Pinspired Project: Index Card Calendar Journal

There are a couple of calendar journals floating around Pinterest right now.  The first I saw was made out of vintage postcards (as the dividers), index cards, and a fruit box to hold it all in and featured on Design*Sponge.  While I didn't pin this particular one because it wasn't really my style I found one pinned from Wit & Whistle that used a recipe card box filled with index cards and chipboard(?) dividers.  I pinned this one with the note "diy calendar journal. maybe for the new baby?"  Since Melodi's birthday was coming up I decided to get the supplies and start one for her to see how it goes.

I had seen the project but hadn't decided to do it when Hobby Lobby had stamps on sale and I came across a "Months Of The Year" set by Stampabilities that had each of the months and numbers 0-9 in a tin, so I picked it up thinking I would use it for something, someday.  We were out one evening so I popped into the Office Max and picked up a pack of 500 white index cards, 100(?) colored index cards (you know, the pastel ones), and a plastic blue index card holder.  I got 4x6 cards because I knew I would end up writing a lot.  So, I had everything I needed for under $20 (even less if you take out the stamps since those will be used for other stuff) and a week before Melodi's birthday.

I took one evening to get February done (speaking of which I need to think about March sooner than later).  First I sorted out the colored cards for dividers (blue for January, pink for February, green for March... you get the idea) and folded February's to "contain" the date cards for the month.

Then I counted out the cards for February (29 to account for leap years!) and stamped the numbers 1-29 with a pale pink chalk ink in the upper right corner. 

 

Finally, into the box it all the cards (400 white, 12 colored, folded divider template) went to wait for Melodi's birthday.

So, Melodi's birthday was about a week ago and I have written on the index cards each day since.  I am glad I chose the larger index cards because I am writing two lines a day.  It was time consuming to find the card I needed to write on so I put a little post-it note on the date card that needed to be written on next.  Eventually I will get around to getting and decorating a Paper Mache Recipe Box for each kid, maybe in "their" assigned color.

Between a couple days in the hospital in May to have the new baby and a month visit back home late this summer I have to come up with a plan to keep up with this calendar journal without hauling it all with me.  Currently my idea is to put the needed index cards in a ziploc bag, but as I write this I am thinking that an envelope for each child with all the envelopes in a ziploc might be better.

Eventually I hope to journal a line that the kids give me for their journal and when they get old enough they can write out their own sentences each day.  Unless of course I decide to be greedy with the project and do it all myself.

Melodi's Second Birthday Party

We hosted Melodi's birthday party yesterday.  My in-laws were able to make it to celebrate with us.  There was a huge influx of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle party ideas on Pinterest and I thought that would make an adorable party.  My Cricut was much less used this go-round than Melodi's party last year, but I still had a bunch of DIY elements.  Most of my ideas came from Pinterest pins to other blogs or etsy, there are even a few original pins made by me during my planning.

If you haven't read, or don't remember, the storyline the jest is a little caterpillar eats through a bunch of fruit during the week, a bunch of junk food on Saturday, a green leaf on Sunday, then enters its cocoon, and finally emerges as a beautiful butterfly.

INVITATIONS

Since we live in such a digital age I did my invitations by e-mail even though there were so many cute invitation options out there.  Publisher has a great e-mail feature that I learned about through my FIL who uses them for Lions Club e-mails when I was picking up a public affairs position in an national alumni organization.  As I was editing the picture I realized that I put 2011 on the invite instead of 2012... oops!

FOOD

We followed the storyline for the food, providing apples, pears, plums (prunes), strawberries, oranges, sausage, and swiss cheese (also cheddar).  I made little signs for the food using white cardstock and sharpies.  I did some searching (and therefor original pins to Pinterest) for DIY card holders and found a binder clip tutorial by www.got2stamp.com (even better, I had enough binder clips in the house already).

CAKE

There were so many ideas I had for the cake, and kept finding new ones on Pinterest or during my random trips for nothing important to JoAnns or Walmart.  I settled on cakepops (cupcakes weren't going to happen because last year was pure craziness trying to make a cupcake out of cupcakes).  The simple recipe to make cakepops is:

1. make a cake
2. crumble it up
3. add a little frosting and mix
4. mold into balls
5. chill overnight
6. dip in chocolate or candy
7. chill
8. serve

I used the Cake Pops recipe by Veronica's Cornucopia.

For the layout I had seen a caterpillar shaped line of cake pops on Cupcake Takes the Cake so we went with that as the starting point.  Mine was much longer and not double layered.

For the base we had a piece of scrap wood in the garage that I covered with wrapping papers for a "cakeboard" to which we taped some desert foam (floral foam that holds water) and connected the foam with toothpicks, then covered with Easter grass to "create a habitat."

