Invitations the cheap way

We're having a small get-together this Saturday for Levi's birthday. To make the invitations, I found a basic one I liked on Tiny Prints (the one I picked is here). Then, I just used Microsoft Publisher to recreate it myself. I uploaded my creation onto Snapfish as a picture and ordered the appropriate number of prints. Voila--easy invitations for 10 cents each instead of over a dollar each!

Here's my creation:



Here are some more detailed instructions if you need them. (These are intended for those of you without awesome programs like Photoshop and also without amazing computer skills!)

• Open Publisher and start with a custom-sized blank page; I did mine 4 inches by 6 inches, since that was the size invitation/picture I wanted to end up with
• Using the Objects/shapes toolbar, create some rectangles--one in the upper left corner, one spanning the bottom half. To color them in, double click on a rectangle and choose the "fill" and "line" colors. You'll notice I left a little bit of space between each of my rectangles; this created the white space you see.
• Again using the shapes toolbar, select a circle and create one the size you like. Color it appropriately, then copy/paste it several times and line them up to create a line of circles. Group all of those circles together by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on each circle. After you click on each one, right click on one of them and select "Group." Now copy/paste the line of circles twice, and you have three lines of circles. Arrange appropriately.
• Create another, larger circle; fill it with white and make the line the same color as the circles at the bottom of the invite. Put it in the upper left-hand rectangle.
• Create a text box by clicking "Insert" then "Text Box." Put the text box in the top rectangle and create the text you want (e.g., "It's Levi's 1st birthday!") in the font you like (mine is called Pupcat and I got it from 1001freefonts.com). Color the text by highlighting it and choosing the font color.
• Create another text box to put inside the white circle, and type a 1 (or appropriate number) in the font and color you like.
• Now it's time for the wording in the bottom rectangle. I used WordArt, which is the "A" on the Objects toolbar. (You could also just insert another text box.) If you use WordArt, click the A on the toolbar, choose the type of WordArt you want, then type in your text, including line breaks. After you click OK, you can arrange the WordArt as desired and also right-click on it, format it and choose colors.
• The black text at the bottom of my invite is just a text box.
• Find a cute picture, and copy/paste it into your Publisher file. Resize it and crop it so it fits in the upper right-hand space you've so far left empty. (Resizing and cropping can be done using the Picture toolbar in Publisher.)
• Once everything is arranged how you'd like, you have to group everything together. Hold down the Ctrl key and press A. (This should highlight all items.) Then right-click and choose "Group Objects."
• Now right-click on the invitation, and choose "Save As Picture." Choose a name for your new picture file, and make sure to Save As Type: JPEG.

Now you have a picture file for your invitation, ready to upload to Snapfish or Shutterfly or print out on your computer. :)

Miscellanies

e are dealing with sickness here this week. I thought Nate had caught Lucy/Levi's cold, but how could that be since it seems like he has now given it back to them? (Ahh, the only kind of sharing we don't want our kids to do.) There's a chance it's the flu, but so far everyone's OK... just fussy and whiny.

In the meantime, I did a little refashion yesterday. Jon brought home several of these free Clippers shirts, and I thought I'd make some changes so I could wear one to a game this season without looking frumpy. Note to self for next time: make sure the shirt you're going to model the refashion after has the same amount of stretch as the shirt to be cut!

Before:



After:

Some fun blogs

his is a fun new site I was tipped onto today: Daily Drop Cap. I might have to start all my blog posts this way!

I thought it'd be fun to list my favorite crafting blogs. I visit them weekly (if not daily).

Lil Blue Boo - she made the pattern I bought to make all those t-shirt dresses for Lucy
Make It and Love It - lots of free tutorials
Made - she makes cute things for her daughter, who is also named Lucy.
Stop Staring and Start Sewing - I've used several of her tutorials, especially the easy bias hem.
My Mama Made It - she does lots of fun t-shirt refashions that usually include ruffles. :)
Ruffles and Stuff - more cute tutorials.

There are more, but those are my favorites.

Free dress

I made a dress for Lucy today out of one of my sweaters that was too short for me. I also used one of Lucy's old shirts to trim the new dress at the hem and where the neck was too big. It was a quick and satisfying project!



And here is what Lucy thinks about trying things on for me:

Sweet brothers

So big!

Dress-up fun

Halloween

I got a minor scolding for my lack of posts. Life has just been busy and kind of un-post-worthy. Well, I guess there have been things worth posting, but I haven't had time! Nap times aren't reliable anymore (and usually, once I finish putting Levi, then Lucy down for naps and read a book/play cards/or do a puzzle with Nate, Levi is already awake again), and that's often my blog posting time.

