Christmas Cards

If you're like me, the whole Christmas card thing is kind of an ordeal. I always procrastinate on taking our family picture, then take forever looking for the cutest card with the best price and before I know it, it's January and no one has heard from us yet! But not this year. This year I took that bull by the horns and my cards are DONE! Ok, not in the mail or anything but printed at least. And the best part? I spent a whopping $28 for 200 photo cards! Yes, you read that right. Here's what I did....

We took a family outing about a month ago and bribed the kids with ice cream if they behaved and smiled for the camera when I asked them to etc. Sadly, they did NOT earn their ice cream...they were complete turkeys - yes, I'm the kind of mean mom who follows through on things like that. I was very unhappy at the end of the experience and we ended up taking our screaming clan home without their ice cream. Ugh. But, that's not the whole story. Here in SLC we have such beautiful fall colors and I wanted to capture them. I decided taking the clan up to the foothills of the Wasatch front would be ideal. There we found a kind biker who volunteered to snap some pics for us while we posed (did I mention we are CHEAP and don't pay to have our pictures taken? Yes, we use the self-timer and a tripod). Anyway, this is the kind of thing we ended up with:
 

Ya, turkeys right? And what the heck am I thinking with those two huge white power poles in the background? I thought that the wagon would be a fun prop but it ended up being a death trap for the tiny tot who wouldn't sit down to save his life.


So, we got into the car and headed off in search of a better location. I remembered a little bridge, tucked away in the middle of the city next to Old Navy. It is a little piece of nature inside the city. So, that's where we ended up. Really, I couldn't believe we actually got any 1/2 decent pics out of the day but I did end up with one that was "editable" enough to use (since I'm not about to subject us to that kind of torture again).

Next, I took said image and imported it into Picnik. I have photoshop on my computer but it takes so long to open and use on my 4 year old ancient laptop that I prefer to use something quick and easy like Picnik. If you haven't found it yet it will change your life! I am addicted. It's so easy to boost color and edit photos with fun effects! You'll love it. Here is the photo that we started with:

No one would sit still. But I guess it kind of captures our life right now! So, I then headed on over to picnik.com and made it black and white, boosted the contrast and faded the effect a little so that some of the green showed through and then I added text to make it our Christmas card. They have a ton of fun fonts you can use and it's all FREE! Here's the finished product:

No bad eh? So THEN I got online and sent the sucker to Costco's 1-hour printing service (I've searched around a bit and have found that Costco really does have superior quality compared with the other brick and mortar businesses I've tried). I ordered 200 copies, matte finished with a white border for $.13 each and picked them up 1 hour later! Yahoo! Anyway, I'm supposed to be printing out my envelopes right now but instead I'm blogging about my great deal. Again, I'm a procrastinator. Happy holidays! 



Happy Birthday Baby Bug!

We've celebrated two birthdays this month at our house.  November has turned into quite a busy month for us!  My birthday is the first week and then we have Jasper's on the 21st then Thanksgiving.  I can't believe he's already 1!  This year has gone by so quickly.  I know everyone always says that, but it's true!  And it's also true that the older you get the quicker time flies. 

Instead of adding to our already over populated toy collection (and really, what 1 year old cares about new toys anyway?:)  I decided to referbish our old grimy carseat since he has officially graduated from his infant seat.  We've had this seat since Jack was 1, it still has some life left before it has to head to the dump (carseats expire!  Can you believe it? Ugh.  What a racket!).  So, instead of putting up with that barf encrusted seat cover for the next few years I wanted to give it a nice little facelift.  Let's face it, the third boy doesn't get many new luxuries. 

This project was not for the faint of heart.  It began by disassembling the existing cover with my dandy seam ripper.  There's something so satisfying about taking that little knife to a seam and just ripping away!  I took off all the existing binding etc. and turned it into four separate pieces.  Then I washed the pieces in the washer to get the years of barf build up and snacks off, then dried it by the fire all night.  At this point, Mark looked at me sideways, wondering if we would be able to leave the house for the next week. 

