Author: Raptor Mama

Hello, my name is RaptorMama and I’m addicted to washi tape.  Like, I have an embarrassingly large collection and I’m always looking for new ways to use it so I can justify buying more.  I also have a 7 year old with a busy social calendar.  lol.  We keep track of everything on the computer, but that doesn’t help said 7 year old since she doesn’t have access to a computer of her own (much to her chagrin.)  In an effort to get her to stop driving me nuts this summer asking what our plans were for the day and how long was it until we were doing XYZ exciting activity, I made a calendar with the while paper that comes in page protectors, rainbow markers, and washi tape.  We loved it so much that I made another one for the fall.  I wish I could have gotten the whole semester up, but we ran out of wall space.  lol.

I cut the paper into 3×3 squares, then wrote what we were doing and added coordinating washi tape.  So all of her girl scout activities have rainbow washi.  All of her volleyball games have yellow chevron washi.  Etc.  Etc.  Incidentally, as soon as I signed her up for volleyball I tried to order volleyball washi, but Doodlebug has let me down.  They have football, basketball, soccer, and baseball, but no volleyball.  ::sad face::  On the upside, I finally found a use for the October Afternoon days of the week washi that I just had to buy but have never used.  lol.

All in all, I’m quite pleased!  It currently goes through the end of October, but I figure that once September is finished I’ll move up October and add November and December.  What creative things are you doing with washi tape?

My children napped again today.  It’s a Christmas miracle!  Naturally I ignored the dishes piled in the kitchen and ran to my craft room.  Hey, these pictures aren’t going to scrap themselves!

Since I just finished January 2015, I rewarded myself with some current pictures from our beach trip last month.  So fun!  And since I stopped keeping up with the latest and greatest, I still love my old stuff.  Most of this is from an older Crate Paper collection, The Pier.

I’m also on a one photo per page kick.  It means that our trip to the American Girl store is 3 layouts instead of one, but I’m loving the way it looks.  I’ll catch up eventually, right?  hahahahahaha

Well hello there!  Goodness, it’s been a while.  I have no excuses other than the fact that I was so busy having an awesome summer that blogging kind of fell by the wayside.  Whoops!  Raptor went back to school a week and a half ago, and ::knock on wood:: the babies have actually been napping since we’re not running all over creation every morning.  And the olympics are over which means that I have no more excuses!  I was scrapping up a storm last week and I finally have some stuff to share.  🙂  Plus, I have a million ideas buzzing around in my head and I need to bust out a crafty to do list.  The holidays are coming people!

You get adorable pics of my babies at the beach since this would just be a boring pictureless goals post otherwise.  And yes, I realize that August is almost over, but I didn’t want to wait until September to make a goals list.  😉

1.  Scrap January 2015.  I only have to do 2 layouts, surely I can knock them out.  As you guys know, I vastly prefer to scrapbook current stuff, but I just want to get these done.  The first few months of the twins’ lives are scrapped but I need to do January, February, and March of 2015.  I’m thinking I’ll try to tackle a month a month (lol) to fill in the gap that I have.
2. Birthday Pictures.  You guys.  The twins are 16 months old and I still haven’t taken their birthday pics.  I know I know.  I want to get these done this week.  Period.  I jut need the weather to cooperate…
3. DAD pictures.  Ugh.  Same story.  I want to at least get the letters repainted this week.  (I think we all know that there’s no way that I’m getting 2 photo shoots done in the same week.  lol.)
4. Organize, catalogue, and find a better way to store all of my needlework projects.  I’m thinking gallon ziplock bags?  I need to get cracking on these and start crossing them off the master list!  Currently, I have 2 in progress cross stitch projects that are meant to be Christmas gifts, 2 baby stockings that I also need to finish before Christmas, a set of felt letters that are ridiculously overdue, a felt advent calendar, and a partridge in a pear tree.
5. Enter Kate’s summer reading stuff.  We have to do all of this online, and I’ve forgotten our log in info because I’m a giant spaz.  Hopefully I’m not too late!
6. Go through Pinterest and decide on a plan for the living room wall.  I at least want to make a list of the projects I’d like to attempt.  lol.
7. Fill one garage sale box from craft room.
8. Finish scrapping beach trip.
9. Pull pictures off of waterproof camera.
10. Start using planner again!

