 6 card and add your own words for your own gifts to them here. The link to download instructions is in the sidebar.

I will add that I did use a borderless 4 x 6 paper with a tab and that it did not print well. The date was beyond the tab line and the line border around the words went off the edge. So I would suggest printing with borders and then trimming with scissors.

Photo Cube

Check out the post at Instructables for a fun way to print and display layouts into a cube.

This looks like something I would attempt to do before I became time inhibited.

It would make a nice gift or even a thank you gift.

Official Santa Sock

Take one of your husband's old work socks (complete with holes!) and put it in a zip-lock, and then attach this poem

"Official Santa Sock"
My puppy must have stolen it
On last year's Christmas Eve.
I hope that Santa's toes weren't froze
When he had to leave.
I'm passing it along to you
As quiet as a mouse!
And THIS year if he's lookin' for it
IT WON'T BE AT MY HOUSE!!!!

Magic Weight Loss Beans

MAGIC WEIGHT LOSS BEANS
1 Remove beans from bag.
2 Throw them on the floor.
3 Bend down and pick up each bean.
4 Repeat hourly as needed.

M & M Menopause Relief

M & M MENOPAUSE RELIEF

To temporarily calm your craving for chocolate, eat the BROWN one.
At the first sign of hot flashes eat the RED one.
Eat the ORANGE one to minimize depression.
The GREEN one calms your frustrations, when you wantto be left alone.
If you feel a headache coming on eat the YELLOW one.
The BLUE one reduces bloating.
If all symptoms occur at the same time, eat the WHOLE bag.

Variety of Fun Gifts

Take a large wisk and fill it with Hershey Kisses. Wrap all in cello and tie with fancy ribbon. Make a cute little holiday gift tag that says: "We WISK you a Merry Christmas".

Take two AA batteries, put them in a box with a note saying "Gift not included"

Get a Christmas "bucket/pail/ box" and put two bags of microwave popcorn and two cans of soda nestled in shredded red/green paper and wrapped in cello. On at ag write, "Pop, pop, fizz, fizz, oh what a great friend (teacher, cousin, in-law, etc) you is!"

The home exerciser is a block of wood with this saying printed on paper glued to it. HOME EXERCISER 1. Place in middle of the floor 2. Walk around it two times3 . Rest, you've just walked around the block two times.

Unfinished furniture - A big box with the label "Unfinished furniture". Inside the box is a branch, leaves and all!.

Put some straw in a zip-loc bag and attach a tag that reads "Straw Hat -- Assembly Required"

Hillbilly Flashlight - a block of wood with one wooden kitchen match in the end of it.

Sawdust in a small zip lockbag. Labeled "Expert Jigsaw Puzzle."

Take pieces of straw and put in cellophane bags witha tootsie roll and a tag that says "roll in the hay."

Pet Dust Bunnies = Dryer lint in a bag with googleeyes.

The three step diet program = Three plastic forks, for 20-30 lbs weight loss, 1 has only one tine removed and numbered 1, for 30-50 lbs weight to lose, 2 has two tines removed and numbered 2, 50 lbs + has all tines removed and labeled number three, all three are putinto a bag together so they can diet in a 3 step program.

Fanny Floss = crochet thread or heavy cotton cording, label reads for those hard to reach areas.

Dodge, Ford, Chevy motor repair kit = duct tape and a rubber band in a baggie.

Emergency rope for when you're at the end of yours =small piece of rope in a baggie.

Over the hill instant face lift=a small roll of duct tape

Also, over the hill make-up brush=a cheap paint brush for painting walls.

Poor women's boob job--take 2 flesh or clear balloons and a straw and put on a topper that reads: Poor Women's Boob Job- Directions: insert balloon into bra pocket, insert straw into balloon and blow to desired size, add clipo r knot to prevent shifting of size or air escape. Repeat for other side. Caution: stay away from sharp objects and over squeezing!

Do-It-Yourself Ted.E.Bear = six small brown pompoms in a bag with the small google eyes

How about A melted snow man. Take a mason jar or some sort of clear jar and put water in it. Put in a carrot, a button and two small pieces of coal. Put a label on the jar that reads: Melted snow man.

Worry Wart. It is made out a nylon stocking. A roundball stuffed with cotton about 1 - 1 1/2 inches across and gathered at top and tied with small bit of ribbon. Two tiny eyes glued onto it. Poem attached: This worry wart will be your friend, And when your day is at it's end, Just relax, worry no more, Cuz that's what this little wart is for.

Fish Seeds

Put this topper on a little baggie of goldfishcrackers. It makes a cute little gag gift for thefishermen in your life.

It's known you like to fish alot, your line dropped in the water. But sometimes they aren't biting, so you can't catch what you oughter! When these times come, just grab this pack of ready-to-grow fish seed, then raise them til they fit the size your best "fish stories" need!

A great gift for those to who hate to cook. Photocopy a cookbook cover, you'll need two of them on glossy paper, or plain paper with clear adhesive paperover it. Fill it with paper and on the first page list all the phone numbers of the fast food restaurants in the area. "I made you this recipe book Just open it wide And you can decide to let someone else be the cook."

Washer & Dryer (*Wrap a dishcloth and dish towel in a large and pretty box with this note attached*)

This Christmas our ship has finally come in

We're feeling so wealthy and rich.

Instead of some small remembrance

This year will be quite a switch

We're giving a gift of high quality

No more cheap presents for us.

It's time we really went all out

But don't worry, its really no fuss.

We considered giving you a sports car

Or maybe a tropical cruise ---

But we decided to be more practical

And give something you really could use.

