Baby Boy Clothespin Picture Frames

Quite a few of my friends have been pregnant this year.  And it seems to be the year of the boy!  3 of 4 of my pregnant friends from church had boys within the last 2 months.  I originally picked up some cute (and beginner orientated) baby quilts to make for them, but since I didn't unbox my sewing machine until a month ago and have only used it one time since then I had to think of something else for a gift.

I'm not really sure that I even was thinking new baby gift when I started this project.  I had picked up some square frames from Michael's on sale for $1 (or maybe they were even 3 for $2) on one of my (many) trips.

(Please try not to mind my not so great pics... when crafting after 9pm lighting is not the best around here!  My dream is an Ottlite of some shape and size... someday....)

One day I decided to start painting the frame blue.  Nothing special about painting a ready to paint frame.  Then I started thinking about what I had/what I could do that would make the frame special.  While surveying my supplies I came across some baby boy stickers that I had and between the stickers and some buttons I layed out what I thought was a cute frame.


But still to me it was just a frame.  I was inspired to add a clothespin to hold the picture, it was one of those odd/small openings so the clothespin allows a normal size print to be used.  And for something extra special using a white gel pen I wrote 1 Samuel 1:27 on the clothespin ( "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him." NIV version).  I still have these first two creations (even though the babies are like 6 & 8 weeks!) as I have not seen the babies/parents to hand the gifts off, but  it turned out I added a little something.  I wrote the baby's full names/dates of births/birth stats on some green cardstock and inserted it in the "real" photo holder.  So it doesn't look quite so weird.  But as I didn't want to post those names all over the internet I didn't take a picture of that element.  

Oh and I used thumbtacks to attach the ribbon to the back of the frames.


So here I was this week, with only two frames and now baby #3 was born (and not too much earlier than anticipated).  So I went to work on frame number three...  BUT as I was getting out the paint and thinking how I should've painted it way earlier and noticing the frame had a few chips out of it (see first picture) I had a though to basically wrap the frame in some nice pretty but boyish scrapbooking paper.

I found a bunch of this paper adhesive in matte and some in gloss for a REALLY good deal at Michaels... less than $1 for the matte and then 49 cents for the smaller bottles of the gloss.  This is my first project using it, but it worked pretty well!

Then I used the same scheme of stickers, buttons, clothespin, ribbon and thumbtacks to finish it off.  I also adhered a green square of cardstock (under where the picture will be) that has his name and stats on it.

Overall, I like the last one the best!

PS... yes that is my Monkey in the pictures from nearly 2 years ago!  Man how time flies!


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Another {Craft} Blog Is Born!

 I've been devouring craft blogs for a little while now and decided it would be a lot of fun to have my own so I can share my projects with people who might appreciate them...  It's so much fun to create things, but the husband,well he doesn't really appreciate my creations nearly as much as I do, and really what fun are crafts if you can't share them with others?

My creative side was slow to show itself, or maybe I was just slow to let it out, because I thought I'd NEVER be a crafter like my mom.  But at the very beginning of 2011 I thought scrapbooking might be a good idea.  So I bought a few very basic things to scrapbook about my children... I created 5 pages and decided I wasn't really  much of a scrapbooker.  I won't share them on here...  the main reason being how absolutely terrible the pages are!  I literally slapped some pictures and stickers on a page (and originally though, oh not bad! YIKES) and that was that.  I could probably do better now- but for the most part scrapbooking isn't much of a draw for me. Then, one evening I just started doodling and writing out some Bible verses with my fun gel pens on some fun colored flat note cards I had and though those first little doodled cards were nothing fancy (nor very good), they inspired me.  I kept creating cards and started falling a little in love with Etsy and craft blogs and at all the awesome handmade things out there, gathering inspiration.  I started out crafting at the kitchen table and my beginning craft supplies were contained in one (large) shoe box that only held two pads of paper/cardstock, a box of flat notecards, 5 pairs of fun scissors, 12 colored gel pens and a gluestick.  And now, less than one year later this is my craft room (I share space with the spare bed, and it's not done yet but I'm still excited about it!)...

The main work area.  My husand's computer desk from before we knew each other, that had been in the basement since we turned the "office" into a nursery! 

The sewing area.  I've had my sewing machine since Christmas 2010... it just came out of the box in September and has been used once.  The sewing table is an anniversary present from my grandma as I mentioned I wanted one that would allow me to use the machine "flush" with the surface or with the arm "free", however, this table doesn't fit my sewing machine... so I'm waiting for the husband to take the flipped up part off- or find me a square screwdriver so I can do it myself!

My shelves in the closet which hold fabric, project supplies like jars, notebooks, boxes, frames, bags .

My (new) ribbon storage.  A 99 cent find at St. Vincent De Paul's that works wonderfully to allow access to my ribbon.  So much better than the box I had it stored in before!  Two problems... I need to find a better place to hang it (maybe a hook on the wall?) and that it is nearly full already and I just bought a couple more rolls....  hmmm

It's been (and continues to be) done on a very small budget so as you can see I'm using a lot of odds and ends like pickle jars and coffee cans as well as some nicer Goodwill finds.  Someday I'll get around to making them pretty (covering them in pretty fun paper) but I haven't yet.  I hope to add a dresser next to store more items, (including my baking stuff that doesn't fit in my kitchen and all my gift wrapping stuff) and have another flat work surface that can double as a place to iron (once I get into sewing more!)

I love pretty much all things crafty... so far my favorite projects/craft areas include cards, tulle flowers, rolled fabric flowers, clothespin picture frames, jars filled with Bible verses and/or quotes, bookmarks, gift bags and gift tags.  I also have metal stamps on the way as I plan to start making stamped silverware plant markers. My mom has a greenhouse and I thought they'd be a cute addition...and will hopefully satisfy my desire to do metal stamping without spending a lot on jewelry supplies as you can find silverware at thrift shops for like 10 cents a piece.   Above, you also see a picture of a sewing machine and a pile of sewing materials on the shelf... Sewing is the hardest of all my craft areas for me to get to (or learn), because my craft room is next to my son's room and I don't want to wake him up so I must wait for some Mama time when he is not sleeping (doesn't happen very often at all!).  My current favorite supplies include clear/cling rubber stamps (especially  Inkadinkado Clings, ribbon, acrylic paint, buttons, brads, paper flowers, notecards, my Fiskars Deckle scissors, my Fiskars Rotary Trimmer (the 3rd rotary trimmer I tried!), stencils.

So again, welcome to my blog, I hope I can live up to (and eventually work up to!) some of the fabulous blogs that have inspired me to join the craft blog world!  I hope my crafts and projects will make others as happy and inspire, just as many of the craft blogs have given me excitement and inspiration to try something new!