December Daily 2010

As the end of the year is fast approaching, I've decided to once again participate in Ali Edward's December Daily project . December is probably my favorite month of the year, and this year in particular will be a momentous one for our family, since I am due on the 25th with our second child. I know that I'll want to have all the memories leading up to the birth documented, as well as that first week or so after he's born. While it will be an extremely busy and hectic time, making it hard to complete the album, it will be so worth it if I actually do finish it.

I have started working on the foundation pages for the album, but haven't finished them completely yet. I have about 7 days missing, but I'm not sure if I'll actually add anything in prior to December for those missing pages, since I know I'll probably do a few all digital pages, which will take up those slots. I also haven't put numbers on any of the pages, since I know these will change once I get into completing the book. For that reason, I'm not going to photograph the inner pages right now. They're very basic and not interesting enough to warrant all the time to photograph and add them to the post. They'll be very similar to last year's album ... a mix of transparent sheets, envelopes, patterned paper and baseball card sheets etc.

I did take a picture of the front cover though:
I'm using two sheets of an acrylic album as my front and back cover. Under this is an 8x8 piece of Bazzill glazed cardstock , which has tone on tone white polka dots (you can see these a little better in the picture below). I stamped "december" and "20ten" with versamark ink and then heat embossed them in red (stamps are from Technique Tuesday, Ali Edward's December Daily set ). Then I added the "2" and "5" chipboard numbers, which I painted in red first, then added Glossy Accents and Martha Stewart clear microbeads on top of that. The canvas star is from Jillibean Soup, and I think the "days" stickers are from Making Memories.

This is a little closeup of the "25" so you can see the clear microbeads. They add some fun texture to the numbers, and I like the way they turned out.

So anyway, that's my front cover. I'm hoping to keep up with the album as much as possible during the month and post the completed pages, just like I did last year. I guess it all depends on when this baby decides to join us, and how chaotic life turns out to be once he's here!

Cupcake Pops

Abe turned 35 over the weekend. I wanted to make him a cake to celebrate, but he doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, so I knew if I made an entire cake it would go mostly uneaten (or alternatively, I would end up eating the majority of it). So, I decided these little cupcake pops would be the perfect solution. I only used 1/4 of a 13x9 cake, and froze the rest so I can make more cake pops for another occasion. It was just the right amount for a birthday treat, without having tons left over.

I got the idea and recipe for these from the Bakerella website, and just recently bought her new cookbook , which has tons of cute ideas for other types of cake pops that you can make. There's definitely a learning curve when making these. This was my first attempt, and the candy melts I used for the coating were a little thick. I tried thinning it with vegetable oil, as she suggests, but it didn't seem to help much. I'll have to try one of the other recommendations next time. I couldn't seem to get the top and bottom colors to meet in the middle very well, so on most of these there is some cake showing, which you're not really supposed to have.

But, even with their imperfections I thought they were still pretty cute, and best of all they tasted really good. Avery mostly liked the candy coating and left the cake part for us to finish off.

And here's just a goofy shot of Abe and Avery showing how much they enjoy their cake pops:

Some pretty cloths for my baby to vomit on :)

Lots of kids grow attached to their blankies, and Avery is no different. Although, well, maybe a little different, in that she didn't get attached to a blankie but is instead attached to her burp cloths. She calls them her blankies, though. These are the burp cloths that we have been using since she was born, which are just the basic white cloth diapers that are found at any baby store. It has actually been a blessing that this is what she became attached to, because they aren't one of a kind, and can easily be replaced if we should ever lose them all.

The other day, when we were discussing the upcoming arrival of the newest member of our family, Avery said to me in a very sad voice, "the baby is going to take my blankies." So...I knew I would have to come up with an alternative burp cloth for child #2, so as not to have a constant battle with Avery over which were her blankies vs. her brother's burp cloths.

As luck would have it, I happened to come across this easy tutorial for sewing burp cloths on the Jones Design Company blog. And I thought, well heck, why not just make my own? It seemed easy enough.

So I started sewing.
I used some fabric that I had on hand (the blue floral from the baby's room, and the red plaid that I've had forever), and then I bought a couple 1/2 yards of fabric at Jo Ann's.
This one is made of linen on one side...

and a very soft jersey knit on the other (all of the burp cloths have the jersey knit on one side). The tutorial called for using a terry cloth or a chenille for the soft side, but the terry cloth I found at the store just wasn't all that soft, and I was afraid the chenille would be difficult to sew. This fabric was super soft and I figured would be easy to sew (which turned out to be true). I replicated the double-stitched border that was shown on the tutorial. I thought it made them just a little more interesting.These were super easy to make, and I was able to get 9 finished before running out of fabric. I'll probably make a few more after making another run to Jo Ann's. If I remember correctly, you can never have too many burp cloths.

I think they turned out pretty cute, and best of all, Avery's happy that her blankies are now safe and sound.

Halloween + Nursery Progress

Hope everyone had a great Halloween. Ours was good, although after dressing Avery up five different times, I can definitely say I'm over it at this point! Thank goodness it was an easy costume (she was Tinkerbell) that didn't take much effort to put on, with no makeup or special hair-do's required. Here are a few pics from our Halloween events:

Avery with her cousins at my sister's house (plus some of her cousin's cousins). It was a great day for a party - nice and warm, and the kids had fun playing the games that my sister planned for them and of course loved all the Halloween treats. I forgot Avery's wings that day:
Avery at school with Abe. We were invited to the school for a Halloween parade and party afterwards. I didn't get many good pictures here. This is just a shot of her during snack time (her favorite part of the school day):
Trick-or-treating with friends on Thursday in Dublin. We added lots more layers under the costume, along with gloves, since it was pretty chilly that night. Avery really got into running door to door and getting candy.

More trick-or-treating. Our neighborhood held "beggar's night" last night, on Halloween. Again, it was pretty cold out, so we just made a loop around the neighborhood and Avery told us she was cold so we went back in after about an hour. When we made it back to the house, I checked the huge bowl of candy that we left on the porch for the trick-or-treaters, and it was all gone! After an hour! I think some kids must have been taking handfuls. I don't blame them...it was good candy :) I was hoping to have some left over for my pregnancy cravings, but no such luck. Guess I'll be raiding Avery's pumpkin.

Speaking of Avery's candy, she asks for candy now about thirty times a day. What do you want for breakfast? Her response, "Umm......CANDY?" What do you want for lunch? "Umm.....CANDY?" What do you want for dinner? You get the idea.

And on to other topics...we're moving along slowly on the nursery. The curtains are done, with exception to being hemmed (have to hang them first and will pin the hem once they're hung, so I can get the right length). Right now we're in the middle of painting. First coat is done, just need to get a second coat on the walls and hopefully that's enough. Then we can start moving things into place and I can post some pictures. I also worked on sewing something else for the baby that I'll post about later this week probably, so stay tuned!