happy easter

I'm so looking forward to this weekend and Spring Break all next week. My kids love Easter, almost as much as they love Christmas. In fact Bee's favorite saying lately is "We have the luckiest life.." and then she goes on to name all the things she gets to do. First on the list is always "Because we get to go Easter egging! Mom, did you know some kids don't get to go Easter egging? Not ever!"

I've got to finish up a few Easter related items, like sewing Bee's dress (in a pretty green and white gingham) and stitching these sweet bunnies (I'm following the pattern from the book Hand Stitched Felt). Wish me luck!

silo day 4

We're big fans of the game Memory around here (as you might remember), so I made a memory game with silhouettes for the kids to play. This version has 20 cards, and the silhouettes are of the kids and their cousins. I made my silhouettes different colors, so it's a little easier to see what matches with what. Print out your silhouettes on a nice cardstock, I backed mine with a piece of colored paper to make them a bit more durable. The kids have had fun guessing who is who, and I think a set of these for Grandma's house might be in order!

silo day 3

It's nice to see a whole family in silhouettes. I love seeing how dad's chin got passed on to little Johnny or how mom has the same profile as each of her daughters. We actually used silhouettes for our own holiday cards three years ago, which you can see above.

Last Christmas I made a card for a friend showing her family (the parents and their four children). I love how the personality of each child comes out in their silhouette. I was inspired by a piece of artwork which I saw in the article Martha Stewart Living ran about stylist Rebecca Robertson's home which shows mom + dad = child. (Rebecca was a stylist when I was an art director at Martha Stewart, and she is as lovely as she seems).

As a gift to my little sister for Christmas, I made a print of her little family and framed it in a simple black wooden frame. (I love these ones, and they are on sale right now!)

our news

I mentioned we had some news that we shared with our friends in our new years card (and a special thank you to our patient friends and family who actually sat down and de-coded the card!). We wanted to share our big news with my parents and our children Bee and C on Christmas morning, so we decided to tell everyone all at once.

I offered to help my parents with their Christmas card this year and decided to do a Family Tree showing how our family is growing (there were 3 new babies in 2009). My parents have six children (I'm the fourth) and between my siblings and I there are 14 grandchildren. While I had everyone together this summer for our annual family reunion, I asked each person to stand against a wall so I could take their photo (mug shot style, with a sideways profile..).  Later I traced the photos in Illustrator to make silhouettes of each person in our family. The result was a family tree chart that we printed on 10x14 sheets of paper and folded in fours and mailed out as Christmas cards.

For a gift to my parents I printed a large poster size version, framed it in a simple black frame, and wrapped it up for them to open Christmas morning. My mom unwrapped the gift with Bee and C sitting next to her. Immediately Bee and C wanted to know where they were in the chart, so my mom pointed to their silhouettes. And that's when she realized that this chart had a new addition (fourth row).

A new little baby for our family. It was perfect. My mom screamed, and the children literally jumped for joy (they've been asking for a baby for over a year now). It might be the happiest Christmas morning ever.

a party for bee

I had such lovely dreams for Bee's fourth birthday party. A flower theme, out in the backyard. Children running around the backyard on a scavenger hunt to find various flowers in the garden, potato stamping flowers onto goodie bags, planting their own flowers to take home in little pots, a flower pinata, etc. And then it rained. Again. (Remember C's party this summer?) So we moved the party inside. Again.

At least the kids had cute hats to wear. I made these out of paper I had around, and then fashioned a few more tissue flowers to staple to the side. (I'm pretty fast at making those now!) The kids looked awfully cute in their party hats.

And we somehow came up with enough games to entertain them. Do you remember that great party game where you tie a balloon onto everyone's ankle and then you try to stomp on everyone else's balloon? I remember it being great fun.. the three and four year olds felt otherwise. Bee was the first to cry when her balloon got popped.

But they all perked up for cake. Bee wanted cupcakes this year, with flowers on them. We piped frosting into little petals and laid a Necco wafer in the middle. I cut out a few leaves for them to sit on.

And then the pinata. I hoped to find a pretty flower pinata at the party store, but there were none. So we bought a soccer ball pinata that was white with bits of black tissue on top. We pulled off the black tissue and then covered the entire thing with rows of tissue paper petals. (Special thanks to JR who did most of the work.)

Here it is almost finished. We were hoping it would look like the camellias that have just bloomed in the front yard. I think we came pretty close. We were a little sad to have the kids bash it into a million pieces.

And so, our little one is four! We can hardly believe it. We love her so. Happy birthday sweet Bee.. I'll be praying for sunshine for your next birthday party!

valentines 2010

To be honest, I used to loathe Valentine's day with it's overpriced roses and tacky pink and red color scheme. But now that I have little children, Valentine's day is fun again. C is in kindergarten this year and needed to bring 32 valentines to school, so we needed something relatively quick and easy. I always try to think of some way to involve the kids, either by including their drawings or having them help with the assembly.

For this years cards, I printed out plain red hearts with white circles for eyes. I made a sample for the kids showing them how to draw the face and arms and legs. Then the kids took black pens and made their own. Attach some candy to one or both of the hands and you're all set. Here is a template you can download.

nina's book

Part of the festivities honoring my grandmother on her 90th birthday was a book full of all the things we love about Nina. Of course I forgot to take any photos of the book before I handed it over to my grandmother, so you'll have to make do with my PDFs. The cover was simply green with a big 90! on the front.

