January 31st, 2012
I’m having a blast at CHA and I’ve even been wearing my flats so my feet are doing okay too. I’ve taken tons of pictures and seen lots of cute cute stuff, so here is a compilation of some of my favorites…
I always love Crate Paper, and Lisa (the owner) is just such an awesome lady. The two new lines this show have got to be some of my absolute FAVORITE of anything Crate Paper has ever done. Just love the colors and style:
I’m not normally into the Pebbles style, but I just LOVED this cute display
I also loved the new October Afternoon lines. The cute secretary paper is to die for!
I seriously fell in love with this adorable line from Websters Pages. I’m not sure what it’s called, but it’s kind of a storybook/fairytale line and the colors are so gorgeous, it’s definitely one to see in person.
And for all you party-throwing ladies, Clearbags.com has the cutest little boxes that fit gumballs. I’m so excited to create some cute party favors for my next party!
Jillibean soup had some super cute lines including an adorable typewriter paper. I loved this cake that they made:
I also liked the styling of the new Heidi Swapp stuff, and her booth was really cute too.
She had two of these cases and the contents and wording changed each day!
I have so many other pics, so I’ll post more when I get a chance. Tomorrow is a travel day so It might take a day or two.
January 30th, 2012
Hey Everyone! I’m at CHA having fun but missing my little guy and of course Mr. Project too. Saturday was set-up and these are pictures from set-up day. My new line is Miss Caroline and it has 4 different color sets:
Dolled Up
Dilly Dally
Howdy Doody
Fiddlesticks
There are lots of cute accessories including these cute button & pin cards, twine, stamps, brads, pearls, and even rub-ons which look amazing rubbed-on to wood background paper! I’ll just have to make some layouts or cards to show you!
here is the booth set up. The little flags and paper chandelier are made with Rhonna Farrer’s new “follow your heart” line. Which I don’t have a picture of, but I’ll get one today.
Miss Caroline paper is mod podged on that suitcase! And the lunchbox! Plus a smattering of layered stickers made a fast and easy altered project. 
And there is this cute antique type-writer that is adorable and best of all it’s “The Oliver Typewriter Co.” I am seriously going to take it when MME is done using it!
I have tons more pictures from my favorite booths, and I’ll take more of the other MME releases today. What are you wanting to see at CHA? And who are you wanting to meet? Yestereday I met Elizabeth Kartchner, Noell Hyman, Kelly Purkey, Paige Evans, Margie Aslett-Romney, and the adorable Teresa Collins.
January 30th, 2012
Last summer, I had a client (I was a real estate agent in my pre-mommy life) with three kids under the age of six. Their family of five was living in a 1,200-sqare-foot condo, and although the quarters seemed tight, their household worked like a well-oiled machine. Every drawer had a label; every task had a responsible party. There were dry-erase and magnet boards all over the place detailing dinners for the next month and which child was in charge of things as simple as saying a prayer before dinner.
I snapped photos of their dry-erase boards during an open house and sent them to my husband with “LOL” as the message. Little did I know that I would be implementing some of the same systems a year later! (Mommyhood has a way of doing that to you!)
So when I recently discovered The Project Girl’s free downloadable menu planner and grocery list forms (via Violet Lulu – thank you!), I was ecstatic. I’ve been struggling with keeping our pantry stocked and our refrigerator full (without filling the compost with wasted produce I never got around to using), and I love finding ways to save money and be more efficient. Plus, the forms are super cute and look great printed and posted on the fridge (or in a binder!).
But…I wanted to take it a step further. A couple steps further, actually.
You’ve heard of the capsule wardrobe, right? Well, I’ve created a capsule menu planner. First, I took The Project Girl’s free downloadable menu planning forms and made them editable using Adobe Acrobat Reader. Now, I don’t have to print them out to fill in the blanks. I can simply work on my plans using the computer and print them when I’m done. The beauty of this system is that I can save them as PDFs and re-use them later by updating the dates and needed grocery items. (The Project Girl’s free downloadable menu planning forms are at the end of the post.)
But wait…it gets better. I took my haphazardly organized (if organized at all) recipe binder and organized it into a capsule menu planner.
First, I gave it a cute cover. I mean, what’s the point of doing something if it’s not cute?!
Next, I put my menu plan for this week into a sheet protector and inserted it into the front of the binder. I use the one that has dinners only on it (version two at the end of this post) since my husband and I do breakfast and lunch separately (usually leftovers or sandwiches).
Here’s a detail view of my menu planner for the week:
After the menu planner page, I moved all my recipes for the week to the front of the binder right after the menu plan. That way, I don’t have to go looking for them each day. (There’s another great reason for this that I’ll share in my follow-up post!)
I also added a sheet protector to hold coupons. On my menu planner page, I put a (c) next to the grocery items for which I want a reminder that I have a coupon. (Now, if only my daughter would stop squealing and distracting me at the checkout like she did today – therefore totally making me forget to use my coupons! Grrrrr…)
When you head to the grocery store, you can either take your own binder or just pull out the menu planner page and your coupons. I took my whole binder today, but my little girl kept throwing it on the ground. Next time, I’ll just stick my list in my pocket!
You could even add tabs for different types of dishes and to keep your current dishes (the ones you’ve picked for the week) in front of your binder. I like to put desserts and staple items like bread (I bake my sandwich bread fresh every two weeks) at the end of my binder.
The whole process of planning my menu for this week took about half an hour, but the awesome thing is that I can recycle this menu plan in future weeks. All I’ll have to do is re-open the PDF on my computer and edit the grocery list based on what I already have in my pantry/fridge at that time. Just be sure to save your PDFs in a certain folder on your computer, and use filenames that will be easy to connect to your printed menu (like the date of the menu).
