Insane Goals: March Update

I found the idea of an "Insane Goals" list on Simply Rebekah and decided to join in the fun.  This is the first post that I will ever be participating in a "link-up" with.  Check out the progress that others are making in their insane goals at the Simply Rebekah's March Update.

Accomplishments

1. Food & Supply Preparations
• Both freezers have been purged and organized.  They are now ready for freezer meals to fill them.
• I got my lists made for what meals I want to have in the freezer/pantry.  The grocery list is done for both my freezer meal cooking day and for a trip to the grocery store when we get back from the hospital. 
2. Baby Themed Goals 
• Thank You Cards.  While I would love to make some really adorable thank you card it's not going to happen.  This is a downside to not finding out if we're having a boy or a girl.  I have a starting stash of 22 or 23 cards to use for initial thank you cards.  Depending on if I need more and when that time occurs I will either buy some or make some based on how I am feeling at that time.  I did pull out the cards, and have them stashed in a pencil box with a pen, return labels, and stamps.  As I wrote this I threw in my main mailing list, and a couple blank index cards to track the gifts and thank you notes.  I'll keep the box somewhere it can be easily grabbed when I have time to write some notes. 
• I also have my lists printed for my before baby shopping list and to do list.
3. Melodi Themed Goals
• Hubby got Melodi's dresser stained and installed in her room.  He even put baby proof latches on the drawers and screwed it into the studs.  Melodi's clothing is now in her dresser and the changing table dresser is basically empty.
• After dinner one night I took the time to go through all the kiddo cups and snack traps to get some organizing done.  I got rid of all the lids that didn't have matching straw/valve pieces, but we will be keeping the cups for water/rice/bean table play
• I have completed some Busy Bags for Melodi to play with while I nurse baby.  Three felt board themes are done, but I still need to finish the actual felt board.  There were a few grab, bag, and done projects that I bagged (flash cards x4 sets, stringing pony beads on pipe cleaner, and color sort pompoms on cardstock flashcards).  I also have felt fish cut out for a fishing game and patterned butterflies cut for a file folder matching game that I need to finish up. 
4. Labor & Delivery Goals
• I picked up a new book to read, Homebirth in the Hospital.  It's not quite what I was expecting, but a good read with good insights.  The other books that I own and want to read or review are currently misplaced.  Oops.
5. Crafting Goals
• A set of 10 cards is done for Mothers Day and some of the birthdays.  I used the One Sheet Wonder method which made them easy to power through.
6. Blog!  
• I have decided to maintain a single blog instead of three.  This came about through some of my pinning and looking at the blogs that pins were coming from.  The "Labels" functions have helped me figure it out.  Since I only have one blog the tweeks that will continue to be made should be easier and can be done as time allows.  
• I would love to have a custom blog header and background, that just isn't going to happen right now.  However I did get a signature line figured out after way too much time spent on it.  I also made a header and button (need to figure out the button HTML stuff).
• I like putzing so I doubt that my blog will ever be 100% set up the way I want it.
7. The boxes are gone!  
• Salvation Army just picked up my pile of boxes that needed to just disappear.  When we moved into this house in November 2009 part of the unpacking process was setting a lot of stuff out that we really didn't need anymore. In April 2011 we had a garage sale and the stuff just got piled back into the garage.  It's finally all gone!

Disappointment

1. Baby Prep
• This really should be my primary focus, but I've invited my MIL to come visit so that we can spend a couple days really focusing on baby prep.  Everything else is taking priority until she can make it out in a couple weeks.
2. Other Projects.
• So I have this list that really does NEED to get completed before baby comes for the most part.  Sure if some of it ends up sliding then that's what happens.  But I keep deciding to do other projects with finite deadlines that were never in my scope of things to do before baby got here.  Not that these aren't good things to accomplish, but they weren't on the list which takes away from getting the things on the list done.
• Registered Melodi for Jr. Preschool starting in September!
• Had Easter pictures of Melodi taken.  Decorated hat and basket.  Got cards designed, but need to get them ordered.
• Participated in a Baby Die Cut swap on the Cricut board.  I'm almost done with all the cuts.  Need to do some teddy bears and finish the baby girl shoes.