After checking out several printing options, we decided to go with blurb. I have made photo books with Shutterfly in the past, and have been pleased with the overall quality, but Blurb allows you to print directly from a PDF. Because I design books for a living, I can create the book using InDesign (a program I am very comfortable with) and then just upload the final PDF, instead of using one of their available templates. This gives me a lot of freedom with the design. I give Blurb a big thumbs up!

My grandmother has 10 children, over 30 grandchildren, and over 40 great-grandchildren so I wanted to do a book that counted from 1 to 90. I figured between all of us and our spouses, we could get 90 different memories or thoughts gathered. Luckily, several people contributed more than one memory.

Some comments were short and sweet, others went on for several pages. Some talked about a favorite memory (like my Aunt Penny above, remembering a trip she took as a newlywed with her mom and dad). Others talked about something they admire about grandma: the way she always makes Christmas special, or what an efficient household she ran, or how she makes the best strawberry-blackberry jam.

It was a pleasure to put this book together (though I admit it took longer than I thought!). It gave me a chance to see my grandmother in a different light. I now can see her as a young mother, trying to make ends meet. Or later in life, as a devoted wife taking care of my grandfather. I see her making dinner in the kitchen with her young daughters helping. I see her dancing with my grandfather to the music they loved. Or double checking that all the Christmas gifts for each of her children make it under the tree.

Of course I also still see her as my sweet grandmother... the one who sends out a family letter to each person in her large extended family each month. Who crochets a blanket for each new great grandbaby and never misses a birthday. She still makes it to the cabin each summer for our family reunion (she's the one passing out the toffee nut bars and making sure the great-grandkids have enough Otter Pops.)

90 years and going strong. Happy Birthday Grandma! I have no doubt we'll be celebrating your 100th birthday in no time at all.

nina is ninety

This is my grandmother, and this is my favorite photo of her. It also happens to be the photo she gave my grandfather when they were dating. "To Bob: With all my love, Nina"  He liked it too. They were married for over 60 years. My grandfather passed away five years ago, but grandma is still chugging along.

My aunts decided to throw grandma a big party for her 90th birthday. We sent out save the dates, using another favorite photo of mine, back when she was a young mother of three. Somehow she still managed to look amazing (I'm loving the dress, the necklace, the hair.. so beautiful, my grandmother).

The invites featured three different photos of grandma, when she was a young girl with her pixie cut, when she was in high school, and on her 25th wedding anniversary (still gorgeous, and that was while raising 10 children!).

We decorated with more old photos, with paper circles in different sizes and shades of green. Just punch a hole in each side and thread onto some embroidery thread.

Instead of a guest book, we printed out cards with different photos from grandma's life.. (there are so many beautiful old photos of my grandma, this seemed like a nice way to showcase them). As people came to the door we asked them to take a minute and write a quick note to Nina.

And then we hung them from green embroidery thread with paper clips. It was fun to watch the wall grow as the party went on and to see all the photos there together... a life in pictures. We'll make these into an album after the party so grandma can read through them whenever she likes.

My favorite note, from a boy who grew up with my grandmother. "Nina - If I had been five years older, Bob wouldn't have had a chance." (Bob, of course, is my grandfather. And yes Don, I'm afraid you missed out!)

happy friday

Alt Summit is in full swing today, and I woke up a little sad to be here in California and not enjoying the snowy slopes of Utah. I had hoped to take part in one of the panels, but couldn't make it this weekend due to a family event. (A rather big family event.. my sweet grandmother is turning 90! And my family is gathering up in Sacramento to throw her a big party and take her out for a fancy dinner.. how could I miss that?)

A full report when I return. Have a lovely weekend!

countdown to grandma's birthday

It's my mother-in-law's birthday at the end of the month, and there is nothing she likes more than photos of her children and grandchildren. We usually put together an album of some sort, but after seeing this post over at The Crafts Dept. blog by my friend Silke (stylist, extraordinaire.. and one of the nicest girls you will ever meet), I was sold.

First, you have to buy this photo holder. It will set you back about $20. Then you need 28 assorted photos, half vertical and half horizontal. The photo holder comes filled with plain white cardstock when it arrives, pull those out and insert your photos.. one in each spot. To save a little paper (and the hassle of cutting my own) use the paper the holder came with for the numbers (I just inserted mine into my inkjet printer, which can handle 4x6 sheets).

When you're done, each spot has a photo behind a number card. And on each day of the month, Grandma will pull out the number card to see the photo. Every day she'll have a new photo to unveil. And at the end of the month, a whole panel of photos to enjoy. Grandma's birthday is on the 26th, so we had two extra spots where we said "Happy Birthday Grandma" and "We love you!".

I know my mother-in-law will love seeing all the photos of her smiling grandchildren each day, and then after her birthday she has a nice little photo holder she can swap photos into and out of as she sees fit. Happy birthday Grandma! (and thank you Silke!)

Note: You can download the number files I used here and here. The photo holder only holds 28 numbers, so you're out of luck if your birthday is on the 30th!