LDS Baptism Book

I thought I would also share the baptism book that I made for my daughter's baptism.  I liked the idea of having a small memory book for her to fill out about her special day that she can treasure forever.  And I also wanted a place for guests at the baptism to sign in so she can remember who was there.  I had searched online to get some ideas for an LDS themed baptism book & I just didn't find very many examples at all.  So I decided to come up with my own.  I used my digital program again & created 8" x 8" scrapbook pages.  I had taken her to the temple to take some pictures of her in her white baptism dress so I used those photos throughout the book.  I included some pages that had a poem, song or scripture on it as well as some fill-in the blank pages where she could record how she felt on her baptism day.  I also left some pages blank so that we could add on some pictures from her actual baptism day later on.  After I made my digital scrapbook pages I waited.  I waited until Shutterfly had one of their free 8" x 8" hardcover photo book deals.  (Watch for them because I swear it seems they have this offer about once a month.)  Then I uploaded my scrapbook pages in jpeg format into Shuttefly & created a blank book.  It was so easy & I only had to pay for shipping!  The book turned out really nice too, I am really happy with it.  So I thought I would share it here in case anyone else had a hard time finding some ideas for a baptism book.

Here's the actual book:

The following are the digital pages that I made for the entire book:

Front cover:

First page inside:

The following pages go side by side in the book:

Back cover:

So here are a couple of pictures of the actual book with some of the pages where I added pictures of her baptism day later:

Shutterfly also gives you the option of adding a clear memorabilia pocket at the back of your book which I thought was a great idea:

I put one of her invitations (click here to see that) in the pocket along with some other pictures from her baptism day.  You could also put cards that were received in there too.

I am so glad that I made this book for Kaylee.  It was easy, inexpensive & now I have the template already set for when my other 2 daughters are baptized in the future.  All I will have to do is change the accent color to whatever color they want & personalize it just for them.  

I hope this gives you some ideas if you are wanting to make your own baptism book!

LDS Baptism Invitation

As I said in my previous post, my oldest daughter, Kaylee, just turned 8!  This is a big birthday in our family.  In our faith (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or Mormon) when our children turn eight years old they are baptized.  You can read about LDS baptism here if you would like.  It is such a special event no matter how old you are when you are baptized!  (I was 22.  Maybe that will be a post for another day!)  We really wanted to make Kaylee's baptism special & a day that she will cherish & remember forever.  I decided that I wanted to send out invitations to her baptism.  At first I thought I would just do a digital version that I could email out.  But I am still a little old fashioned I guess & I like sending & receiving cards & thank you notes in the mail, regardless of the high cost of postage these days!  So I still made one in my digital program but then had them printed up at Costco with their new signature greeting card option.  I was pleasantly surprised with how great the quality was & I loved how they turned out:

We had taken Kaylee to the temple one afternoon to take some pictures to use for her invitations & I'm so glad we did.  I'm no professional photographer, but I think the picture still turned out nice.  Then she picked aqua as an accent color for her baptism.  Oh yes, we of course needed an accent color for her baptism!  I made the invitation very simple & then on the back I typed up the address for the church, the address for our house where the dinner would be after the baptism & I also added the RSVP info.  I love those digital doily stamps too & they kind of became a theme for her baptism dinner.  I'll have to post pics of that too.

Personalized Chalkboards

I can't remember if I mentioned this before or not, but my calling at church is the Additional Relief Society Meeting Coordinator.  What is that?  I am (with the help of a large committee of women) in charge of planning & carrying out monthly activities for the women in my church.  The activities vary throughout the year, always having a spiritual message, sometimes we have dinner, sometimes just snacks or treats, sometimes we learn a new skill, sometimes we make a craft, sometimes we complete a service project.  It's a lot of work (we have anywhere from 50-90 women at each activity), but it's a lot of fun as well.  I have a really great committee of creative & truly inspired women to help & these activities would not get done without them!  

Our activity for May was centered around President Uchtdorf's talk "Forget Me Not."  Such a great & memorable talk!  We invited the Young Women to attend as well (girls ages 12-17) & we served dinner (teriyaki chicken bowls & salad), we had a speaker (who used the "Forget Me Not" talk) & we made a craft (memo boards).  We wanted a cute, useful craft that the women could make that evening that wouldn't break our budget!  So one of the ladies came up with the idea to do memo boards.  We provided the boards & then a variety of supplies so that they could make the boards their own.  We had chalkboard paint, metal sheets that they could glue down on the board to make them magnetic, paint, scrapbook papers, die cutting machine, etc.