So, open the box and you may be surprised,

To find not only ONE gift, but two --

We hope you will put your presents to work

It's a WASHER & DRYER, too!!!!

St. Nicholas' Shoe

St. Nicholas' Shoe
(*go to a craft or party store for a plastic shoe or boot....or use a small stocking*)

When St. Nicholas comes
to fill up each shoe,
He leaves gifts inside,and a shiny coin, too!
So here's a small token
that's just meant to say~
Best wishes to you
as you go on your way!

Spare Reindeer Nose's

Spare Reindeer Nose's
(Red Hots or Red M&Ms, hard candy, etc.)

#1
Rudolph has a job to do
Every Christmas Eve, it's true.
His nose will always light the way
For Santa and his tiny sleigh,
But if his nose should ever go out
Don't cry or whine or yell or pout.
Take out this bag and use a bit.
From Rudolph's Red Nose repair kit.

#2
Rudolph's nose is very bright
He helps guide Santa's sleigh
Without it in the dark night sky
They might not find their way.
So just in case dear Rudy's nose
Is kaput and goes on the blink
We have these spare "red nose seeds"
To repair him in a wink!

Snowman Soup

Snowman soup

(*1 individual packet of cocoa mix, 10-15 littlemarshmallows, several Hershey's kisses and a small candy cane put into a Christmas cup, with this poem added to it.*)

or

(*Recipe: 1-3/4 cups instant mashed potatoes, 1-1/2 cup non-fat dry milk powder, 2 Tablespoons instant chicken bouillon powder, 2 teaspoons dried minced onions, 1-1/2 teaspoons seasoned, salt, 1 teaspoon dried parsley, 1/4 teaspoon dried whole thyme, 1/4 group white pepper, 1/8 teaspoon tumeric. Makes 3 cups soup mix.
Instructions to attach to jar: To serve: Place ½ cup of mixture in a mixing bowl and add 1 cup boiling water. Stir until smooth.*)

#1
Was told you've been real good this year.
Always glad to hear it!
With freezing weather drawing near,
You'll need to warm the spirit.
So here's a little Snowman Soup
Complete with stirring stick.
Add hot water, sip it slow.
It's sure to do the trick!

#2
When it's so cold that
you holler and whoop,
It's time to bring out
the Snowman Soup!
Pour the packet in a mug.
Add marshmallows too.
And throw in these kisses
that are special just for you.
Now add some hot water
and use the cane to stir it.
Sip slowly and soon you'll
feel the warm winter spirit!

#3
When the weather outside is frightful,
Snowman Soup can be delightful.
May it warm your spirit and your soul.
Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!
When you feel a chill or 'burrrrrr',
Use the peppermint stick to stir.
Add hot water and sip it slow.
Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow.

#4
This snowman looks frosty, but he has a warm heart
He's brimming with soup mix just for you--
This isn't a snow job ...
I think you're great
Your friendship warms me through and through.

Recipe:1-3/4 cups instant mashed potatoes1-1/2 cup non-fat dry milk powder2 Tablespoons instant chicken bouillon powder2 teaspoons dried minced onions1-1/2 teaspoons seasoned salt1 teaspoon dried parsley1/4 teaspoon dried whole thyme1/4 group white pepper1/8 teaspoon tumericMake 3 cups soup mix.Instructions to attach to jar: To serve: Place ½ cupof mixture in amixing bowl and add 1 cup boiling water. Stir untilsmooth.

Snowman Kisses

SNOWMAN KISSES

(mini-marshmallows or other white candy)

Snowflakes from Heaven as white as can be!

Can build a Snowman for all to see!

He's cute and cuddly and full of good wishes!

And wants to give you a bunch of his kisses!

Psst...once again...I want to thank Dale Anne who sent these out in an e-mail and made it possible for me to share.

Smells of Christmas

SMELLS OF CHRISTMAS

(*It's a cute little idea that could be given to agreat friend during the Holidays. It could be given ina nice coffee mug or whatever you can think of*)

3 cinnamon sticks
3 bay leaves
2 orange slices
2 lemon slices
1/3 cup loves - whole

Combine ingredients in a mesh bag and tie with astring-not ribbon.
Place in a ziplock plastic bag, and put in fridge until ready to use.
Place 1 quart of water in a saucepan , and remove the mesh from the ziplock bag and place in the saucepan.
Add water as needed and heat on low.
If giving as a gift, dry the lemons and orangeslices first. Then put them in a pretty glass jar with ribbon tiedaround it.

Santa Kisses

#1

Santa's been busy

Granting our wishes

So he dropped off this bag

of Santa Kisses

#2

A bag of Hugs & Kisses

to wish you Merry Christmas

Make Your Own Treat

Make Your Own Treat

(*use frozen or dried cookie mix*)

Poinsettia's are red
Cookies are sweet
I've been really busy
So make your own treat!

Christmas Candy M&Ms (a nativity story)

Christmas Candy M&Ms

As you hold these candies
In your hand,
And turn them,
You will see.
The M becomes a W,
An E, and then a 3.
They tell the Christmas story,
It's one I'm sure you know.
It took place in a stable.
A long, long, time ago.
The E is for the East,
Where the star shone so bright.
The M is for the Manger,
Where Baby Jesus slept that night.
The 3 is for the Wise men,
Bearing gifts, they say they came.
W is for Worship, Hallelujah, Praise His Name.
So as you eat these candies,
Or share them with a friend.
Remember the meaning of Christmas,
It's a Love story that never ends.

by Pam Ridenour

I did a search and found her as a designer here.