For last week’s project I worked on my Project Life album.  I got a few layouts done and I’m still loving the project.  🙂  I haven’t figured out a good way to take pics of it without the glare causing huge problems though, so you get a 12×12 page instead.

I’ve been so focused on December Dailies and Project Life spreads that I haven’t made an actual 12X12 layout since November.  I made 2 layouts a few weeks ago with current pictures and I finally pulled them off of my camera today.  So much fun!  I know I need to play catch up (I’m still working on December 2014!) but I’m having way more fun doing current projects.  🙂  Next step, buy some more albums!  I have a giant stack of layouts awaiting a home.

I love this layout!  If you follow me on instagram, you saw that Raptor and I had a mommy/ daughter date at the Rodeo fairgrounds a few weeks ago.  The timing wasn’t the best, but we had been given free ride passes for one day only so we decided to just go anyway.  And I’m so glad that we did!  RaptorDad and I are thinking that we need to plan more Mommy/Daughter and Daddy/Daughter dates.

I took all of the pictures with my phone and I’m really happy with how they turned out.  It’s not a DSLR, but its as good as any point and shoot I’ve ever had.

I’m actually really happy with how this layout turned out.  I wish I had taken pictures of it at the various stages!  First, I put down some paint with a stencil and let that dry.  Then I busted out an oldie but goodie- October Afternoon Midway.  I still love that collection.  🙂  I just played around with some scraps of paper until I liked the look, then I added some stickers and tickets.  I finished it up with some Heidi Shine.  <3

I’ve decided that I’m going to focus on one project a week and then blog about it on Mondays.  Surely even I can keep up with once a week blogging.  lol.  Last week’s project was to finish up Kate’s final daisy journey!  I don’t really have any pics, but I’m embracing imperfection around here today.

Initially I thought we were going to work on it this summer, but her leader decided to have them bridge up to Brownies in May instead of September.  Works for me!  Now we have longer to play with the retired try-its I’ve been buying.  This did  mean that we needed to kick it into high gear with our final journey though.  We did Between Earth and Sky which was about environmentalism and communicating your feelings.  Seemed like an odd combo to me, but whatever.  We pretty much followed it as written with the exception of the nature hikes.  We went on 2 or 3, but it’s been kind of rainy around here so we did some scavenger hunting in the fruit and veggie drawer for some of them.

For our Take Action Project, we went with one of the ideas from the River Valleys site.  (They’re an awesome resource by the way.)  She made a Water Conservation poster and then she taught our First Sunday Girls’ Breakfast Club (that would be my mom, my sister, and my grandmother) all about water conservation.  Then everyone picked one specific way to try and conserve water.

We had a lot of fun doing these!  I know there is a lot of hate for the journeys, but I don’t mind them.  No lie, I’m pretty excited that she’s going to be doing the Brownie ones with her troop and she and I can focus on the retired try-its which seem easier to manage and more clear cut on the requirements, but I’m glad that she pushed me to do them with her.  And she was ridiculously proud when I pinned her summit pin on her.

As soon as we finished she asked when she could start on her gold award.  lol.  She was not pleased when I told her she had to be in high school!  I think I may have created a monster.  🙂  But truly, I hope she is always this enthusiastic about her goals.

Now to pick a project for this week…

Since I was hosting almost 40 people this weekend AT MY HOUSE for the twin’s birthday party, naturally I decided to tackle some big crafty redecorating projects this week instead of cleaning.  What can I say, RaptorDad and I are awesome at panic cleaning.

First up on the week of insanity was hosting some of my girl friends for craft night.  I spent Monday panic cleaning for that and didn’t manage to buy the supplies for the string art project I was planning.  I did, however, have plenty of yummy snacks.  Priorities people!  Luckily, my friends are awesome and saved me from having to work on the babies’ stockings by helpfully sharing their supplies.  They rock!

I don’t have many pics of the process, and they’re all from my iPhone, but it was pretty simple.  🙂  We started with a printout of an outline map of the US.  It was printed on 4 sheets of paper which were taped together.  Starting on the West Coast, you first cut the state out of paper.  Then you iron on some iron on stuff to the fabric scrap you’re using.  Flip over both the state and the fabric and trace the shape onto the back.  It will be a mirror image.