Here is the sample I made for our display case to show them one idea for our craft:

It was really simple, but went well with our theme.  I just taped off the edges of the board & painted the inside with chalkboard paint.  Then I used my Big Shot to cut out the letters & the flower.  I glued them down & attached a big yellow button in the center of the flower.  Easy!

We had a few extra boards after our activity, so I brought a couple home.  I made my girls their own personalized chalkboards.  This time I painted the boards first, then I drew a simple template that I traced onto the board & then filled in with chalkboard paint.  And then I used my Big Shot to cut out their names with some cute polka dot scrapbook paper & glued them down.  I did cover the letters this time with some Mod Podge since these boards are going to be used a lot by little hands.

They turned out pretty cute:

And just give them some colored chalk & the girls are entertained for a while!  Awesome!

Baby Blessing Dessert Table

Hello!  Are you still out there?  I'm still here, even though it's been a while since I've posted anything.  What can I say?  Life has been hectic.  We've had some ups & we've had some downs.  I won't bore you with all of the details.  And I am sorry I have not been able to respond to any of your emails.  And thank you for all of the nice requests for buying things that I make.  You all are so sweet!  I would love to be able to craft & sell, but at this point in my life it just is not feasible.  Maybe in the future?  Anyway, hopefully I can get back to blogging a little more regularly now that life seems to be quieting down.

Well, on Easter we blessed our baby Quinn.  In our church, children don't get baptized until they are eight years old.  But after they are born we have a baby blessing for them.  We decided to bless Quinn on Easter since so much family would be in town, it was the perfect time.  Now back when I was pregnant, I knew that I wanted to do an all white dessert table for the baby blessing.  I know, I'm crazy to have already been thinking about that before she was even born.  But I loved the idea of all of the desserts being white.  Just like the beautiful white blessing dress she would wear on her special day.  I think the white is so beautiful because it is symbolic of the purity & innocence of this new baby.  As I started actually planning the dessert table for the blessing after Quinn was born, I decided that I did want to add in a little bit of color.  I decided to add a kraft brown color & light pink, just like I used for her birth announcements.  I think it added a nice contrast to all of the white.  *By the way, sorry for the dark photos.  Our house hardly gets any natural light at all.

Here's the entire table set up:

 A while back I finally broke down & just bought a nice white cotton tablecloth.  It's so versatile & this way I can use it for anything & just change up the accents depending on what kind of party or event we are hosting.  For the baby blessing I used some kraft wrapping paper that I had gotten at IKEA before Christmas.  It made the perfect {cheap} table runner!

I also used my Big Shot to make a banner that said "Quinn Marjorie" to hang above the dessert table:

I made a little printable for the table too using My Digital Studio from Stampin' Up!  I simply had it printed out at Costco & used some Mod Podge to adhere it to a plain white canvas & then added a couple of paper rosettes made with my Big Shot:

The glare is really bad in that photo.  Here is what it looks like digitally:

The pink verses are taken from a primary song at church & the overall idea I've seen used many times online.

And a close-up of the paper rosettes: 

I made a chocolate cake with chocolate mousse from Our Best Bites in the middle & then covered it with white buttercream ruffles.  I have to say the chocolate mousse is so stinkin' good & it's found in this recipe here.  It looked really pretty, just what I wanted for the blessing dessert table.  I also made a Q to put on the top of the cake with some pink melting chocolate:

 (I just typed & printed out a Q on my computer.  Then I covered it with waxed paper.  I melted some pink melting chocolate & then put it inside a squeeze bottle & then traced over the Q.  I let it harden back up & then it simply slid right off of the waxed paper & I stuck it down into the frosting on top of the cake-easy!)

I stuck with the monogram theme with my sugar cookies too:

 People always love my sugar cookies.  I can't take credit for them though, the recipe is from Our Best Bites & it is so good!  I used a scalloped circle cookie cutter for these ones & then my large Q stamp (thoroughly cleaned & sanitized first) to lightly stamp into the cut dough.  I baked the cookies & then just filled in the Q with some light pink royal icing.

I had also made some white cupcakes with white buttercream frosting, my sister-in-law made some of her yummy spritz cookies with light pink sprinkles & then I put out some various white-colored candies in the small dishes on the table.  It looked good, I was happy with how it turned out.

