birth announcements, and a freebie!

I've been busy this past week with various projects.
The most fun project has been designing birth announcements for my niece and nephew.  They came together, pretty well, I think.

It was interesting looking through the pictures, and realizing a few things that aren't immediately obvious.
For example, the reason why Cate's feet look so completely wrinkly in her birth announcement is because, when I took the picture, they still had ink on them from getting her foot prints taken.  Also, there is only about one photo of Vincent with his little son, and about 43 bazillion of Sujeong with Communio, because Vincent is always the one taking the pictures.

I also thought I would include a freebie in this post.  A while back, I designed a print-out for "Baby Bingo."  I designed it for Sarah's baby shower, and then we never used it, because this game took too long.  So I refreshed it and made two other version, one for a baby shower for a little boy, and a unisex game board.

You can play Baby Bingo several ways, and this board should work for any of them.  I had no idea there were so many varieties of baby shower bingo, until I googled it to get a link for directions.
We play it where the guest fills in the squares with presents they think the mommy to-be will get.  When she opens a present that the guest has written down, the guest crosses it off.  When the guest has crossed off five presents in a row, they win.  You can keep playing so that there are multiple winners.  I usually plan on 1 winner per every 10 guests.

If you just download the picture, it should print at a good resolution.
Enjoy!

A gift for you.

In the spirit of the season, I made a printable to share with you.

In a fit of post-wedding-I-can-now-do-whatever-I-want-with-my-spare-time madness, I staid up until 3 am the other night, scanning in the fronts and backs of Victorian, Edwardian, and 1920s era postcards my mother has collected over the years.

Then I realized that I actually have no spare time to do whatever I want with, because Christmas is right around the corner, and most of my Christmas presents this year have to be shipped, which means I can't exactly spend an all-nighter the 24th, getting them done. Well, I could, but then they'd get them for next Christmas instead of this one.
(Which is exactly what's going to happen with some handmade aprons I promised my gal-pals last year. Sorry ladies.)

So, I've had these lovely Victorian images, and decided to turn the only Christmas related one into a free, printable Christmas card for you peoples.

My printer was behaving, for lack of a more technical term, wonky, so it may print a bit more vibrantly for you.  It kind of glows in an old-timey sort of way.
to download the printing proofs, follow this link.

The fonts I used are Maxinitiale and Heart Sweet Heart.

I also just love this postcard, not for the image, though the holly is lovely, but for the mushy things that the sender scrawled all over every available bit of the front.
Here's the original:

In case you're finding it hard to read, it says:
"With best wishes"
"Doz oo love me yes?"
"Oh, you kid!"
"How about this? xxxxx xxxxx"
"From you little Honeysuckle Tessie"

I don't know who this Tessie is, but she sure wasn't afraid to let the whole world (and the post-man) know about the depth of her affection.
She sounds perfectly lovely and enthusiastic.  Plus, she has lovely penmanship.

People Look East... verse two

Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare,
One more seed is planted there:
Give up your strength the seed to nourish,
That in course the flower may flourish.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the rose, is on the way!

Glorious, aren't they?


the roses are scans I took from Edwardian era postcards, so they're copyright free.  Feel free to download and use them for whatever suites your fancy.  
I think I'm going to turn the red and yellow roses in to the background on my computer.

a pattern for you!

There's an increasing number of babies in my life.  I love this.  Their bright eyes, pudgy hands, cute feet, not to mention the awesome faces they make when they yawn.
So, when a new life is anounced, I want to make something for them. The problem is, what to make.

Well, stuffed animals work pretty well, but you never know if the child's going to like them in, say, 2 years.  Blankets take too much time, at least the ones I've been making. Clothes are complicated.  Bibs however, are both pretty, useful, and are sinfully easy to make.
So I've been making a lot of bibs.

I used a free pattern from Burda.com to get the approximate size, then sketched out what I would like the bib to look like, traced it, and have been using that pattern ever since.  Now, I've scanned it and digitally redrawn it so I can share it with you.
It prints out on two 8.5x11 pieces of paper, which you tape together, matching the gray dots.

Printable Lovelies: Make Your Own Seed Packets.

I've been collecting seeds.

It's that time of year, when the snapdragons, brown eyed susans, four o'clocks, cone flowers and other annuals in my garden are producing seeds.  In order to make sure that they come back next year, I'm collecting some of their seeds to sew come spring.

I'm also collecting seeds to send off to a friend so she can use them to naturalize their hillside.

I'm also a cheap-skate, so I'm collecting clematis seeds from my mother's plants, to see if I can get my own vines for free-ziees, rather than paying a plant company for them.  

I love clematis, whether it's the ethereal small white ones, that bloom in a haze of little stars, or the woodsy vines that have largish deep purple flowers.  They always remind me of woodland at twilight.

The problem with collecting seeds is that you end up with all these tiny little specks, that look a lot like dirt, and bear no resemblance to their parent plant.  I realized pretty quickly that I needed a system to keep track of them all, some way of labeling them...

So I decided to make seed packets ( a novel idea, I know) with blank label areas where I can mark the type of plant.

Being the nifty person I am, I decided to scan them, A. so I could make more, and B. so I could share them with you!

I've formatted them so they will print accurately 2 to a page.

Just print them out, color them in(optional), cut them out, glue the tabs together, insert seeds, glue the top closed, and label. Viola!

enjoy!

PS. they're also handy for scrapbooking, gift tags, etc. 

       My sister is using them as place cards for her wedding.