I actually have a picture of this step!  With states that were in multiple pieces (Michigan and Hawaii) I cut them out of one pice so that the pattern would match up.  I didn’t the first time and it drove me crazy so I ended up ripping it off and redoing it.

Then you just cut out along the outline (I cut just inside of it), peel the backing off of the fabric and position it in place using the rest of the paper map as a guide.

See!  The pattern lines up perfectly.  I’m not OCD at all, why do you ask?  😉

I can totally see why you start on the West Coast.  You  make progress so fast!  All of the states are big and there are a bunch of straight lines.  By the time you get to the East Coast, you’ve made enough progress that you’re motivated to keep going.  🙂

You’re technically supposed to stitch inside all of the states, but I just couldn’t figure out how that was going to work on a state like Hawaii.  I could barely cut the islands out!  Confession, I totally left 2 or 3 off that were just too small.  And I left all all of the islands along the coasts.  Sorry Florida Keys.  I decided just to frame it behind some glass instead.  Hopefully the pieces don’t fall off, but I figure we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.  I will say, I think the stitching would look awesome in the western half of the map with all of the bigger states so if you decide to do this project with something other than the states I would consider adding the stitching.

All in all, I am super happy with how it turned out!  I started it on a Monday and finished up up Friday night.  I knew that if I packed it away, it would take me forever to get it back out so I just left the huge mess taking over our kitchen table and worked as fast as I could.

Fabric scraps everywhere!  But it was such a fun, EASY, project.  And it was super nice to get out of my comfort zone and try something totally new.  I think I’m going to be exploring some more new crafts!  I love scrapbooking, but it was fun to play with fabric.  Who knows, maybe I’ll finally take up quilting.  🙂

Sorry for the wonky angle; I was trying to minimize the glare.  I love it!  I threw up a temporary gallery wall because I wanted some new stuff up before the babies’ party.  I plan to make a few more crafty things for this wall, potentially order a few more pictures, and then redo the whole thing.  But I’m loving it for now.  🙂

 

 

I almost waited too long this year because I kept looking for an awesome patch of bluebonnets.  Well, I never found full, rolling hills of bluebonnets, but I knew that I would seriously regret it if I didn’t take any.  I also knew that the babies were not going to be able to hang for an evening session so I resigned myself to getting us up and moving this morning.  I almost talked myself out of it at 7am (I am the opposite of a morning person) but the flowers had already peaked and I’m pretty sure they’re going to be looking pretty raggedy by next weekend.  And I was treated to the most beautiful light.  It’s almost enough to convince me to get up early with my camera more often!  But not quite.  😉

Other than cropping them, these are straight out of the camera.

I will say that is harder than you would think to get 3 kids all smiling and looking at the camera at the same time!  One of my friends is going to teach me how to do a head swap.  🙂

And this out take of Kate cracks me up.  The expression on her face!  lol.

I had a lot of fun playing with my real camera this morning!  I think I’m going to throw gently place it in the diaper bag more often.  Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone takes some great pics, but I’ve been missing my big girl camera.

lol.  Maybe I should start with one goal: post some blog posts.  😉  For real though, I’m going to make an effort to start posting more regularly.  I have some projects and ideas that I’m working on so at least the inspiration is there.  I have plenty of time to type up the actual posts while I’m nursing babies.  The main hang up is in photographing projects and editing said photos.  Perhaps I’ll try to have a massive Project Life photo shoot and editing session tomorrow.  More likely I’ll end up making some new Project Life layouts.  lol.

Last month I didn’t really have set goals, but I did get a lot accomplished.  For one thing, I finished my 2015 Project Life!  And since I’m insane, I’ve just about decided to go back and do 2014 with traditional products.  I was supposed to be doing it digitally, but let’s be real here.  I’m not *that* big of a fan of photoshop.  I think I’m going to try to order the prints for it in big batches instead of printing at home like I usually do.  We’ll see.  I’m also pretty excited to make some actual scrapbook pages again!  I’ve gotten super behind while playing catch up with Project Life.  I’m way back in December of 2014!