OH, did I mention that this system saves me money? And not just from using the coupons (or forgetting to use them like I did today). That’s right – instead of wandering the aisles aimlessly, buying too many perishables, making impulse shopping decisions and/or buying duplicate items that I already have in my pantry, I got only exactly what I needed and could use within the week. My final bill was about 25% less than my normal amount for one week.
Sound awesome? I know, right?! You can download your editable forms by clicking on the images below. Version one includes spaces for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Version two, the one I use, just has a “meals” section which I use for dinners only.
So there you have it – a fun and easy way to get yourself more organized every week. Are you loving it? Yes?! Great – because I have another great way to make meal preparation super easy and quick. (But you don’t have to sacrifice making gourmet, restaurant-quality meals for your family). Sound awesome? Check out my follow up post on ruthie pearl – Be Your Own Sous Chef. Be sure to say hello when you stop by! 
How do YOU plan to use The Project Girl’s free downloadable menu planning forms?
January 27th, 2012
So I haven’t really posted recently. I have been under this little cloud called “unmotivated” and every time I thought about doing a blog post I would get really discouraged and I would think of all the posts that I have just waiting to be written and get overwhelmed and then I would just hang out on facebook and watch something mindless on TV. Anyone else ever have weeks like that?
So this morning I had a lightbulb moment… I don’t have to do any of those lined-up blog posts, I can post whatever I want! Yeah simple I know, but sometimes it’s hard to get there. So in the shower I had a fun idea for a post: things that I’ve been thinking about lately.
1. Politics
We’ve been talking about politics, watching every (stupid) debate, discussing back and forth our issues with each candidate, and generally groaning about how crazy people are. I really like Mitt Romney, he’s handsome (hey we have to look at the guy a lot!), and hard working, is an honorable human being, and a lot of his ideals fit into my moderate perspective. Newt on the other hand I want to poke my eyes out every time I see him, and he has an ego the size of… well bigger than Texas (been there, done that). I actually like the sitting president though I feel his hands have been tied on so many things both by congress and his inexperience, as well as his desire to make everyone happy. If it were between Newt and Obama I would surely vote for Obama, but for now I’ll keep dreaming and hoping that Romney gets the bid.
2. Oliver and playdates
I’m always obsessed with my little guy, he’s the BEST! He started walking a few days after Christmas (at 9 months!) and is pretty good at it now. We also started play dates – I actually had 2 this week which is crazy! I have found that he loves to poke other babies in the eyes, and he loves swings. It was a great week! There was also a huge sale at Baby Gap, and I got him a ton of cute new clothes which was sorely needed since he decided to GROW out of pretty much everything else we had. So now he’s in between his old jammies making him look like a stuffed sausage and his new jammies which bunch up on his feet when he walks around. He had his 10 month dr. visit and he’s 21lbs and 30″ tall. that’s 50th percentile weight and 75th percentile height. What a big kiddo!
3. CHA
layouts by Amber Packer
I’m on my way to CHA in the morning. For those not in “the know” it’s the Craft and Hobby Association trade show. My new scrapbooking line (that I haven’t talked about here yet) Miss Caroline is debuting and so I’m going to go and have some fun and see some folks I haven’t seen in awhile and generally just get some inspiration and time away from home (I’m sure I’ll miss Ollie like crazy). I am PLANNING on doing some good blog updates while at CHA so if you’re into that type of thing visit often!
4. Blog Re-design
Up until this point in blog-dom I have had Mr. Project do the majority of the programming of my blog, but I wanted a few specialty things so we’ve turned it over to a good friend who is also an awesome programmer. We are going full-speed ahead on a new look for the blog, and more important better functionality via search and tags etc. Hopefully that will be up sometime in March. I need to get it in gear as far as working on all the new graphics etc.
5. Young Women’s
I just got called in our ward as the Personal Progress Leader. Or something like that. I’m basically in charge of keeping track of and motivating the young women in the ward to keep up with their Personal Progress Program. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything YW related so this should be very interesting. I’m super excited in some ways, and completely terrified in others. But I’m mostly happy to be able to use some of my talents. For me that is so important when I accept a church calling.
6. Pinterest
Who is NOT obsessed with pinterest?
7. Decorating
I spent some time and money getting some empty parts of the house filled thanks in part to these awesome (and cheap) lamps at target. Now to take pictures…
8. iPhone 4S Camera
It takes awesome pictures and I always have it on me which allows me to get quick shots of Ollie and his daddy. ALL of my January pics have been taken with it, which means that I really need to dust off the SLR. It also means that I’ve gotten a lot of cute video too. Love my phone!
January 25th, 2012
Don’t mind me, but you will be seeing some Christmas in this post.
One of my Christmas presents was a little organizer, typically intended for use in a shop or garage.
But my mom had a grand idea. She thought it would be great for me to store some of my crafting ‘stuff’ in it.
And she’s right!
Check it out.
Space galore!
I liked it and all. Great storage for buttons/brads/clips/etc.
But….. it still seened too shop/garagish for me.
So I jazzed it up using some of Jen’s fabulous fabrics.
I believe the fabric I selected is from the Lost & Found line.
Really, making over this organizer was easy!
I cut a strip of material so it would would fit around 3 sides of the organizer.
I then applied Mod Podge to the organizer. {1 side at a time until it was dry}
After I got the material attached to the 3 sides, I tried to trim any loose threads.
In the end, I decided to add more Mod Podge to the edges to make sure it won’t fray.
Had I thought ahead, I would have used some stitch-witch and folded the rough ends under.
Mental note for next time!
Just wait!
I have one more craft involving this material.
How about a custom mouse pad?
Yup. I made one of these for myself for the office, as well as one for my mom.
You can find the original idea for this HERE, via Pinterest….of course!
What fun crafts or projects have you done where you use material in a way that isn’t typical?
