Author: Raptor Mama

 

 

Raptor and I are on vacation!  Here’s a little gem to brighten your day.  Why yes, she did dress herself.  Why do you ask?  😉

Raptor went back to school!  We continued our tradition of the chalkboard photos on the front porch.

She’s gotten so big!

She was so excited to go back to school that she was jumping up and down.  🙂  I hope she’s always this excited about school.

 

We also continued our school interview book.  I’ve decided to add another page for each year into the book and have begun the quest to find more card stock of the exact same color.  We’ll see if that happens or not.  I will say that it was awesome to have everything else all ready to go.  I’m glad that I put the whole thing together ahead of time.

 

 

 

This was part of a challenge to flip your background paper.  (If you usually use card stock, switch to patterned paper and vice versa.)  Since I use patterned paper and card stock pretty interchangeably, I decided to use a very busy patterned paper.  I think I like it!  It’s not really my style, but sometimes it’s fun to mix it up a bit.

This is an older line from Imaginisce.  I ran into a little trouble with the rubbons.  (There may have been a margarita involved.)  I inked them and then was way too impatient to wait for it to dry before trying to put the rubbons on.  So I ended up attaching them with diamond glaze, backing and all.  It worked!

 

 

Love this one!  I’m pretty sure everything is from The Pier aside from the background paper, wood veneers, and letter stickers.

I am so sick of my Christmas paper.  I think I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I do too many Christmas layouts.  Especially considering that I do December Daily as well.  So is the answer to do fewer Christmas layouts?  Or is it to buy more Christmas lines?  😉

At any rate, I decided to go with some fall colors for this one.  The blue background is from Jillibean’s Happy Camper Stew.  (I love this line, but am I the only one who gets a vaguely cannibalistic vibe from the name?  I have to applaud their commitment to their naming convention though!)  Other paper are from October Afternoon’s Travel Girl.  I’ve fallen in love with my Prima flowers all over again which is good since I own a ton of them.  🙂

I added a little dot of stickles in the middle of each one instead of dealing with a brad.  Love it.  I think I might buy some more colors.  And lest you think that I ignored the rest of the pictures from Christmas, the facing page has 6 4×6 photos stuck down on some cardstock.  When I printed them I had grand plans of a 2 page layout with 8 pics, but I’ve found that I just don’t like the look of more than 1 or 2 pics on a page anymore.  This way I have a “pretty” layout, but I still have the rest of the pictures.  Win win.

 

 

The summer is coming to a close.  Of course, it’s still a million degrees here on the surface of the sun where I live, but September always feels like fall to me.  Raptor went back to school at the beginning of August.  A starts 1st grade this week and E goes back to preschool soon.  In other news, RaptorDad started a new job and he’s now working out of the house for the first time since before Raptor was born.  It’s been a bit of an adjustment for all of us, but we’re focusing on making our family time really count.  It’s been good.

I also figured it was time to wrap up the summer goals and make some new ones for the fall!  I loved having these.  Whenever I was at a loss for what to do I would see what we hadn’t checked off yet and go from there.  So how’d we do?

1. Backyard Pool 
2. Local Pools (3/3)
3. Local Splashpads (3/4)
4. Movies
5. Science Center
6. Vacation with Friends
7. Backyard Popsicles
8. Shaving Cream
9. Dance Camp
10. Story Time
11. Zoo
12. Children’s Museum (1/2)
13. Sidewalk Chalk
14. Parks (3/5)
15. “Kid” Restaurant
16. Ice Cream
17. Train
18. Fireworks/ Sparkler
19. Birthday Pictures
20. Rocking Birthday Party

We pretty much did everything!  I’m not in love with her birthday pictures, hence not checking them off, but they’ll do.  We didn’t go to as many splash pads as we thought, but we did go swimming all the time.  And you know what?  Swimming is way more fun (and less hot!) than a splash pad so I’m just fine with that.  I’m moving the zoo and the second children’s museum over to the Fall Bucket List.  And the parks?  What was I thinking.  Summer in Texas is not the time to explore new parks.

Now I need ideas for the fall!  The way our schedule works, it makes the most sense to have our fall list go from  the beginning of September through the end of December.  Suggestions?  I’m working on a list, but I’d love more ideas.  🙂

 

I joined a challenge on TwoPeas to create a layout every day in August.  I started strong, but have since fizzled a bit.  Still, it’s been super fun!  The organizer posts a prompt for us every day and they’ve been great fun to attempt.  The first challenge was to use circles.  Lots and lots of circles.

For a long time, I’ve had this idea for a layout, but I’ve been too afraid to try.  I decided if there was ever a time to give it a go, this was it!  I started by layering the papers and photos.  It’s a hodge podge of lines.  I think Sleigh Ride by Crate Paper (blue paper, journaling card, vellum tag); The Pier by Crate Paper (brown paper); October Afternoon (letter stickers, label sticker); Studio Calico (butterfly wood veneer); Prima (red flowers); also paint, gems and ink.  For the life of me, I can’t remember the name of the green paper.  It’s from a Christmas line from a few years ago.  I can try to track it down if anyone is curious.

Then I put paint on the rim of my mixing bowl and crossed my fingers.  lol.  Luckily it worked.  I considered taking pictures of the whole thing but I was sure that would jinx it.  Also, I’m not an octopus.

Then I went through and added embellishments along the circle.  Lately, I’ve been focused on 3 embellishment clusters, so I think this was a nice change.

 

I cut this tag into 3 pieces so I could use it in multiple areas on the page.  Worked great.  I wish I knew who to credit this design with.  I know I’ve seen similar things many times, but it was before Pinterest so who knows where.  🙂  If anyone has a good link, post it in the comments and I’ll add it.

 

 

 

It’s no secret that I have much love for October Afternoon and let me say that their new line, Travel Girl, did not disappoint!

I’m pretty sure that all of the papers are from this line aside from that one Project Life card that I had leftover from my Amber kit.  I had a lot of fun layering the papers on this page.

I struggle with embellishment clusters, but I think these came together pretty well.  🙂

I used a label sticker, a piece from the ephemera pack, and a punched heart for the base.  Then I added a slide frame from The Pier.

I finished them off with some twine, a wood veneer arrow, and some pink gems.  🙂

 

 

 

It’s time for another Zoku post!  I make regular popsicles for Raptor and the girls with some frequency, but Raptor Dad wanted to mix it up and make creamsicles.

First he put in some juice to make the outside shell.  I use this organic juice.  If I add a bit of water, one box will make 3 popsicles.

After a few minutes (once the outside has set up) suck up the remaining juice with the turkey baster thingy.  If you don’t have that, you could just dump it out.

You’ll be left with a nice spot to pour in some yogurt.

First he tried to do it directly from the tube, but it was too thick.

So we mixed it up with the leftover juice to thin it out.

It worked like a charm!

It took a bit longer for the yogurt to freeze, but freeze it did.

So cool!

The girls definitely approved.  🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got an inflatable pool this year and we’re loving it!

I decided to build my embellishment clusters around the little slide frames.  I even busted out some old prima flowers.  🙂

I went for the layered look again.  My strategy was to keep adding paper until no more would fit.  I think it worked!  🙂

Papers are from The Pier.