DECORATIONS

The only decoration I did not related to the food or cake was a balloon caterpillar tacked to the wall.  We blew up some balloons, tied them to a long strand of fishing line, and tacked it up.  It ended up being short by 2 balloons so we individually tacked the last two up.  If I were to redo this project I would individually tack up each balloon to get a better shape.

PARTY FAVORS

When I decided on the theme for the party I looked up caterpillar party favors and found several barrette ideas, mostly on Etsy.  I chose to do this one but didn't do eyes or antenna.  Obviously you can't give a little boy a barrette, so we got some little wind up caterpillars from Party City (talk about blowing the party favor budget out of proportion).

BIRTHDAY GIRL OUTFIT

I asked my mom to embellish a shirt and make skirt for Melodi to wear for her party and she did a great job.  We found some Eric Carle fabric from an online quilt store to use.  I attached one of the caterpillar barrette party favors to a headband, but it didn't stay on Melodi's head very long.

THANK YOU CARDS

More about these when they're done...  Ok, so they're not done and in the mail, but they are created, four have been written, and the remainder will be written today.  Then it's off to the post office tomorrow!

The green cardstock is 4.25" x 5.5" and the white is 4" x 5.25".  I used a Fiskars pop-up round punch to punch circles to make the caterpillar, a Thank You stamp from my pile (it's actually the one I purchased for my wedding thank you notes), and a green chalk ink pad.  A basic black journaling pen was used for the eyes, antenna, and legs.

Daily Plan Update

So, my daily plan didn't work out quite how I wanted.  Too much stuff on the to do list so it didn't all get accomplished.  Good thing is that the house is clean now that my MIL has been here to visit, not deep cleaned, but clean.

I was working on organizing the refrigerator so that we could fit cakepops into it when I realized how nasty grimy the shelves were, so I got about half of them cleaned out.  That definitely wasn't on the to do list.

Now that the house is clean, the hope is to maintain for the next 2.5-3 months until baby is born.  With that goal one of the maintain schedules is bound to be a great starting point for me.

Daily Plan: Day One

So, this week is a big one.  I pick up my MIL from the airport (the one that's 1.5 hours away) tomorrow morning, my FIL on Thursday or Friday, host Melodi's 2nd birthday party on Saturday, and drop my in-laws off on Sunday.  On top of the visitors and party, we're potty training which means lots of trips to the potty each and every day.  The house is mostly picked up, but that doesn't mean it's ready for guests or a party.  I've been finding all of these how to declutter then maintain processes on Pinterest in the last month or so.  I definitely do not have a working system- heck I don't have a system at all.  A few of my favorites have been a "year round cleaning checklist" like the one by Tip Junkie for maintaining, the "2012 Declutter Calendar" from MySimplerLife, and "JustMommy's Home Organization Plan" which does both, but with an out of commission printer I haven't been able to put it in to practice with a revised for me system.  I am a list person, always have been, so last night after Melodi when to bed I took out a couple index cards and wrote a list for Monday (today's) tasks and one for party prep to get done over the course of the week.  We'll see how this system works for now, and figure out what needs to be done daily versus weekly versus in this home in a way that works for my family.  Here's my list for today.

Monday, 13 February
Tidy
Vaccuum
Laundry
Kitchen
Calls
Bathrooms (DH- pregnancy and chemicals do not mix and not my favorite as it is)
Dog Room (DH- just making him do it)

Melodi is up so my day is really starting now.

Proactive Scrapbook Organization

When we got the new camera in 2010 I started using Windows Live Photo Gallery to organize my photos.  I've been flagging the pictures that I want to print and post, and that has been working great!  Unfortunately I'm so far behind in Melodi's book I'm not sure when I'll be able to catch up.  The pictures are all printed through December which only leaves 6 or 7 weeks left to print for the album.  The pictures have even been sorted the album pages.  Now I have to go through and pick layouts and papers and do the journalling.  This is going to take a while, hopefully I can have it done by the time the baby gets here in May.

Now that I have been on Pinterest for a while, I have come across a blog (I'll have to go back and figure out which one it is) that had a great month by month scrapbook organization timeline.  Ideally, this is how it would work:

• First week of the month: upload, journal and edit photos, plan pages (basic) from the previous month
• Second week: print pictures, pick out papers and embellishments
• Third and fourth week: complete layouts, catch up on prior layouts

I use Walgreens to print my photos and wait for them to have a sale with photos under or at 10cents then print so that I can pick up on a Tuesday for the military discount.  This is where the timeline is going to get me because sometimes I have to order 50 prints to get the sale, which will leave me waiting until I have enough pictures to order.  So I started on this timeline and this is where I am with January:

• Pictures star rated (not flagged) for Melodi's book
• Pictures flagged for the family album
• Pictures edited to print (cropped to 2x2 and 3x3)
• Family journalling done in Word
• Melodi's journalling done by caption in Windows Live Photo Gallery