Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Parker at 8 Months Old

Crawling position:
Parker at 8 Months Old | shirley shirley bo birley Blog

Downward dog:
Parker at 8 Months Old | shirley shirley bo birley Blog

Holding his own bottle:
Parker at 8 Months Old | shirley shirley bo birley Blog

Taking a nap during camping:
Parker at 8 Months Old | shirley shirley bo birley Blog

In the camping hammock during camping, although I don't remember if he was in the process of laughing or crying in this picture, because he did both in the hammock:
Parker at 8 Months Old | shirley shirley bo birley Blog

  • Started getting his two bottom teeth over Labor Day weekend.
  • Sort of crawls. It's more like army crawling, although he drags his left leg and crawls mostly with his right leg. He's getting faster at the sort-of crawling too.
  • Started weaning him and introducing formula.
  • He can hold his own bottles now.
  • It's cute how he frequently crosses his feet at the ankles when he is sitting in his carseat.
  • After Chinese school one Sunday, we stopped to have dinner at a restaurant. Parker had a huge, messy pooplosion. There was poop all over him and the carseat (blech) and in the process of cleaning him up, he was quite unhappy, so he ended up putting his foot in his poopy diaper. After getting him all cleaned up, I left him undiapered for a bit while I finished cleaning around him (things that he got poop on), and he proceeded to pee into the air. It made me laugh, the whole "when it rains it pours" thing.
  • Parker when on his first camping trip. We have bunk bed cots that we had Evie sleep on the top and Parker sleep on the bottom. The first night, Parker slept pretty well, but the next couple of nights after that, he kept waking up in the middle of the night, and it was hard to get him down to bed for the night. He wasn't used to not being confined to his crib, and kept wanting to crawl out, which I kept stopping him from doing because I didn't want him to fall out of the cot. One night, Greg put him to bed, and just let him have at it at bedtime, including letting him climb out of bed. Maybe I should've done that too and not be such a worrier.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Parker's Eight Month Photo

He was grabby with the blanket, but at least he stayed put long enough for me to take a few pictures . . .

Parker's Eight Month Photo | shirley shirley bo birley
Parker's Eight Month Photo | shirley shirley bo birley
Parker's Eight Month Photo | shirley shirley bo birley

Monday, October 19, 2015

Retro Sketches 186 and Stamping Smiles Designs Challenge

A quick card from the weekend, combining the most sketch from Retro Sketches, along with a tic-tac-toe challenge from Stamping Smiles Designs. I was originally thinking about combining the tic-tac-toe challenge with last week's Retro Sketch, but that sketch didn't click as much for me as this week's.

retrosketches #186
Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge + Design Team Call!

From the tic-tac-toe challenge, I chose to make a card following the far right column - thank you card, sparkles, and woodgrain.

Retro Sketches 186 and Stamping Smiles Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge | shirley shirley bo birley
Retro Sketches 186 and Stamping Smiles Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge | shirley shirley bo birley


SUPPLIES:

Paper: Staples 8.5 x 11 white cardstock
Embellishments: Pinkfresh Studio (acetate triangle, square gold sequins); mt (gold washi tape); Elle's Studio (pennant tag)
Stamps: Basic Grey sentiment
Tools: Darice (woodgrain embossing folder); Cuttlebug
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black ink
Other: local scrapbook store, Etc (doily)

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

You and Me Maternity Layout

I typically post completed projects as I go, but I felt like posting this one I made recently, even though I've got a few other layouts I made before this. I'm still working on scrapbooking all the family/maternity photos we took around this time last year (just in time for a new set of family pictures next month!), and this was one of those maternity pictures.

You and Me Maternity Layout | shirley shirley bo birley
You and Me Maternity Layout | shirley shirley bo birley
You and Me Maternity Layout | shirley shirley bo birley
You and Me Maternity Layout | shirley shirley bo birley

My style of late has gravitated towards collages of embellishments, and this layout fit that bill. I picked embellishments that went with the colors of our photo shoot outfits (gray, white, pool, pink). Since the focus of this particular photo was my baby bump, I added an arrow clip over the white space of the photo pointing at the belly - I like how the white clip pops out against the dark gray background. This layout - when I finished, I knew it'd be a recent favorite!

SUPPLIES:

Paper: Chic Tags
Embellishments: Chic Tags, Elle's Studio, Pinkfresh Studio, Evalicious
Tools: Sharpie pen

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Bitty Bag Recipe Binder

I have a little bit of a preoccupation (obsession seems like a strong word, no?) with mini binders. The kind that fit 5.5 x 8.5 paper. I even bought a 3-hole punch just for that size of paper. Maybe it's because anything "mini" is somehow cuter - schnauzers, ponies, babies . . . you know.

I'm not an avid cook or anything near that, and many times when we do cook, we look the recipes up on our phones. But still! That hasn't stopped me from wanting to re-organize our recipes. Right now, there are some in recipe cards in a box, some printed on regular printer paper, some torn out of magazines, and others still in an Excel spreadsheet. I wanted to, for the things that we most commonly make, consolidate the recipes into a mini binder, and I decided to use laminated Bigger Bitty Bags to divide up categories of recipes.

The recipe binder turned out just how I was envisioning in my mind (maybe better?) with the laminating of Bitty Bags and all - holla! We all know that sometimes projects that sound/look really good in concept don't live up to the vision.

Bitty Bag Recipe Binder | shirley shirley bo birley Blog
Bitty Bag Recipe Binder | shirley shirley bo birley Blog
Bitty Bag Recipe Binder | shirley shirley bo birley Blog
Bitty Bag Recipe Binder | shirley shirley bo birley Blog
Bitty Bag Recipe Binder | shirley shirley bo birley Blog

INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. Trim Bigger Bitty Bag down to fit 5.5 x 8.5 binder. In my case, I chose to trim the width to 5.75 inches and the height to 8.625 inches. I trimmed down the left and top sides.
  2. Trim 8.5 x 11 laminating pouch down to fit Bitty Bag, with a small border to spare. In my case, I kept the laminating pouch at 9 inches wide and trimmed the long edge down to 6.25 inches.
  3. Stamp recipe categories onto Sweet Sticky Labels. Adhere to Bitty Bag.
  4. Run the Bitty Bag with label through the laminating machine.
  5. Trim off excess lamination. Trim the top down to the edge of the Bitty Bag. This creates a pocket where you can tuck in collected recipes (dual purpose divider and pocket!). Punch hole with 3-hold punch sized for 5.5 x 8.5 binder.
  6. For the front cover insert, I followed the same steps, except I only laminated one side of the Bitty Bag (no pocket).
  7. Print out recipes two to a page (you can select how many pages to print on a sheet from the Print Preview screen). In my case, I opted to create a standard format in Word for the recipes I wanted to include (mostly things that we have made before that we will make again).
See this project on the Whisker Graphics blog here: Bitty Bag Recipe Binder

SUPPLIES:

Paper: Whisker Graphics Diagonal Striped Bigger Bitty Bags
Embellishments: Whisker Graphics Sweet Sticky Labels
Stamps: Elle's Studio Cameron alphabet stamp set
Tools: Laminating machine and pouches
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black ink

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