Homemade Personal / Business Cards

I have been very blessed to be sewing for other people lately doing odd jobs like alterations, curtains for a classroom at our church and even making a few skirts for a friend.

I received a phone call about two weeks ago from a friends friend telling me that her friend gave her my number and told her that I made curtains.

Now I do make curtains. But they have always been for myself or some one close to me. Never for some one I have never met before. The idea was exciting and intimidating all at the same time. To make a long story short I took on the challenge and am enjoying the process of making custom curtains.

The other day when I brought some of the curtains to the woman's house to fit them she mentioned to me that she has a few other friends interested in having me make curtains for them as well!! She asked if I had a business card I could give her to pass on to them....I didn't.

So I decided when I got home that I would make my own personal/business cards.

Now I don't have my own "business" so I got a little creative with my cards.

...and here they are!

I am really happy with how they turned out!

I included my name, email address, phone number, blog address and etsy address.
The name of my blog and etsy are different so I didn't want to necessarily give myself a "business" name, so I simply put my name at the top instead.



To make these I simply used the Pages application on my husbands Mac - they have templates for business cards. I typed in the info I wanted and played with the size and font just a bit till I was happy with it.

Next I made a trip to Hobby Lobby and picked up some textured card stock. I went with blue and yellow as you can see. I love how bright the colors are!

While walking every aisle in the store (seriously is it even possible to go into hobby lobby and not look at just about everything!!! Not for me!), I came across their stamp sets. I thought a stamp would add a really nice and unique hand made touch to the cards.

They had several really cute stamps. Some with basic scollish (is that a word? I don't think so...) designs, some with cute owls on them, pretty much any design you could want.

Finally I spotted this stamp...

And I instantly LOVED it! It is simple but very pretty and even gets across the basic "message" I wanted my cards to send!

I think this stamp was only like $4 or something like that...not bad at all!

So I went home, printed off my cards, cut them apart, and stamped them all.

I LOVE the way they turned out! They are simple, provide all the info I would want some one to have, and even have that special homemade feel to them :-)

The best part is that it only cost me $8 to make 40 of them!

What We Did Today

Today was a Snow Day!
We slept in, ate some home made pancakes, stayed in our pajamas and watched Caillou most of the morning.
It was wonderfully relaxing!

This is what it looked like today where we live...






Looks lovely right?

Wonderful deep, powdery snow...perfect to spend the day playing in and building a snow man!





yah...not so much!!!
While the picture looks like it is a perfect day to play in the snow, the reality of it is much different! The high today was right around 8 degrees! And the wind chill made it feel about -17! In addition to the freezing temps, the wind just about knocks you right over when you try to go outside.

We attempted to play outside this morning. We got all bundled up with heavy coats, hats and boots. We even made it out to the front of the apartments when Jack fell face first into the snow and started crying. It was so incredibly sad!
The snow was way too deep for him to play in, let alone even walk in. His face was beat red from the freezing temps, and the wind made it hard to see.

We immediately went back inside!

Jack was very happy to be back inside, but very sad that he couldn't play in the snow.

Our solution...

We brought the snow inside to us!!

We played in it with our bare hands at first, and talked about how snow is cold and wet.



Jack liked the cold and wet feeling for just a bit...

But he soon wanted gloves!



Then we made some snow balls. You can tell from the pictures he is concentrating very hard...hehehe



He loved playing with the snow!



After playing with the snow for quite awhile, we put the bowl in the sink and I showed Jack how the snow "disappears" when you put water over it.

This was such a fun activity, and a great alternative for those days that aren't very good snow days!

What did you do today?

The Green Crayon

I finally opened up my own Etsy store, The Green Crayon, a few months ago, and wanted to share a few of the fun things you can now purchase!

Previously in my Etsy Store and coming again soon...








So hop on over and take a look around!

I LOVE LISTS!

Getting Organized For 2011

One of my long term goals for this year is to become more organized, more organized in our life and in our home.

After finding the blog Money Saving Mom,
getting my life organized will be just a little easier!

Let me start out by stating just why I love this blog so much...it has daily schedules, chore charts, and cleaning lists- among a ton of other amazing stuff. You can either download (for free!) the schedules they already have filled out or you can customize them yourself!

I LOVE LISTS!

The Daily Docket is the first form I am going to download and print out...it has everything! Even a place to check off Bible reading, exercise, and even how many glasses of water you drank that day (great for a pregnant woman who needs to make sure she gets her eight glasses of water a day!)

I am so excited about getting my day more organized, and ultimately being more productive through out the day!!!

Our Favorite Breakfast!

Our favorite breakfast, hands down, is chocolate malt-o-meal!



Breakfast usually starts outs pretty sophisticated...using a spoon...



...but soon, it just simply isn't doing the job fast enough!



...so we resort to shoveling it in our mouth...

...and that makes us SUPER HAPPY!!

Hugs and Kisses

This year I have decided to attempt to decorate for the holidays. I normally decorate for fall, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but I have never decorated for holidays like Valentines, Easter, Fourth of July, ect.

I do remember, however, when I was growing up that my mom decorated for just about every holiday. I loved that! I want to be able to do the same for my children.

So I have been searching the blog world for different inexpensive ideas to decorate my house for Valentines day. Might I just say, that there are sooooo many creative and beautiful ideas out there!

Here is the first idea that I gave a try...

Hugs and Kisses Garland.

Now I did not find this exact idea any where online. It is more a mixture of several different ideas out there.

You can find tutorials for different kinds of Valentine's Garland...
here, here, here, here, and here.

So here is how to make your own Hugs and Kisses Garland for Valentines!

What you will need...
1. Scrapbook or colored paper
2. X, O, and heart templates
3. Scissors
4. Sewing Machine

How to...

1. Get on your computer and print off a large X and O to use as a template. Make them any size you choose- I just went with the largest possible. If you can find clip art of a heart print that off too (if not you can just free hand one)

2. Cut out your letters.

3. Pick out different printed and plain paper you would like to use. I used all scrapbook paper.

4. Trace templates onto colored paper and cut out. I used 5 different sheets and did an X, O, and heart out of each color.

5. Arrange X, O, and hearts in a way that is pleasing to you. I did an XOheart pattern. But you could do an XOXOheart, or a completely random pattern.

6. Get to sewing! You can use any color thread that you would like; red, white, pink, invisible, etc. I just used red since it was already in my machine. Next sew your pieces together one right after another. Make sure to leave some thread at the beginning and end so you can hang it.

This project cost me $4 and only took about 20 minutes to complete!
I LOVE cheap and easy projects!


Are you decorating for Valentines this year? Give it a try!

Half Way There

20 weeks down....20 to go!





(don't you just love my high tech camera? hehehe!)