Next morning I headed out in search of fabric (coupons in hand of course!).  I found this fun owl print at the local quilt shop and the minky at Joanns.  I washed it all when I got home.  Then I just layed my old padding on the fabric and cut around it (I'm a lazy seamstress).  I then serged the new fabric to the outside of each of the old pieces.  For the center I just cut slits and then zig zagged the edges to make buttonholes for the straps.  Then I sewed the pieces back together and bound the whole thing with FOE (my new favorite sewing essential - Fold Over Elastic:).  All I had was yellow so that's what I used....I think it turned out quite nice!  In fact, I'm pretty proud of it.  It fits like a glove and online you can't find these for less than $75.  So there ya go!  A referbished, homemade job...not so bad for homemade huh? 

On his birthday, the poor baby guy had a horrible fever and cold.  He was miserable...so sad.  So, we celebrated as a family a day late.  The party was complete with elmo hats (that I've actually had since Jack turned 2) and little marionberry hand pies. 

I'm obsessed with pie....I love it.  And particularly hand pies....they're just perfect, a little heaven in your hand.  You can eat them for breakfast or dessert or whatever!  Ever since I got my new Cuisenart last year for my birthday I can't help but make a pie crust once a month at least!  I just love it...and so does he as it turns out. 

Earlier in the day I noticed Jack went missing.  I finally heard him yell "Mom!  How do you spell happy?"  I then discovered him making a birthday card for Jasper, all on his own!  What a precious memory for the scrapbook (that is...if I ever get it to it...).  This little guy has the best big brothers EVER! Not to mention one fine Daddy.  :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!  We enjoyed a wonderful smoked turkey courtesy of our fabulous friends.  We also had one of our students over who had no place to go.  That's one of the best things about Thanksgiving, spending it with friends, and actually just seeing who ends up showing up!  Our little house fills up quickly I have to admit, and we run out of counter space easily.  But, that makes it all the more cozy!  This year it was super cold out.  All last week we've been building up to a super big storm, actually they were calling it a blizzard on the news so when Tuesday night came we were all braced for the storm of the century.  Anyone who has lived here for more than just a year should know that whenever there is that much hype...nothing usually happens.  Tuesday night 'Snowpocalypse 2010' hit us with very disappointing results.  Ok, we do have a few inches of snow to show for it but really, we were looking forward to 4' snow drifts, power outages and the whole nine yards...Bummer!  All we have left is some frozen snow and super cold temperatures.  Oh well.  It makes for great powder - Mark is out skiing today - so that's one bonus I suppose!  I think we'll take the kids skiing tomorrow for the first time this season.

Anyway,  back to Thanksgiving.  A few years ago my parents had a bunch of wild turkeys (like a dozen or so) perched up in their hawthorn tree right outside their front window.  How strange is that?  They're not small birds and to see a small tree FULL of them was quite a site!  Anyway, my dad couldn't pass up the chance to shoot one.  So, a little while later I ended up with a bag full of fabulous turkey feathers!  I had no idea what to do with them....still don't really.  But, I had to hang onto them because they're just spectacular!  Finally this year they've finally made their way out of the craft room.  Jack made an indian headress out of some and took it to school.  Everyone else had to wear their headresses they made at school with one colored feather on a little paper strip, but he got to wear his very own, genuine turkey feather headress - and boy was he proud of it!  He's been painting his face with washable markers and he finally pinned down Noah and painted his face too.  He has made headresses for each member of the family.  And the most fun of all was taking a few feathers to his teacher at school!  He got to stand up in front of the class and show off the cool feathers and then present his teacher with her own collection to keep.  He's one proud boy:)

Well, on the homefront the feathers graced our Thanksgiving table as a centerpiece this year - a turkey feather bouquet actually.  I thought it made a unique and fun, whimsical table for us to eat at.  Each place setting was also marked by it's own smaller feather.  I think next year I'll make a wreath or something out of these.  They're just so beautiful!