A Couple New Projects

Here are two of my recent projects. The first is my daughter, Lucy's fourth birthday invitation. Typically, in my family, we just pick up the phone and call with the date and time of the party. Keep it easy. Keep it simple. Unfortunately, with my creative side, I usually try to make my kids' invitations. I fear the day I run out of time and have to settle for the phone call! Jeff always says I make things too hard on myself, but I enjoy creating things so to me, it's worth every minute of it!




Here is the invitation for my sister-in-law, Tricia's, baby shower. This is probably one of the cutest things I have done in a while. She wanted a book shower, if you're not familiar with the concept, it's simple: instead of attaching a card to the gift, each guest is asked to sign a greeting in a book to help start a library for the baby-to-be. I opted to go with the book theme and created a book style invitation. I used the "Golden Books" as a guide for the binding and the top logo. I created the stork in a race car which matches the bedding set they chose for baby Zack. Inside were four pages, each with a different piece of information: who the shower was for and who was hosting; date, time and place; explanation of the book shower concept and finally, where the parents were registered. It was a pretty big hit! I'm excited at how well it turned out despite a small printing issue....

Lucy is turning FOUR!

I took her 4-Year pictures the other day. DISASTER! Holy cow! I am going to have to accept the fact that either, A. I am lacking the talent of photography or B. I am lacking the discipline of my children (what the hell, maybe both!). Either way, of the 50 shots I took, I got a total of four that actually look decent. Lucy apparently only has one "pose" mastered and anytime I tried to get her to do something different, it just wouldn't work! Ha!









I would be interested in hearing what everyone thinks of these pictures. Any suggestions or ideas.... or just your thoughts!

Clyde and the Car Tappers

We went to Springfield, MO for the New Year to visit family and celebrate birthdays. We discovered ourselves a little treasure while we were there and if you are in the neighborhood I highly recommend it. My niece, McKenna, and I have a standing "date" to go back the next time we're in Springfield. Here are a few of the best pictures I got in our two hour tour of the Wild Animal Safari.
Keep in mind a few things.

1. These animals are actually this close to us, my camera doesn't have super zoom.



2. Emu's do bite when you feed them. I don't know if they have teeth but I will tell you Emu bites do NOT tickle.



3. They do not have goats at this park... we like to refer to them as "car tappers". If you don't feed them fast enough, they will tap your car with their horns or hoofs to let you know.





Finally.... Meet Clyde.

4. When they tell you to watch for Clyde going after your food. He really will. He was eating food off the FLOOR of the car - we had half a camel IN THE CAR! I tried to hide the bag of food under my leg - - I didn't give him credit but Clyde was smarter than me and went after that too. He got a little nibble on my thigh!



Though, rude as he was, Clyde *made* the trip, who ever thought you could feed a camel in the middle of Missouri?

Slacker!

I have to apologize to my faithful readers, and thank them for sticking around as I have slacked off this past month! I know you still check on me because I have been told to "get on it, woman!" So here I am, I'm back and I will tell you, I have several updates for you in the coming weeks. I have everything from photographs to projects and I know you will enjoy them. Right now I will share with you a combination of both.

Every year for the past three years, I have put together calendars for our families for the holiday. Every year everyone anxiously awaits the calendars and every year they love them more than the last (that's what they tell me anyway!). I joked with my side this year as it keeps getting harder. We are up to SIX grandkids on my side with number SEVEN coming in March! Pretty soon each kid is going to get his or her own month in the annual calendar! Here are four of the months I have chosen to share.

Happy Birthday Dad!

One of the best gifts I gave this year was my dad's birthday gift. Jeff came up with the idea of ordering him a "custom" cover featuring his car on a magazine. It was a great idea, however, the custom covers you create through online companies are less than "custom".... well, not what I was imagining anyway! I decided I would create my own cover which could include multiple images, several headlines and more. It turned out amazing.... better than I could have hoped for. I got quite a reaction from my dad, in addition to alot of requests for copies. I have definately added a new piece of work to my portfolio!

Merry Christmas!

So Christmas is a mere 10 days away.... can you believe it! I have actually had little time to post anything exciting as I have been working on Christmas stuff which cannot be revealed until after Christmas - obvious reasons, of course! Hopefully the creations I have made will be well received! For now, I will share with you my Christmas cards I made. The design, I love: it's fun, it's bright, it's bold.... I got them back from the printer on Saturday and to much of my dismay, I am rather disappointed. I had pricey ideas this year and had a hard time finding a decent price for printing my cards. I finally found a place in Canada which was a fourth of the price I could find anywhere else. They aren't bad except for the skin coloring of the pictures on the front, apparently, Canadian printers believe the color of skin should be hot pink. I think next year, I'll find a different printer. For those of you who will get a printed copy of the card, you may be amused when you see the difference.... I suppose you are your own worst critic, maybe they aren't as horrific as I think. In any case, the holiday season is upon us and I wish you all a safe and happy Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

Thankful....

There is so much to be thankful for this year. Healthy family, stable jobs, unconditional love, and so much more. I thought this would be a nice time to introduce another reason for thanks, children. Children are such wonderful creations and everyday, I give thanks for my own. Here is another precious child from a good friend, Amy, and her husband, Chris. I'd like to introduce, Ruby....

Happy Birthday!

Today is my niece and nephews First Birthdays. No, they are not twins, however, they are referred to as the Birthday Twins by some in the family. They were born to my older brother and younger sister and their spouses only a matter of 7 hours apart. Join me in wishing Emmy and Sam a very happy FIRST BIRTHDAY!!

As promised, here are two brothers, Tyler and Jake. These two guys are tough. I had them hanging from trees, jumping off walls.... it was great! They are definitely "all boy". They even sported wife beaters for a few shots - keep in mind it was a pretty chilly morning, the rest of us were nice and warm in sweatshirts!











Thanks guys for being so willing to do anything, I had alot of fun! Maybe next time we can get more adventurous!

Coming Soon.... Brothers

I finished up one set of images last week and had a couple quick projects to get done before I could start the next set. Well, I am happy to announce, my "quick" projects are done (and will be showcased here in the near future) and I am on to the next set of images. These boys will be back on the blog within the week, hopefully by the weekend. But for now, enjoy the preview image.