Smile And Wave

Ruby is Six! Say What?

We celebrated six years with our sweet Ruby a few weeks ago and never before have I felt like she's actually looked and acted so much older than this time. Suddenly those legs are so long, her bangs have finally grown out, her baby teeth are coming out two at-a-time, and I see flashes of her teen years with certain head-tilts and sassy looks. I love watching her grow into herself with each new year. 

We decorated our dining room a little for our family party on her actual birthday and she helped me make her cake. She's all about decorations and treats so it was extra thrilling for her to help with her own party prep. Stacie Bloomfield of Gingiber sent over some of her beautifully illustrated wrapping papers the week before her birthday and they were perfect for her animal and nature-loving gifts. We also pulled out some white butcher paper from IKEA and she crawled up on the dining room table to design her own wrapping paper for the rest of her gifts. 

We celebrated the next afternoon with friends at a bounce house. It was the kind of generic party I never thought I'd throw my daughter but the complete joy on all of those little faces over pizza and cupcakes and fruit punch was worth it. The party room came with a host and hostess and getting to enjoy our company and finish conversations was my second favorite part. 

I remember celebrating her fifth birthday like it was last month. We'd only just moved into this house after a major cross-country move and career change and were still up to our eyeballs in boxes. I'm so thankful for these kids that go with the flow and have helped us establish so many special layers of memories this year. 

Ruby, you're my special middle child with all of the sunshine and silly-ness we so often need in our day-to-day lives. Thank you for being ours and for playing such an important role in life already. You're my best girl. 

Love,

Mama
 

Halloween 2015

I have to at least get this year's Halloween festivities blogged so there is some record of our fun. Ruby and I decorated a week prior with our lacey ghosts outside and some pumpkins and owls inside and then we finally managed to get to the pumpkin patch the day before Halloween and ran into some old friends from the kids' last school. Halloween day was spent finishing up costumes and letting the kids' have a neighborhood friend come over to play. It was almost 3 o'clock before I realized we hadn't yet carved pumpkins so we did that in a hurry and then rushed inside to fill our bellies for the long night of walking ahead!

The big kids both chose their own costumes early on this year. Ruby was going to be a pink butterfly so we found some worn out butterfly wings at a thrift store and took apart a pink, sparkly H&M dress that no longer fit her to retrofit some new wings. Then we slipped some glow-in-the-dark necklaces inside each wing panel so she'd be easy to spot after dark. Unfortunately, we forgot to take a photo with her wings showing! 

Sebastian went as the robot from his favorite movie this year, Real Steel. It came out a few years ago so we were out of luck finding any licensed costumes on Amazon and decided to try our hand at making our own. I found a few random elements from old costume pieces at one major thrift store in town and then cut out a few pieces of black foam to create a robot type costume. It may or may not have ended up looking like a knight's costume. My bad, Sebastian. Also, no one knew who he was supposed to be but he still scored plenty of candy! 

Smith had no say over his costume. I went as Miss Frizzle, one of the kids' favorite storybook characters, and it only made sense that he would go as Liz, the lizard. I literally walked into the same big thrift store and found his costume two minutes later. I had him put it on every day leading up to Halloween to condition him that dressing up is fun and totally not scary or uncomfortable. He didn't keep his hood on most of the night but he was all about carrying his bucket up each walkway to say hi to everyone. He also discovered dum-dums (the candy, not the pacifiers). 

I sprayed my hair orange and then had to wrap my head in a t-shirt before bed because I was too tired to even take a shower and wash it all out. It was another fun year trick-or-treating in one of the prettiest historic neighborhoods in town along with 4,000 other families and their strollers. I successfully snuck all the Butterfingers from the kids' stashes and reminded myself these are the memories that are worth making no matter how much effort is needed to make them special. 

Next year, though, I'm skipping the orange hair.

-Rachel

Positive Vibes Snapfish Calendar DIY

I love the idea of creating photo calendars as gifts for family or to display in your own home but what if you don't have enough photos you love for that kind of project to make sense? What about making your own positive vibes calendar! It's not only a great way to customize a calendar to fit your aesthetic, it's a fun way to keep you motivated all year long. 

I first made a list of twelve positive statements that were short and sweet for spacing purposes. Then I gathered patterned paper, die cut letters, and scrapbooking alphabet stickers that coordinated with each other. I made sure I had enough letters for each phrase before sticking them onto any paper.

One of the tricks to getting a centered phrase is to start from the center letter or letters and work your way out. Use the edge of a ruler or sheet of paper to make sure your stickers are lining up at the bottom. 

Once I had all of my phrases on papers, I photographed them and used my editing software to crop them and get things just right. I saved my photos at a high resolution and a large file size (300 dpi and about 8" x 11" inches) to be sure they looked just as sharp on my calendar pages as in the photos. 

Finally, I uploaded them to my Snapfish account and created my calendar! I chose a simple white background to let the photos be the focal point and arranged my phrases. I specifically created a phrase with a slightly orange background for October and a 'With Gratitude' phrase for November to make them a little more intentional. The design software has a shuffle option if you want to make this even more simple.

I also love that it lets you add in text for important days or holidays so you don't have to go in later and write in all the birthdays in your family. They're already printed! One of the features I didn't use this time was the option to print a photo in the actual calendar days and I think it'd be so fun to add in photos for special days such as a holiday vignette for Christmas or a black-n-white baby photo of my mom on her birthday. 

I'm keeping this one up in my studio to help me stay on top of things as I schedule projects through the new year but Snapfish is offering two lucky Smile and Wave readers a free 8.5" x 11" photo calendar of their own! 

 

To enter to win:

* Share what you would do with a Snapfish photo calendar in the comments below. 

* Repost a link to this giveaway on Facebook or Twitter (and leave a comment sharing that you did) for an extra chance to win. 

* Check out the Snapfish Superfans program for even more fun ways to create and use Snapfish products.  

Two winners will be chosen by Nov 11th and shown at the bottom of this post so be sure to leave a way for me to contact you. 

A positive vibes calendar would make a great gift for anyone this Christmas and could even be personalized to fit their specific chapter in life. I'm thinking inside jokes for a bestie, love notes for a sweetheart, etc. Who would you make one for?

-Rachel

Note: This post was created in partnership with Snapfish. All opinions are my own. I'm thankful to be able to offer fun DIY's and other content that fits with the Smile and Wave aesthetic and I hope you enjoy it, too!

 

THE WINNERS ARE:

Katie Stanley said...

Would love to make a calendar for next year with our photos from the last two years living abroad! Thanks for the chance at the give away! :)
-Kate

 

sarah marie said...

Oh - would definitely make a calendar of wedding photos for the grandparents - they're not online savvy and are clamoring to get our photos in some sort of printed version. :-)