Dinosaur Slippers

Are you playing along with the Pinterest Challenge?

If you're not, what are you wating for?? Get on over there and link up any Pinspired project you've made in the last month. Here is what I'll be linking up...
I finally get to check something off my to-do list! 

                                                                       Source: made-by-rae.com via Heather on Pinterest

My nephew, Hayden, loves dinosaurs. I mean really...what 4 year old boy doesn't love dinosaurs?I meant to make these slippers for his birthday in November. The pattern is by one of my FAVES, Rae from Made By Rae. The first attempt ended up WAY too small, and will probably be salvaged into slippers for Abbey. I was extra cautious about the second attempt and ended up with slippers that are probably too big, but he's 4...he'll grow!

I'm pretty proud of them! I gave them to him with a very cute pop up book I found at Barnes and Noble. One of the dinosaurs in the book is even POOPING! Bahahahaha! Dinosaur slippers and a book with a 3-D pooping dinosaur?? Little boy heaven! I was hoping to get a picture of him wearing his new slippers, but you get a 4 year old boy to hold still and pose for a picture on Christmas. Go ahead...I dare you!

Besides the Pinterest Challenge, I'm also linking up to SugarBee Crafts, The Polkadot Chair, Tatertots and Jello and Boerman Ramblings. 

Come play with me!

Something fun is coming!

My friend Chrissy and I are launching a new project THIS Wednesday! Come on over and check it out!

The New Look

So, some of you may have noticed that I gave the blog a bit of a makeover last week. If you're reading this in a reader, come on over and check it out. I wanted to take a quick minute and share with you how I made everything. Yes, you read that right, I made everything by my little ol' self, with the help of two incredibly talented ladies. 

I started out with some fantastic blogwear templates by Scrapping With Liz. Aren't they fantastic??

I've been a fan of Liz's digital scrapbook templates for years, and was super excited to have the chance to test out her new set of blogwear templates! Everything is high quality, and she includes step-by-step visual instructions if you are blog design challenged like me.

You can buy these templates here and check out Liz's blog here

Then I grabbed a new Christmas kit by Tracie Stroud.

Tracie is another digital scrapbooking designer that I have loved for ages. Her kits are always beautiful, and have a great vintage-y feel to them. 

Isn't this kit adorable?

You can buy this kit here, and check out Tracie's blog here.

Then all I had to do was put it all together. I do all my scrapbooking in Photoshop Elements 7. If you're thinking about digital scrapbooking, I highly recommend PSE. You can get a 30 day free trial at the Adobe website. The whole process from beginning to end took maybe an hour or so. Seriously...it was so simple!

If you're interested in digital scrapbooking, but don't know where to start, leave me a comment and I'll hook you up with some great tutorials!

I'm so in love with Tracie's kit, I used it to make our Christmas cards, too! 

So, here it is, from us to you...

Merry Christmas!

This post is linked up at SugarBee Crafts, Boerman Ramblings and The Girl Creative

Bakin' Cookies

So, when your tiny child points to your stand mixer and says "make!" what other choice do you have but to make cookies! We hadn't done any sugar cookies yet this year, so it seemed like a good time to bust out the cookie cutters. 

For my entire life, our go-to sugar cookie recipe has been from the Betty Crocker Cookbook. My mom has had her copy since before she got married, and let me tell you...this is one well loved cook book!

Abbey helped me with all the mixing...

Butter, sugar, eggs...

Ta-da!!

Now time for some flour...

We got a little messy. This stressed her out...she's not a fan of messy.

and of course, what's better than a little bit of dough eating?

...pause for naptime/cookie dough chillage...

Abbey also made an excellent cookie decorator (of course she did!)

This is the stuff that makes Christmas wonderful. In the midst of all the craziness, and shopping, and planning, and prepping, things like this are what keep me sane. Did the laundry get done this day? Nope. But I made cookies with my little girl.

Oh, and note to self...

Before giving the tiny child a shaker full of sprinkles, give it a test run first...

ooops!

Now, go grab your kids and bake some cookies! 

Merry Christmas!