And here are my 3 pretty girls on Quinn's blessing day:

 The blessing dress was made by my grandma for my mom to wear, then I wore it & now each of my daughters has worn it on their blessing days.  It is very special!

We also attempted a family photo & managed to get one decent shot:

The rest looked more like this:

Oh, my crazy family!  But I love them more than anything!

Handmade Christmas 2011: Card Stock Ornaments

I was in charge of planning & organizing the Christmas progressive dinner for the women of my church this year (about 80 women total). Luckily I had a lot of wonderful women to help me & I think it turned out pretty well. We wanted to have a little something that the women could take home with them, but something that was Christmas-y & spiritual too. And with such a large group of women we needed something that was pretty inexpensive too. I came up with this simple card stock Christmas ornament.

I used my Big Shot to cut out the red scallop circles (I think I cut about 5 sheets of card stock at once so it wasn't too bad). Then I stamped the wreath & the "Merry Christmas" onto white strips of card stock & used my circle punch to punch them out. I also typed up a Christmas scripture on my computer, printed it out & then used the circle punch again to punch it out for the back of the ornament. We glued them all together, punched a small hole in the top & used some pretty green ribbon I had leftover from my niece's bridal shower to add a loop so it could be hung from a tree.

Here's the back side with the scripture on it:

These were quick & easy to put together & very inexpensive.

I hope all of the women liked them!

Pretty Doilies Card

So a couple of weeks ago I was released from my calling at church as the Laurel Advisor (teaching & working with the 16-18 year old young women). I have to admit this was probably the first time I have been released from a calling that I've actually been really sad about it! I have LOVED spending time with these amazing young women & getting to know them better. Their faith is inspiring & I have grown spiritually myself so much throughout the 18+ months that I served them. I wanted to make some simple cards to send to each one with a little message from me. These cards turned out very pretty. I like how girly they are with the doilies & the lace border. And I didn't even use a single stamp on these! Now I'm off on a new venture in a new calling in Relief Society (the women's program at my church). I will be in charge of planning the monthly Relief Society meetings. Luckily I have a large committee to help me so I know we will come up with some great ideas!

Embellished Frame

Would you believe that after all the craziness around here lately then we all got the stomach flu? Yep, ALL four of us! That was no fun. And it really put a damper on my crafting! Well, finally we are feeling better. And I needed to prepare a lesson for church yesterday. For part of my lesson I wanted to display my framed The Family: A Proclamation to the World, an article from my church that shares our beliefs on family & why they are so important. But, I wanted to jazz it up a little. As you know, I have been addicted to these adorable fabric flowers so I used some of my Stampin' Up! fabric to make some for this frame.

Here's a close-up:

So cute! I am lovin' these flowers!

I also photocopied the proclamation, shrunk it down a little & then embellished it so that I could give it to the girls in my class as a handout:

I hope they like it!

Handmade Christmas: Temple Block

I wanted to make the young women that I teach every Sunday at church a little something for Christmas. I remembered seeing this Temple Block Tutorial over at Lil' Luna a while back & thought it was a great idea. Her & her husband worked together on this idea & it's just so fabulous that they share their designs with us for free! They will take any personal photo of temples that are submitted to them (it has to be from your own camera, no professional pics) & then antique it. Some have the phrase "I'm going there someday..." on them & others are just of the temple alone. All of them are so beautiful! Since our ward temple is the Newport Beach Temple I found that on the Lil' Luna site, but it didn't have the phrase on it. So I just imported it to My Digital Studio & added the text myself. Then I printed it out onto some nice white card stock. I trimmed it & then used Mod Podge to glue it down onto a piece of wood that I had already painted black & distressed. I decided to cover the entire front & sides with a layer of Mod Podge too because it gives it a nice, finished look & I felt like it sealed it all nicely. Then I tied some bright pink polka dot ribbon around it & was done! Oh, and my husband found a piece of wood for me in the scrap pile at Home Depot for 50 cents & we were able to get 6 blocks out of it! So this is a super thrifty project too!

I even had enough wood to make one to display in our family room too:

I printed the picture out as it is on Lil' Luna, without the words & then used a sheer black ribbon since it goes with our style in our house. I really love how these turned out! Such a great gift idea too! It would be fun to make one of these as a wedding gift & you could put the couple's name on it & the year they were married using a photo of the temple they were married in (ex: Monroe est. 2003).

Thanks to Lil' Luna for sharing with us!