We Love You Mini Album

Hello! I'm excited to be bringing you my post for Paper House and Xyron's Family blog hop. Make sure to head on over to Paper House's blog, Facebook page to enter to win some great prizes from both manufacturers! My project is a We Love You mini album.

My sweet 2 year old niece lives far away from us, so I thought it would be fun to create a mini album full of pictures of our family with her (we just got back from visiting her), telling her the ways we love her.

I used a mix of Paper House One Big Happy Family and Hello Baby Girl to create the pages for my album.

I ran the photos and journaling tags through Xyron's 3" Sticker maker before adding them to my pages.

To keep this book kid friendly, I used only flat sticker embellishments from Paper House like the Embrace Today Labels, Family Planner Stickers, Beach Clear Stickers, Live Bold Planner Stickers, Bohemian Friends Clear Stickers, Embrace Today Planner Stickers, and Our Wedding Clear Stickers.

To make this a book my niece can actually flip through again and again without damage, I used Xyron's Creative Station to laminate the pages.

Finally, I spiral bound the whole thing with We R Memory Keepers Cinch.

I love that paper crafting projects can bring us closer together even though we may live far apart! This We Love You mini album is certainly one of those projects that can bridge the miles.

I wrote this post while working on the Paper House Design Team.
I received products from Xyron to create projects for this post.

Come, Let Us Adore Him!

I love Christmas, and I love decorating for Christmas. I really enjoy making pieces that keep the focus on where it needs to be this time of year. Today I'd like to share a home decor piece that I just finished.  Here's my Come, Let Us Adore Him! decor:

I started with Jillibean Soup's Mix the Media 10 x 10 wood plank. Truthfully, I didn't know what I was going to do with it when I bought it, but I came up with this idea really quickly!

I started by cutting the nativity scene from Bo Bunny's Double Dot paper with my Silhouette Cameo.  The cutting was easy, deciding how to adhere my paper to the wood was the tough part. I'm not a big fan of liquid glue. I tend to have issues with the paper warping or wrinkling, even if I use a really thin layer. I finally settled on running the paper through my Xyron Creative Station. So far, it's holding really well, and using the 5" creative station to add adhesive to the back of the paper went really, really quick!

I created the words from a font that I could weld together in the Silhouette software.  I didn't want to have to place each and every letter separately, so finding a font that looked good welded was a must for this project. After adding the papercut outs to the wood, I decided it needed just a little something more, so I sponged on a few stars with a stencil and some white ink (white paint would have worked well, too). 

Thanks for stopping by!

Easter Story Jelly Beans

A few years ago we planted magic jelly beans for Easter.  My boys were asking if we could do it again, but this year I decided to put a bit more focus on the reason for Easter, then just a fun activity. This year we're changing how we do it a bit and calling them Easter Story Jelly Beans.

They're still pretty magical, but instead of a special treat (in our case some crazy fun suckers) springing up over night, this year we will be planting a few jelly beans on Good Friday.  It will be a good time to talk (again) about what Good Friday means, and how Jesus died and was buried (I always find that my boys retain things more if their hands are busy while their ears are listening). We will then have to wait all the way until Easter morning to see what grows from them. Another great time to talk about how Jesus' followers must have felt waiting for the very first Easter morning. 

There's a fun little religious poem/prayer saying what each of the colors of the jellybeans stand for.  I decided to print it out on tags.  I laminated them with my Xyron Creative Station, because my boys are really into bookmarks right now, and I thought they would make fun bookmarks after they open their jellybean bags. 
Speaking of the bags. They are Pebbles Inc.'s Special Delivery Printed bags.  I cut a little peek-a-boo window and embellished them with paper from Pebbles Inc.'s Garden Party.