INSANE GOALS

Food & Supply Preparations

• Purge & organize freezer
• Purge & organize deep freezer
• Purge & organize pantry
• Create freezer/pantry meal list for approximately 2 weeks worth of dinners
• Fill freezer/pantry with dinners
• Create shopping list for 2 weeks worth of food (take a single trip after return from hospital)
• Create a small stockpile of bath products

Baby Themed Goals

• Decide if we will make a changing station in our room
• Pull out and clean bedding
• Pull out and clean gender neutral clothes
• Pull out and clean diapers
• Clean bouncer
• Clean baby toys
• Clean and install carseat
• Set up crib
• Set up bassinet
• Decide whether to make or buy thank you cards, or use leftovers from Melodi
• Decide where to store baby toys
• Determine what needs purchased for baby
• Make necessary purchases
  

Melodi Themed Goals

• New bed installed (purchased)
• New dresser installed
• Clothing moved from changing table to new dresser
• Find a way to keep stuffed animals organized
• Reorganize cups in kitchen
• Update Publisher baby book
• Finish second year album
• Make “busy bags”

Labor & Delivery Goals

• Reread Birthing from Within
• Review Spiritual Midwifery
• Pack hospital bags
• Pack Melodi’s bag

Crafting Goals

• Complete hanging blanket for Kaden
• Stockpile cards through August
• Birthdays (7?)
• Mother’s Day (5) -- (DONE with the exception of stamping/writing/addressing)
• Father’s Day (5)

Blogging Goals

• Finalize blog layout and copy to all blogs
• Reevaluate having the teacher blog at this point in time
• Write twice weekly on each blog

House Goals

• Decide on carpet (clean or replace)
• Get slab jacked up
• Get the garden started
• Get rid of last year’s left over garage sale stuff
• Spring cleaning!

Stay tuned for another check-in come the first week of May, unless baby decides to arrive early!

Felt Board Busy Bags

Yesterday I got three busy bag felt board sets done.  While the felt board isn't made yet the labor of cutting pieces is (mostly).  I decided to make a cupcake, tree and doll set.

While I started with a list I definitely didn't stick to it when I got to the store.  I ended up with a large (12x18) and a small (9x12) stiffer white felt which I plan to attach to something to use as the board.  This is more than half (15) of my pile of felt (24) so I bought too much felt since I have a lot of usable scraps left to finish up other busy bags.  Since I was making some dolls I decided to get some printed felt also (3).

 
Here are my cupcakes.  I used this pattern from Money Saving Mom.  The only pieces left to make for this bag are the toppings for the cupcakes.  I skipped making them because I want to use the scraps but started with this set.

I designed this tree in Publisher.  Get the file below!

For the dolls I used the Dress Up Dolls pattern from Little Gene Green Bean.  I created the dress by pinning the tank top and skirt next to each other and cutting it out as a single piece.  The hair was made by drawing around the head on a piece of paper to make a template.  I still plan to make shoes since they are Melodi's favorite.

As promised, here is the tree template.  VIEW PDF

It was a busy but productive day.  Hubby finished up Melodi's new dresser and watched Melodi while doing it.  Definitely nice to have a crafty day while not having to watch Melodi.  I was also able to get some pictures done and backdated posts finished up.

Watermark Take Two

I have been playing around with FotoFlexer lately, as you can tell since I have a blog header and a signature line now.  Just now I realized that I have been over looking using the layers feature to create a watermark once, save it to my computer, then adding it to a picture as another layer.  It was a quick process, so now I also have a watermark figured out.  This is my original attempt at a watermark.

Here is the watermark that I have saved as an image with a transparent background.

All I have to do is load my picture into FotoFlexer, edit it as desired, then in the layers tab select Add Images, find my watermark, load it in, position, and save.  No more going through the steps of inserting the sticker, changing the color, typing the text, selecting the font, and so on.  Tried doing this for real and it doesn't work.  My picture gets all wonky and cropped in half.  I'll have to mess around with it more.  So, for now I'm just using Publisher to upload the picture and watermark then group the two together and save as picture.

Adding a Signature

There are a whole bunch of blogs that have a signature line after each post that they write.  I would like to have a really cute one with some 3D looking digital scrapbooking element, but this will do for now.  This is the tutorial that I used to create my signature, but I used FotoFlexer to make it.  The butterfly sticker from the FotoFlexer collection.  I got hung up on where to get the HTML coding for the image so I'm going to share my steps on how to do that.  Looking back at the tutorial I found that it said to "upload the image to an image hosting website such as photobucket.com" but I don't use one so I will share my steps anyways.

