Paint Chips

Yikes - it's been a while, right? It turns out, having two kids in diapers doesn 't leave much room for creative pursuits, much less blogging about them. But here I go. . .


This is a scrapbook page layout where I used some paint chips tucked into a faux-pocket behind my main picture to reinforce the green theme. (I love paint chips - don't you? I look at them whenever I'm in a home improvement store. And now, Disney has paint chips that are stickers shaped like the Mickey Mouse head in the color of the paint! So now I pick up paint chips for P - that girl is a sucker for stickers. Okay, fine - I am, too.)


These paint chips were left over from when I painted P's bedroom. Now that I'm writing about it, it seems kind of gross that I chose a green color for her room that is the same as the mushed-up baby food peas that she used to smear all over herself. Hmm.

I did another layout for a niece with the orange chips from Mr. Man's room. I never throw anything away. It's ridiculous.


Also, the "green" in the title is made out of Shrinky Dink plastic! I think it's available at Hobby Lobby - I found this stuff in my arts & crafts stash, which represents years and years of never throwing anything away. I used huge stencils, traced the letters with thick Sharpie, then baked them. (Nothing is more fun than baking Shrinky Dinks! I might be easily amused. . .) Then I painted the backs of them with green acrylic paint. (See how the 'g' is broken? Apparently, skinny parts don't bake well.)



In other news, I'm thinking about opening my shop back up on Etsy. I really miss it! I'm trying to figure out the logistics - how to do it so I can enjoy it and not get overwhelmed. Or, you know, neglect the children.

Dressin' Up My Dresser

P has my old dresser in her bedroom. I had it in my room for as long as I can remember - it makes me happy that my little girl is going to grow up with it, too.


For the longest time I've wanted to replace the square wooden handles with pretty girly ones. But I didn't want to spend any money on it. It's pretty hard to find free handles. Restoration Hardware's not giving them away. Neither is Anthropologie, or even Home Depot. I finally found some on Etsy - a set of 13 vintage white ceramic handles that had never been used before. (Thirteen? What an odd collection. . .) For less than $17, including shipping. So that's close enough to free for me. Here's the shop were I found the handles: Castleberry Antiques.

Aren't they cute? P helped me put them on. It's scary how good she is with a screwdriver. Thanks, Handy Manny.

Toy Story

I love looking back at pictures and noticing the everyday stuff - the background mess, the clothes. . . the stuff that I don't usually highlight in my scrapbooks. My favorite scrapbook pages usually end up being about the everyday stuff. Like my little girl's favorite toys from her first year.

For this page I took pictures of all her favorite toys against a white background (the toys were so bright - I didn't want a busy background, too) and numbered all the pictures. In the margin I put the number, then journaled anything important - who the toy is from, it's name, stuff like that.


And I'm terrible with titles, so when I do one I like, I make a big deal about it. I generally don't even put a title on my scrapbook pages; when I do, it's a song title, or movie title, or something like that. Words that aren't my own. I remember agonizing over the title of a Shakespeare report I had to write in high school. Titles traumatize me. I like this title of this page, "Toy Story," because it's a kids movie title that also describes this page, but also because it looks bold and simple. I got the idea to fill in one letter with monochromatic buttons from a scrapbooking magazine. I can't claim it. But I like the way it turned out!

So my resolution is to make more space in my scrapbooks for the everyday stuff, not just the holidays and vacations.

Mr. Man approves. :)