RaptorMama

I really should have an awesome December Daily post today. I didn’t have to work *and* Kate took a killer nap. I even have cute pictures. What’s my excuse? A friend of mine started a craft blog and I got sucked in last night. There I was at 1:30 (AM) addressing my Christmas cards when I came across UncraftyMommy. There was nothing to be done but to drop everything and make this wreath. I even roped my friend Libby into helping when she came over for a playdate this morning.

Mine is not nearly as cute as the original, but it gets the job done. I didn’t bother setting up a tutorial since UncraftyMommy did a great job on hers.

Only changes I made were to paint the clothes pins with acrylic paint and to use fewer clothes pins. Both were changes of necessity. The weather here is gross so spray paint was not an option. Also, I’m super impatient so waiting for a clear day just wasn’t going to happen. As for the number of clothes pins, I bought the last package at Joanne’s. To make up for the circumference, I put 3 pony beads in between each clothes pin instead of 1.

I wasn’t able to make it a perfect circle, but the wonkiness is much improved by the addition of some cards. Hopefully there will be some more December Daily content tomorrow!

Simple pages today. We went to Abby’s preschool sing-a-long program. I cut out a few more trees from the same old scrap of patterned paper.

On the back I cut out a piece from the program.

Kate and I made apple chips.  Yum.

Busy day so I’m keeping it simple.

I’m back!  The girls were very intent on their morning sticker project (thank you Target!) so I worked on December Daily at the kitchen island.  Nice to have some group craft time.  🙂  First up, day 10.

On Saturday, I didn’t take very many pictures at all.  Here’s one of Kate playing in the backyard while Michael worked on cleaning up.  Santa told us to clean up the backyard before Christmas; I wonder what he has planned?  🙂  Michael and I went out on a fabulous date, but I deliberately chose not to bring the camera.  Sometimes you just need to be present in the moment, know what I mean?  It was glorious.

Since day 10 uses a transparency as a base, I thought I would show you what it looked like with day 11 in place as well.  Have I mentioned that I love transparencies?  Just a few times?  lol.

Here’s the back of day 10.  Just a piece of patterned paper to cover the back of the photo and a small journaling block.  The journaling block has Christmas trees on the back that you can see through on the other side.  <3

And then onto day 11!  We went to see the Zilker Tree.  I miss the Trail of Lights, but Kate was amazed at the tree.  Her whole face lit up as we walked towards it.

I had a lot of fun playing with the bokeh.  I considered correcting the color in these shots, but I kind of like that Kate has the color from the lights reflected in her face.  Something different.  That and when I tried to correct the white balance, it looked all wonky.  Let’s just go with it being a deliberate choice, m’kay? Thanks.  🙂

Love these.  🙂

We also decorated gingerbread houses with Kate’s cousins, so I added another page to get in some more pictures.  These are just simple collages taped back to back.  I added a fabric tag for a little somethin’ somethin’.

And there you have it!

 

I took last night off from December Daily.  I just wasn’t feeling inspired, know what I mean?  I’m sure I’ll get caught up today or tomorrow.  🙂

Fun at Safari Champ.

We had a fun crafty playdate this morning, but sadly I took almost no pictures. Eh.

Another simple page as I had to work tonight. Added a bit of washi tape and some letter stickers and called it good. 🙂

We went shopping that evening and almost finished our Christmas shopping. Exciting! We also bought Kate the Little People nativity set and it was a huge hit. So glad we got it. After Kate went to bed, Michael and I started in on the wrapping while we watched Dexter.

This is another super simple page. I actually tried to use a little journaling sticker that I have from a million years ago, but the ink got all smudgy so I just wrote directly on the background paper.

I just realized that I forgot to ink the edges of these pages. Fear not, I shall do it tomorrow. On that note, I am somewhat shocked, but very happy, that I have managed to keep up this far! I’m 1/3 of the way through y’all!

We had a lot of fun on the 7th! First, Kate made this page for December Daily while I worked on day 6. I love having her do this project with me. 🙂

I just realized that this picture is sideways. Tilt your head a bit, okay? Thanks.

Here are some pictures of Kate doing stickers. I went ahead and put the number 7 on the back since I didn’t want to add anything to her page.

Then we made wrapping paper! It was so much fun. I just taped down some butcher paper and let Kate go to town with the paint. It made a huge mess, but at the end Kate turned to me with a huge smile and said, “Mama, I’m happy.”. ::melt::

I put the photos back to back with these pictures from us picking out our Christmas tree. There was some crap along the left side of the pictures, so I added some washi tape and some letter stickers. I think it turned out pretty cool.

This picture was my favorite.

And here’s the backside. I actually made this page on Sunday in preparation for whenever we got a tree. I cut strips of ribbon to make the tree and then stitched along the edges. I stitched another piece of paper to the back to hide the stitching. It was a lot of fun!

This is a huge long post and should probably have been done with the real camera/ my computer, but I’m tired so iPhone it is. 🙂 Michael and I pretty much finished our Christmas shopping tonight and we had a wrap-a-thon/ Dexter viewing tonight. Go us! 🙂

Kate decided that the baby du jour would be her octopus.  She even buckled in his little tentacles.  I thought that I might die from the cuteness.  🙂

I used some more washi tape.  I lurve it.  Seriously, it’s the bomb.

 

 

And here’s the back.  The girls took out the tubs and crawled inside the cabinet.  They thought it was *hilarious* and to be fair so did I.  

 

The littles decided not to nap this afternoon so today’s page is a little plain (and an iPhone photo). Don’t judge me. 🙂

I made 2 collages and adhered them to another transparency. I typed the journaling directly onto the photo before I printed it as an experiment. I have to say that I’m not thrilled with how it turned out, but I deliberately take risks with December Daily so I’m not too bothered by it. I added a rubbon number 5 and called it a day.