1. Open a new page in your blog
2. Insert the picture file from your computer
3. Select the HTML button (if you use blogger it's in the upper left, next to compose)
4. Now you have the HTML code!
5. If you want your signature on the left margin as opposed to centered you will need to edit the code.
• The code likely reads <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
• Change it to read <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">

So I got this far and realized that there is a nasty border and shadow around my signature so I found this tutorial on getting rid of it.  This tutorial will walk you through everything you need to do to get a signature line on your blog posts.  Now that I've removed the shadow my signature is in a white box whereas my background is light blue.  I had this really cute "sparkling" butterfly which seems to be causing the issue with transparency coming from FotoFlexer so I reverted to a simple sticker without the sparkle.  But I wanted to show you the sparkle anyways.

This is inserted as an image instead of the cool signature line deal so it's a real mess.  But isn't the sparkle so AWESOME!

The story behind butterflies and me goes back to planning our wedding.  I feel like a lot of "themes" are over done (no offense if you used any of the themes I dis, it just wasn't right for us), and didn't want to have an event theme but needed something to tie things together a little bit more than just "blue."  Doves didn't work, we didn't have "a place" like the beach, or any of the other wedding themes that were floating around in 2007.  Ever since we had a "blue butterfly" wedding we have been receiving blue butterflies for decoration, household goods, etc.  I've even bought some of it, but I was never really "into" butterflies and I'm still not, but it's a symbol that has stuck.

This project turned out to take a lot longer than I had hoped/expected and now that's after 1am it is time to call it a night.  I may be back tomorrow to edit this craziness a little bit and delete all the draft posts that have been created in the process of figuring out how to add a signature to my posts.  

Easter Photo Props

Since we didn't do Christmas photos in 2011 or get birthday photos done in February, we decided to go to an Easter Mini Session hosted by Danette Kay Photography to catch up.  This means I'm completely ready for Easter, as far as Melodi's outfit goes with a dress, decorated basket, and hat.

My first instinct when looking at buying clothes for Melodi online is to go to JCPenney's website because I'm partial to Penney's.  Of course the one I liked was only available online and I didn't have time to have it shipped.  My next thought was about a gift card I had in my purse for Sears.  I will definitely have to start shopping at Sears more for cute dresses because they had a lot to choose from.  Since I had found an idea I liked at Penney's I went into Sears looking for the same design and had a few choices that were similar to the dress I found at Penney's.

JCPenney Dress

Sears Dress

This is the first Easter (even though it's her third) that Melodi is walking by herself so she gets a real Easter basket.  I wanted to find a plain basket that would be easy to decorate each year to match her outfit.  Target had the basket in several colors so I decided on a white one over the brown one.  I wove two layers of fuchsia tulle that I had on hand and two ribbons (one solid green, the other pink with white pokadots) through the weave of the basket and finished it off with a bow.

Recognize the grass?  It's from the Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Party we had for Melodi in February!  I love having supplies on hand to make a project more cost efficient.  We did put some eggs in the basket for the photo shoot, and we're lucky to have found some in the "right" colors.  I went to JoAnns, Target, and Walmart in order to find eggs that would work, I probably could have stayed closer to home by going to Hobby Lobby but it was Sunday so they were closed.

For Melodi's hat I had one of those crocheted hats on hand that was the right color to match her dress.  I based my design off a Lollitop that Melodi received from a friend at Easter last year.  This was another project that I had just about everything that I needed on hand.  The only thing I had to buy was dowels to make the curly ribbon and thicker white ribbon to weave through the hat, I didn't even have to buy starch since hubby spray starches his blues shirts.  The bow (directions below, sorry no step by step pictures) is a removable hair clip that can be used on the hat, on a headband, or in Melodi's hair.

I had a blast doing these projects and it is always nice having a hubby that support my crazy crafting crazes.

Steph's Curly Bow Directions
Materials

Ribbons
Dowels
Clothes pins
Spray starch
Alligator clip
Hot glue
Needle and thread

Steps

1. Wrap dowels with ribbon and secure each end with a clothes pin.  Do not overlap the ribbon.
2. Spray starch on each ribbon wrapped dowel.  Place on a foil lined baking sheet.
3. Bake at 275 degrees F for 25 minutes.  Let cool and remove from dowel.
• While baking the ribbon cover the alligator clip with ribbon using hot glue.
4. Trim ends at an angle since they didn't get sprayed with starch.
5. Cut ribbon into smaller sections, 3-4 inches each.
6. Stack ribbon holding the centers together.
7. Put a small stitch into the center and secure.
8. Hot glue the bow onto the covered alligator clip.

Sources
Adapted from several pins and web search directions.  Some starch and bake, others just bake, and of course there is little consistency with baking temperatures or times.

• Glorious Treats
• Notes from the Patch  

There is one more (from a general how to site) that I remember looking at but I can't find right now, and it's time for bed, so goodnight and I will try to find it tomorrow.