Today is Halloween. This is the first year Nate has been really aware of Halloween, especially because his school seemed to spend the entire month of October talking about it. Jon and I have been talking with Nate about which holidays honor God and which don't honor God and/or "glorify people," so that seems to be sinking in. Nate dressed as a pirate--a hand-me-down costume--for the school parade. Although I've never sat down and thought out what my parenting tactic will be regarding Halloween, at this point we're purposely not mentioning it or talking much about it at home (to show it isn't a big deal or something worth spending a lot of time on), and when Nate brings up something about it they've been talking about at school, we acknowledge whatever cool thing he's mentioning and then sometimes use that to discuss the things we as a family want to celebrate. (Wow, long sentence--all to say that we are making Halloween a "not a big deal" thing in our house.)

Vivi Reborn guest giveaway

Pretty necklaces on this giveaway today... Hope I win! :) Vivi Reborn GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

On the potty train

Lucy is officially potty trained, and it was way easier than I had anticipated. I thought her feisty/spunky/opinionated personality would clash with the fact that this was something I wanted her to do. But we started training on Thursday with basically no accidents. We had a couple of accidents on Sunday (including a bad one in the mall food court), but that's it.

For the record, I tried potty training her about 5 to 6 weeks ago, but after half a day that included 6-7 accidents and no successes, I stopped. Then, in the last 2 weeks, I noticed she was waking up dry from her long afternoon nap. That, apparently, was the breakthrough her body needed, because this time was a cinch.

The title of this post is from what Lucy said to Jon's sister on the phone: "Auntie Jenn, I go on the potty train!"

I was going to post a picture of her, but the latest one I have is a close-up of her underwear, taken from behind. The one I have before that is this:

Another comfy dress

Finished this dress last night. It was made mostly from some of my old (stained) maternity shirts--I love how thrifty that is!

Kid pics

Nate with a new chicken nugget he can eat!



Lucy showing her new skill: looking cute with big-girl underwear (second day--so far so good).



Levi. What, you think it's too small to be a playpen?

Levi update (11 months)

I wanted to get a quick post on here to update on Levi. He's sleeping better than he was back during the reflux-vs.-teething debacle. I have since decided that was teething and not the prevacid; this was confirmed to me this week when Levi slept terribly for several nights again, and he has a couple new teeth coming in. Anyway, in general his sleep is a little bit better. He's still feeding once at night, but he's often sleeping all the way until that feeding instead of waking multiple times before then.

He is an eating machine. He never did like pureed baby foods, so I kept nursing him and giving him bits of table food, and now he is eating 3 large meals a day, exclusively table foods. (He's also still nursing a few times a day.) Yesterday's foods included pancake, banana, meatloaf, diced peach, and kidney beans. Although it was annoying at 6-8 months when he was still almost exclusively nursing, it's so nice now that I never had to buy or deal with baby foods.

He started pulling up to standing this past week. It's funny that he doesn't know any way to get back down except to just let himself go, no matter what might be on the ground behind him. (Ouch!)

Go Levi!

Inspiration of a sewing sort

I haven't felt inspired to write on the blog too much the past couple of weeks--sorry! The inspiration I have been feeling is more toward the sewing machine than the computer. Here's something I finished today:



It's from a pattern I bought on Etsy, and I'm now stockpiling tons of old t-shirts to make lots more dresses.

I also finished the quilt top for the quilt for our bedroom. Yep--a queen-size quilt for my first attempt! I really love it. I ordered some batting and am waiting for a sale/coupon to buy the fabric for the quilt back.

Casey and I also bought all the fabric we need for me to make 5 "travel quilts" (one for each of our kids). The idea is that, whenever you go on a family trip, buy a patch in the souvenir shop at your destination, and then stitch it onto the travel quilt. It'll be a fun keepsake for the kids when they're older and can see all of the places they've visited.

Time for the kids' dinner, so I'm off!

P.S. I should explain that the Clippers are (is?) Jon's favorite basketball team. That's why I made this dress for Lucy.

Top teeth!

Art

Nannie requested a post. (I don't blame you, Nannie: I hate visiting a blog and seeing the same post day after day.) So here are some pictures of Nate's recent artwork.


I give the one above the title, "Boy with mohawk points with a thousand fingers to UFO"



I couldn't find any good pictures of his handwriting, but he has just started doing lowercase letters in addition to his usual uppercase.

Daddy is the best

Jon probably doesn't need our gym membership... He has his own exercise routine at home, including free weights. :)

Videos

All 3 kids the other morning before school:



Levi this morning just starting to pull up:



And Lucy starting to use the computer this week. She DID get a haircut last week, but the video this morning shows her pre-"curl-calming lotion" and barrette:

Time to retreat

Our church's women's retreat is this weekend. I have gone for 5 or 6 years now, sometimes taking a baby along, too (Nate when he was 10 months, Lucy when she was 6 months). Taking the baby prevents it from being a true retreat, but it's still fun. Levi is 10 months old right now--still nursing and "needing" me like a baby does--but my wonderful husband is keeping all the kids, including Levi, at home this weekend so I can enjoy the retreat alone. If you think of it, would you please pray that Levi is extra good for Jon and that he takes the bottle? :)

Dangerous but fun; spectator too