I’ve also decided that I really want to do a gallery wall in our living room so I’ve got a whole Pinterest board full of ideas.  I’ve decided to do a Texas/ Austin/ map theme.  We’ll see.  lol.

Oh, and the babies are turning 1 next Saturday!!!  I have no idea how on earth that happened as they are just tiny tiny babies.  lol.  I’ve bowed to the inevitable and accepted that their party will not be the DIY extravaganza that Raptor’s first birthday was.  In fact, my sister saw that I was a basket case and offered her services as party planner for their birthday gift.  She’s the best sister ever!  I’ve also ordered some stuff off of Etsy, super cute outfits and those little faux chalkboard signs.  Outfits have already arrived, but I’m sweating the posters a bit.  Fingers crossed!

Raptor and I have also been continuing our Girl Scout adventures!  She completed her second Daisy journey and she is still super gung ho and doing the third one and earning her summit award.  I’m so proud of her.  🙂

Too long; didn’t read?  I’m making a comeback!  (maybe.  lol.)  And I’m adding some home decor projects, party planning goodness, and girl scout action to the mix.  Stay tuned!

Hello!  Long time no blog.  Things have been crazy around here!  We completely redid Raptor’s room, I organized the babies room, and I’m working on organizing my room.  The amount of stuff we have taken to Goodwill is astounding!  And there is still so much to go.  I’m also been on a huge Project Life kick.  Not only am I basically caught up with 2016 (I’m waiting for my Studio Calico kit to get here so that I can start on March) I’m making huge progress on filling in all of the gaps in 2015!  I started off the year with 22 missing weeks.  I’m now only missing 6.  Yes!!!  I really hope I can wrap them up in the next week or so so I can get that album out on my shelf.  Then I plan to stay current with 2016 and actually start scrapping some 12×12 layouts again!  I am woefully behind on the main scrapbook.  lol.

You might ask, why no blogging if you’ve been being so crafty?  Well, it’s really hard to take good pictures in my scrap room.  And it’s even harder to take good pictures of stuff in a page protector.  The glare!!!  My solution?  I’m just going to post some crappy iPhone pics.  Hey, it’s better than nothing right?

This was made largely using the Studio Calico Documenter Kit from December.  Love it.

I used my Fuse tool to seal in the acetate confetti in the middle pocket.  I love how it turned out.  🙂

First let’s see how January went, shall we?

1. Thank you notes: Embarrassingly enough, I still have a few to go.  Need to get those done tonight!
2. Blog: I did great until last week.  I need to figure out a better way to photograph my Project Life spreads.  The glare is driving me crazy.
3. Meal Plan/ Grocery Shop: I did pretty good here!  Although I have to admit that I’m resorting to instacart today.
4. Dinner Prep: Not bad!  I’d say I made 75% of the meals and I’m pretty happy with that.
5. Walk: This was kind of hit or miss.  But still, any amount of walking is an improvement over no walking.
6. December Daily: It’s done!  I just need to photograph it and blog it.
7. Project Life: Y’all.  My goal was 6 layouts.  I finished 9!!!  And I’m gearing up for more.  🙂
8. Scrapbook December 2014: Zero progress.
9. Scrapbook current stuff.  Also zero progress.  BUT I know that I go through phases of liking Project Life more or liking 12×12 more so I’m fine with it as long as I’m creating something.
10. Weekly Photos:  I’m not too sure if I managed 1 a week, but I did make it a point to take more pictures with my real camera.

On to goals for January!

1.  Continue with grocery shopping/ meal planning.
2. Continue with dinner prep.  Try to add one healthy dinner a week.  Either a new recipe or making an old favorite better for us.
3. Project Life: 6 layouts
4. Scrapbooking: 15 layouts.  Can be a combo of Project Life and traditional.
5. Spend more time playing with the babies.  Subtext: Spend less time playing online.
6. Set aside a block of time everyday to work on Mia’s therapies.
7. Crochet.  Learn to crochet (this is in progress) and finish 1 small project.
8. Fill up 1 donation box or trash bag a week.
9. Sell all the Girl Scout cookies.
10. Blog!!!