Mini Badge Album

How cute is this mini photo album!? I used the tutorial and FREE layout from Paige and Brooke and luckily my friends were nice enough to let me come over (twice) and use their Photoshop since I am a loser and don't have it on my computer. Thanks Adam & Jenn! This is a great Mother's Day gift and it's also great for kids (my 2 year old loves to look at pictures) because it's inexpensive and easy to make in case they ruin it and easy to clean off in case they get food and gunk on it :) LOVE IT. Oh and make sure you use a lighter on the edges of your ribbon so they don't fray.

~Star

Burp Cloths

These cute burp cloths were made using Homemade By Jill's tutorial here. I didn't have a printer so I kind of guessed on the pattern and instead of flannel I used more cotton fat eighths like I did with my bibs. I didn't sew a seam across the middle because I felt like the batting would stay in place being sewn around the edges and I washed and dried them twice and they were fine. I plan to make more for myself because these were for a shower but they were pretty easy to do. Give them a try! Oh and thanks once again to Debs for helping me with these as well as the scratch cards - I own two pairs of scissors and neither one is very good but one is really terrible and clipping those edges was kinda painful for us both lol

~Star

Baby Shower Scratch Cards - Free PDF

These are scratch off lottery type cards you can use for a baby shower game and whoever gets 3 matching items wins a prize. I drew up this little stick baby in Paint that you are welcome to use or you can just make a picture of your own. If you want mine (it has enough for 20 cards) just click here to print it.

I looked up how to make the scratch off part because using a crayon wasn't that cute and I found this helpful idea from ArtMind. I didn't have contact paper but I had iron on vinyl so I used that instead and I used a wide paint brush to put one stroke of the dishsoap/paint mixture across the items all at once. I had to put 2-3 coats on each.

For a baby girl, tie a knot in some ribbon, use a lighter on the edges, hot glue it just under the baby's hair and glue it to some cute pink cardstock and you're all set! Don't forget to bring pennies for the guests to use to scratch it off.
My dear sweet friend was nice enough to help me put these together because I of course did them at the last minute and needed extra hands big time - thank you so much Debs! They turned out great!

~Star

The Preppy Mafia Award

Holy cow another award!! Kimbo from A Girl With A Glue Gun chose me to give this award to and I feel so loved! Thanks Kimbo!! Go check out her cute blog for some great ideas.

Here are the rules:

Post the "Preppy Mafia" picture on your blog.
Tell who tagged you.
Answer the questions.
Tag 5 people and let them know you tagged them!

1. Who is your Style Icon?

Seeing how I don't even get ready most days I can't say I have one!

2. What is your favorite book?

As much as it pains me to say this because I despise the author, it would have to be Financial Peace by Dave Ramsey. I did recently read Dear John by Nicolas Sparks and as much as I hated how it ended I enjoyed that a lot.

3. Favorite party theme?

I CANNOT wait to do girly/pink/princess-y themed parties for my baby girl! I want to give all the girls who come pink tutus to wear and have pink frosted cupcakes and a sparkly tiara for the birthday girl!

4. Biggest pet peeve.

When parents don't discipline/follow through with their kids. Don't get me wrong, I'm not perfect and I'm sure I've missed a time or two but I at least try!

5. Extravagance you can't live without.

I can't think of an extravagance but as far as things you don't really need to survive/live, I can no longer live without the internet even though I did for most of my life!

6. Living person you admire.

Is it weird to say my husband? He's such a good person it's sickening.

7. Greatest Fear?

Someone in my family getting hurt.

8. Traits you deplore in yourself.

I will crave something and either not have it or not want to make it, then I eat a bunch of other stuff trying to satisfy my craving and nothing will work so I eat a bunch of different things until I'm sick to my stomach.

9. What talent would you most like to have?

Ooooh I wish I could draw or paint. Or play an instrument. Or sing...

10. What is your greatest achievement?

Yikes I don't know! Maybe just the fact that I'm somewhat normal in spite of the crazy upbringing that I had :)

In random order here are 5 great blogs that I'm tagging:

See Katie Cook

Meredith's Menu

Be Thou A Knight

Fun On A Dime

Women Who Do It All

This was fun!

~Star

Nursing Cover

I found blistree's pattern for a nursing cover and made one of my own. I did a few things different on mine that I wish I hadn't! For instance I made mine reversible but I think it's too heavy that way,and more $ and the boning only likes to stick out one way. Also, I would look harder for the correct size corset boning - Blisstree recommends 1/4" and I could only find 1/2" so maybe (???) that's why mine is weighed down and falls, lying on my chest instead of sticking out - totally defeating the purpose! Moral of the story: Just do what the directions call for :)

~Star

Edited to add: I think I found out the real reason my boning kept falling - not because of the weight of the fabric or the actual boning itself like I thought, but because when adding the straps, both edges of the boning need to be placed directly at the center of the straps... check out my more recent one (and use it instead) here